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"A Conspiracy of Whispers": an extremely cranky review
Ada Harper, A Conspiracy of Whispers
One of the wildly fertile tropes in fandom for the last few years has been Alpha/Beta/Omega, normally referred to as A/B/O. I don't read a lot of it, so my impressions are probably incorrect; see norabombay's Alphas, Betas, and Omegas: A Primer for a funny and biologically-interesting overview. At its inception in Supernatural -- all hail SPN and its astonishing trope-generation -- A/B/O worked like this. Alpha human males are alpha wolves, large and in charge and all that; they can impregnate. Omega human males are omega wolves, oppressed by a cruel society, weak, and treated like 1860s girls; they can be impregnated. Betas are sterile and the sensible people who actually keep the whole thing running. In a lot of A/B/O fic, the protagonists are a male alpha and a male omega.
Take the popular misconception of wolf dynamics. Add slash. Add conventional gender stereotyping and gender roles, only male/male! Add pheromones, heats, rape threats, knotting, self-lubricating anuses, ass-babies, and a whole lot more.
IMPORTANT NOTE: A lot of people have written a lot of fic that questions gender stereotyping and/or A/O stereotyping. I'm talking about the ur-A/B/O dynamic as I understand it, and I'm outside the community and therefore probably wrong.
So. A Conspiracy of Whispers takes the A/B/O trope and makes it heterosexual yay! In this world, the role of rapable, pushed-around, impregnable, physically weaker, societally-submissive omega is taken by women. This ... really doesn't help. Altusii are alphas of either gender, gentas are sterile betas of either gender, caricaes are female omegas. I have no idea why altus takes a Latin sort-of second-declension plural and genta takes ... er, an English plural. "Caricae" takes the plural "caricaes", because what do they teach in the schools these days. It is revealed in the novel that altusii and gentas can get genital-altering surgery, but they seem to still adhere to the societal roles of Strong Altus, Irrelevant Genta, and Oppressed Caricae. Altusii can "push" with their pheromones, caricae can "pull". One society's slogan is "A caricae is born to be touched".
In A Conspiracy of Whispers, a dashing Whisper (assassin, mostly), Olivia, living in an oppressive, fascist, surveillance-based society, the Syndicate, has a dark secret. She is a caricae. If this were known, she'd be taken away to a cloistered reproductive facility, where she would be some kind of brainwashed and spend the rest of her life having babies and not allowed to assassin any more. Olivia is unimpressed. Normally children are tested for altus/genta/caricae status at age 13; Olivia went through late puberty and slipped through the tests. (Note: This is apparently a really dumb fascist society.) All children are born in the caricae cloister, then assigned to pairs of parents who can be genta/genta or altus/genta. No altus/altus parents for unspecified reasons, if you know what I suspect and I think you do. Altusii and caricaes can smell each other's strong pheromones; gentas have their own phermomones, which never appear again in the novel. Olivia takes pheromone suppressants and avoids physical contact in order to pass.
Olivia is sent off into the neighboring country, the Empire of Quillia, to assassinate a target, Galen. She finds herself strangely unwilling to do so; surprise, surprise, he's an altus, albeit currently drugged with an altus suppressant.
An actual quote from Galen, when he first meets Olivia: "A soft, obviously female voice made the hairs on the nape of Galen's neck stand on end. It was a voice for secrets and sighs. There was no anger in the voice, no aggression, but neither was there any hint of sympathy." Later on in the novel, Olivia vomits when Galen breaks somebody's neck in a mercy kill. Some assassin.
Olivia and Galen go off into the provinces to romp through the woods andhave UST rescue a bunch of soldiers. When Olivia is briefly captured, the Syndicate soldier sneers at her as a "good girl". Olivia is not impressed. It turns out Galen has a psychic-bonded wolf, because of course he does. Olivia and Galen make it back to the Empire army. BIG REVEAL: Galen is actually the brother, and the right-hand man, of the Empress. He is also known as the Red Wolf, because subtlety is for wimps. (I have omitted a lot of intervening adventures and betrayals. This review is long enough already.)
Galen: "...Caricaes are not prisoners here."
Olivia: "Funny. They're not soldiers, scouts, or transportation personnel in the Empire either, for what from what I've seen."
Galen: blather blather
Olivia: "Are there caricae senators? Politicians? Leaders?"
Galen: "... She was right, Galen realized she was right, but he could process that another time."
Olivia invents caricae-ism the way Ayla invents everything. Why it never occurred to an Empire caricae to write The Third Sex, we'll never know. As we finally open out into the Empire, it turns out that altusii can definitely be male or female, but caricaes are still all female with the exception of one (in this novel) transman. Caricaes are still sort-of-cloistered, but it's better because they can leave the cloister freely any time they want! It's for their own protection! Olivia remains unimpressed.
In the part I omitted, there was the reveal that Olivia's best friend from the Syndicate, Yoshi, is gay, a survivor of domestic abuse, and now in a steady relationship, in which he and his partner are raising the partner's brother (remember, an assigned relationship), an orphan. It took a lot of work for the couple to be allowed to raise the orphaned brother, because the fascist society routinely swoops in and reassigns a child to a new pair of parents if terms and conditions apply.
