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laureenreads's review against another edition
2.0
This was an interesting idea but maybe not the best book. It felt like I was trudging along in my attempts to finish it and just wasn't the best book for me. There didn't appear to be much happening below the surface and no real theme to care about.
Full review is available on my website.
Full review is available on my website.
neenor's review against another edition
2.0
I read the synopsis, and I fell in love. My two favourite genres - LGBT and dystopian - mixed together; it was practically my idea of heaven. However, the execution wasn't quite what I expected.
The concept was fabulous, I can't fault it at all - living in a dystopian Earth, teenage girls have been brought up in a society where only women exist. Men have long been extinct, and to reproduce and keep the population at a steady level, they clone embryos. This means that there are "Jeepie Similars" all over their world - people who are genetically identical to them. These Jeepie Similars can either be Humans or Klons - Klons are basically slaves for humans, but Rubric and Salmon Jo soon find out that actually, there is no difference between the two - their differences are based on the environment they have been brought up in.
I loved the idea of only women running the world. In the present day, although LGBT is becoming more accepted, women being with women is still frowned upon. In this society, it was completely normal - women and men was the strange concept, and it was an interesting twist on things.
However, I think the concept was the only thing I liked. The rest of it...I guess I built myself up for this novel to be absolutely fantastic, but I really didn't like it. It was a quick read, written not incredibly well, and god, the characters didn't half get on my nerves.
Salmon Jo. The girlfriend is called Salmon Joe. Isn't a salmon a fish? I know they were supposed to have weird names, but I felt even the Klons noun names made more sense - Dream, Shine, Bloom...they were better than reading 'Salmon Jo' about five times on every page. What made it worse was that because it was written in the third person and everyone was a girl, Olsen had to use their names to distinguish one from the other - hence even more 'Salmon Jo'. I just...I lost my patience, hearing Rubric go on and on about this fish.
I also think Rubric must have been a five year old - she didn't know what she was doing half the time, and I found her reactions incredibly fake. She gets to work with her dream mentor, and she slaps her; she wants to free all the Klons, but when she manages one, she whines and complains about wanting to go back to a society that she knows is corrupt. She was just very false and irritating.
I also think the storyline followed that same falsehood. There's going to be a lot of spoilers here, but after Rubric suddenly gets taken in for treatment (and I mean seriously suddenly), she is swept back out again by her mentor (who, may I remind you, she slapped!), and then SHE RUNS AWAY FROM HER SAVIOUR and is suddenly back with Salmon-flipping-Jo. And all within a few days - well isn't that just peachy?
It wasn't the worst novel I've read, but I had such high hopes for it, and in comparison it was just severely lacking. If you like LGBT and dystopian novels, then maybe you should try this, as the concept is good. I just felt it wasn't executed well, which was a shame.
The concept was fabulous, I can't fault it at all - living in a dystopian Earth, teenage girls have been brought up in a society where only women exist. Men have long been extinct, and to reproduce and keep the population at a steady level, they clone embryos. This means that there are "Jeepie Similars" all over their world - people who are genetically identical to them. These Jeepie Similars can either be Humans or Klons - Klons are basically slaves for humans, but Rubric and Salmon Jo soon find out that actually, there is no difference between the two - their differences are based on the environment they have been brought up in.
I loved the idea of only women running the world. In the present day, although LGBT is becoming more accepted, women being with women is still frowned upon. In this society, it was completely normal - women and men was the strange concept, and it was an interesting twist on things.
However, I think the concept was the only thing I liked. The rest of it...I guess I built myself up for this novel to be absolutely fantastic, but I really didn't like it. It was a quick read, written not incredibly well, and god, the characters didn't half get on my nerves.
Salmon Jo. The girlfriend is called Salmon Joe. Isn't a salmon a fish? I know they were supposed to have weird names, but I felt even the Klons noun names made more sense - Dream, Shine, Bloom...they were better than reading 'Salmon Jo' about five times on every page. What made it worse was that because it was written in the third person and everyone was a girl, Olsen had to use their names to distinguish one from the other - hence even more 'Salmon Jo'. I just...I lost my patience, hearing Rubric go on and on about this fish.
