More anthologies!

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been reading quite a few anthologies this year. I seem to have developed a new enthusiasm for the short form, and this has led to some very pleasant and often thoughtful reading adventures.


Daughters of Earth: Feminist Science Fiction in the Twentieth Century, ed. Justine Larbalestier

What makes this anthology special is that, in addition to collecting 11 of the definitive feminist science fiction short stories of the last century (and one from the early part of this century), it also includes critical essays on each of the stories that examine the themes and context of each story. Also, by presenting stories from eight different decades, the anthology enables the reader to follow the development of feminist themes in science fiction writing. The short stories in this anthology are written by, from earliest to most recently published, Clare Winger Harris, Leslie F. Stone, Alice Eleanor Jones, Kate Wilhelm, Pamela Zoline, James Tiptree Jr, Lisa Tuttle, Pat Murphy, Octavia Butler, Gwyneth Jones, and Karen Joy Fowler. Some stories are very well-known, such as Tiptree’s “And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill Side,” Zoline’s “The Heat Death of the Universe” and Fowler’s “What I Didn’t See.” This is a unique addition to the growing body of feminist scholarship of science fiction – or should that be scholarship of feminist science fiction – and a fine collection of stories with a feminist perspective.

I will also direct you to calico_reaction’s review of Daughters of Earth. I find some of the differences in our responses to the stories in this volume quite interesting, and in some ways indicative of just why such critical studies are so important. While we have similar opinions about the stories that were published before both of our beginnings as readers, especially readers of science fiction, and as feminists, we respond in some ways very differently to some of the later stories, primarily stories that write about, or reference, themes and ideas that I, as a woman who became both a reader of science fiction and a feminist in the early 60s, lived through first-hand and that I read as they were published in the context of their times. I actually think that it’s more the differences in our historical experiences as feminists than the differences in our pasts as readers of sff that accounts for much of the difference, based on what I’ve found in discussion with other younger women about feminist issues, but both are relevant.

For instance, I think that growing up in the era that produced Betty Friedan’s insights as expounded in The Feminine Mystique makes Zoline’s “The Heat Death of the Universe” a much more personal narrative for me, despite its experimental and somewhat distancing style and structure. Fowler’s “What I didn’t See” reads as science fiction to me because of the powerful experience of reading Tiptree’s “The Women Men Don’t See” at a time when there really were millions of women that men did not see – the references are too immediate for me to see Fowler’s piece as anything other than a direct response to Tiptree and to a culture in which women in fictional products are repeatedly threatened by aliens, big apes and other monsters (in science fiction, and in its predecessors, the exploration adventure – from King Kong to Allan Quartermain - and the romance as a plot device to give men a reason to be oh so very manly.

In any case, no matter what your background as a reader of sff and as a feminist, I think you will find much to think about in this volume.



Shadows over Baker Street (eds) Michael Reaves, John Palan

The blurb on the back cover says it all:

What would happen if Sir Arther Conan Doyle’s peerless detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his allies were to find themselves faced with Lovecraftian mysteries whose solutions lay not only beyond the grasp of logic but beyond sanity itself?

Holmes vs. Cthulhu! The battle of the aeons! What more can you ask for?

Assuming that you are a fan of both the Great Detective and of the Lovecraftian mythos, that is. I found something to enjoy in every one of these stories, but I do have a few particular favourites, most notably Neil Gainman’s “A Study in Emerald,” Elizabeth Bear’s “Tiger! Tiger!”



The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume 1, ed. Jonathan Strahan

This is a new “year’s best” anthology series being published by Night Shade Books, and I bought it primarily because it contains stories by a number of authors that I’ve heard spoken of very highly, but have not read much – or in some cases, anything, of their work before now. And, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, an anthology is a good place to get to know new authors.

I enjoyed many of the stories collected in this volume, with special notice to Ellen Klages’ “In the House of the Seven Librarians,” Geoff Ryman’s “Pol Pot’s Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy),” Kelly Link’s “The Wizards of Perfil,” Robert Charles Wilson’s “The Cartesian Theatre,” Peter S. Beagle’s “El Regalo,” and… well, the more I look at the table of contents’ the more I start thinking “you know, that one was really worth a notable mention… and so was that one… and that was a really interesting take on the subject matter… and that one was really powerful…” and so on.

Which tells you that Strahan is a very good editor, and this is a collection worth reading.



DAW 30th Anniversary: Fantasy, eds. Elizabeth R Wollheim and Sheila Gilbert

I had a specific reason for buying this anthology: it includes Michelle Sagara West’s “The Memory Of Stone.” You see, I’ve recently discovered West’s brilliant Sun Sword series and I’m trying to collect all of her short stories placed in the Empire of Essalieyan and the Dominion of Annagar.

But of course, what I got was so much more. New short stories by Andre Norton, Tanith Lee, Jennifer Roberson, Mercedes Lackey, Tanya Huff, Melanie Rawn, Deborah J. Ross, and others.



