Journal from Ellipsia

A Novel

By: Hortense Calisher

Narrated by: Gary Dikeos

A humorous satire and loving tribute to science fiction that delves into the tenuous relationship between science and the humanities by asking, What does it mean to be human?

A genderless alien from Ellipsia, a planet whose inhabitants have no concept of individuality, comes to Earth on an intergalactic exchange program to learn how to become human. To live here, the traveler must study and understand our inclinations for seeing people as distinct beings - the nature of gender, and at the heart of identity, the word I. At once funny and serious, Journal from Ellipsia offers a starkly objective view on our own humanity.

©1965 Hortense Calisher (P)2013 Audible Inc.

Rambling nonesense

The first two hours is all I could stand. It wanders around like a stream of consciousness jumping all over without anything joingin the parts between English Royalty, science, philosophy and I really don't know how it's considered sci-fi. I'll continue but don't expect much. I'll update the review if it turns out not to suck but after the first hour I gave it another and it just jumps around more. Like reading notebooks from 5 random people with no relation to each other all strung together random paragraphs one after the other, none ending, just fragments of the journals.

Narrator does a good job with foreign name pronunciations but can't speak to the rest of it, not enough to save the book in the beginning yet.