Walking Contradiction
By Nancy Jane Moore
10 Words: Future worlds, Future worries. All based off current problems extended.
Walking Contradiction is a collection of seven short stories. Each story is set in some time along the Earth's future. All the stories are self contained, but I do think a few of them are directly related. It also feels like its possible that they all are related.
The stories talk about the consequences of the actions of present day people living on earth, the way we have treated natural resources, the way we are often at war. They expand and explore the direction our actions could take us, and show a not too hopeful future, yet for the most part it is one that is trying to redeem itself.
My favorite of the stories happens to be the first one, the one the book is named for. Walking Contradiction. The main character of the story is a detective, what makes them different is that they are niver male or female. They are Ambigendered,
a person who has both sets of working sexual equipment (thats the way the story explains it). She is asked to investigate a group who are called The True Virgins, a group who chose to remove their gender completely. It makes for an interesting contrast and comparison story when a person who has embraced both genders is forced to face the ideas of a person who has chosen to move beyond gender. The disgust she feels over the idea that these people would want to creat an artifical way of reproducing themselves.
