#cameron reed

[nejidin0]

I love how What We Are Seeking creates a universe in which queerness really is shown to just be a natural, default thing everywhere, and that queer people are everywhere. The Ischnuran third gender identity was formed even after what seems to be a dark age for trans people in the in-universe past. Zandahe, despite being conservative, space Christian planet, still has queer people!

[nejidin0]

So the queers are definitely taking over Scythia in like one or two centuries, right? There are already four other people lined up to take the jess vow!!

[nejidin0]

Maybe due to personal bias, as soon as I started reading What We Are Seeking, I expected John to transition or come out as trans at some point in the story. I still do think he's an egg, especially with Iren's comment about him mothering people.

But I wonder if he's only an egg on Scythia. John seemed happy or at least content in his role as a man on Essius, but on Scythia, he is very much gender non-conforming because of his Essian cultural upbringing. I wonder if he will be content in this role (which he does seem to be), or if he will eventually reach a level of discomfort in the hybrid Ischnuran-Zandahean culture that forms to want to transition.

[nejidin0]

I think my favorite part of What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed is the scene where Iren talks about how every trans person is part of a tradition that has been part of humanity since our beginning

[nejidin0]

Seeking What We Are Seeking Fans

Just finished Cameron Reed's What We Are Seeking and I'm hoping others have read this and are just hiding in the woodworks on here. If you haven't read it, I can't recommend it enough. It's a heartwarming story about finding queer community. It is very relevant to the current political climate surrounding trans people, and explores this in a futuristic sci-fi setting.

[rhetoricandlogic]

What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed

Look, I understand that you want the variable sex type for your MC. Whatever, do it - but DO NOT characterise the fauna of your created alien worlds as "mammals" and "insects" that grow on plants and multiply by cloning their offspring via branches braking off. Either put in the effort to completely build a new and in itself consistent world, or take Earth. If you do the latter, do it consistently and that clearly means you have to recognise evolution, sexual dimorphism and the complete difference between clades or even fauna and flora. Your version is jarring, inconsistent and absolutely lazy.

And if I absolutely hate something, it's stereotypes. Why, thank you Reed, for propagating patriarchy and homophobia into the far future and dozens of star systems. It will get better in a couple of generations, yeah, that was promised a couple of generations ago and you had nothing better to do than to cement that as humanity's given until generations grow over it.

Also, learn to write. Exposition does not a flowing plot make. There is such a thing as prose, look it up.

I'm so done with these attention-seekers, go post on instagram or something.

[itslucyhenley]

my reading journey 2026

What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed. Finished June 21, 2026; audiobook on audible

I don’t know why this took me so long to finish, but after a month of chipping away at this audiobook I finally was able to give it some concerted time and finish it. I think I might have started reading it too soon after finishing her first book The Fortunate Fall. I should have waited a bit longer between them, after all Reed did take 30 years between writing them. This book felt kind of sacred in the way that some scifi books feel when they genuinely and openly explore heavy topics like gender or colonialism and place them in a different world so we can think about them without the weight of reality bearing down on us. This one felt very akin to Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin. I would definitely recommend this one, it was doing a lot but it still made a point to have deep characterization of all the characters. I would be lying though if I didn’t have a strong preference for whatever was going on between John and Sudharma and I would have happily accepted a whole book just about them. I was getting strong Holmes x Watson vibes from their part of the story.

I’m looking forward to a reread in hard copy when I get the chance, because although the audiobook was great, I felt like the tone of the narrator shifted drastically between solemn and goofy, so I would like to see how it feels with just my own voice reading the words.

[becausegoodbye]

A pretty extraordinary one. The kind of sci-fi that's so awash with possibilities, it's happy to dispense what could be another novel's entire premise in a casual aside about a planet we never visit. Our protagonist is a horny bisexual king who has to be restrained at multiple points from poisoning people who've hurt his friends. There are nonbinary religious sects, plant-animal hybrids, and sex with godlike aliens who do not need categories to simplify their perception of the universe. This book is having an incredibly nerdy amount of fun.

I did struggle at certain moments with the biology lessons (it's just not my subject), but they were there for good reason. Embodiment here is just as malleable as culture, and just as springy. Recognising different kinds of sentience may require stepping away from ourselves more than might be comfortable. Realising different futures might too.