Gee, it's been a long time... DARK WATER'S EMBRACE came out in 1998. But I have google alert me whenever it stumbles across reviews of my books, and this was in my inbox today, from the blog The Swivet: "Unrecognized Masterpiece: Dark Water’s Embrace by Stephen Leigh. I originally posted this bit on La Gringa & Co. on October 15th, 2005. (So I guess techincally this is a Swivet re-run!) But recently I found myself discussing this book again with a friend, so I thought I'd dig this out and point y'all to a book that I think was seriously overlooked when it was first published..."

She goes on to say: "In Dark Water’s Embrace, Leigh posits the idea of a third biological gender - the “mid-male” - nature’s answer to a low birth-rate on an environmentally unfriendly planet somewhere in humanity’s distant future. Much like Ursula LeGuin’s extraordinary LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, Leigh takes preconceived ideas about gender and sexuality and tosses them out the window, while at the same time doing something that so many sci-fi writers fail at: creating characters with whom we can genuinely empathize. If you can find a copy out there in a used bookstore somewhere, grab it!"

Ah, that makes me feel all warm and gooey! :-) It's nice to know that the book stuck with someone after all these years...

From: [identity profile] lagringa.livejournal.com


Hey there!

Thanks for stopping by The Swivet! Please come by again!

Yes, I push your books on people whenever I can; it's rare that I find a SF/F book so well-written and intelligent that I re-read it regularly, but yours is one of them (like Ender's Game!). An amazing book.

Are you working on anything new currently?


From: [identity profile] nicola314159.livejournal.com


I'm not at all surprised it stuck with someone, it's an amazing book! My copy is in storage somewhere in Melbourne but when we're finally reunited next year I will have to read it again... and press it on some more people too.

From: [identity profile] cornellbox.livejournal.com


Cool coincidence. I'm reading it (Dark Water's Embrace, that is) right now. (Well, not right now, right now. But you know what I mean...) Got it earlier this summer, and right now I'm about 100 pages in.

From: [identity profile] rawdon.livejournal.com


Well hey, it's been one of my favorite books since I read it when it first came out! Way more fun than The Left Hand of Darkness!

From: [identity profile] haniaw.livejournal.com


How nice to get such positive feedback - even after all this time. Dark Water's Embrace is one of my favourites from all your books.

From: [identity profile] tshaile.livejournal.com


Now I'm going to have go out and get it!
.