Book Review: The Sharing Knife Part 4: Horizon

Horizon by Lois McMaster Bujold
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book 3: Passage, dealt with Dag and Fawn's journey down the rivers Grace and Grey and the experiences, good, bad, and ugly, that they have along the way. When Horizon opens, they have come to the end of their river journey, in the seaside town of Greymouth. Here Dag meets Lakewalkers of a nearby camp who are able to direct him to a medicine maker of great repute, and he is at last able to begin an apprenticeship. But the usual problem, Lakewalker non-acceptance of his farmer wife Fawn, asserts itself, and it's not long before Fawn and Dag are on the road again.

I found this to be the weakest of all the Sharing Knife books. The problem of too many characters, some of whom never get developed, cropped up to some extent in the previous book, but here it's a good deal worse. By mid-book, there are so many people tagging along with the party that it's hard for the reader to remember many of them, especially since a good five or six are little more than names, and four or so others get such short shrift that their motivations are unclear, their behaviour inconsistent, their characters murky—Calla especially. I think the book would have been better if she had been edited out altogether. I also would have edited out that poor family in the wagon; I don't think they added anything of value. Granted that there have to be some farmers around for the climactic malice encounter, they don't need to be that darned numerous. The excess of characters also bogs down the story, especially around three-quarters through, and the proceedings get downright dull for a while.

Which is a shame, because pulled down by all that bloat is a fine story, with many dramatic and even horrific elements, and once again, Fawn's talent for thinking outside the box proves essential. I mentioned Fawn's increasing domestic yearnings in my review of book 3. That does not change in book 4. Fawn still wants to settle down and have an iron cook-stove and babies. Yet she can still come through in the crunch, and so really, though fans of kick-ass women in fantasy fiction are unlikely to be pleased, I think it's for the best that she is presented this way; she makes for an unusual, and even unusually well-rounded, female heroine. And though Dag and Fawn may seem to have somewhat disparate needs, they manage to get them all met in the end while remaining together.

Speaking of Fawn having babies, there is a consistent theme of birth and pregnancy throughout the series, which culminates in an unexpected and bizarre fashion in Horizon. I haven't yet managed to work up a good analysis of this theme, but I feel it could and should be done, and that Freudian psychologists could very well have a field day with some of the imagery. Perhaps later I'll manage to come up with something.

I wonder if the book's problems may be due in part to its being fourth in a quadrilogy. It is an unusual form, and there may be a good reason for that; perhaps it is an unwieldy one as well. And of course, the longer and more complex a story is, the harder it is to wrap up. But wrapped up it is, neatly enough at the last. Whatever flaws Horizon has, it is still worth reading to see how well everything is resolved at the end.

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I ate cricket! (In chip form, mind you)

We had a treat for lunch today: my cricket chips, which I pre-ordered way back in mid-winter, arrived this morning. Amusingly called Chirps, these chips come in three flavours and are the creation of a new company called Six Foods.

As you can see in the picture, the chips came with a nice canvas tote bag. I quite like the slogan on it: "Bug Appétit." I'll definitely be carrying that around in public! Also included was a sweet handwritten letter, thanking us "Bug Lovers" for supporting the company, and also providing some interesting information on their process from dream to product:

We've worked with a food pilot plant for eight months to create the recipe & it has been a huge learning experience for us. We've experimented with 50 different recipes, obscure ingredients (teff anyone?), and called over 400 manufacturers till we found the right partners.

Thank you for being patient with us through this process. As a token of our love + appreciation, there's an extra Six Foods tote for you.

Bug Appétit!
Laura, Meryl, + Rose

Wow, Laura, Meryl and Rose, you are some hard-working entrepreneurs! Good for you.

The Chirps packaging advertises that Chirps contain "3X more protein than regular potato chips," but really, they should be compared not to potato chips but to tortilla-bean chips. So I'm doing that. According to caloriecount.com, Kettle Tortilla Black Bean chips contain 3g of protein, 18g of carbohydrates and 7g of fat. Beanitos are another chip worth comparing with, as they also contain beans, although not corn. According to the Beanitos web site, Black Bean Beanitos have 4g of protein, 15g of carbohydrate and 7g of fat. Chirps chips contain 6g of protein, 12g of carbohydrates and 6g of fat. So yes, Chirps win, in terms of having the most protein. They also have less fat and a better carb to protein ratio.

At this point you may be thinking, "Never mind all that, how do they taste?"

When I ordered Chirps, I opted for the variety pack so that we could try all three flavours: natural, cheddar and BBQ. So we had to decide which one to open first. I thought the natural bag first would be a good choice, as it would allow us to better appreciate the unadulterated flavour of cricket. So we did that, and... they're quite tasty. Better than original Beanitos, I would say. They have little black dots in them, but those are the chia seeds, not the crickets. No visible bits of cricket can be detected in this product, so if you're squeamish about that, you can set your mind at ease. They look and taste somewhat like tortilla bean chips, but with a slight difference, and I'm not sure how much of that is the chia seeds and how much is the cricket. Also, they are stiffer and crunchier than the typical tortilla chip. In terms of hardness, they remind me of Mary's Crackers.

