Author: Catherine (Page 21 of 54)

Marriage Equality: What this survey isn’t about

September 27, 2017 / Catherine / 0 Comments

Lots of people seem to be afraid right now.

My friends who are gay or lesbian are afraid of being attacked for who they are. They are afraid for their children, for their friends, for young people who are LTBGIQ who are watching this debate and seeing it as a referendum on their humanity.

My friends (and yes, I have a few) who are on the no side are afraid too. They are afraid of being attacked for what they believe. They are afraid for their children, for their friends, for young people who are vulnerable who they fear will be harmed if the law changes.

Fear seems to be something that both sides have in common.

There are some important differences though. For my gay and lesbian friends, these fears are not new and they are, by and large, grounded in experience; the experience of being rejected and hurt – sometimes physically – for who they are. And that experience is a lot more intense right now. It’s not a coincidence that psychologists and support lines are being overwhelmed by calls from young LGBTIQ people at present.

For my friends who are against marriage equality, it’s a bit different. While we Christians love a good persecution narrative (“Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake”, after all), most Christians in Australia are not in the habit of feeling actively threatened in their daily lives. If I wear a cross to work, I’m not going to get weird looks or comments. And while, yes, certain atheists of my acquaintance do love to tell us how stupid we are for believing the things we believe (often without taking the time to actually establish whether we believe the particular things they are discussing), I can’t say I feel particularly persecuted by this. Persecution requires someone to actually have the power to make my life worse, after all.

I think it is important to acknowledge that for no voters, their fears are not grounded in the past, but in the future. Yes, marriage equality has happened in other countries, and there have been a lot of scare campaigns around what happened in these countries as a result, but most of us have not grown up in a world that rejects and physically attacks us for our beliefs. The fears of no voters are not imaginary – I won’t claim that yes voters are perfect snowflakes who never behave badly – but they are largely about things that have not yet come to pass – and which may never do so.

I’ll be talking mostly about and to my fellow Christians in this blog post, because the people I know who are against marriage equality have, by and large, reached that conclusion because of their faith. I’ve reached the opposite conclusion because of my faith – and I’ll write about that elsewhere! – and it’s very possible that you are shaking your head at me right now and thinking that I’m clearly not saved, and that’s fine. But I hope you will keep reading, because I think that as Christians we do owe it to ourselves to act with integrity and with honesty, and that includes being honest with ourselves. And a lot of the no campaign that I have seen has been based on conflating things that are true with things that are either not true or have nothing to do with this vote.

I don’t think this does anyone any favours, and I don’t think it’s a good look for Christianity.

If you are a likely no voter reading this, I’m going to assume that you are acting in good faith. I’m going to assume that you are not a hateful person, or a cruel person, or someone who wants gay people to suffer. I’m going to assume that you really do believe that voting Yes will be detrimental to society.

I’ll be honest – I think you’re terribly wrong. But I’m not here to yell at you or be mean.

I’m here to ask you to separate out what is really true from what is still a matter of conjecture. I’m here to ask you to vote for or against the measure being put before us, not a random collection of things that tend to get associated with that measure, I’m here to ask you to vote with love and integrity, not with fear.

But what about all those terrible things that happened in other countries after marriage equality?

September 19, 2017 / Catherine / 6 Comments

What about them indeed?

I’ve been seeing a bunch of lists doing the rounds recently of how legalising Same Sex Marriage in other countries has led to the abridgement of free speech and a loss of rights in those countries for Christians and other people who believe that human beings come in two immutable flavours, pink and blue, and that marriages should contain one of each colour.

Now, I’m not 100% that this argument is relevant, because we do, in fact, have a pretty socially conservative government, and the draft legislation that has been circulated at various times recently has all contained quite significant protections for freedom of speech and freedom of religion. But I also know that there are some people who are genuinely afraid that marriage equality will lead to drastic and negative social change – that it will be the start of a slippery slope into a world where we are forbidden to talk of gender or notice differences between the sexes, and where religious organisations will be forced to bow to secular laws of this nature.

So let’s see what’s really going on in these countries, shall we?

The list below is not comprehensive, and it is far from the only one out there, but it had the advantage of coming with links to articles supporting its statements, so it seemed like a good place to start.

