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A review by mattdube
Salmonella Men on Planet Porno by Yasutaka Tsutsui
3.0
A weird book that I had really varied reactions to: some of the stories I thought were real garbage, weird ideas stretched out in uninteresting directions-- these are primarily the meta stories, I guess, and they didn't work for me because they were too interested at winking at their own cleverness.
Other stories, which were more about characters in weird situations, were better, though many of these, too, suffered from some really regressive anti-femininst misogyny. I mean, I found some of the attitudes toward gender pretty toxic, which was a disappointment because otherwise I really liked some of the stories that housed these attitudes.
And then there's the final story, which is honestly great, but not at all my thing: it is really pretty blatantly an argument about evolutionary theory loosely tied to a narrative. But the argument is bracing and interesting, and the narrative, unlike the other stories, includes sexually explicit content with almost no titillation at all. It's really almost clinical in the descriptions, like you imagine hard sci-fi is meant to be. The story is sort of outside my home genre, but it's easy to admire it for what it does: remaining serious in its investigation, and assuming a tone of absolute scientific control even in the face of rather priapic characters.
Other stories, which were more about characters in weird situations, were better, though many of these, too, suffered from some really regressive anti-femininst misogyny. I mean, I found some of the attitudes toward gender pretty toxic, which was a disappointment because otherwise I really liked some of the stories that housed these attitudes.
And then there's the final story, which is honestly great, but not at all my thing: it is really pretty blatantly an argument about evolutionary theory loosely tied to a narrative. But the argument is bracing and interesting, and the narrative, unlike the other stories, includes sexually explicit content with almost no titillation at all. It's really almost clinical in the descriptions, like you imagine hard sci-fi is meant to be. The story is sort of outside my home genre, but it's easy to admire it for what it does: remaining serious in its investigation, and assuming a tone of absolute scientific control even in the face of rather priapic characters.