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A review by shanaqui
Cyborg by Danya Glabau, Laura Forlano
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
Danya Glabau and Laura Forlano's Cyborg is not really about the sci-fi concept of being a cyborg. It's a bit more down-to-earth and in the present, looking at the roles of low-paid workers and the risk of being replaced by (or at least forced to work with machines), and also the situation that people with disabilities are in with using prosthetics, reliant on technology that could suddenly stop working, etc. It's an accessible introduction to "cyborg theory", though it feels like reading very academic literary theory in some of the language choices, which makes it a tad less accessible. (Although I have my MA, I am not a great fan of reading literary theory.)
It does briefly touch on cyborgs in fiction, mentioning Seven of Nine but nothing more up to date, and basically dismissing Seven of Nine as not being really useful to discuss cyborg theory. I think it might behoove them to go a bit further than Star Trek: Voyager, which finished over a decade ago at this point. Characters like Ann Leckie's Breq and Martha Wells' Murderbot are relevant, I think, and have a lot to engage with even if you agree that Seven of Nine isn't a worthwhile locus for discussion about the concept of cyborgs. There's a lot of very recent fiction with very thoughtful things to say about the line between humans and machines, and when you know that, it feels a bit disingenuous to go no further than Seven of Nine.
That said, also entirely possible that they don't really know anything about modern SF writing, and seriously think that Seven of Nine is where it's at. A lot of people don't consider SF "serious enough". So I'm not saying it's necessarily deliberate as an omission (nor that they should definitely have looked at Murderbot and Breq in particular). It's just telling when someone uses such an out of date reference point and act like that says something important.
That all sounds pretty critical, but I did find this interesting, slim though it is.
It does briefly touch on cyborgs in fiction, mentioning Seven of Nine but nothing more up to date, and basically dismissing Seven of Nine as not being really useful to discuss cyborg theory. I think it might behoove them to go a bit further than Star Trek: Voyager, which finished over a decade ago at this point. Characters like Ann Leckie's Breq and Martha Wells' Murderbot are relevant, I think, and have a lot to engage with even if you agree that Seven of Nine isn't a worthwhile locus for discussion about the concept of cyborgs. There's a lot of very recent fiction with very thoughtful things to say about the line between humans and machines, and when you know that, it feels a bit disingenuous to go no further than Seven of Nine.
That said, also entirely possible that they don't really know anything about modern SF writing, and seriously think that Seven of Nine is where it's at. A lot of people don't consider SF "serious enough". So I'm not saying it's necessarily deliberate as an omission (nor that they should definitely have looked at Murderbot and Breq in particular). It's just telling when someone uses such an out of date reference point and act like that says something important.
That all sounds pretty critical, but I did find this interesting, slim though it is.