Those stefnal moments

[redbird]

I was reading rozk's journal, and came across the line "when I was twelve and still male" and, knowing what that meant, still had the thought of a species that changed gender as they age, and started wondering what it would be like if some people changed earlier than others.

Comments

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good story idea. :-)

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

Have you read Tepper's SF novel, The Fresco? Her alien beings (can't recall the name of the people, alas) had a system sort of like that.

[redbird]

I concluded after two or three books that I dislike Tepper because of the way she rigs what she claims to be presenting as moral dilemmas.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

I dislike her, but I still read her: I enjoy her alien worlds, I just wish she didn't let her agenda interfere so obviously with the plot.

[kiya]

Someone's Martians are like that. Can't remember which.

Only the young ones are female, I think. . .

[redbird]

It's a throwaway bit in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.

[kiya]

I thought that might be it, but when i wrote it down I became convinced that I was wrong.

[boojum.livejournal.com]

It's also in Red Planet, although most of it was trimmed out because it came too close to talking about alien sex. (I remember skimming the trimmed bits in a book in Powell's, but that doesn't narrow it down much.)

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

That is intersting.

Remember Asimov's Gods Themselves, who start off as male and female "juveniles", till three merge sexually-sort-of to become a sexless adult? One of his more intriguing ideas i thought.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the three sexes didn't quite map to male, female, and female, which was more interesting.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

What book is it - I want to say it's by Mary Gentle, but might be mixing things up - where the visitor from earth wonders why people use a different pronoun for children, then discovers that children don't develop gender until puberty, and the one travelling with them is embarrassed at still being child?

[lisajulie.livejournal.com]

Mary Gentle did this in "Ancient Light" and the follow-up.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Uh, Ancient Light was itself the followup to Golden Witchbreed (and GW is by far the better novel).

[lisajulie.livejournal.com]

/me smites her head against the wall

you are of course correct on both counts

I plead the fact that my books are organized to "optimize storage for space not for access time". (from the newfs man page - modified)

[lisajulie.livejournal.com]

Early Sherri Tepper is less "precherish" than later Tepper.

Her "After Long Silence" has a species that changes gender with age, although that change is not critical to the plot line.

Still, worth reading, IMHO.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

Not quite what you're thinking,. but related:
Gardner, James Alan; Commitment Hour (http://www.radix.net/~dglenn/me/books.html#rev013); 1998 Avon Books, New York, NY; ISBN: 1-56865-687-4 15.

Kids change each year, and have to choose at twenty.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is a neat book and my favourite (so far) of his books.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Thanks for linking to rozk. Not only was that a lovely bit of writing, but it also lead me to finding Avedon's journal!

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

I did that too! The first part, not the second, so thank you for taking it that crucial step further. That would make an interesting teenage angst story.

(Actually I'm not 100 percent sure what it meant. I just assumed some flavor of transgendered and moved on.)

Isn't there a short story about some aliens who have three stages of life, and one is male and one is female and the third is something they don't know they become until they become it? Or something?

I am very clear and precise. :)

Mer

[redbird]

Right. The wonders of backstory. Roz is a male-to-female transsexual (which I knew because we have numerous friends in common in UK sf fandom, and which she is completely open about).

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Gotcha, thanks. I only know Roz through her awesome book on Buffy and various LJ friends in common, so it had never come up before.

Mer