I also think Rubric must have been a five year old - she didn't know what she was doing half the time, and I found her reactions incredibly fake. She gets to work with her dream mentor, and she slaps her; she wants to free all the Klons, but when she manages one, she whines and complains about wanting to go back to a society that she knows is corrupt. She was just very false and irritating.
I also think the storyline followed that same falsehood. There's going to be a lot of spoilers here, but after Rubric suddenly gets taken in for treatment (and I mean seriously suddenly), she is swept back out again by her mentor (who, may I remind you, she slapped!), and then SHE RUNS AWAY FROM HER SAVIOUR and is suddenly back with Salmon-flipping-Jo. And all within a few days - well isn't that just peachy?
It wasn't the worst novel I've read, but I had such high hopes for it, and in comparison it was just severely lacking. If you like LGBT and dystopian novels, then maybe you should try this, as the concept is good. I just felt it wasn't executed well, which was a shame.
elephant's review against another edition
2.0
Set in a future dystopian society where men have degraded into a useless non-intelligent state, women run the Society that sixteen year old Rubric lives in and there are no males at all except for the ones who live outside of the wall in the Land of the Barbarous Ones. Women are either human or Klons, who have been "genetically modified" to be stronger and more hard working so that they can be slaves. When Salmon Jo, Rubric's schatzie, which is a German word that means sweetheart - the book uses German words periodically as well as some made up words - finds out that Klons are humans just like they are and that in reality there have not been any genetic modifications, the two girls set out to free the Klons in an adventure that has it's downfalls, but tends to conveniently work out fine for Rubric.
I found the setting to be underdeveloped. If the women have the scientific technology for producing babies entirely outside of a human body, then surely they should have the technology for communicating with the rest of the world. In fact, they most likely would need to since they probably could not have all the raw materials necessary for that kind of technology all in that one small area.
I was also sad that an all female society would have slavery. I had hoped that it would be more utopian than that.
I did not really like the characters either. Rubric seemed very selfish and self-centered and none of the other characters were very well developed.
I got this book free to review from Netgalley.
I found the setting to be underdeveloped. If the women have the scientific technology for producing babies entirely outside of a human body, then surely they should have the technology for communicating with the rest of the world. In fact, they most likely would need to since they probably could not have all the raw materials necessary for that kind of technology all in that one small area.
I was also sad that an all female society would have slavery. I had hoped that it would be more utopian than that.
I did not really like the characters either. Rubric seemed very selfish and self-centered and none of the other characters were very well developed.
I got this book free to review from Netgalley.
tsilverman's review against another edition
1.0
Holy CRAP this was an awful book. I wish I could mark this as "un-read" and erase it from my memory.
There are spoilers below but this book isn't even worth reading so don't bother.
The premise sounds pretty good: In the future, only women exist and they have 'klons' to do all their work for them. But then our wonderful heroine and her girlfriend uncover a 'shocking' secret that changes their world forever!
Before I read this book, I thought it couldn't possibly be that klons are actually really humans, right? That's way too obvious, too cliche, too STUPID to be the big twist. Well, ladies and gentlemen, here's a first: I was wrong. That was EXACTLY what the plot twist was. So pretty much the message that you can take away from this supposedly feminist book is that if women were in charge, there would be slavery. Ooooooooooooooookay. If I'm reading a futuristic book about a society made up only of women, I expect something like in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's /Herland/, where the women all share everything - food, work, home, possessions. It doesn't have to be perfect, and in fact it shouldn't be perfect because if it was, there would be no conflict, no story. But making the 'human' women have slaves because they are essentially too lazy to do the work themselves is just the complete wrong direction to go with this.
Oh and also: the men. Apparently they died out because of some degenerative disease found in the Y chromosome. They essentially became too stupid to live. No, I'm not kidding.
There are spoilers below but this book isn't even worth reading so don't bother.
The premise sounds pretty good: In the future, only women exist and they have 'klons' to do all their work for them. But then our wonderful heroine and her girlfriend uncover a 'shocking' secret that changes their world forever!