Almost immediately after Olivia's arrival in the Empire, an altus makes a rape threat, which Olivia fends off with a broken wineglass. Soon afterward, the Empire has a rebellion which, sadly, is not the caricaes saying "fuck this for a game of gender essentialism", but is fomented by the Syndicate with the aid of Empire quislings who want power in the new regime. Olivia and Galen are separated by war, reunited, separated again, face death, and finally restore the Empire regime. Olivia is owed a boon, which she uses to insist that caricaes get a seat on the ruling council.
Olivia and Galen also have penetrative sex; there was cunnilingus earlier in the novel, but Galen had refused to let Olivia return the favor. It turns out that Olivia is a virgin except for toys. It makes sense that Olivia wouldn't have sex with an Altus, who could smell Olivia's caricae status, but Olivia could perfectly well have had sex with a genta. In any case, we are assured that toys aren't nearly as satisfying as an actual penis.
I am unimpressed. A Conspiracy of Whispers takes the weird sexual dynamics of A/B/O and makes them worse. Instead of applying mainstream gender stereotyping and gender power relationships to men, we apply them to women! Yay! And the women aren't the alphas, which would be genuinely surprising; no, they're the omegas, who get pushed around, cloistered, and protected. So we have full-on gender-essentialist societal roles, but it's okay because Oliviais not like other girls gets to live outside them, mostly.
I spit.
A/B/O, as befits a Supernatural-origin trope, is iddy as all getout. The whole point of pheromones is that it gives you a pretext for heats, so you have "must fuck or I will dieeee..." coupled with "must fuck REPEATEDLY or I will die" with a bonus of "I cannot resist you because of your alpha charms." It also has knotting, if that's your kink. In A Conspiracy of Whispers, however, pheromones make altusii want to protect and soothe; caricaes want to cuddle. No wild, id-driven sex here, no sir. It does turn out that caricaes can be "scruffed": grabbed by the back of the neck and rendered woozy and resistless. Icky.
I also think the writing is uninteresting. I wouldn't mind that (I'm easy, I admit it) if the worldbuilding led to blazing sex and UST. It doesn't. Why would you bother with an id-driven trope if you aren't going to scream in on a motorcycle built from the crushed bones of your enemies?
By the way, I recommend mantisfuck consentworld, in which the gender-essentialist trope is that women have sex with men and then eat them. Makioka wrote a wonderful mantisfuck of Mary Renault's Return to Night called in the back where the flowers grow; read that instead of this annoying novel.
I have tried not to be real-world gender-essentialist in this writeup. Please let me know if I have phrasing that excludes people with non-binary or other genders. I'll edit.
One of the wildly fertile tropes in fandom for the last few years has been Alpha/Beta/Omega, normally referred to as A/B/O. I don't read a lot of it, so my impressions are probably incorrect; see norabombay's Alphas, Betas, and Omegas: A Primer for a funny and biologically-interesting overview. At its inception in Supernatural -- all hail SPN and its astonishing trope-generation -- A/B/O worked like this. Alpha human males are alpha wolves, large and in charge and all that; they can impregnate. Omega human males are omega wolves, oppressed by a cruel society, weak, and treated like 1860s girls; they can be impregnated. Betas are sterile and the sensible people who actually keep the whole thing running. In a lot of A/B/O fic, the protagonists are a male alpha and a male omega.
Take the popular misconception of wolf dynamics. Add slash. Add conventional gender stereotyping and gender roles, only male/male! Add pheromones, heats, rape threats, knotting, self-lubricating anuses, ass-babies, and a whole lot more.
IMPORTANT NOTE: A lot of people have written a lot of fic that questions gender stereotyping and/or A/O stereotyping. I'm talking about the ur-A/B/O dynamic as I understand it, and I'm outside the community and therefore probably wrong.
So. A Conspiracy of Whispers takes the A/B/O trope and makes it heterosexual yay! In this world, the role of rapable, pushed-around, impregnable, physically weaker, societally-submissive omega is taken by women. This ... really doesn't help. Altusii are alphas of either gender, gentas are sterile betas of either gender, caricaes are female omegas. I have no idea why altus takes a Latin sort-of second-declension plural and genta takes ... er, an English plural. "Caricae" takes the plural "caricaes", because what do they teach in the schools these days. It is revealed in the novel that altusii and gentas can get genital-altering surgery, but they seem to still adhere to the societal roles of Strong Altus, Irrelevant Genta, and Oppressed Caricae. Altusii can "push" with their pheromones, caricae can "pull". One society's slogan is "A caricae is born to be touched".
