Ethan of Athos

Summary: Athos is one of the most isolated planets in the galactic community, which is exactly how the inhabitants like it. It's a planet entirely of men, where contact with off-planet sources is strictly limited, and each next generation is conceived in vitro and incubated in uterine replicators. This system has worked for hundreds of years, but now Athos is facing a serious problem: their carefully cultured lines of ovarian tissue, the same cell lines that have provided half of the genetic material of every Athosian for centuries, are failing.

Dr. Ethan Urquhart is the head of one of Athos's District Reproduction Centers, and he is well aware of the grave prospects for his planet's future. When a very expensive order of ovarian tissue show more from off-world turns out to be useless, Ethan is chosen for a vital but unprecedented mission: to go off-world himself, find some replacement cell cultures, and personally safeguard them on their way back to Athos.

Ethan only gets as far as the transfer hub of Kline Station before things start to go wrong. The enormous space station is overwhelming enough for someone who has never before seen, let alone been forced to interact with, women. But Ethan has bigger problems on his plate as he swiftly becomes tangled in a plot that involves spies, military operatives, subterfuge, murder, and a fugitive carrying something that could change the fate of the human race forever.

Review: I'm afraid my reviews of Lois McMaster Bujold's books, and of the Vorkosigan Saga in particular, are in danger of becoming repetitive. My opinion of almost all of her books boils down to: Love her! Read them! And Ethan of Athos is no exception. Bujold's got an uncanny ability to create multidimensional, flawed, and loveable characters in a very short space. Even though Ethan is almost painfully naïve throughout the book, it's hard not to sympathize with him and cheer for him right from the beginning.

Bujold's also got a deft hand with dialogue; the characters have just the right amount of snarky wit to keep things lively without losing the rhythms of how real people talk. The same sense of humor is present throughout the book -- I'm still giggling about one of the parts with the newts -- but it's well-blended with the action, the politics, and the emotional pathos that make up the rest of the story. The whole thing moves along quickly, telling a complete story in a lean seven hours of audiobook -- no unnecessary or wasted scenes here.

Ethan of Athos also showcases how good Bujold can be at introducing more serious topics in her fiction, without having the story become entirely about The Issues. In this case, the story on the surface is essentially a spy thriller, but there are deeper layers dealing with sexism, the rights of the individual vs. the society, and homophobia. The sexism angle is the most obvious; after all, Athos is a society founded for the express purpose of protecting men from the evil, corrupting influence of women. Watching Ethan deal with the contrast between his indoctrinated beliefs and the reality of meeting actual women was fascinating, and I appreciated that Bujold left him not-quite-converted and still grappling with his prejudices at the end of the book, rather than taking the easier but less-realistic path of a complete epiphany.

I also found it fascinating that while Ethan is dealing with his own sexism, he also has to deal with others' homophobia against Athosians (who are, after all, actually trying to recruit their children to bolster their planet's flagging genetic diversity). There's a very interesting interplay between various characters' perceptions, prejudices, upbringings, and experiences that hums away beneath the surface, raising questions and making the reader think without competing with the narrative flow of the story.

As per usual, Grover Gardner does a wonderful job with the narration. His voice blends seamlessly into those of the characters, making it easy for listeners to lose themselves in the story. 4 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Ethan of Athos is set in the Vorkosigan universe, but only mentions Miles in passing. Commander Elli Quinn of the Dendarii Mercenary Fleet is a major character in this book, but she's introduced well enough that it could easily be read independently of (or as an introduction to) the larger series. show less

[b:Ethan of Athos|990093|Ethan of Athos (Vorkosigan Saga, #6)|Lois McMaster Bujold|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180035524s/990093.jpg|2030693] by [a:Lois McMaster Bujold|16094|Lois McMaster Bujold|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1199059582p2/16094.jpg] is a book in the Miles Vorkosigan series that has neither Miles nor his alter-ego Naismith in it (except as an off-stage character).

Ethan is from an all-male planet who manages population replacement and growth with cell lines from imported ovarian tissue and local sperm donations from approved fathers. The cell lines are getting old and decaying and new stock is needed. But when the order is filled, the specimens sent are useless and, in some cases, are not even human tissue.

So show more we have a mystery (what happened to the ordered tissue?) and a problem (how do we get more tissue?), and Ethan is sent to take care of the problem and, along the way, meets females for the first time and solves the mystery. We meet Cetagandan miliary operatives, Elli Quinn (a name from an earlier Miles/Naismith adventure), and Terence Cee (a key to the mystery).

I liked this book a lot and thought it paired well with Cetaganda in the Miles, Mystery & Mayhem omnibus. Both, at heart, are mysteries and have themes of genetic and sociological engineering.

