Becoming Alien

If you can get past the offensive uses of language, this book explores the human/alien dynamic in really interesting ways.

Our protagonist Tom really is a fish out of water - or rather a convicted juvenile offender off planet, as it were - and he spends most of the book doing what other people tell him to. By the end, though, he finally starts acting in his own interests, taking control of his own destiny. As the first in a trillogy, I look forward to seeing how the other books continue his journey. The aliens around him, too, are fleshed out and interesting each in their own ways. Ore isn't afraid to have readers dislike her characters, and her book is richer for it.

That said, this book is hella racist and misogynistic for what I've read of the 1980s. Interestingly, though, it's the language that is so much more so than the characters or plot. Ore uses extremely oudated and offensive words to refer to Terran people of color, as well as women, then goes on to positively depict intersexed aliens and talk sensitively about inter-species relations in this extremely xenophobic universe. I almost think she has Tom use this slurs as a reminder that he's a back-country hick. I really, really wish she wouldn't. This book would have been a high recommendation if not for her inability to handle humans that are not white men.