In A Conspiracy of Whispers, a dashing Whisper (assassin, mostly), Olivia, living in an oppressive, fascist, surveillance-based society, the Syndicate, has a dark secret. She is a caricae. If this were known, she'd be taken away to a cloistered reproductive facility, where she would be some kind of brainwashed and spend the rest of her life having babies and not allowed to assassin any more. Olivia is unimpressed. Normally children are tested for altus/genta/caricae status at age 13; Olivia went through late puberty and slipped through the tests. (Note: This is apparently a really dumb fascist society.) All children are born in the caricae cloister, then assigned to pairs of parents who can be genta/genta or altus/genta. No altus/altus parents for unspecified reasons, if you know what I suspect and I think you do. Altusii and caricaes can smell each other's strong pheromones; gentas have their own phermomones, which never appear again in the novel. Olivia takes pheromone suppressants and avoids physical contact in order to pass.
Olivia is sent off into the neighboring country, the Empire of Quillia, to assassinate a target, Galen. She finds herself strangely unwilling to do so; surprise, surprise, he's an altus, albeit currently drugged with an altus suppressant.
An actual quote from Galen, when he first meets Olivia: "A soft, obviously female voice made the hairs on the nape of Galen's neck stand on end. It was a voice for secrets and sighs. There was no anger in the voice, no aggression, but neither was there any hint of sympathy." Later on in the novel, Olivia vomits when Galen breaks somebody's neck in a mercy kill. Some assassin.
Olivia and Galen go off into the provinces to romp through the woods and
Galen: "...Caricaes are not prisoners here."
Olivia: "Funny. They're not soldiers, scouts, or transportation personnel in the Empire either, for what from what I've seen."
Galen: blather blather
Olivia: "Are there caricae senators? Politicians? Leaders?"
Galen: "... She was right, Galen realized she was right, but he could process that another time."
Olivia invents caricae-ism the way Ayla invents everything. Why it never occurred to an Empire caricae to write The Third Sex, we'll never know. As we finally open out into the Empire, it turns out that altusii can definitely be male or female, but caricaes are still all female with the exception of one (in this novel) transman. Caricaes are still sort-of-cloistered, but it's better because they can leave the cloister freely any time they want! It's for their own protection! Olivia remains unimpressed.
In the part I omitted, there was the reveal that Olivia's best friend from the Syndicate, Yoshi, is gay, a survivor of domestic abuse, and now in a steady relationship, in which he and his partner are raising the partner's brother (remember, an assigned relationship), an orphan. It took a lot of work for the couple to be allowed to raise the orphaned brother, because the fascist society routinely swoops in and reassigns a child to a new pair of parents if terms and conditions apply.
Almost immediately after Olivia's arrival in the Empire, an altus makes a rape threat, which Olivia fends off with a broken wineglass. Soon afterward, the Empire has a rebellion which, sadly, is not the caricaes saying "fuck this for a game of gender essentialism", but is fomented by the Syndicate with the aid of Empire quislings who want power in the new regime. Olivia and Galen are separated by war, reunited, separated again, face death, and finally restore the Empire regime. Olivia is owed a boon, which she uses to insist that caricaes get a seat on the ruling council.
Olivia and Galen also have penetrative sex; there was cunnilingus earlier in the novel, but Galen had refused to let Olivia return the favor. It turns out that Olivia is a virgin except for toys. It makes sense that Olivia wouldn't have sex with an Altus, who could smell Olivia's caricae status, but Olivia could perfectly well have had sex with a genta. In any case, we are assured that toys aren't nearly as satisfying as an actual penis.
I am unimpressed. A Conspiracy of Whispers takes the weird sexual dynamics of A/B/O and makes them worse. Instead of applying mainstream gender stereotyping and gender power relationships to men, we apply them to women! Yay! And the women aren't the alphas, which would be genuinely surprising; no, they're the omegas, who get pushed around, cloistered, and protected. So we have full-on gender-essentialist societal roles, but it's okay because Olivia
I spit.
A/B/O, as befits a Supernatural-origin trope, is iddy as all getout. The whole point of pheromones is that it gives you a pretext for heats, so you have "must fuck or I will dieeee..." coupled with "must fuck REPEATEDLY or I will die" with a bonus of "I cannot resist you because of your alpha charms." It also has knotting, if that's your kink. In A Conspiracy of Whispers, however, pheromones make altusii want to protect and soothe; caricaes want to cuddle. No wild, id-driven sex here, no sir. It does turn out that caricaes can be "scruffed": grabbed by the back of the neck and rendered woozy and resistless. Icky.
I also think the writing is uninteresting. I wouldn't mind that (I'm easy, I admit it) if the worldbuilding led to blazing sex and UST. It doesn't. Why would you bother with an id-driven trope if you aren't going to scream in on a motorcycle built from the crushed bones of your enemies?
By the way, I recommend mantisfuck consentworld, in which the gender-essentialist trope is that women have sex with men and then eat them. Makioka wrote a wonderful mantisfuck of Mary Renault's Return to Night called in the back where the flowers grow; read that instead of this annoying novel.
I have tried not to be real-world gender-essentialist in this writeup. Please let me know if I have phrasing that excludes people with non-binary or other genders. I'll edit.