Halfway Human

In the spirit of groundbreaking books that deal with gender, such as The Left Hand of Darkness, Carolyn Ives Gilman gives readers Halfway Human, the story of a "bland" named Tedla. Blands are gender-neutral inhabitants of Gammadis, a planet that also has traditional male and female sexes. In Gammadis society, blands are less than human, objects to be owned and used, brutally trained for a life of servitude and obedience. No bland has ever left Gammadis, until Tedla turns up on Capella Two, where it lands in the care of a xenologist named Val. As Val tries to help Tedla recover from a lifetime of misuse, readers come to learn Tedla's life story, a tale that is at times difficult to take but that is fascinating nonetheless.