Before I read this book, I thought it couldn't possibly be that klons are actually really humans, right? That's way too obvious, too cliche, too STUPID to be the big twist. Well, ladies and gentlemen, here's a first: I was wrong. That was EXACTLY what the plot twist was. So pretty much the message that you can take away from this supposedly feminist book is that if women were in charge, there would be slavery. Ooooooooooooooookay. If I'm reading a futuristic book about a society made up only of women, I expect something like in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's /Herland/, where the women all share everything - food, work, home, possessions. It doesn't have to be perfect, and in fact it shouldn't be perfect because if it was, there would be no conflict, no story. But making the 'human' women have slaves because they are essentially too lazy to do the work themselves is just the complete wrong direction to go with this.
Oh and also: the men. Apparently they died out because of some degenerative disease found in the Y chromosome. They essentially became too stupid to live. No, I'm not kidding.
mordredrisika's review
2.0
“At the final moment, Doctors saved humanity by discovering how to create human life without the animalistic and outdated method of sexual reproduction. The Doctors chose three hundred specimens of exquisite womanhood to be the templates for all future generations to come. And thus Society was born, and in this great nation called Society we have three hundred Jeepie Types.”
From Swans & Klons by Nora Olsen
When I was wandering around NetGalley looking for something to read I stumbled upon this book. I was excited to see a book with lesbian characters. I have only read one other that is in a more science fiction setting. I looked forward to reading the book, and I think I read it in only a couple of days.
In a future, all female world there are two races of women, the Panna’s and the Klons. The Klons are genetically modified (from the Pannas), non-human, who are stronger physically but with lower mental abilities; they are the working class serving the Pannas. In this world, sixteen-year old Rubric and her girlfriend Salmon Jo live pampered lives in the Academy dormitories. Upon starting to work outside the dormitories they stumble across a secret that tears their world apart, and makes them question everything. Now they must flee for their lives.
Honestly, I am a month or so out from having read this, and I am having trouble remembering most of it. There was just so little in this book that made an impression on me. My overall feeling on it was that it was ok, but is just never surprised me, or really touched me in any way.
The world Olsen creates is interesting, but never really unique. It reminds me of some very old science fiction stories and movies. The Panna’s are very pampered and sheltered, and that causes the story to feel a little like a boarding school story. The Pannas from Society understand that there are women who live outside the fences of Society, but they are seen as crazy and base (they still give birth naturally, which is seen as extremely disgusting to the Pannas). The world outside of Society was the most interesting to me, and I wish we could have spent a little more time there.
There are some new words, the most prominent being schatzie, or girlfriend/lover. They are a little jarring at first, but you get used to it. The one that takes longer to figure out is “cretinous male” which was what the males turned into and that started the beginning of the Society. From my understanding, the cretinous males are significantly less intelligent, hairy, shorter, almost Neanderthal like men (so the males have de-evolved basically). There are still some cretinous males living with the women outside of Society.
As for the main characters, I never really connected to Rubric Anne or Salmon Jo. I think it is interesting that all Pannas have a noun and name combo, but I could never decide if the “L” was pronounced in Salmon Jo’s name or not. Rubric was an artist and a rebel, but never really seemed to have a burning conviction in her. Salmon Jo, with her love of science, was easier for me to relate to, but as we only see her through Rubric’s eyes, she is still a bit of a mystery.
It was interesting to consider the questions raised by the Jeepie Type, which is short for Genotype Phenotype. From my high school biology understanding: Genotype is the hereditary information (so the basic genes) and Phenotype is how the genes present. So the Jeepie Types are the 300 different sets of DNA that the Pannas and Klons are created from, sort of like the 300 basic human models. Each Jeepie Type is known for certain traits, behaviors, and interests. Rubric’s Jeepie Type tend to be artists, and Salmon Jo’s type are good at science and can even become doctors (the leaders of Society), but some go “crazy” and have to be fixed. There is a ceremony at 16 where each Panna is paired with an older woman of her Jeepie Types as a sort of mentor. The book is constantly referencing which type everyone is. It makes you question how much of a person’s self is genetic, environmental, or free will. It was interesting to see Olsen’s take on this.
