Summary: An ambitious animal vet takes a sketchy job with a ruthless businessman on a distant planet, only to discover that his female livestock charges are all-too-human.
So I do consider myself a feminist. But I’m not really the offendable type. This was so bad and deliberately offensive as to be just gd hilarious.
Case in point…
By the end, big boss eventually must acknowledge that Lani are people. (And by the way, if that’s the big question of the book, why put the answer in the title?) He flies into a bitter moral outrage, at once self-blaming and self-righteous. “What kind of man did you take me for?!” and such.
UM — you’ve spent centuries enslaving, selling, and breeding a race of beings that think, talk, sing, cry, and worship gods. But NOW, because you know we can inter-breed, NOW you feel bad?
“Which makes me — what?” cries Boss, clutching his head. “A murderer? A slaver? A tyrant? What am I?”
But here’s what rules: Doc — who worked to prove that Lani are human but really totally hearts Boss — leaps to his defense.
“An innocent victim of circumstances,” chides Doc.
Oh yes he did.
Magicless wizard, fireless dragon, baby-strength giant… Baum must have a thing for impotent leaders.
A thrall is a slave. This one falls in love. I’m a total sucker for viking stories, but still, this one pretty well ruled.
You maybe did it first, Japan, but Aesop, Beatrix Potter, and X-Men did it better.