Sirius the Dog Star, eds. Martin H. Greenberg and Alexander Potter

This is another of the anthologies I acquired because it includes a story by Michelle Sagara West – this time, “Huntbrother” which in many ways completed her Sacred Hunt duology.

I must admit that I’m not a dog person, and had West’s story not been collected here, I probably wouldn’t have bought the book. And that would have been a bad thing, because then I would have missed such deeply moving stories as Tanya Huff’s “Finding Marcus,” Julie E. Czerneda’s “Brothers Bound,” Fiona Patton’s “Heartsease,” Rosemary Edghill’s “Final Exam,” Jane Lindskold’s “Keep the Dog Hence,” Kristine Kathryn Rasch’ “After the Fall” and Mickey Zucker Reichert’s “All the Vitues.”

It might not have turned me into a dog person, but it certainly made me appreciative of dogs as central characters in the hands of a skilful writer.



Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, ed. John Joseph Adams

I think I’ve mentioned before that I have a fascination for apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction – a fascination with tales that spring from the notion “This is the way the world ends…” And so I must thank John Joseph Adams for making an anthology just for me (and, I suppose, the many others who share my fascination with the subgenre).

Books with apocalyptic themes are rarely funny, and this volume is no exception to the rule, even though, in some stories, there is hope: hope that some will survive whatever mess we’ve made of the world we live in, hope that we might learn something and go on to do it better. In others, there is only the telling of the downfall, and the rest is silence – possibly a silence that we who have not yet seen an apocalypse on a scale that could end all of our worlds can ponder on and use to look for paths that do not end that way. For every The Postman, there is an On the Beach.

I’m not going to single out any stories, because all of them had something important to say about how and why the world – or a world – might end, and what we might do to nudge it in that direction or away from it, and what we could learn from thinking about the issues now, before it really might be too late. Unless of course, it already is and we don’t know it yet.

A Gem in the History of Feminst SF

Symposium: Women in Science Fiction (Khatru Issues 3 & 4), ed. Jeffrey D. Smith (1975); revision edited by Jeanne Gomoll (1993)

If you're a feminist and a science fiction reader, you've almost certainly heard of the Symposium. Published in the fan magazine Khatru in 1975, it was the record of an incredible roundtable discussion, an exchange of letters among some of the leading writers of feminist science fiction at that time (and since) - Vonda N. McIntyre, Suzy McKee Charnas, Kate Wilhelm, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, James Tiptree, Jr., Samuel Delany, Joanna Russ, Raylyn Moore, Luise White - plus agent Virginia Kidd and the editor of Khatru, Jeffrey D. Smith.

It's hard to believe, but I've never before read the complete Symposium. A landmark in the development of feminist science fiction and feminst criticism of science fiction - you'd have thought I would have read it long before now. But it hasn't always been exactly the easiest thing to get your hands on, and so I've languished for years reading only reminiscences, exererts and discussions of it.

But it is now available, in an annotated 1993 edition with additional commentary from some of the original participants and other scholars of feminist sf, from The James tiptree Jr. Literary Award Council, and if you are interested in feminism and women in science fiction, you really ought to order it.

Reading it was, for me, like going back to the late 60s and early 70s, when questions of the role of women in society were being hotly debated and challenged on all sides and being a feminist was, if you were like me, one of the most important things you could imagine doing for the future of humanity. Those were very heady times, and very scary times as well, when there seemed to be so much to think and re-think and do and change and challenge. The Symposium takes that moment in time and narrows the focus to science fiction, but you can heard the echoing clarion calls of a worldwide revolution behind it and around it, even after 30 years.

The Modest Triumph of the Cultural Mosaic

Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising Triumph of Canadian Pluralism, Michael Adams

In the interests of full disclosure, I must begin my comments with the observation that this book was written by my boss. It's his fifth book, and like his previous ones, it is based on research that the company he founded, Environics Research Group, has conducted into social values going back decades in Canada and the U.S. Each year in Canada, and every four years in the U.S, we poll a representative sample of peple to determine their values about all sorts of social issues. We have reseach partners in other countries who do the same kind of reseach in other countries around the world, and we all share this informaition, building up a database of global trends in social values and attitudes.

I'm not going to talk about the research in detail, because it is proprietary, but we track how much people agree or disagree with statements like "The father should be the master in the home" - one of the questions that Adams likes to use in his public speaking engagements and see how the percentages who agree or disagree change over time.

This particular book analyses some of that research, and some other research we have done over the years tracking issues associated with immigration, multi-culturalism, and a major study done earlier this year with two samples - one of Canadians in general and one of Canadian Muslims.

I think I'll leave the summary of this research up to the author himself. Here's an excerpt from the book that was printed earlier this fall in The Toronto Star, and the short version is that the research shows that, despite all the headlines about immigrant backlash and accommodation crises, we're not doing all that badly at this learning to live with each other despire our differences thing, and the odds are that we'll continue to manage to muddle along in our modest Canadian way. And that we will find every way possible to politely brag about it.