I think Ethan's inner curiosity contributed mightily to how quickly he lost his naivete. Given that he was raised in such a closed society, he was amazinly open-minded. In acting as an operative for the Dendarii Free Mercenaries, I liked the way Elli Quinn consciously invoked "WWND?" (What Would Naismith Do?)

No Miles, but an excellent book! show less

I want to give Bujold chops for writing a book that reverses the hoary old 'planet of women' trope with a planet of men trope, and then manages to treat a culture of gay misogynistic reactionaries with humor and care. But aside from the set-up (which was done to better effect in Cordwainer Smith's "The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal"), there's not much to recommend this Vorkosigan-without-Miles book.

Ethan is a doctor with a problem: His male-only refuge planet of Athos is entirely dependent on reproductive medicine to survive, their centuries-old ovary samples are dying, and the new shipment was replaced with random biological junk. Ethan is sent into the sinful women-filled Galaxy to find out what happened and get a show more replacement. His first stop, Klein station, lands him in a mess of interstellar espionage with mad Cetagandan scientists, humorless station security quarantine personnel, and a freelance spy from the Dendarii Mercenaries, the lovely Elli Quinn from the first Miles novel, who is back with a new face, a promotion, and tendency to ask 'what would Admiral Naismith do?'. Ethan and Elli fall in with the telepathic (and most wanted) Terrence Cee, and run around the station dodging assassins to figure out where a top secret Cetagandan research project has gone, who has Ethan's ovaries, and who is trying to get them all killed. There's some interesting stuff about the importance of biological control on a space station, and how that effects the way you'd go about committing a crime, and some digressions on the very weird planet of Athos, but mostly this book is just running for its own sake.

Unless Terrence Cee plays a major part in future stories, this is probably the most skippable Vorkosigan book so far. show less

Ethan of Athos by Lois McMaster Bujold is considered as part of the Vokosigan Saga, but this science fiction story really stands alone with a new main character that we haven’t met before. That main character is Dr. Ethan Urquhart and he is the chief of biology at a reproduction centre on the planet of Athos. Athos is an exclusively male planet that relies on uterine replicator technology to have children. Unfortunately their cultures are getting old and have recently shown signs of permanently deteriorating. When a new shipment arrives and it proves to be total junk, Ethan is assigned the duty of hunting down a supply of fresh ovarian tissue cultures.

Venturing off the planet for the first time in his life, he travels to Kline show more Station and upon embarkation, the first woman that he meets is none other than Captain Elli Quinn, who is on leave from the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. Ethan and Elli eventually join forces in order to investigate a plot by the Cetagandans involving a secret research project.

Another great entry into this sci-fi series. I had been hesitating to read it as I thought I would miss the Vorkosigan focus but this was a wonderful story and a great way to see Elli close up and in action. She is truly a kick-ass heroine and the relationship between her and Ethan was interesting. Lois McMaster Bujold continues to make the Vorkosigan series a huge favorite! show less

Another fun outing from Bujold, and proves it's not necessary to include a Vorkosigan protagonist for the book to be interesting. Loved that an unassuming gay obstetrician was our unlikely hero. I'm becoming more-and-more impressed by this author--lots of writers do action-packed light breezy, but they can seem slight and unimportant, silly even--but Bujold's pretty much pitch-perfect all the way through, balancing just the right amount of plot, characterization, world-building, etc. (Like how marvelous and fresh Jane Austen can seem, compared to some of the drearier Victorians who followed her).

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking show more for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). I feel a lot of readers automatically render any book they enjoy 5, but I grade on a curve! show less

Ethan of Athos may be part of the "Vorkosigan saga" in that it connects to other books in the same milieu but it is not a "Vorkosigan novel" in that Miles Vorkosigan does not actually appear in it—and nor does any other member of the Vorkosigan family. The biggest link to the other novels is that Elli Quinn, a member of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries from The Warrior's Apprentice, is a central character; otherwise, the novel draws on some of the same broad background as the other Vorkosigan novels, especially the influence of the planet Cetaganda, which we saw in the novel of the same name.

In some ways, I think Ethan of Athos is a victim of Bujold's success. In chronological order, this is the seventh Vorkosigan novel; in my hybrid show more order, it's the sixth. Either way, as a reader, you are probably hoping for more Vorkosigan. That's why you are reading these books, but you'll get none of it here. My friend who has pushed the Vorkosigan novels on me has never actually read this one!

But this is a problem you're having as a modern reader, and it's not the novel's fault. Ethan of Athos was just the third Vorkosigan novel published, one of three to appear in 1986, after Shards of Honor (June) and The Warrior's Apprentice (August); Ethan was published in December. The first three books thus don't share any central characters: Shards features Cordelia, while Warrior's Apprentice her son Miles. The next "Vorkosigan" book would be 1988's Falling Free, which does not feature any Vorkosigans and in fact takes place centuries prior to the other books. Bujold wouldn't write a book that featured the same central character as a previous book until the fifth, 1989's Brothers in Arms—it's not until then that this series, I would argue, meaningfully becomes the "Vorkosigan saga."