Warning: this is super long – 8,000 words – and I wrote it in one sitting. There will be typos. And sarcasm, because I really, really regretted ever starting this before I was done. Also, I will probably switch off comments after a few days, because I’m heading off to Europe, and it’s difficult to moderate conversations across timezones. And I really feel like I’ve said all I can possibly say about this article at this point (8,000 words, remember).

Good luck. And don’t say I didn’t warn you. Continue reading

Marriage Equality: The case for returning your survey (and marking it yes!) if you don’t really care about this issue

September 7, 2017 / Catherine / 0 Comments

This is a post for people who really don’t feel very strongly about marriage equality, and are thinking of maybe not filling in their survey. Perhaps it doesn’t affect you, or perhaps there are other issues that affect you more, or you perhaps think this whole debate is a waste of time and a big distraction from the business of governing (I’m with you on the last two, by the way). Perhaps you don’t have a problem with gay marriage, personally, but you don’t feel strongly enough about it to do anything active to promote it.

Perhaps you are just really, really, REALLY tired of people going on about it and wish that everyone could forget about the whole thing.

I do get that, actually. Right now, there are a lot of people who *do* have strong opinions about marriage equality – on both sides of the debate – and they are all expressing them at the top of their lungs, and without ever stopping. If marriage equality isn’t something that you feel particularly strongly about, it’s very tedious, often insufferable, and sometimes just plain mean. Especially as this is – what, the third time? the fourth time? – that we’ve had this conversation in the last couple of years. It never seems to end.

For me, it’s personal. I have friends who are directly affected by this issue, and you can bet that I want to do anything I can to help them. But even I can see how incredibly annoying it must be. And I can understand the temptation to just wash your hands of the whole thing and throw your envelope in the bin when it arrives.

I’m not going to try to convince you that marriage equality is awesome (even though I think it is!). You’ve heard all those arguments already, and if they’re not inspiring you, I’m unlikely to change that.

Instead, I want to convince you that if you are sick and tired of this whole debate, the absolute last thing you should be doing is throwing your vote in the bin.

There are five very good reasons to select ‘YES’ on the survey, even – perhaps especially – if you don’t care about this debate.

So apparently I need to write about asylum seekers after all

August 28, 2017 / Catherine / 1 Comment

I realise that the appropriate response to the news that the Australian Government plans to turn asylum seekers living in the community out onto the streets with no income is not exasperation, but rather horror, fury, or grief, but I have to say, exasperation was what I went with on reading the news yesterday.

I mean, is it too much to ask for the government to only be appalling on one front at a time?

Seriously, guys. *Either* you get to destroy the Great Barrier Reef, *or* you can find new ways to pick on poor people, *or* you can waste $122 million on a divisive, non-binding postal survey about marriage equality which will do absolutely no good to anyone, *or* you can continue to pursue counterproductive policies that worsen the situation for indigenous Australians, *or* you can do horrible things to asylum seekers while calling the people who help them unAustralian. But you have to choose. You don’t get to do all of them. It’s not fair, and it’s just being greedy. What are the other politicians going to do when they want to be terrible, if you’ve already done everything?

You need to learn to share. Pick one horrible cause, and leave the others for someone else to play with.

Actually, no, don’t pick one horrible cause. Pick none of them. All of those things are disgusting, and I can’t honestly believe that everyone in the Coalition is as awful as those policies make them sound. There must be someone in there with a heart, surely…

Anyway, for me, the five stages of dealing with politics are exasperation, anger, depression, writing letters to politicians, and blog posts. I’ve done the first four, so here we are with number five.

Here are a couple of quotes from the letter that was apparently sent to asylum seekers:

“You will be expected to support yourself in the community until departing Australia… If you cannot find work to support yourself in Australia you will need to return to a regional processing country or any country where you have a right of residence.

“From Monday 28 August you will need to find money each week for your own accommodation costs. From this date, you will also be responsible for all your other living costs like food, clothing and transport. You are expected to sign the Code of Behaviour when you are released into the Australian community. The Code of Behaviour outlines how you are to behave in the community.”

Marriage Equality: Enrol by 6pm tomorrow to be eligible to vote in the Postal Survey

August 23, 2017 / Catherine / 0 Comments

You can do that here.

If you are already on the electoral roll, you will have a copy of the survey sent to you at your electoral roll address. So no, you do not have to register separately for this survey. But you really do want to make sure it gets to the right place, so please, check your enrolment with the AEC, and if necessary, change your address.

