My life in books

Sometimes I find myself wondering what my life would have been like had I made different choices at one point or another. Of course, I'll never know. This one life is all I have, and all my choices represent roads not simply not taken, but never to be known.

But In My Real Children, Jo Walton tells the story of a woman who does know, who stands, in her final years, on the cusp of two worlds, knowing exactly what will come from a crucial decision, and armed with that knowledge, prepares to chose which life she has lived - who are her real children (literal and metaphorical) and who are the phantoms drifting along the road not taken.

Patricia Cowan is, at the beginning of the novel, a woman of nearly 80, with advanced dementia, living in a senior's facility. Her medical chart notes that she is frequently "very confused" - which is to be expected from her diagnosis. But as we listen in on her interior monologue, we realise that not all of her confusion is due to her mental state. Patricia is remembering two lives, and living in two slightly different worlds. As she begins to understand this herself, the novel flashes back to when she was a child, and moves forward to the moment her life split in two - the day when, as a young schoolteacher with a degree in literature from Oxford, the somewhat odd yet insistent young man with whom she has carried on a romance via letter for two years gives her an ultimatum, to marry him now, or never.

From that point on, we see in alternating chapters her two lives unfolding. In one, where she is called Trish, she is unhappily married and personally frustrated for many years, but slowly finds ways to put her talents to use in a variety of causes from peace work to local politics to teaching adult education classes.

In the other, where she is called Pat, she finds a career and a passion in writing guidebooks to the great cities of the Italian renaissance, meets and forms a long lasting and loving relationship with another woman, living a life that holds greater personal and professional satisfaction and fulfillment, but is less oriented to public service.

The larger world also splits on that day, and both Trish's and Pat's worlds vary from our own. In Trish's world, the great powers move further back from the brink than in our own, and humanity reaches the moon, civil liberties are acquired sooner, the world seems more likely to find peace. In Pat's, human beings still reach the moon, but there are limited nuclear wars and a heightened response to terrorism that seems to go beyond what has happened in our world.

By the time the doubled lives of Pat and Trish have been told and we are again in the facility with Patricia, we understand that this twinned existence cannot continue, that Patricia must make a choice between her pasts - and decide which world her real children will live in.

Walton leaves us to decide for ourselves what Patricia's choice is, and invites us to consider what choice we might make.

It's a book that made me cry, and made me think. Walton does that a lot.

It's always a joy to find a new author whose work intrigues, delights, entertains, or amuses. This year, new authors (and the books that called to me) included:

J. M. Frey, Triptych

Frey's debut novel knocked my socks off. Well written, with characters that come alive, a riveting plot told in an original way, and a careful exploration of gender, race and cultural integration. Loved it.


David Anthony Durham, Acacia: The War with the Mein

First volume of a series that I will definitely have to finish, a sweeping epic of empires and prophesies, politics and war.


N. K. Jemisin, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms

Jemisen's book is another superior entry in the genre of epic fantasy, all the more so because of her highly original style and approach to the matter of moribund empires and supernatural forces that form the basic framework of such novels. Again, a series that I'm looking forward to finishing.


Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire
Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

And how could I not read the YA sensation that everyone else and her cat is reading? Enjoyable if somewhat derivative of many books that have gone before it. The author does well at giving Katniss a true and consistent voice.


Malinda Lo, Ash
Malinda Lo, Huntress

Both of Lo's YA fantasies have been long-listed for James Tipree Jr. Awards, which is always in my mind a formidable argument for checking out a new book. In these books, Lo creates a high fantasy world of humans, elves, ghosts and assorted things that go bump in the night, where her characters can find their own destinies, seking adve ture while challenging gender roles and sexual identities. More, please, Ms. Lo.

Nalini Singh, Angel’s Blood
Nalini Singh, Archangel’s Kiss
Nalini Singh, Archangel’s Consort
Nalini Singh, Archangel’s Blade
Nalini Singh, Angel’s Flight

Singh's books are my newest guilty pleasures. There's actually a lot I don't like about these books, including some very questionable gender isues abd waaaay too much not very original sex. I hate the plot about the spunky woman and the arrogant man who hate each other on sight until he beats her up and then they have mind-blowing sex and stay together despite the fact that he never really repects her as an equal. And these novels are full of that kind of shit. But there's also a very interesting world to explore here, with humans being governed and controlled by powerful winged beings called angels, even though they pretty much lack any compassion or other such angelic qualities, and their servants, the vampires, who are humans infused with a special angelic secretion. It's very much a 'red in tooth and fang' kind of world, with naked power plays all over the place, and that's the bit that fascinates me. So I read them and love to hate them.


Nathan Long, Jane Carver of Waar

And this book, which already has a sequel on the way, is just plain fun. A John Carter of Mars scenario turned upside down, Jane Carver is a biker chick on the lam after accidentally killing a guy who was harrassing her. She finds a secret cave, is transported to a distant low-gravity planet, and the typical Barsoomian-style adventures ensue. Burroughs fans who don't mind gender-bending should love this. Goreans will cringe. And that's a good thing.