Prior to 1989, you just have four novels set in the same general cosmic background. Like a lot of science fiction writers, Bujold prefers to not have to reinvent a universe everytime she writes a new book; see for example Ursula K. Le Guin, Iain M. Banks, and Becky Chambers. Ethan of Athos feels like an outlier now, but in 1986, she clearly wasn't thinking of this as a series of books about one person or family. Imagine if, in the mid-1970s, Le Guin had decided to write a bunch more Genly Ai novels following on from The Left Hand of Darkness, and then someone handed you 1974's The Dispossessed telling you it was part of the "Genly Ai saga." Even though it takes place in the same universe, and even fills in an important piece of backstory, you would probably feel alienated when it turned out to be about some guy named Shevek, not Genly Ai at all. Thinking of Ethan as a Vorkosigan novel does it a disservice—but unlike the Hainish novels, or the Culture novels, or the Galactic Commons novels, Bujold's science fiction milieu doesn't have a designation derived from the setting, just one derived from the characters... and they are totally absent here. (Miles is actually mentioned a lot, but by Elli, who doesn't know is real name, and thus not even called "Vorkosigan.")

Okay, so if we're not taking Ethan of Athos as a Vorkosigan novel, how should we take it? Well, there are two ways we can take it, I think. The first is as a novel about gender. The Athos of the title is something I don't remember seeing very much in science fiction before: an all-male society. (Just Manjula Padmanabhan's Escape. Wait, isn't there a Cordwainer Smith story with a premise like this? But certainly, it's much less common than the all-female society.) The people of Athos reproduce by combining their DNA with ova acquired from off-planet. Everyone is a man, homosexual relationships are completely normal, the people of Athos have a deep fear of women inculcated by generations of misogynistic stories about a kind of human being they've never actually met. What reproduction might be like in the future is something Bujold has been interested in throughout her novels in this setting; see also the uterine replicator that's central to Barrayar.

The book has some fun stuff that derives from this premise, and I appreciate that it doesn't do what might have seemed an obvious thing in the 1980s, end with Ethan realizing women aren't so bad after all and that he's actually a heterosexual; it ends with him affirming his homosexuality, actually. But while Barrayar leveraged the uterine replicator as part of a complex exploration of various aspects of motherhood, I don't think Ethan has much to say about masculinity. Imagine if (to bring up Le Guin again) Left Hand of Darkness had been about someone from Gethen going to another Hainish world, and that they just spent most of the book going, "Wow, two genders!" Like, you might have gotten some interesting worldbuilding, but it also would have been a novel with much less to say. I wish we'd gotten to see more of Athos, and I wish we'd gotten more of a sense of why this planet is like this. Sure, I get misogyny... but it's a weird breed of misogyny that would reach the conclusion of having a planet with no women. Misogyny is usually about putting women in a particular societal place, not about getting rid of them altogether!

What all the gender stuff ultimately is, is a background to an espionage thriller. When the new egg cultures sent to Athos are sabotaged, one of their physicians, Ethan, has to travel into the outside universe to acquire some new ones—one of the first Athosians to do that in generations. In classic Bujold fashion, he quickly finds himself ensnared in a complex plot he doesn't totally understand; the fact that he comes from a planet with literally no women mostly serves to heighten his confusion. Without doing the book too much of a disservice, I would say that ultimately it's fun and well done, but that's about it. Like most Vorkosigan books, you're swept up in it and you have a good time.

It would be possible to understate the importance of that; there are many sf novels out there where that never happens! There are good characters and good comedy and good twists. I was happy to see Elli again (and I gather she will pop up in future Vorkosigan books), and I liked getting to know Ethan (and am sorry to gather he never pops up again). But other than Cetaganda, this is the least enjoyable Vorkosigan novel I've read thus far. Admittedly, this is damning with faint praise, because other than Cetaganda, I've enjoyed them all! show less

After Cetaganda, I get to Ethan of Athos in my Vorkosigan saga reread. There's no Miles Vorkosigan in this story, although it is connected to the main saga through a secondary characer (Elli Queen).

Like in Cetaganda, Lois M. Bujold has fun creating a different science-fictional society, in this case the reclusive, male-only society of Athos (made possible by the technology of the Uterine Replicator, which allows them to reproduce without women).

Maybe because Miles does not appear, many fans regard this as a minor title in the saga, but I have a soft spot for it. Ethan is a likable main character, and I really enjoy his naive reactions when he gets in contact with the galactic society (and women). The story is an action and espionage show more thriller, starting when Athos fails to get replacement for their vital ovarian tissue cultures and they send Dr. Ethan Urquhart off-planet to get them.

Very enjoyable. show less