So I can recommend Chirps by Six Foods as a gentle introduction to the world of bug-eating for anyone who would like to take the plunge but is not ready to stuff a whole cricket or mealworm in their mouth, a la Millennium Farms. That's quite advanced for us weeny Westerners, and I'm happy to leave that for later.

Ingredients in Chirps, Natural Flavour

• Navy Beans
• Sunflower/ Safflower Oil
• Corn Flour
• Chia Seeds
• Pea Flour
• Cricket Flour (Gryllodes Sigillatus and/or Acheta Domesticus)
• Salt

Allergy Alert

The Chirps packaging advises that "If you have crustacean shellfish allergies, you may also be sensitive to crickets."

Enforced Hugging and the Easter Bunny

I witnessed an ugly scene recently, at an Easter brunch buffet. Not a locale where one would expect to see an ugly scene, but then, I'm sure not everyone would see it as I did.

This Easter buffet had a giant bunny on hand, strolling about. What I mean, of course, is that some unfortunate fellow was paid to put on a ridiculous bunny-humanoid costume.

This is apparently something that has become a tradition while I wasn't looking. I was at the mall yesterday and there was a lineup of parents with their children waiting to sit in he Easter Bunny's lap. Is Santa Claus not enough anymore? Who decided that children didn't have enough opportunities as it was to be compelled to sit in the lap of a total stranger? At least with Santa Claus, you know you're going to get presents out of it. (Leaving aside the fact that that's a lie and you get the presents anyway.) What are kids getting out of sitting in the lap of the Easter Bunny?

Anyway, an extended family sat at a nearby table. There were at least three generations together, and one little boy. The guy in the bunny costume came along, and soon the little boy was standing next to him, fidgeting, while the adults took pictures. The coercion started immediately. "Give the Easter Bunny a hug. Go on, give him a hug. Go ahead, give the bunny a hug." And so on.

It was obvious that the child had no desire to hug the stranger in the grotesque bunny-humanoid costume, and equally obvious that his mother was not going to let up until he did. I tried to be of some aid&8212;"You don't have to hug him if you don't want to!" I called out from my table a couple of times&8212;but what authority did I have, compared to his mother? And the Easter Bunny was playing along, spreading his arms and waiting. Eventually, the boy gave in, moved into the waiting arms. I looked away.

"It's all right, he can hug the Easter Bunny," the mother said afterward&8212;aimed at me, I suspect&8212;"I don't want him to be afraid of things."

Of course no one wants their child to be overly fearful. But what does that have to do with hugging total strangers? What does that have to do with teaching a child that his own feelings are of no importance?

I think that as a society, we have a view of children as cartoons, as not real. I don't see how else we could possibly make such bizarre demands of them. I imagine that the mother's inner cartoon is of a child that loves everybody and wants to go about hugging everybody and everything. One does occasionally encounter children like this, but the nice thing about them is that they are acting out of their own inclinations. They're not doing it because someone told them they have to, but because they feel like it, and that makes all the difference.

That mother was probably not thinking of the issue of sexual predators. People don't want to think of such things, because it's unpleasant, so they put it out of their minds and go on doing the same things their parents did. If the mother had thought about sexual predators, as she should have, she might have asked herself this question: which child is more at risk from a predator, one who's been allowed to go with his own inclinations about physical expressions of affection, or the one who's been repeatedly coerced into providing insincere hugs and kisses?

Back in the 80's, it was starting to dawn on people that we have a child sexual abuse problem. And so, books and courses began to appear that tried to teach children to differentiate between touches that feel good, and touches that don't, and to be able to say, "No." There has been little discussion about why this is something we even need to teach our children. Aren't children born with the ability to discern what feels good and what doesn't? Of course they are, and they have no trouble saying "No" at age two, when they enthusiastically say "No" to everyone and everything. Until they are taught that their feelings are irrelevant and they have to kiss and hug Auntie and Grandpa and the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus and promiscuously give unfelt affection to everyone their Mommy orders them to.

So the books and courses have to fight an uphill battle. They're trying to teach one thing, and the average parent is teaching the opposite.

I'll tell you what breaks my heart. Children have so few defenses as it is. They don't have size, they don't have weight, they don't have authority in the world and they don't have easy, articulate speech. All they have, to begin with, is their clear understanding of their feelings and their ability to say "No!" And parents like Easter Bunny Mother are working hard to rob them of even that.

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Further Reading

I did a search on Google Scholar to see if any research links forced displays of affection with greater vulnerability to sexual predators. I didn't find any research, but I did find this: Why Your Child Should Never Be Forced to Hug a Relative.

Also this: Parent Tips for Preventing and Identifying Child Sexual Abuse. Note that bullet point number two says, "Children most susceptible to sexual abuse have obedient, compliant and respectful personalities."