Kameron Hurley, Brutal Women

This collection of science fictional short stories by the author of the Bel Dame Apocrypha (a series that I now know I must read) is certainly well-named. Not for the faint of heart, these stories explore women (and other beings of other genders) in the midst of violence - physical, emptional, psychological - and their reactions to such environments. Worth reading and thinking about.

The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner

This is a true gem of a book. A sequel to Kushner’s first Riverside novel, Swordspoint, its chief protagonist is Katherine Talbot, niece to the lonely, embittered, decadent, and, some say, mad Alec Campion, Duke Tremontaine. After impoverishing his sister’s family, the Duke has offered to restore their financial security in return for six months of Katherine’s life to be spent living with him as a boy and learning the discipline of the sword. Why? It’s never really clear. Perhaps a whim, perhaps because he believes she wants, or needs, to be saved from growing up to be her mother’s daughter – consider that he has disowned his sister because he believes she acquiesced to her arranged marriage against her true desires.

The heart of the novel is Katherine’s slow evolution from a young girl raised to think of conventional marriage as her primary goal and best chance for a happy future, to a confident and independent woman who can defend herself as a swordswoman of the first rank and will be able to assume the role and life of a Duchess who thinks and acts for herself. Running in counterpoint to Katherine’s maturation is the slow realisation of her closest female friend, Artemesia Fitz-Levi, that she is only a trading piece in the political market, and her self and her needs are irrelevant to her family and society. These themes – of the freedom of defying expectation to be one’s own person and the consequences of allowing one’s self to remain imprisoned – are repeated in many variations, with many characters, like the interweaving melodies and motifs of a symphony.

This is a novel about freedom and acceptance. Of the body, of the mind, of the spirit, of the heart. Its price, and its reward. About finding freedom from social expectations and growing up – or learning, even long past one has grown – to accept one’s own self.

Like most people who like to read books, I have a "book list" of books that I want to read. And a pile of "books waiting to be read" somewhere in my house.

Normally, the way that I add books to my book list is rather haphazard. Someone I trust recommends a book, or I'm wandering around the Internetz and I run across an interesting book review, or I read one in one of the very few magazines I actually subscribe to, or I read an anthology and find a new writer whose work intrigues me, or I discover through any one of many ways that an author I'm already familiar with has put out a new book. I even check footnotes and bibliographies of books I read to find info about other books in the same or a related field that might be of interest.

This would be how I've managed to create a book list that is currently 26 pages long, in Courier 9 point, with half-inch top and bottom margins. We don't really want to contemplate how many book are on that list, but it's probably over 1,000.

Which is why it's probably a very foolish thing for me to consider embarking on a new reading project... but I'm going to, anyway. I've been making up lists of the winners and short-listed nominees of the Tiptree, Gaylactic Spectrum, Carl Brandon Society and Lambda Science Fiction and Fantasy awards, with an eye to reading the ones that I have not already read that seem interesting to me. I'm not going to be obsessive about this and try to read every single winner or short-listed entry for each award, but I do think I should read more of the books that have been identified as significant works according to the selection criteria of the four organisations involved.

Obviously, I've already read at least some of the books that have been honoured, but I want to read more.

The James Tiptree Award Anthology Volume 1
The James Tiptree Award Anthology Volume 2
Editors: Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Nottkin, Jeffery D Smith.

The James Tiptree Award, named after the primary pseudonym/writing persona of Alice B. Sheldon, is presented annually to a short story or novel that “explores and expands gender roles in speculative fiction.” First given in 1991, the Tiptree Award has honoured writers such as Eleanor Arnason, Gwennyth Jones, Maureen McHugh, Nicola Griffith, Ursula K LeGuin, Matt Ruff, Suzy Mckee Charnas, and Joe Haldeman.

In these two anthologies, the editors have collected a range of short stories and excerpts from novels that have either won or been shortlisted for the award, plus some excerpts from Sheldon/Tiptree’s writings, contributions from other writers, including Le Guin and Joanna Russ, who corresponded with Sheldon/Tiptree during her writing career, and other pieces in some way associated with the Tiptree Award, those it has honoured, or the issues it exists to draw attention to. Which makes for some rather eclectic selections, as you will see below.

Contents of Volume 1

“Birth Days” – Geoff Ryman. Ryman’s delightful story dips into the life of a gay man at 10 year intervals, from the day he comes out to his birth family to a contented mid-life in the family of his dreams and desires.

“Everything but the Signature Is Me” – James Tiptree Jr. Text of a letter that Alice Sheldon, after being identified as the person behind the James Tiptree persona, wrote to her friend (and later, literary trustee of her estate) about why and how Tiptree came to be.

“The Ghost Girls of Rumney Mill” – Sandra McDonald. McDonald considers whether gender roles so deeply ingrained that they persist beyond the grave, and suggests that if they do, so too must resistance to them.

“Boys” – Carol Emshweller. In Lysistrata, women refused to have sex with men in an attempt to end a war. Emshweller’s women of the valley find they must make a much stronger statement to end the violence of men.

