He, She and It was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1991 (published in the UK as Body of Glass, winning the Arthur C. Clarke Award). The novel interweaves two narratives: one set in 2059, in a cyberpunk future of corporate domination and environmental collapse; the other in sixteenth-century Prague, retelling the legend of the Golem created by Rabbi Judah Loew to protect the Jewish ghetto.
In 2059, Shira returns to her home — the free Jewish town of Tikva (one of the few remaining communities not owned by multinational corporations) — after losing a custody battle for her son. She discovers that the town’s scientists have created Yod, a cyborg: male in appearance, programmed for violence (to defend Tikva from corporate assault), but increasingly developing consciousness, desire, and the capacity for love. Shira’s relationship with Yod becomes the novel’s central question: is he a person? Can a created being have rights? Does consciousness require biological origin?
The parallel narrative — told by Shira’s grandmother Malkah as she programs Yod’s social abilities — recounts the creation of Joseph, the Golem of Prague, by Rabbi Loew in the 1590s. Both creatures are made to protect threatened Jewish communities; both develop beyond their creators’ intentions; and both raise the same ethical question: does the creator’s purpose justify the creature’s existence? Can something made as a weapon become a person?
Piercy uses science fiction to make feminist arguments about embodiment, reproduction, and the ownership of bodies — but the novel transcends its politics through genuine engagement with questions about consciousness that remain unresolved.
Collecting He, She and It
First edition (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1991): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $15–$40
- Signed first edition: $30–$80
- UK first as Body of Glass (Michael Joseph, 1992): $10–$25