Well, by psychological realism, I don't mean that the characters are necessarily believable, but that they are depicted as having psychological motivations for their behavior, rather than simply acting according to type, as in fables or fairy tales. Simmea is my favorite of the narrators, but she's in many ways hard to believe.
I don't think the issue of infanticide is mentioned again. Childbirth was one of the places where I could not sustain my willing suspension of disbelief: over a thousand young women all giving birth around the same time, attended by one doctor and a bunch of untrained midwives, many of whom had never given birth or even seen a birth before, and not even a mention of maternal death or serious complications? Even with the Workers, the whole physical set-up is ridiculous (and even moreso in the second book).
There were a lot of things that I thought the more modern Masters, at least, should have questioned more, especially the issue of sexual consent and the Festivals of Hera. (As an aside, there's no way that, in a community of 300 people, the rift between Maia and Ikaros would have gone unnoticed or unremarked. Ficino remains close to both of them, but seems never to have asked either of them about it. There would have been rumors, especially if Klio kept her promise about warning the other women discreetly.)
Rape. Yeah. Well, I can tell you that there are no more directly-depicted rapes in the rest of the series, so that's something. But in fact one of my main frustrations with the second book is that I think it completely screws up the subject of rape, revenge, and forgiveness. Utterly.
But it is weirdly addictive. I don't remember another series that I finished with such haste and so little enjoyment.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2016-08-03 06:55 pm (UTC)I don't think the issue of infanticide is mentioned again. Childbirth was one of the places where I could not sustain my willing suspension of disbelief: over a thousand young women all giving birth around the same time, attended by one doctor and a bunch of untrained midwives, many of whom had never given birth or even seen a birth before, and not even a mention of maternal death or serious complications? Even with the Workers, the whole physical set-up is ridiculous (and even moreso in the second book).
There were a lot of things that I thought the more modern Masters, at least, should have questioned more, especially the issue of sexual consent and the Festivals of Hera. (As an aside, there's no way that, in a community of 300 people, the rift between Maia and Ikaros would have gone unnoticed or unremarked. Ficino remains close to both of them, but seems never to have asked either of them about it. There would have been rumors, especially if Klio kept her promise about warning the other women discreetly.)
Rape. Yeah. Well, I can tell you that there are no more directly-depicted rapes in the rest of the series, so that's something. But in fact one of my main frustrations with the second book is that I think it completely screws up the subject of rape, revenge, and forgiveness. Utterly.
But it is weirdly addictive. I don't remember another series that I finished with such haste and so little enjoyment.