Parts of this were hard to follow, but very in-depth world-building for such a short novella. ( )

Author: Ruth Nestvold
Published By: R.N.
Age Recommend: 16
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Raven Rating: 5
Blog Review For: GMTA

Review:

"Looking Through Lace" by Ruth Nestvold was a wonderful fascinating short Sci-Fi read. This author did a wonderfuljob with the main character, Toni Donato who was female xenolinguist.. her assignment was with the first contact teamon the alien planet 'Christmas to analyze the secret women's language' ... studying the Mejan culture. The women spoke a different language that the men were not allowed to learn. Why and how did this happen?

However, obstacles are put in place for Toni to do her job...the chief linguist(Dr. Repnik) began to disrupt her work so she was going to have to do something. How did she accomplish this task?.... Well, you will have to read "Looking Through Lace" to find out.

"Looking Through Lace" wad a well written and worthwhile read. If you a a science fiction lover... this is really a novel for you. The title is perfect for this read and I liked the book cover. ( )

Looking Through Lace
by: Ruth Nestvold

I won this book from a Library Thing giveaway

Looking through lace is a science fiction novella. Toni is the main character in this book and she is a xenoliguist discovering alien languages. Toni is studying a race of aliens that are descendents of humans but the women speak a whole different language when they talk to each other that the men are not allowed to learn.

I found that this book was really well written and interesting. It really captures your attention. I read it straight through. Great book and I'm anxious to read more from Ruth Nestvold. ( )

This novella reminded me strongly of two works from decades ago: the focus on language recalls Chip Delaney's Babel-17. The focus on social scientists and the insertion of notes from previous teams and a piece of a creation myth are even more strongly reminiscent of Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness. Nestvold's Toni Donato, who is brought to a new planet because of the female-dominated socirty there, is not nearly as clueless as poor Genly Ai, but like him she must struggle through some misconceptions in order to begin to understand the culture in which she finds herself.

Nestvold does a nice job of introducing the main characters and showing us the conflicts between them. In a work of this length, she doesn't have room to develop many characters, and most have only the depth they need to play their roles in Toni's story. She depicts the difficulties that Toni faces in learning about a culture that is not eager to expose itself. The resolution seems sudden, and it leaves many questions unresolved. That in itself is not a problem, but I'm not really sure what did get resolved.

Overall a quite enjoyable read. I am grateful to the author for the opporunity to read it and comment on it. ( )

I liked the plot about an alien planet and exploring and communicating with alien cultures. But felt it ended very quickly... many more angles could have been added and mysteries created considering the storyline. overall a nice short story. ( )