If you are likely to be away from home during the period of the survey, you can register a separate address with the ABS by calling the ABS Information Line on 1800 572 113.

If you will be overseas during the period of the survey you can ask for a Secure Access Code to complete the survey online. You can do either of these things by contacting the ABS Information Line on 1800 572 113 between September 25 and October 20.

Incidentally how cool is this news from the Australian Electoral Commission?

The electoral roll increased by 36,769 between 8 & 20 August. 434,026 enrolment update transactions also processed in this timeframe #auspol

— AEC (@AusElectoralCom) August 21, 2017

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If we have to have this survey, at least we are getting more young people politically engaged. That is an absolute good, in my opinion.

Speaking of ‘if we have to have this survey’, there are currently two challenges sitting with the High Court, which I understand are due to be decided on the 5th and 6th of September. So it’s entirely possible that the only effect of this postal survey will be to increase the number of voters in the next election… I wonder how many of them will vote for the current government?

On another note, I’ve read a lot of people asking about what the actual survey will say. According to the ABS website, the question that the survey will ask is: Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?

I’m not sure how to analyse the wording. From my (mostly straight, cis perspective), it looks pretty good. I understand that the trans community has been concerned about being excluded by the wording, and I can see that being an issue. However, this wording does have the advantage of clarity for voters who may not be versed in queer theory. It also has the advantage of being difficult to deliberately misconstrue as allowing people to marry the Sydney Harbour Bridge (thanks, Eric, for that fascinating flight of fancy, and concerning insight into the way your mind works.) (Incidentally, if you really believe that people might be able to marry the Sydney Harbour Bridge under marriage equality laws, I have a bridge I could sell you.) (Thus giving a whole new meaning to Procurement…) (Sorry).

Silly bridge jokes aside, I’m not sure how you weigh the concerns of trans people against the importance of a question that is crystal clear and not open to weird interpretations. My inclination would be to favour clarity at the survey stage, and then petition fiercely for proper inclusion once we reach the point of actual legislation, but I realise that I’m not directly affected by this one, so may not be the best person to comment.

(And yes, I’m afraid that this is going to be quite a one-note politics blog over the next few weeks. It’s not that Marriage Equality is the only issue I care about, or even that it is the most important one. But it is an issue where there is a limited amount of time in which to make a difference, and one where I think change in the short term is really possible. It’s also an issue which directly affects the people I love, so I think it is a good place to pour my political energies right now. I shall go back to beating my head against the wall of political obduracy over asylum seekers once this is over. God knows, that issue isn’t going to go away any time soon.)

No, seriously, make sure you are enrolled

August 19, 2017 / Catherine / 4 Comments

This is your helpful reminder that there are only a few days left to enrol to vote if you want to have your opinion registered in the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey. Enrolments will close at 6:00 pm on Thursday, August 24th.

Here is the link to enrol or change your details. You should use this link if you have never enrolled, or if you have moved recently.

Here is the link to check your enrolment. I strongly recommend using this link to make sure that your enrolment is correct, even if you haven’t moved in a while. I do think the AEC is extremely competent and has a lot of integrity, but mistakes can happen, especially if you have a common name. It takes just a few seconds to make sure you are enrolled, so please do it.

There is more information on the process on the ABS website. In particular, there is quite a bit of information around how they are going to make voting universally accessible, including for overseas voters and silent voters. Quoting from their website:

The approaches include:

Provision of the Translation and Interpreter Service (TIS) to provide translation support to non-English speaking Australians in engaging with the Information Line;
Instructions on the reverse side of the letter sent with the survey form in 15 languages spoken by Australians on how to contact TIS.
Use of National Relay Service for those who are deaf or have a hearing or speech impairment.
Use of simple, common language to support people with lower levels of English comprehension.

In addition to delivering survey materials by post, the ABS will advertise locations in every capital city, and some regional and remote locations, where eligible persons can collect and/or return survey materials from or to an ABS officer. Locations, dates and times for where forms can be picked up will be advertised on the ABS website.

In limited circumstances, a person will be able to respond to the survey through a paperless method. This method will be made available only to Australians overseas or who cannot reasonably receive their material via post, Australians with blindness, low vision or other disability that makes the paper form a more difficult option, or those in residential aged care. Eligible Australians in these categories will be able to request a secure access code from the ABS. The secure access code is then used to provide a survey response.

There are also provisions for authorising someone to vote on your behalf.

