Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.
This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is Him by Geoff Ryman!
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary/trans MC
Published on: 5th December 2023
Goodreads
“Women, of course, can not be sons of God.”
In the village of Nazareth, virgin Maryam and the wife of Yosef barLevi gives birth to a miracle: a little girl. She is named Avigayil, after her grandmother.
But as Avigayil grows, it’s clear she believes that she is destined to be someone greater than just the daughter of Maryam. From fighting with the village boys to challenging the priests in the temple, Avigayil is determined to find her way. And then comes the day when Avigayil declares that not only is she a boy, but she is also the Son of God.
Yeshu can work miracles. He can see futures. He can speak for God.
A gripping, thoughtful sci-fi novel, tackling family, the multiverse and the survival of love through immense change and crisis.
I’m unabashedly fascinated by art that queers religion – we can probably lay the blame at the feet of my Catholic upbringing – and so of course I sat up and paid attention when I first heard about Ryman’s Him. I freely admit I’ve never heard of Ryman before this, although he’s apparently had a very award-studded career, but anything published by Angry Robot necessitates a close look – they routinely publish ‘genre-fluid’ books, stories that are hard to neatly categorise, that other publishers might consider ‘too difficult’ to sell.
I keep seeing this described as science fiction, which only makes it more interesting – I would have guessed a book with miracles and visions, as this is supposed to have, would get called fantasy instead. What, exactly, is the sci fi element going to be?
(Please don’t let it be aliens!)
For real though, even if Him wasn’t sci fi or fantasy, but just straight-up historical fiction or something, there’s no way I’m skipping a book featuring trans Jesus. Ryman’s not the first to write a trans Jesus (Roz Kaveney’s Rhapsody of Blood series immediately comes to mind) but that doesn’t mean I’m not massively interested (and invested) in seeing how Ryman pulls it off, and what he does with it.
I don’t think I know anything about nonbinary identities in Jesus’ part of the world at that point in history (although if you want to have a chat about them in pre-Abrahamic history, hit me up) and I really don’t want to be reading trans misery-porn, which I could see this story turning into in the wrong hands…but I do feel like Angry Robot probably wouldn’t publish something like that. I can’t find any early reviews yet, but I think we can be hopeful that the queerness will be handled okay.
But how will making Jesus trans affect narrative we already know? How will it change things? What does it add – or take away from – the story I grew up with? And what else does Ryman have up his sleeve, with those sci fi elements???
I don’t know, but I am VERY eager to find out!
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