Review: When It Changed

When It Changed by Joanna Russ
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

What we have here is a very short, short story about an all female colony world. At some point a plague had removed the y-chromosome from their population. Then one day some blokes from Earth arrive and due to problems at home they want to spread their seed a little.

The story is however not the one you're expecting. 'When It Changed' is a little thought experiment, but to me it is more of a character study. How would this situation feel to a person living it out?

I regularly skip authors' notes, but this little story had quite an interesting afterword which I liked almost as much as the story itself.

Anyway I enjoyed it, but it's sooper-dooper short and while very interesting, it's not very compelling, which is something I definitely need for a micro story to have a big impression on me. I liked that the author cared very much about not giving us the expected, typical structure for this kind of imagined world.

Here's a bunch of quotes with the thoughts they triggered when I read them:

"I've seen her [Katy] take the whole car apart and put it together again in a day." - well, speaking from some experience, this seems unlikely, or at least extremely impressive.

"on a country road as bad as only our district can make them" - is this a universal feeling? Do we all think our neighbours' roads are better constructed than our own? I've been living pretty close to a state border for a while now and it has always felt obvious that my neighbouring state takes better care of their roads, but now I'm wondering if this is just a case of the grass always being greener on the other side!

"She has even gone hiking in the forests above the 48th parallel without firearms." - sorry to say it, but this sounds very American. I regularly hike for several days and would never consider a gun necessary. Ok, we don't have bears in Australia, but it is Australia. Ok, the better point is that this story is set on a different planet in a very different universe.

"There are thirty millions of us now." - I guess I was picturing a much smaller population, so this was a pleasant surprise.

"and he walked past Katy's rifle into the square of light coming from the door." - wait a minute, wait just a minute. I thought that Katy never carried a firearm.

It'll take you 15 minutes so I do recommend you check it out.

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