In other words, this may be a terrible, no-good- faux-plebiscite, but the ABS does seem to be doing their level best to make sure everyone has a chance to participate in it. Which is a good thing. I’m particularly pleased that one can personally collect or deliver one’s survey – the ABS themselves acknowledge the potential problems around surveys being stolen, and acknowledge that solutions really do require people letting them know that their survey hasn’t arrived.

And now, for something completely different…

I’m probably going to be banging on about this postal survey a fair bit over the next few weeks. That’s because I have a lot of friends who are directly affected, both by the issue of marriage equality and the sort of nasty rhetoric that comes out whenever it comes up on the agenda. As a very dear friend of mine said this week, “It just takes a toll to have the same hate and inequality thrown at us every few months. It certainly has an impact on many of my friends and it requires a lot of energy to keep in good spirits when faced with so much divisiveness. No matter how much I tell myself that it is just politicians doing what they do best – encouraging hatred and toying with people’s life for their own gain – it still stirs up a lot of unpleasantness.”

There’s not a lot I can do to fix the prevailing rhetoric, at least beyond my immediate circle, but I thought it might be nice to share some links to things that might be soothing to read if, for example, one has had the terrible misfortune to have watched Sky News or listened to Cory Bernardi recently. It’s a really random mix of things based on what has crossed my path in the last few weeks, so I hope you find something here that appeals!

Return of the Zombie Plebiscite

August 10, 2017 / Catherine / 17 Comments

After such a long break, I really had hoped to come back to this blog with something inspiring and insightful and maybe a bit philosophical. A proper essay on a proper subject. Actually, I’ve been working on an essay on Australian identity on and off all year, since we seem to have been riffing on this theme from Australia Day, to changes to citizenship requirements, to what it’s OK to say on ANZAC Day, to the ever-increasing parade of Senators who are apparently surprised by their own, varied citizenships.

But you’re not getting that one, because, we seem to be back at the Marriage Equality Plebiscite again, only this time it comes with all the bonuses conferred by Australia Post and the Australian Bureau of Statistics taking on a project for which, frankly, they were not designed. (This is not a dig at their competency, it’s a simple statement of fact.)

Blame Turnbull. Or blame Abbott, if you like. (Blaming Abbott is very therapeutic, I find. It’s the one political opinion that unites my entire family, including my in-laws.)

It’s hard to know where to start with this.

Actually, no, it’s easy.

This is a short-sighted, cowardly, impractical, expensive, hypocritical, insulting, stupid move by a government that really doesn’t care how many people it hurts provided it stays in power. Also, it’s a great distraction from the terrible things we have been doing to refugees (and there will, I promise, be a post about that soon – just as soon as I think of a different way of saying the same things I’ve been saying for over a decade).

Anyway. I have a lot of opinions about this plebiscite, and I fully intend to share them, but let’s start with the basic facts, because there are things you need to know about this plebiscite whether or not you agree with me about marriage equality.

The plebiscite will be non-binding. This means that if Australia votes ‘yes’ to marriage equality, politicians can still vote ‘no’ in Parliament, and vice versa (though I don’t think anyone is expecting the latter to occur – a ‘no’ vote is likely to get the issue shelved for the duration of the current parliament).
The plebiscite will be non-compulsory. This means that you don’t have to vote if you don’t want to. I have some VERY strong opinions on this subject, but this is the Objective Facts segment of this post, so I shall sit on them for now.
The plebiscite will be run by the ABS and Australia Post. This causes me some concern, since my postie is not very reliable about delivering mail. Or rather, he does generally deliver some mail to us, but it often isn’t our mail. But that’s another story. And probably counts as opinion.
If the plebiscite goes ahead (there is a High Court Challenge being mounted against it right now), Australia Post will begin sending out ballots on September 12, and ballots will need to be received by November 5. Fans of the last election, with it’s exciting 8-week campaign, will be delighted by this opportunity for an even longer political campaign! The rest of us will be hiding under the doona until it all stops.
Enrolment to vote in the plebiscite will close on August 24. I’m putting that one in red, because it’s super important. Whether or not you plan to vote in the plebiscite, I urge you to check your enrolment now. Why? Because you might change your mind. If you were planning to vote and decide not to, enrolment won’t change that. But if you weren’t planning to vote and change your mind about that, you’ll be out of luck if you aren’t on the electoral roll. Also, if you are considering boycotting this vote, then I’m guessing that you will be very keen to help vote out the current government at the next election. You’ll need to be enrolled to do that, and you might as well get enrolled early.
But I thought the Senate blocked the plebiscite? Yeah, that confused me, too. From what I understand, the government can’t run a compulsory plebiscite through the AEC without the Senate agreeing. And the Senate did not agree. But the government is absolutely empowered to ask the Australian Bureau of Statistics to *survey* the Australian population and ask their opinions about marriage equality. So when the Senate blocked the plebiscite, the government went with Plan B instead.

