Debbie Notkin

This compilation of short stories and articles reminds me of what science fiction should be - an exploration of the possibilities of life. I wanted to say that my favorite story was Dearth by Aimee Bender about a single woman's surprise gift of potatoes. It was both matter of fact and poignant. I've just discovered Bender and plan to read all of her I can.

Then I need to say that Little Faces by Vonda McIntyre is my favorite in all the ways it explores gender possibilities - adults are women show more (or ships) and their companions, males with their little effective penises and gnashing teeth, live within them.

But it could be that Eleanor Arnason's Knapsack Poems is the favorite. A person, one of the goxhat, is composed of both intertwined and interacting bodies, some separated physically but all acting as one person. The main character, an itinerant poet is composed of male, female and neuter parts though some other goxhat are all female or all male after their differing sexes die or are killed. She shows that the persons who are all one sex tend to be vicious from lack of balance. And there's a baby.

Liking What you See: A Documentary by Ted Chiang explores the possibility of a device that disables one's ability to judge whether or not a person is good looking and its development during the time that advertisers have managed to amplify the desirability of their spokes people.

James Tiptree Jr.'s The Girl Who Was Plugged In follows a poor, ugly woman as she becomes a virtual Lindsay Lohan. It's the powerful linchpin of the whole series.

The non fiction articles are Shame by Pam Noles which explores race in science fiction and The Future of Female: Octavia Butler by Dorothy Allison in which Allison takes Butler to task for her continuing presentation of female characters who chose to give up their own freedom in order to promote the welfare of children. It just shows you how harsh Allison (Bastard Out of Carolina) can be if she points out the "softness" of Octavia Butler, one of the most pessimistic science fictions writers I've read.

Lastly L. Timmel Duchamp's letter to Alice Sheldon shows that Sheldon enjoyed writing as Tiptree and how she missed her anonymity when her sex became known. She worried that when people found out she was a woman they would care less about her writing in itself and more about the personality of the woman who wrote it.

I wish all science fiction could be so illuminating. show less

A mixed bag of goods in terms of quality of stories (or maybe it's just that each new story trumps the previous one and sticks in your mind), but overall does exactly what the Tiptree Award aims to do: provokes thought an discussion.

The non-fiction is without exception of a very high standard: Tiptree's own "Everything but the signature is me", a wonderfully opinionated essay on genre by Ursula K. LeGuin, Suzy McKee Charnas's insights into judging the Tiptree, and Joanna Russ's brief take on show more Alice Sheldon's life.

Of the fiction, the highlights for me are the excerpt from Matt Ruff's "Set This House in Order" (which I'm going to have to get a copy of) and Ruth Nestvold's "Looking Through Lace". That latter one kind of sneaks up on you. It reads a little like something from the 1960s or 1970s throughout - all-male first contact team, entirely predictable that they've found a female-dominated society - and yet the ending threw me. I'm still struggling to put into words why: the closest I can get to is that I think of being able to read and read as part of my identity - and not being allowed to do it because of my gender would be absolutely devastating for me. And yet, the story drives home in no uncertain terms that that is what has happened in our culture for centuries, and still happens in other cultures around the world today. And the next step of thought for me is how much of women's history and identity through the ages has been absolutely obliterated by this brutal censorship.

Yes, in some ways I'm a late comer to feminism. In others, I was there, and further, long before anyone else. In some ways being a communist was much easier - and much nicer - than being a feminist. As a communist, my basic assumption was that everyone was equal and that I could do whatever I wanted, had every choice and ever option available to me. And, armed with that assumption, I spent a good 25 years of my life bulldozing over everyone who would have it otherwise, without even noticing them. Ever since I've become interested in feminism, I have started actually noticing all the crap and prejudice and inequality around me, and it's almost left me in a state of shock. I'm sure I'll recover eventually, but until then I may be a bit fragile.

One more story from this anthology deserves a mention, and that is Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen". This was one of my favourite fairy tales as a child, and I greatly enjoyed re-reading it. What struck me about the English translation, though, are the constant references to god, prayer, hymns, etc. So I dug up my Bulgarian (communist!) collection of Hans Christian Andersen fairly tales and checked a nagging suspicion I had - and yes, the Bulgarian version has been systematically purged of god. It made me incredibly happy and I've decided that my children shall have the Bulgarian version read to them. ;-) Also, in my head Gerda still lives happily ever after with the robber girl. show less

Ursula K. Le Guin, some seven years after I fell in love with her by reading half of The Left Hand of Darkness in one terrible night, remains one of my favorite authors. And I'm barely into her oeuvre, having read just the Hainish novels and scattered short stories. But I couldn't resist picking up this, a festschrift published in honor of her 80th birthday. It's a mix of essays, both personal and more academic, fiction, and poetry. It's taken me a bit to get around to writing this review, show more unfortunately, so my memory is fading, but I'll do my best.

