Slave rebellion, sex, and space battles

by Liz Henry

In Susan Wright‘s Slave Trade humans are enslaved by the aliens of the Domain, a federation of various species with a strict class system. Humans are kept specifically as sex slaves, but the book isn’t the soft core porn I expected – instead it’s a tale of revolution and resistance, and of class warfare, with exciting space battles and secret plots, intense friendships, relationships, and betrayals. It totally rocked!

There were many ways that Slave Trade didn’t grate on my nerves. I noticed that not many characters are white, but when they are, there’s a physical description of them; in other words there isn’t a racial default for humans (Solians) or aliens. There also aren’t entire alien races who are only good at one thing or who have a single characteristic. Solians and aliens alike, there is nothing remarkable about being bi, lesbian/gay, straight, poly, monogamous, or kinky. There are sympathetic working class characters. The book more than passes the Bechdel test; there are tons of female characters who talk with each other about whatever’s going on; there isn’t an annoying focus on women only as they are important to the experience of the men. There were many minor but pleasing details, like how the Solians born to slavery had never realized their bodies do best on a 24-hour cycle with 8 hours of sleep; the details of the alien slave ship journey so similar to the history of the Africa/New World slave ships; the way that Solians born in slavery are given sort of cute, diminutive pet names or baby-nicknames, like Dot, Dab, Jot, Nip, Mote, and Ash.

Okay, I want to talk about the book but I’m going to try hard for NO spoilers!

The frequent point of view switching is handled well and the characters are distinctive in the way they think and see the world. The story opens from the point of view of Rose Rico, a spoiled, privileged, hard-partying Spanish-speaking club kid from Tijuana. I enjoyed the way that her privileged background and her approach to the world actually came in useful in the action scenes. Other major characters are Ash, an 11th-generation Solian slave who is skilled at survival under extremely oppressive conditions. S/he is a herme, somewhat rare in the Domain but not super rare. Hir reactions to slavery and freedom are very intense. While Rose is the action hero, Ash is the person who goes through the most interesting personal transformations. (And, I thought s/he was the most interesting character because of hir processing of being an abuse survivor.)

S’jen, a Qin from a species enslaved by the Domain for working in dangerous mines, is Captain of the Fury, a Qin rebellion fighting ship. She’s a total fanatic in her resistance and her quest for revenge. Gandre Li, a Beta (in the Dominion class system where Alphas rank most highly) merchant ship captain, has a loving relationship with her Solian slave Trace, and tries hard to protect Trace from rape and abuse by higher class Alphas. Kwort Delta, a male character from the rural colony of Deneb, is a working class engineer who gets pushed around horribly by bullies on his Dominion battleship work squad. G’kaan is the one character who I thought showed an echo of Wright’s background writing Star Trek novels as he agonizes over his half Qin, half Solian ancestry. Last but not least we see a bit of the story through the eyes of its main villain, Rikev Alpha, commander of Spacepost T-3, a sadistic jerk obsessed with power games and increasing the status of his family line; we do see his position under his equally jerky Alpha commander and his intelligence, resolve, and competence.

So, I’m sure you’re all wondering about the alien sex. The gimmick here is that all the races in the known universe have periods of going into heat. Alphas (who may actually be a separate alien race) go into heat every 6 days and it is hard for them to synchronize with others, which is supposedly why they “need” to have Solian sex slaves who are always “sexually receptive”. Other characters vary in their cycles. For example Kwort the Denebian goes into heat daily — but only for 5 minutes. This is how the situation is set up, but it becomes really clear that a ton of the aliens just fool around whenever they feel like it whether they’re in heat or not (which seems to mean, able to have an orgasm) and that “sexually receptive” is a euphemism for low status enough to be easily rapeable. None of the sex is explicit, or even described. There is no vaguely embarrassing soft-core throbbing alienhood.

I can’t wait to read the sequel. I read this book as a result of hearing Naamen and I think ladyjax talk about it at WisCon over drinks along with Derrick Bell‘s “The Space Traders“. (I am linking to the online text of Space Traders but you can buy the book Dark Matter and read it there too, and in good company.) It’s too bad this book missed being considered (or was passed over) for a Tiptree when it first came out, and we should definitely look to nominate future books by Wright for Tiptree and other awards.

- More blogging by Liz Henry at http://liz-henry.blogspot.com

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