Tag Archives: religious

Danika reviews Sisters of the Vast Black and Sisters of the Forsaken Stars by Lina Rather

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As soon as I heard about a series that follows nuns in a living spaceship — that also has a sapphic main character — I had to pick it up.

The sisters of the Order of Saint Rita are ostensibly a Catholic order, but a lot has changed. They have little connection with Earth, ever since a devastating war severed most of the power of the corrupt Earth Central Governance. In the generations since, communities have grown up under their own power in different systems.

Our Lady of Impossible Constellations, their lab-grown organic spaceship, visits those communities that want either baptisms, weddings, or to receive medical care — most of what they do has more to do with medical care than religious offerings.

The series begins slowly, introducing each of the sisters, who all have their own reasons for being aboard the ship. Not all of them are devout, and most have some sort of secret they left behind in order to start this new life. While this is a sci fi story, of course, it feels very grounded. Details like having to sift through spam on their communications array makes it feel like a realistic vision of the future.

The sapphic element comes in when we learn that Sister Gemma has fallen in love with a female engineer she met during one of their stops at a service station. Since then, they’ve been secretly exchanging letters. It’s not the gender of her love interest that’s a problem; it’s the fact that she’s broken her vow by entertaining a romantic relationship at all. This is a fairly small part of the series, but we do get to see Gemma’s journey and struggle in this decision: she loves her sisters and her work tending the ship, and she feels lost outside of that.

While most of the first book deals with the sisters’ internal lives as well as an ongoing debate about whether their ship should be allowed to mate, the action ramps up dramatically at the end, when they are pulled into a conflict that could restart the war that took so many lives — a war that one of the sisters has a horrifying connection to.

In the afterward, the author discusses how this began as a short story, which I can see. It’s definitely a narrative that has more to do with emotions and ideas than a fast-moving plot (until the end). While the second book picks up after all the action in Sisters of the Vast Black‘s conclusion, it still is fairly slow paced, especially when I was expecting it to pick up considerably.

I also unfortunately had trouble keeping track of all the characters. That’s a fault of mine as a reader with a bad memory, but I could only recognize a few of the sisters. Between that and the slow pace, these novellas took me a surprising amount of time to finish. That was made worse in the second book, which doesn’t have any chapters.

While there are interesting ideas explored in this series, I finished it feeling like it would have worked better as a short story for me: it began to drag, and I didn’t feel connected enough to the big cast (in a small amount of pages) to pull me through it. I’m sure that other readers with a better memory and a little more patience for sitting with philosophical reads will enjoy this one, though.

SPONSORED REVIEW: The Unicorn, The Mystery by Janet Mason

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The Unicorn, The Mystery by Janet Mason

The Unicorn, The Mystery is a novel based on a series of seven tapestries titled “The Hunt of the Unicorn.” We follow a (genderless) unicorn through this story, while also getting the point of view of a monk who also makes an appearance in the tapestries. I want to start by saying that this doesn’t have a sapphic point of view character, though the most significant side characters are two nuns who are a couple.

I didn’t know going into this story how religious/spiritual it would be, and I’m not sure I have the background to really understand it. I shouldn’t have been surprised, considering the author is a Unitarian Universalist lay minister who also wrote a book titled THEY, a Biblical Tale of Secret Genders. We spend most of the book inside the heads of the monk and unicorn–not just in the sense that it is from their point of view. This is a very internal novel: we spend a lot of time just following their musings on various subjects, including the unicorn speculating about the motivations of the hunters:

Maybe they wanted to please her. Maybe they wanted to refute her. Why did they really want to hunt me? What were they looking for? Did they really want to kill me — or were they looking for something in themselves and trying to kill it? Or were they just following orders and trying to impress each other? …

Perhaps the hunters are worried that they might not get their reward. Kings often promise riches that they never intend to give. Everyone knows that they are stingy and that is how they become kings. This would mean that the hounds wouldn’t get their treats. Maybe the hounds picked up their owner’s apprehensions. Hounds are so servile! …

Maybe they are glum because they have realized that kings will always be kings and hunters will always be hunters. . . Maybe the hunters look grim because they are thinking about the fact that everybody dies…

Although they have very different life circumstances, both characters’ POVs feel similar in that they both think highly of themselves and believe they have wisdom to bestow. Especially when it came to religious opining, I wasn’t sure whether I was meant to agree with them or not–although both characters believe themselves to be wise, they are flawed and inconsistent, so it was difficult for me to tell.

Because the story is based around the tapestries, time moves strangely throughout the story. The unicorn is looking at the tapestries, recalling their life, and we sometimes bounce between time periods in a small space. It’s almost as if all the action of the novel is happening at once: the unicorn is always being hunted, and it’s always free, so I didn’t get a sense of tension. I won’t mention any specifics, but the ending didn’t provide much more information than we already knew.

