Commitment Hour is a science fiction novel by Canadian writer James Alan Gardner, published in 1998. The novel is set in Gardner's "League of Peoples's" futuristic universe, and plays out in the small, isolated village of Tober Cove. Set on post-apocalyptic Earth, Tober Cove most resembles a rural, seventeenth century fishing village, with one exception: every year, everyone below the age of 21 changes gender. At the age of twenty-one, the people of the village must "commit" to being male, female or both in the form of a Hermaphrodite (a 'Neut'), forever. Commitment Hour follows the day leading up to the main character's hour of commitment. Tober Cove's society revolves around gender. Dualistic in structure, there is a matriarch and a patriarch, both of whom command equal - but different - power within the community. The patriarch is the head of the city council and the military, which also serves as the town's police force. The matriarch runs the town's health services, a vital role in a society without modern medicine. Tasks within the community are largely gender determined: men are warriors, fishermen, carpenters etc. and women are seamstresses, craft-makers, food preparers etc. Thus, in Tober Cove, choosing a gender is akin to choosing a life. Throughout the book, the main character addresses some of the more obvious questions, and to him more silly questions people from outside the Cove ask. When asked 'which sex is better,' the main character explains that the answer varies from person to person. Of course, if being male was better, or vice versa, the population of Tober Cove would be overwhelmingly one sided. Since it wasn't, you could say that both sexes had equal advantages and disadvantages. Of course, making love to someone from Tober Cove was always better, since they knew what felt good for both sexes. Tober Cove's religion also revolves around gender. The residents believe that the gods granted the people of their town the special privilege of choosing their sex, and that every year the gods come to collect their children and change their genders. The fact that the "gods" that descended into the town's harbor every year are stylized planes doesn't bother the residents. They simply believed that the gods used many devices as their instruments. Tober Cove exists in a post-apocalyptic Earth. Earth is post apocalyptic in the sense that, when the "League of Peoples" offered humanity technological