The personal essays are kinda mixed, but inevitably so. Many of them are about people hanging out, ho-hum, and then bam! Ursula K. Le Guin shows them a whole different kind of sci-fi and/or fantasy. Now, I can empathize because this was my own experience (she is probably the sf writer I wish I could write like more than any other), but to read this repeatedly got a little repetitive. But there are still some gems sprinkled into these essays, such as how Kim Stanley Robinson took her class, or Brian Atterby's very interesting tale of how he, Le Guin, and Karen Joy Fowler edited The Norton Book of Science Fiction. (I've had that thing in my library for years, and it honestly doesn't look too great, but now I've very curious about it.)

Of the less personal essays, Jo Walton's "A New Island of Stability: Annals of the Western Shore" made me really interested in reading those books someday (my wife liked them), as did Una McCormack's "The Exercise of Vital Powers," which discusses the role of history in Le Guin's work. (I've always found this an interesting theme; I loved the line from Four Ways to Forgiveness that ends with "There is a great river, and it flows through this land, and we have named it History.") And Julie Phillips's mini-biography is excellent, though it makes me want a full one! (I imagine there is one out there, actually; I should go looking.)

There's five stories, four from members of a "wimmin's" collective called "Beyon'Dusa," who apparently deem Le Guin an inspiration. Tributes in this form get tricky, I think. The Asimov festschrift, Foundation's Friends, did by having the writers set their stories in Asimov's different fictional universes, but none of these stories take that form; rather, they ostensibly "honor a great artist who has sustained and transformed a tradition by adding to it." But this tradition just seems to be sf/fantasy stories about women, because that's about as Le Guinian as most of them feel. Andrea Hairston's "Will Do Magic For Small Change," the first chapter of a novel, is interesting, but unfulfilling for obvious reasons. Neither Sheree Renée Thomas's "Touch" nor Ama Patterson's "Seamonsters" interested me; when picking up a book on Le Guin, I just didn't want to be reading some stories that virtually had nothing to do with her that I could see.

I did really like the last one, though, Pan Morigan's "The Heart of the Song," a fantasy myth with an interest in storytelling that resonated with many of the themes Le Guin has employed. (The only non-Beyon'Dusa story, "The Closet" by John Kessel, doesn't even come close to feeling like a Le Guin story, and would be trite even if it wasn't in this book.)

The bibliography is excellently thorough, too. I have lots to read yet, is what I realized. Which is good, as this book reminded me (though I shouldn't've needed reminding) about what was great about Le Guin, and that reading her is always worthwhile.

There's also poems. show less

Too short, want more.

I don't necessarily agree with all the stories, or even with the judgement that all the stories explore and expand gender. Nor, judging from the introduction, was I expected to. The one thing the editors indented the anthology to do is provoke thought and discussion - and that it has done.

As well as make me think, the anthology was an extremely enjoyable read. Most of the stories are touching, some are funny, some left me badly wanting more. As particular highlights, I show more single out the two novel extracts (from Joe Haldeman's "Camouflage" and Johanna Sinisalo's "Troll: A Love Story"), both of which ended up on my to-read list (in fact, I acquired a copy of "Camouflage" pretty much immediately and inhaled it over the next week); my first (yes, I know!) real encounter with Ursula K. LeGuin's work, in the form of "Another Story, or a Fisherman of the Inland Sea", a wonderfully compassionate, character-driven story exploring choices about life, love, family and careers; and the touching and witty "Kissing Frogs" by Jaye Lawrence.

In addition to that, the anthology offers a few non-fiction pieces, most notably Nalo Hopkinson's essay "Looking for Clues", which touches on themes of race, gender, and searching for identity in the world around us. I found some of it confirming and expanding my own views on the subject, while some of it was truly eye-opening. The other non-fiction piece which added to my to-read list was "The Brains of Female Hyena Twins" by Gwyneth Jones, a brief overview of recent scientific literature on gender, both human and animal. I'm really looking forward to finding out about the platypi now. show less