The bottom line is that unless the High Court nixes this plebiscite, it will be held between September 12 and November 15, and if you want the option of voting in it, you need to enrol now.

Hugo reading 2017: Three Parts Dead, by Matt Gladstone

July 14, 2017 / Catherine / 0 Comments

The concluding episode in my Hugo reading marathon! Huzzah!

The Craft Sequence, by Matt Gladstone, consists of five novels so far. We get all of them in the Hugo Voter Pack, and, due to time constraints, I have read only the first one.

By which I mean, I have read the third one, Three Parts Dead..

Gladstone provides us with a rather endearing introduction (this one, more or less) at the start of his omnibus, explaining that he wanted to explore different cities and cultures in his world, from the point of view of the people who lived in them, rather than having his protagonists journey from place to place, interacting with it. So rather than doing a consecutive series featuring the same characters, he wrote five books set in the same world, and planned for each of them to stand alone. And he started writing in the middle, in terms of the world’s history, so he numbered that book three (he also, helpfully, made sure that each book had a number in its title, so that people could easily figure out the chronology).

For reasons that I’m not entirely sure I understand, he decided to set out the omnibus in publication order, not chronological order. Hence, I read the third one, which is also the first one, and which is called Three Parts Dead.

This is a world which is recovering from the God Wars. It’s not entirely clear exactly what happened in these wars, but it seems that the Gods fought the Craftsmen and Craftswomen, and many of them perished in the fight. Craftsmen are necromancers and lawyers; the Gods have amazing powers, but these tend to be controlled by contracts with other Gods, cities, or undying Kings. When they die, they can, in some circumstances, be resurrected, zombie-like, to fulfil their contracts in particular ways, but they aren’t really themselves anymore. It’s fascinating, convoluted, and confusing.

At the beginning of this story, Kos Everburning, the God who rules and protects Alt Coloumb (I had a lot of trouble with that name, it kept making me think of Control-Alt-Delete, or Alt-Right), is dead, possibly murdered. Tara, who has just begun working for the international necromantic firm of Kelethres, Albrecht, and Ao, and her supervisor, Ms Kevarian are contracted to defend Kos in court, and make a case for his resurrection. He needs defending, because if he has died due to negligence in his contracts, then he is liable to his various debtors. Their opponent is Tara’s former Professor and nemesis, Denovo, who was also responsible for turning the city’s former moon goddess, and Kos’s consort, Seril, into Justice forty years earlier. Justice contains Seril’s power, but none of her personality or her spirit – this is a worst-case-scenario for a resurrected God.

The plot is complicated, and we mostly see it through the eyes of Tara, the junior necromancer, and Abelard, a novice priest of Kos, and the one who was on altar duty when Kos died. The magic is quite horrifying. For example, we occasionally see the world through the eyes of Catherine Elle, who works as a Blacksuit – one of Justice’s minions. Blacksuits have no will of their own when they are on duty, and are controlled absolutely by Justice. This is something of a high, and whenever Catherine is off duty, she seeks other sources for the high, which… is often not ideal.

I don’t really know how to review this book. It’s hard to unpick it at the edges without risking unravelling it completely. It’s complex, and cleverly thought out, and full of politics, the characterisation is great, there are moments of dry humour, and the ending is satisfying – though it did require a fair bit of the aftermath and prologue to make sense of what had happened. Also, Gladstone managed to make the ending work without cheating, which I initially thought he had done.

I’ll definitely be reading the other books, and I’m now trying to decide whether this goes below or above October Daye on my ballot. It’s definitely less dark, which is a plus; on the other hand, I know all the October Daye books are pretty good, and I don’t know where this series goes from here.

On reflection, I think my ballot goes Vorkosigan, Craft Sequence, Temeraire, October Daye, Rivers of London, The Expanse. Temeraire might have been more fun than the Craft Sequence, but I think this was much cleverer.

