Download Audio Books from Audible.

Customer reviews

5 star		44%
4 star		33%
3 star		14%
2 star		6%
1 star		3%

How are ratings calculated?

Review this product

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Andy Goldman

Fascinating What If re Gender Roles, but Poorly Scanned Ebook

Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a fascinating book about a small village on future Earth where children switch gender each year until having to choose "Male, Female, or both?" upon reaching adulthood. Part of the story is unlocking the mystery of that setup, but that's not the major part of the book (or it wasn't for me). Instead it's an interesting "what if?" to examine gender roles, belief, and traditions.

While it exists as part of the larger League of Peoples series, this could easily be read as a standalone novel.

I will note that the Open Road Media ebook, just like Expendable before it, suffers from the ebook having been scanned from a physical copy. Many scanning errors were left in the book, with the worst ones being ones that even an automatic spellcheck would have cleaned up, like "3ther" instead of "other" and "Doit" instead of a character named "Dorr." There are 20+ of these and each one is a distraction from the story. My contacts with the author and Open Road Media regarding the ebook errors for Expendable received no response, so I won't bother this time.

cm4bleenmb

food for thought

Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2016

Verified Purchase

I received this book as a book club selection back when it was first published in the 90s, but had no idea it was part of a series. I found the premise of the book fascinating but made the mistake of loaning it to a friend and never got it back. Every once in a while something in the news would make me think of this book and wish I could read it again, but it wasn't until a couple of months ago that I impulsively searched Amazon and it actually came up. Now I think I need to read some of his other work.

I had forgotten what a self-centered jerk the main character, Fullin, could be, and some other details, but the basic idea behind the story is still very striking. It was also fun to look at the map and figure out that the real-life area Tober Cove is based on is not far from where I grew up in Michigan.

The writing is better than I remembered, but what I like most about this book is that it just makes you THINK. It makes you think about how we justify prejudices, how we rationalize not following rules, and besides the obvious physical attributes, what really differentiates men and women? The book itself doesn't go into serious depth, but unless you're that rare reader who doesn't imagine being in the story, wondering, what would I do? how would I feel?, this book will challenge you.

Christina Paige

Male, Female, Neuter Me

Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2013

Verified Purchase

What if you could alternate between being a male version of yourself and a female version of yourself? That's what happens on a regular basis in the one village of Tober Cove, 25th Century Earth. Each year, a ceremony ushers in the change as all the children and young adults switch gender, up until the age of 21, Commitment Day, choosing day. After that, your gender is fixed.
You'd think men and women would get along better as a result of having worn both sets of chromosomes, but the protagonists still manage to make themselves and each other miserable. Both 20 years old, on the verge of Commitment Eve, Fullin and Cappie have born children together, each taking a turn as mother, each taking a turn as father, and each of them has a promising offer for their future careers, but their relationship has so much under the surface that something is bound to explode.
You'd also thing that gender and sexual orientation would be a non-issue for the people of Tober Cove, but again, humans have a genius for making themselves and each other miserable, so there are still outcasts, pariahs. The 'neuts', the rare individuals who opt for androgyny, are treated with loathing and contempt by most of the villagers.
This is an amazing, extraordinary exploration of how gender affects identity and how hard it is to make choices when not all choices are acceptable in your community. Not always easy to read, but for anyone interested in such issues, a real mind's eye opener. Strongly recommended.

illiandantic

Very Good, But is it Really the 2nd in a Series?

Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2013

Verified Purchase

James Alan Gardner's "Commitment Hour" pretty much has the same strong points as the previous book in the series ( Expendable (League of Peoples) ): the writing style and structure are very different from most books, the characters are not something you normally see, and the concepts underlying the story are original. The book is definitely different, interesting, and easy to read. However, there are two issues I have with the book that cause me to drop my rating a star. First and most importantly, every one of the characters (except, possibly, for the main character's alter-ego (who we see only for a few pages)) is highly unlikable. There's not one of them I really care about. They all have deep flaws and the main character is, to put it bluntly, a jerk. The theme of the book (male/female/both) works with these faults just a bit, but there really should be a lot more of that to mitigate how petty the characters are. Second, I'm not very happy with the book being labeled as the second in the "League of Peoples" series. None of the character or institutions from the first book are present in this book at all. The only common elements are the existence of the League and Earth's situation. Both of those things are fully explained in the book, itself. I don't know whether this will be the norm for the other books in the series. But, I really was looking forward to more of a continuation from the first book.

A note about the Kindle edition: unlike the first book, this book has many OCR/editing/spelling issues. I've seen far worse, so this really wasn't that bad. But, it's something to note.

And, finally, the seven books currently in Gardner's League of Peoples series are:

1. Expendable (League of Peoples)
2. Commitment Hour (League of Peoples)
3. Vigilant (League of Peoples)
4. Hunted (League of Peoples)
5. Ascending (League of Peoples)
6. Trapped (League of Peoples)
7. Radiant (League of Peoples)