Looking Through Lace eBook Ruth Nestvold
Download As PDF : Looking Through Lace eBook Ruth Nestvold 
"Thought provoking"; "Great, classic sci-fi novella...I want more!" "Very enjoyable read!"
- Reader reviews.As the only woman on the first contact team, xenolinguist Toni Donato expected her assignment on Christmas would be to analyze the secret women's language -- but then the chief linguist begins to sabotage her work. What is behind it? Why do the men and women have separate languages in the first place? What Toni learns turns everything she thought they knew on its head.
Originally published in Asimov's in 2003, "Looking Through Lace" was a finalist for the Tiptree and Sturgeon awards. The Italian translation won the Premio Italia for best work of speculative fiction in translation in 2007.
Reviews
"'Looking Through Lace' by Ruth Nestvold is terrific science fiction. I want to read more of this writer's stories."
- Andi Shechter in January Magazine
"... 'Looking Through Lace' by Ruth Nestvold [is] an intelligent, complex story illustrating the difficulties of learning and understanding the nuances and intricacies of an alien language and culture, particularly one so similar to our own that we persist in viewing it (wrongly) on our terms.... The reason ... why there are so many differences between the languages of both men and women are logical and well thought out, and the final revelation about the true nature of the relationship between the women and the men comes as a nice twist."
- Phil Friel in Tangent Online
"Two strong stories stand out from the rest of the fiction. Ruth Nestvold’s 'Looking Through Lace' rests on a relatively simple reversal or secret, but the rest of it is solidly written and convincing. The main character is a young female xenolinguist named Toni -- she is called to a planet named Christmas to study the Mejan culture. Nestvold presents a neat puzzle, and she takes the time to present it just-so."
- James Schellenberg in Challenging Destiny
About the author
Ruth Nestvold’s short stories have appeared in numerous markets, including Asimov’s, F&SF, Baen’s Universe, Strange Horizons, Realms of Fantasy, and Gardner Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction. Her fiction has been nominated for the Nebula, Tiptree, and Sturgeon Awards. In 2007, the Italian translation of her novella “Looking Through Lace” won the “Premio Italia” award for best international work. Her novel Flamme und Harfe appeared in translation with the German imprint of Random House, Penhaligon, in 2009 and has since been translated into Dutch and Italian. She maintains a web site at www.ruthnestvold.com.
Looking Through Lace eBook Ruth Nestvold
I like how much easier it has gotten for me to read novellas. Yay for ebooks, because I never read Asimov's.I thought this highly polished story was a perfect example of how to work through one's own expectations. At first, our viewpoint character arrives on the planet Christmas, expecting pretty much what people told her. She got invited because she is the only female xenolinguist available, and it appears that the women have a second language that the men don't use.
She does all the things a sophomore expert does -- starts figuring things out, falls for a local, gets squashed by her boss, the usual. The twist is when she starts using her linguistic skills to tease out the cultural differences between what she has and expects, and what is actually going on.
I spotted the twist coming, but that didn't ruin my enjoyment watching her figure out what was going on.
Read if: You like watching people have to re-evaluate their assumptions, your are having a bad week with your boss.
Skip if: Linguistics scare you - you don't have to understand the details, but they are a big part of the story. You were hoping for a full book.
Product details
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Looking Through Lace eBook Ruth Nestvold Reviews
So how interesting can it be to read about a woman learning a new language? Well, with the expert grammar skills of the author (she is an English professor), it's as interesting as humanly possible. This novella length science fiction story started out fairly slow. Its short length is a positive, as I'm not sure I could handle a novel on this topic. That said, it was fasinating watch Toni defragment an alien language using skills that linguistics use in a way that a non linguist can understand and enjoy. Besides the science fiction, there is also a bit of mystery as Toni discovers why her boss is being so difficult and hindering her progress. If you love anthropology or learning how to decode a language, this would be an awesome novella to check out. There is some romance, but due to length it isn't too developed. If you're looking for more of a thriller or paranormal story, then this probably isn't a good choice for you.
Toni Donato is a xenolinguist, normally working behind the scenes, cataloging inflection, grammar, and structure of alien languages in massive databases, but she's finally gotten her big break to do field research. On the planet, Christmas, the women appear to have a distinct, secret language from the men, and as the only female xenolinguist available, Toni is chosen for the research job. She's excited to be a part of the first contact team, but that enthusiasm takes a hit when the chief linguist on the project blocks her every move, and sabotages her research efforts. Culture and language misunderstandings abound, and Toni finds she needs to overcome her basic assumptions about the inhabitants in order to understand them and gain their trust.
This book is a sci-fi novella (about 55 pages) that would especially appeal to those with a love of the academic. World building is excellent, and the author does a great job of showing how Toni teases out the differences in a language, using context, culture, and structure to break the code. I found it all fascinating, but those looking for more of an action-oriented sci-fi might think Looking Through Lace moves rather slowly. The "alien" race on the planet Christmas are hominids, and it's easy to see them as "just like us" when they look "just like us". These assumptions need to be recognized and tossed aside in order for Toni to truly understand the language, society, and culture of the inhabitants. Fun stuff! There's a mystery Why is Toni's boss hindering her work? Why do the women have a separate, secret language? How do the linguistics of this culture tie in with their social structure? There's a little hint of a romance, but it doesn't drive the story and drifts off at the end. That was fine with me as I don't need to have romance in ALL the novels I read.
I wish I had time for a longer and more in-depth review, but I'm quite busy at the moment. However, I had to say something.
Simple prose, telling a complex story in a very short space. One gets the feeling of having read a two-hundred page novel, though the story is much shorter than that. That's how well Nestvold makes use of her words. Good characters, multi-layered interactions and conflict. Like all good science fiction, Looking Through Lace takes a scientific discipline and applies it in discussing something of the human condition. In this case, Nestvold uses linguistics, creating in the process a page-turner of a mystery. The only comparison I can think to make is Jack Vance's splendid The Languages of Pao for how language plays such a vital role not only in communication but also in both deriving and defining the identity of a civilization.
Looking Through Lace is the kind of story that made me start reading sf. I would not hesitate to rank it amongst the best novellas sf has produced, especially in the last fifty years. I can't recommend it enough.
I like how much easier it has gotten for me to read novellas. Yay for ebooks, because I never read Asimov's.
I thought this highly polished story was a perfect example of how to work through one's own expectations. At first, our viewpoint character arrives on the planet Christmas, expecting pretty much what people told her. She got invited because she is the only female xenolinguist available, and it appears that the women have a second language that the men don't use.
She does all the things a sophomore expert does -- starts figuring things out, falls for a local, gets squashed by her boss, the usual. The twist is when she starts using her linguistic skills to tease out the cultural differences between what she has and expects, and what is actually going on.
I spotted the twist coming, but that didn't ruin my enjoyment watching her figure out what was going on.
Read if You like watching people have to re-evaluate their assumptions, your are having a bad week with your boss.
Skip if Linguistics scare you - you don't have to understand the details, but they are a big part of the story. You were hoping for a full book.
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