Here ends the Hugo reading for 2017! I may read the zines for my own interest, but there’s no way I’m going to have time to review them. And it would be nice to read something for enjoyment, rather than critically and with the intent to compare it with everything else on the ballot.

Hugo reading 2017: Best Series

July 14, 2017 / Catherine / 0 Comments

“What’s this?”, you say? “Best series? What happened to best novel?”

Well. I was supposed to read Becky Chambers’ book, A Closed and Common Orbit next, but I just thought I’d have a teensy look at the first book in Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series, His Majesty’s Dragon, and the next thing I knew it was 2am and I was 200+ pages in and realising that I had to work in the morning.

(OK, I realised that well before this point, but I just didn’t care…)

So I wound up reading that first. A quick note on the Best Series for me, by the way. I’ve actually read everything in three of the series (serieses?) nominated this year, so I already know how they are ranked in relation to each other, and will write about them briefly here, but it’s hard to review an entire series, so I probably can’t do them justice.

Hugo reading 2017: A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers

July 13, 2017 / Catherine / 0 Comments

Last novel! Hooray! And I liked this one quite a lot, which means that now I have a problem at the top of my ballot…

But let’s get on with the book.

A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers, is a very sweet, kindly sort of book. It feels like an epilogue, and I believe it takes place after another book set in the same universe. There is not, now I think about it, a lot of obvious conflict. It still kept me reading until after 1am on a work night because I needed to know what happened to everyone.

The book tells two stories in parallel. The first story centres around Lovelace / Sidra, a ship’s artificial intelligence system who is now trapped in a synthetic human body. And she does feel trapped by it – she no longer has unlimited memory and access to the Linkages, which seem to be a futuristic extrapolation of the world wide web. Her narrative arc is partly about coming to terms with her situation and figuring out how people who are not AIs (humans or aliens) work, and partly about her remaking her situation to a point where she can be content with it and have a purpose that appeals to her.

She is helped in this by Pepper, an engineer who was once a slave called Jane 23, and the second story is hers. This story starts when Jane 23 is ten, and, almost accidentally, escapes the factory which has been her entire world (quite literally – she does not know what the sky is, and is alarmed by this gigantic ‘room’ without walls). Running from feral dogs, Jane 23 is rescued by a stranded spaceship and its AI, Owl. Owl takes her in, and… basically teaches her how to be human. And, over time, how to repair the ship and get off this planet. This may sound unlikely, but Jane has been working to sort and repair broken machinery for her entire life as a slave, so while she has few other skills, she is very, very good with engineering. I must admit, while I liked Sidra a lot, and sympathised with her struggles, it was Jane’s story that kept me up until 1am wondering if – and how – she would be OK.

Note that Jane’s story is fairly disturbing – the treatment of the child slaves is chilling (we never do find out what happens when they turn twelve, but I suspect they are killed at that point), and she spends years scavenging for metal and for food, and mostly killing and eating feral dogs. Which is something you may have a visceral reaction to. (I just tried replacing feral dogs with feral cats in that sentence and was completely horrified and grossed out, so, yeah.)

With half the story being about an AI raised by humans and the other half about a human raised by an AI, Chambers is clearly saying a few things about what makes us human, but I’m not entirely sure what those things are. It’s clear that humanity is not limited to humans; the AI, Owl, is clearly appalled by Jane 23’s treatment, which, while it was at the hands of AIs called the Mothers, is clearly something that was decided and organised by the humans. Compassion, empathy and friendship, are clearly important things, and things that AIs can share with humans and aliens. Another important thread is the ability to lie, something that Sidra can’t do at the start of the story due to programming limitations. Once she is able to do so, it seemed to me that her relationships with humans and aliens changed for the better. But it is clear that AIs have free will, at least to an extent. Sidra can choose what she wants to do and how to spend her time, provided it does not go against one of her programming restrictions.

I don’t know where to put this book on the ballot. It was far and away the most enjoyable one to read of the novels in this category, but I don’t think that it was as creative as Ninefox Gambit or The Obelisk Gate. I still want to put it at the top of the list, because I want to encourage books that I enjoy reading. But I’m not sure if it ought to be first or second. Then again, I suspect a LOT of people will put Ninefox Gambit first (I’m expecting that one to win, actually), so maybe it doesn’t need my vote? I shall have to ponder this.