Finally got around reading the story. I liked it, and finishing it gave me a wild version of that “whoa” reaction you get when you’ve doing something emotionally immersive and then switch to some entirely different activity.
I read Key as mostly genderless, possibly a bit female because the name sounded feminine to me. Trellis, maybe slightly male, though that may also have been from me afterwards reading the comments about Trellis feeling slightly male and those contaminating the memory.
I do have to admit that the genderless pronouns were a bit distracting. I think it was the very fact that they were shortened version of “real” pronouns that felt so distracting—my mind kept assuming that it had misread them and tried to reread. In contrast, I never had an issue with Egan’s use of ve / ver / vis / vis / verself.
Finally got around reading the story. I liked it, and finishing it gave me a wild version of that “whoa” reaction you get when you’ve doing something emotionally immersive and then switch to some entirely different activity.
I read Key as mostly genderless, possibly a bit female because the name sounded feminine to me. Trellis, maybe slightly male, though that may also have been from me afterwards reading the comments about Trellis feeling slightly male and those contaminating the memory.
I do have to admit that the genderless pronouns were a bit distracting. I think it was the very fact that they were shortened version of “real” pronouns that felt so distracting—my mind kept assuming that it had misread them and tried to reread. In contrast, I never had an issue with Egan’s use of ve / ver / vis / vis / verself.