“Genre: A Word Only the French Could Love” – Ursula K. LeGuin. Text of a speech in which LeGuin handily demolishes the supposed importance of genre "roles" with the same disregard for rigidity that marks the works of those who would challenge gender roles.

Excerpts from Set This House in Order – Matt Ruff. This excerpt from Ruff’s book, a contemporary novel about two people with multiple personality disorder, was just enough of a taste to leave me wanting the full course. Of particular interest was the handling of personas whose gender identity differs from that of the primary personality.

“Judging the Tiptree” – Suzy McKee Charnas. Charnas, who has been both judge and recipient of the Tiptree Award, discusses what “exploring and expanding gender roles in speculative fiction” means in the context of such an award.

“The Catgirl Manifesto: An Introduction” – Richard Calder. A darkly satirical comment on the ways in which male lust is projected onto socially constructed female images/objects, disguised as an academic paper on the emergence of a new kind of woman that men can’t resist – an original perspective on the old excuse “the woman tempted me and I did eat.”

“Looking through Lace” – Ruth Nestvold. The first contact story provides an opportunity for simultaneously presenting alternative ways of social organisation and putting the familiar ones under the microscope. In Nestvold’s excellent take on a classic form, gender roles both obscure and ultimately illuminate both perspectives.

“‘Tiptree’ and History” – Joanna Russ. Russ, a long-time correspondent of both James Tiptree and Alice Sheldon, offers her insights into her complex character.

“What I Didn’t See” – Karen Joy Fowler. Fowler’s story, which centres on the events of a European expedition into African “gorilla country,” has strong links to Tiptree’s life and work, but provides something quite new and worth thinking about.

“The Snow Queen” – Hans Christian Anderson; “The Lady of the Ice Garden – Kara Dalkey; “Travels with the Snow Queen” – Kelly Link. Anderson’s tale of the Snow Queen has proved to be very fertile source material for women writers of science fiction and fantasy. The editors present a new translation of the original, followed by two Tiptree-winning stories by Kelly Kink and Kara Dalkey that draw on elements of the original.


Contents of Volume 2

“Talking too Much: About James Tiptree Jr.” – Julie Phillips. Thoughts from the author of the recent, and excellent, biography of Alice Sheldon on the crucial relationship of writer and persona that allowed Sheldon to create the brilliant body of work by Tiptree.

Letter to Rudolf Arnheim, by James Tiptree Jr. An excerpt from Sheldon’s personal correspondence discussing her writing of science fiction.

“Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation by K.N. Sirsi and Sandra Botkin” – Raphael Carter. A thought-provoking meditation on how we classify people in terms of gender – and how we respond when this process is challenged, delivered in the form of an academic paper.

“The Gift” – L. Timmel Duchamp. In Duchamp’s story, two people engage in a cross-cultural relationship, unaware of the fact that they do not completely share an understanding of sex or gender.

Excerpts from Camouflage – Joe Haldeman. The elements of Haldeman’s book that make it relevant to the Tiptree Award involve the experiences of aliens learning to “pass” as gendered human beings, allowing the reader to look at constructions of gender from the outside, going in. The excerpts are enticing.

Excerpts from Troll: A Love Story – Joanna Sinisalo. Sinisalo’s novel takes a different approach to the theme of the Other among us who, by his/her/its/zir/hir/their Otherness, allows us to see ourselves. Plus, girl meets troll – not an everyday love story.

“Looking for Clues” – Nalo Hopkinson. Hopkinson’s speech on who is, and who is not, represented in various parts of the universe of speculative fiction is worth reading, And then thinking about long and hard. Who is not represented in the books on your shelves?

“Nirvana High” – Eileen Gunn and Leslie What. Gunn and What tackle issues of growing up as the different one, the other, in a story that received considerable praise from the editors, but didn’t impress me quite as much. A few too many topical references to things I was only vaguely familiar with limited my appreciation. On the plus side, some very nice dark humour.

“Five Fucks” – Jonathan Lethem. There’s a male. And a female. Desire. The slow deconstruction of time, space and meaning. And an observer who is sometimes called Cornell Pupkiss. After that, you’re on your own.

“All of Us Can Almost…” – Carol Emshweller. I can’t top the editors' comment: “This is a story about the confluence of gender roles, power plays, sex, pride and desperation. So of course, it is very funny.”

“The Brains of Female Hyena Twins” – Gwyneth Jones. Jones delivered this paper at the 1994 conference of the Academic Fantastic Fiction Network, in which she looks at the then-current state of scientific research into sex differences at the psychological level in a variety of species and speculation on what the findings can offer to writers interested in exploring issues of sex and gender.

“Another Story, or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea” – Ursula K. LeGuin. This story is set in LeGuin’s Hainish universe, and addresses two very different ways in which human experience is organised – the nature of time, and the structure of the family. Published in 1994, it is by now a classic, and if you haven’t read it, before now, this would be the perfect opportunity.

“Kissing Frogs” – Jaye Lawrence. Everyone knows that a kiss from the right princess can change the frog to a prince. But what about a kiss from the right frog?

All told, I really enjoyed reading a lot of these selections, and there were very, very few that did not engage me to at least some degree.