We Who are About to

by Joanna Russ

Paperback, 1978

Status

Available

Call number

813.54

Genres

Science Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Magnum (1978), Mass Market Paperback

Description

In this stunning and boldly imagined novel, an explosion leaves the passengers of a starship marooned on a barren alien planet. Despite only a slim chance for survival, most of the strangers are determined to colonize their new home. But the civilization they hoped for rapidly descends into a harsh microcosm of a male-dominated society, with the females in the group relegated to the subservient position of baby-makers. One holdout wants to accept her fate realistically and prepare for death. But her desperate fellow survivors have no intention of honoring her individual right to choose. They're prepared to force her to submit to their plan for reproduction-which will prove to be a grave mistake . . . In Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author Joanna Russ's trailblazing body of work.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member clong

This is one of those rare science fiction novels that really make you think about right and wrong, the world around you, and what it means to be human.

Russ gives us a story about a small group of space travelers stranded on an uninhabited planet, a story that initially feels like a familiar

"Robinson Crusoe in Space" tale, but very quickly proceeds to crush irretrievably each and every trope we’ve come to expect from this subgenre.

This novel can certainly stand as feminist scifi, a rejection of the all too typical “when the going gets rough, the men should be men and the women should revert to their natural role” premise. But I think it has much more to say than that: an effective indictment of the tyranny of the majority, an argument against group think, a rejection of the swaggering leader who says to the entire world “either you agree with us, or you are against us.”

We Who Are About To... is a fairly quick read, but it is by no means an easy read.

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LibraryThing member sbszine

In his critical essays, Norman Spinrad notes the weakness of SF is its unwillingness to follow extrapolation to uncomfortable places. Joanna Russ is uniquely unaffected by this generic flaw, and the result is a book that is nominally new wave or feminist SF, but actually 'harder' than the hard SF

writers. Great to see this back in print.

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LibraryThing member lquilter

While SF is a literature of ideas at its best, more frequently, it takes an idea and creates some escapist fun with it. Here Russ takes one of the oldest ideas in literature -- the Robinsonade -- and uses the science fictional setting to turn the story up a notch and rip it inside out. Not an easy

read but worth reading, and reading again, every few years. Russ's language is diamond-hard; her characterization unsparing; her world-building spare but intense and perfectly-realized. This is a novel that will stay with you a long time.

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LibraryThing member andersonden

A dark, (non)survivalist book. One of the most thoughtful book on gender relations I've read. Russ creates good plot tension.

LibraryThing member TulsaTV

I was sad to read in Frederik Pohl's blog about the death of Joanna Russ earlier this year (2011). I read this book just a few years ago, but it has stayed with me. It's unflinching and relentless in its picture of the interpersonal dynamics of a small group that crash-lands on a planet so distant

that there is zero hope of rescue. She must have been a tough woman.

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LibraryThing member MaowangVater

Just before exploding, a lost starship ejects its passenger compartment on a planet with a breathable atmosphere. There are three men and five women, food and water for six months, and no idea where they are. It may be, as the narrator puts it, “We’re nowhere. We’ll die alone.” The other

survivors do not favor her point of view, and begin planning how to live on this unknown planet and how to populate and subdue it. But as the days wear on, friction among the group builds, tempers flare and violence erupts.

This is a superbly written gritty tale of survival and extinction.

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LibraryThing member jen.e.moore

A powerful, beautiful, heartbreaking book about the purpose of life, with a brutal ending; strangely, just what I needed in the midst of an existential crisis.

LibraryThing member crazybatcow

I didn't like it.

It started okay... seemed like it might be interesting, but then... it kinda went off the rails and ended up being some interior monologue between the main character and figments of her imagination.

I think the thing that put me off the story so quickly was how the story unfolds (if

we can call it a story, and if we can pretend it actually unfolded to anything): the author only puts half the actions/activities on the page, and the rest of the stuff just occurs in the main character's head and we are left trying to figure out why/how XYZ happened.

The prologue actually provided more information on the events in the story than the story did itself. Anyway. It is checked off my list of books that I *must* read... and farewell...

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LibraryThing member ladyars

3.75 stars, maybe. I admit I appreciated the book more after going back and reading the introduction (which I had started but was super spoilery so I ended up skipping). It's cleverly written and mostly entertaining, but also very uncomfortable at times. It started to drag out for me after the

murders, where the inner dialogue takes over and becomes more and more rambling until the end - which is probably what happens when you starve to death anyway, but it was such a contrast from the first half of the book that made me pause.

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LibraryThing member jklugman

Even at 120 pages, the novel felt long--much of it is the starving narrator's stream-of-conscious ramblings. I appreciate it for its caustic take on the Star Trek, triumph-of-the-human-spirit optimism. But fun to read? No.

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