I also sometimes had difficulty with the asides of this story. A Gnostic poem, “The Thunder, Perfect Mind,” is quoted at length through the story, sometimes for pages at a time, and I wasn’t sure the purpose of these passages (they are spoken by the unicorn, who finds them spilling from their mouth). The tapestries are also described at length. There is a lot of space devoted to Greek and Latin, including multiple passages describing the shape of each letter in a word in Greek. (I was particularly confused by the inclusion of a poem the monk wrote, which was written in Latin, but is included in English with the same formatting as if it was in Latin? “see/ a yel/low ha/ lo all a/round you/ – among humans/ you are/ a de/light!” I don’t understand.)

We do see several scenes of the nun couple, though we unfortunately do not get their point of view. As intrigued as I am by them, I felt like each scene was essentially the same: they would discuss how the church would disapprove of their relationship, and then conclude that their love is not a sin. They go through different iterations of this, but it felt like they served a purpose–to argue against the idea that being gay is sinful–more than they were characters in their own right.

I wanted to include some content warnings as well: the unicorn can smell virginity, and there is quite a bit in here about virginity as well as anti sex work ideas. There are also mentions of bestiality.

Overall, this wasn’t a perfect fit for me: it is concerned with grappling with Christian ideas about truth and morality. If that is something you are interested in, The Unicorn, The Mystery will give you a lot to consider.

This has been a sponsored review. For more information, check out the Lesbrary’s review policy.

Megan G reviews We Love You, But You’re Going to Hell by Dr. Kim O’Reilly

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We Love You, But You're Going to Hell by Dr. Kim O'Reilly

“The first place homosexual should be able to turn to is the Church. Sadly, it is often the last.”

I am deeply honoured to have been given the opportunity to read and review We Love You, But You’re Going to Hell by Dr. Kim O’Reilly. This is a very important book, one of which I believe we need many more of in this world.

This nonfiction book delves into the current crisis of Homosexuality vs Christianity. In her introduction, Dr. O’Reilly encourages people to read this book even if it is simply to strengthen their own beliefs. She clearly wants to get this book in the hands of as many people as possible and to encourage discussion. The introduction is non-confrontational, something I think is very important when dealing with issues like this. It is merely asking that people read this book with an open mind, to question both their currently held beliefs and the ideas given throughout the book. It leaves the door open for a lack of change of mind – which, when challenging people’s long-held beliefs, particularly religious beliefs, is incredibly wise.

As I was reading this, I could think of about ten people I wanted to pass it on to, friends and family alike. It covers a variety of topics, almost all of which are brought up in most debates about homosexuality. It answers questions, gives private testimony, and also analyzes scripture in a way that few likely have.

This book works as a marvelous introduction to the debate of Homosexuality vs Christianity. It encourages further study, but gives brief overviews and thoughts based on the author’s own beliefs. It would be perfect for anybody who has never challenged their own beliefs on this topic. Someone who maybe just found out a loved on is queer and is struggling with their love for them vs their love for God. Someone who wants to know more, or who wants to hear an opposing view on a strongly held belief. Personally, as somebody who has been deeply invested in this particular topic for going on a decade, I felt it a little light at parts, as though the author could have gone deeper. However, I am fully aware that I am not the target audience for this book, and that by going deeper or heavier Dr. O’Reilly may have alienated some of those who are the target audience. So, in many ways, I understand why she did it.

One thing to be aware of about this book is that it is very United States-centric. It is clearly written by an American and for Americans. Because of this, as a Canadian, there were a lot of things I was lost on, or that I felt weren’t present in my own experience growing up as a queer Christian. While this is not enough of a negative for me not to want to show this book to other non-American’s, it is something I feel I have to warn about, as in some sections the amount of American-centrism was quite jarring (at one point the author states that one member of the couple being a citizen of the United States is a requirement for being married with no follow-up specifying that this is obviously only a requirement in the United States).

There also isn’t a lot of discussion about transgender issues, or people who identify as bisexual, pansexual, or polysexual. Similar to what I said above, this could be because the author felt it would alienate the target audience to throw so much queer vocabulary at them. I am not sure. But it is something to be aware of.

My final criticism, and this is really the only one that might hold me back from giving this book to certain people, is that too often there are quotes for which no reference is provided. Almost every quote credited to “anonymous” does not have a source, and there are multiple quotes throughout the book that are not credited to any speaker and do not have a source. This lack of crediting causes these quotes to lose credibility – after all, anonymous could be the author herself for all we know. Because of this, I would be hesitant to give this book to any academically-minded Christians, or really anyone who would read this with the intention of proving it wrong. Seeing as the author is a University professor, this feels like a surprising oversight.

Despite these things, however, I still feel this is a very important book. I would recommend it not only to Christians who are unsure about their views on homosexuality, or who are looking for something to challenge them, but also to any member of the LGBT community who has felt alienated by the church. I hope that this book sparks more similar books – not just for Christians, but for people of all religions.