The overall problem that they discover was not hard to guess. In fact, I knew what the problem would be just from the summary so I was not surprised. It was hard to feel the same pressure that the characters do, since it was such an obvious thing. I’m sure that if you think about what secret it could be, you could guess it right now, too! There was a little action towards the end that helped pick up the pace of the book but it feels a bit too late, and a bit too brief.
Final Verdict: An ok novel that doesn’t disappoint, but doesn’t provide a thrill either.
Review originally posted: http://francesandlynne.wordpress.com/swans-klons/
From Swans & Klons by Nora Olsen
When I was wandering around NetGalley looking for something to read I stumbled upon this book. I was excited to see a book with lesbian characters. I have only read one other that is in a more science fiction setting. I looked forward to reading the book, and I think I read it in only a couple of days.
In a future, all female world there are two races of women, the Panna’s and the Klons. The Klons are genetically modified (from the Pannas), non-human, who are stronger physically but with lower mental abilities; they are the working class serving the Pannas. In this world, sixteen-year old Rubric and her girlfriend Salmon Jo live pampered lives in the Academy dormitories. Upon starting to work outside the dormitories they stumble across a secret that tears their world apart, and makes them question everything. Now they must flee for their lives.
Honestly, I am a month or so out from having read this, and I am having trouble remembering most of it. There was just so little in this book that made an impression on me. My overall feeling on it was that it was ok, but is just never surprised me, or really touched me in any way.
The world Olsen creates is interesting, but never really unique. It reminds me of some very old science fiction stories and movies. The Panna’s are very pampered and sheltered, and that causes the story to feel a little like a boarding school story. The Pannas from Society understand that there are women who live outside the fences of Society, but they are seen as crazy and base (they still give birth naturally, which is seen as extremely disgusting to the Pannas). The world outside of Society was the most interesting to me, and I wish we could have spent a little more time there.
There are some new words, the most prominent being schatzie, or girlfriend/lover. They are a little jarring at first, but you get used to it. The one that takes longer to figure out is “cretinous male” which was what the males turned into and that started the beginning of the Society. From my understanding, the cretinous males are significantly less intelligent, hairy, shorter, almost Neanderthal like men (so the males have de-evolved basically). There are still some cretinous males living with the women outside of Society.
As for the main characters, I never really connected to Rubric Anne or Salmon Jo. I think it is interesting that all Pannas have a noun and name combo, but I could never decide if the “L” was pronounced in Salmon Jo’s name or not. Rubric was an artist and a rebel, but never really seemed to have a burning conviction in her. Salmon Jo, with her love of science, was easier for me to relate to, but as we only see her through Rubric’s eyes, she is still a bit of a mystery.
It was interesting to consider the questions raised by the Jeepie Type, which is short for Genotype Phenotype. From my high school biology understanding: Genotype is the hereditary information (so the basic genes) and Phenotype is how the genes present. So the Jeepie Types are the 300 different sets of DNA that the Pannas and Klons are created from, sort of like the 300 basic human models. Each Jeepie Type is known for certain traits, behaviors, and interests. Rubric’s Jeepie Type tend to be artists, and Salmon Jo’s type are good at science and can even become doctors (the leaders of Society), but some go “crazy” and have to be fixed. There is a ceremony at 16 where each Panna is paired with an older woman of her Jeepie Types as a sort of mentor. The book is constantly referencing which type everyone is. It makes you question how much of a person’s self is genetic, environmental, or free will. It was interesting to see Olsen’s take on this.
The overall problem that they discover was not hard to guess. In fact, I knew what the problem would be just from the summary so I was not surprised. It was hard to feel the same pressure that the characters do, since it was such an obvious thing. I’m sure that if you think about what secret it could be, you could guess it right now, too! There was a little action towards the end that helped pick up the pace of the book but it feels a bit too late, and a bit too brief.
Final Verdict: An ok novel that doesn’t disappoint, but doesn’t provide a thrill either.
Review originally posted: http://francesandlynne.wordpress.com/swans-klons/
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