From LISTSERV@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Tue Oct 19 13:30:18 1999 Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 11:10:07 -0500 From: "L-Soft list server at University of Illinois at Chicago (1.8c)" To: Laura Quilter Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF-LIT LOG9910A" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 23:58:44 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: women without men Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >In a message dated 9/30/99 7:37:00 PM, Suzy wrote: > ><with other men . . . beyond the rigid heirarchies of the Old Holdfast. I >can now see a couple of things I wish I'd done about this . . . except it >would have made another book!>> > >So -- are you workin' on it???? NO! NO! A THOUSAND TIMES, NO! Listen, I've been trekking through various hells with these people since about 1970, I'm sixty years old, and I want to write about FLUFFY BUNNIES for a while. Isn't it bad enough that Volume Three went and turned itself into Volume Three and Volume Four? Now you want VOLUME FIVE? Have you no decency, miss? Have you no decency? Jeez! Seriously, now: the moment for doing the kind of thing I was talking about has passed. It would have been some further exploration of the more subtle aspects of the men's internal changes in attitude toward women, femaleness, their own outdated "values" and the crimes and brutality committed in their light, and the development of the men's culture through self-destruction, defeat, and attempts at revitalization. What you got of this was glimpses intended to set the reader's mind to filling in the gaps, so that the focus wouldn't shift from the fems and the Riding Women to the people who usually get all the attention anyway, ie, the men. So that story is pretty much told as a sort of shadow tale of the Fems' story in the four books currently extant, and since I seem to be constitutionally incapable of ever doing the same thing twice in my work, it's very unlikely that I'll ever go back and retell it from another angle. Which is not to say that I would never -- not ever, not for the next fifteen or twenty years if I stay an active writer that long -- go *forwards* in that same world, but it would be far forward, I think, to a whole new situa- tion and the fun of figuring out how we got there from here. BUT on the other hand, that's a way of damming up readers' imaginative ideas of what the Holdfast's future might be, which I hesitate to do. And such a book would also be a *huge* amount of work. Fluffy bunnies are easy. Which would *you* choose? Actually, I'm at work on a book about my very odd dad, who was essentially an intellectual/artist/street bum who lived my husband and me for the last twenty years of his life and was, I think, a *real* New York bohemian, not the fake kind. Might be publishable, might not. Interesting to work on, though, and light-years away from the Holdfast. Suzy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 23:58:51 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: women without men: probably OT Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Frances wrote: >fiction taking place in worlds without men. It suddenly dawned on me: all >the way back to childhood, the "girls' boarding school" genre. Not 100% >man-free, admittedly, but about as close as it could have come in the "real" >world at that time (though I suppose an excellent case could be made for >treating the genre as fantasy). > >A couple of other titles that have come to mind: Dorothy Sayers's "Gaudy >Night" and Josephine Tey's "Miss Pym Disposes". Very much women running >their own world, despite male incursions. Also the weird little genre of nun-stories, as in THE NUN'S STORY, IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE, and more recently a number of mystery tales with nun-detect- ives. Really (come on, some of you have read these -- ). I can't recall any recent girls' school stories, though, but then girls' schools vanished for a while (and are only now making a come-back, at least in enlightened (and crazy) places like California, if there *are* any places like Califor- nia. I think these books provided a sanity-reenforcing counterbalance to all the bullshit female-dominated hive societies being written about in SF at the time; though come to think of it, how many of these monstrosities *were* there, actually? Everybody always mentions "Consider her Ways," and "Virgin Planet" (that was Anderson, right?), and there's a book called RESURRECTION DAYS but it's a spoof of the form. I get the feeling sometimes that a very small handful of standardly mysogynistic books and stories are taken to typify all SF in a way that's not really accurate. Yes, most of the SF that I read as a kid was inherently sexist in a casual, unexamined way, just like everything else in literature and society at the time (the men went off on adventures, the women programmed the neuclear kitchen and got rescued from monsters). But the truly pathological stuff -- Edmund Cooper's horrible woman-hating tales, and nasty, salivating stories about smart women getting fertilized by orchids ("take that, you frigid bitch!" more or less) etc. -- came later, around the time of feminist stirrings in the overculture -- the late sixties, that is. Does that sound like reality to anybody (asks the woman who some- how translated GRAND CANYON into GREAT DIVIDE without blinking an eye)? Suzy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 16:24:31 -0400 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: BDG: Slave and Free -- Bek and the Man Problem In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I wrote: >>Alldera, angry, despairing and reckless, speaks the truth of her >>experience to Bek. He listens, questions, and understands. Even in the >>present day, this almost NEVER happens; And Suzy McKee Charnas replied: >It happens often in our fiction, but usually among male characters from dis- >parate backgrounds -- one up, one down -- thrown together under gruelling >circumstances. Many "buddy" pictures fit, in a watered-down form, but the >clearest example I can think of is that old movie with Sydney Poitier and >Tony Curtis as fugitives chained together as they run -- THE DEFIANT ONES. Yes. I was thinking specifically of women and men when I said this. When I talk about feminism with most men I get one of two reactions: 1) they are hostile in one form or another; 2) they act as if they already understand what I am getting at when it's obvious that their understanding is superficial at best; if I persist this often metamorphoses into 1). Men like Bek, who are willing to see the truth, even when spoken in anger, are extremely rare (at least in my experience). >The gratitude is all mine, believe me -- for readers patient, alert, and >committed enough to stay a tough course through some hard, painful stories. >A lot of readers can't, won't, and have told me so. Sadly true. Though I have been surprised at the success of a recent project: reading the books aloud to my friend Orson. Not only is he enjoying the tale, I am experiencing a new dimension of the texts by speaking the words. It's been very interesting. Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Moby -- Play "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 23:52:22 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: BDG: The Slave and the Free Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Petra wrote: >Have other list members understood the Holdfast economy? To me it is not >completely clear. The juniors serve hoping to become seniors with all the >attached privileges someday. Apparently some seniors are richer than >others. How does this come about? Through corruption. That's one of the Juniors' major complaints: they *know* that the system is not only rigged against them, but on top of that powerful Seniors manipulate it to further their own wealth and influence beyond what they are entitled to by virtue of mere seniority. In other words, same as it ever was, except much of the wealth transfer goes via exchanges of access to scarce goods, and favors and favorites, since this is a cash-poor economy. I never worked this out in detail because I figured that we are all so familiar (alas) with how easily *any* system of politics and economy is corrupted that readers could easily fill in the blanks for themselves. The powerful *always* find means to accrete more power around themselves at the expense of the less powerful, at least so far as I know. >And what's the exact difference between dark dreaming and the organized >drug rituals? My experience with non-alcoholic drugs is nil, perhaps that's >why I did not completely understand it. I'm a non-druggie myself, Petra, but I worked for a while in a drug-treatment program for High School kids back east, around the time of the LSD scares in the sixties. I drew on that experience, assuming a somewhat more sophisti- cated drug had developed, with more "steerable" results. The Dreamings org- anized by the State are directed, through the early conditioning of boys, to provide visions conforming with the State myths of religion and history, and the State's models of virtuous (literally) behavior. It's a means of mind- control and imposed pseudo-solidarity, in that it's a group endeavor so that nobody can go off on independent vision-jags of his own, or anyway that's the theory. DarkDreaming is taking this drug (which includes factors to increas suggest- bility, of course) in private, or semi-private, with a "facilitator" whose job is to guide you *out* of the normal repertoire of State sanctioned visions and into private pathways that may lead anywhere -- specifically, to discovery of your true inclinations, tastes, beliefs, and needs, all the real stuff that is rigorously rammed down in favor of the "official" ones that are supposed to be proper to men. It's an attempted escape from the ferocious repression of the Holdfast heirarchy, and as such is seen as dangerous and criminal, and indication of a flawed character contaminated in some way with "anarchic" or rebellious "female" traits. Does that clarify the situation a little? You should know that when I began writing WALK I had a *much* more complex drug-based religion as a kind of social centerpiece, but realizing that it was a) too complicated to under- stand and b) rather boring, I shrunk it as more interesting emphases emerged during the writing, and it's possible that in that process I lost some detail needed to keep the distinction you ask about in focus. Suzy Charnas ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 23:52:30 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: SMCharnas Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Petra wrote: >The 3 men all rebel against the Holdfast society. However, I think that Kelmz >and Servan are not appreciated enough (and I like Eykar very much, too). When my half-brother, a computer-chip-salesman and ex-air force, read WALK, he remarked wistfully on Kelmz' death and wondered if I could possibly bring the Captain back later. I did consider it, in THE FURIES, but already had my hands so full of unruly characters that I decided against it. In fact -- wow -- I'm just seeing this -- I do believe Kelmz mutated into the character of Setteo! Hot damn! Anybody else see this? The link is the fascination with animals as magical. >In the Strange Word's Review the 3 men are characterized as 'Honorable >Warrior, Magnetic Cad, Sensitive Thinker' > >I somehow don't like these characterizations of Servan (Honorable Warrior >fits Kelmz rather well IMO, what do people think of him?). IMO Eykar is also >a Man of Action. After all, he escapes from Endpath, overthrows his father, >advices Alldera on how to escape, etc. I'd say he's a Man of Thought only by comparison to Servan, who is your basic gimme-guy. Servan does things "because I can" and worries about the implica- tions later. Not that he's stupid, but a lot of his manipulative clever- ness revolves around getting himself out of dangerous situations that he has blithely waltzed into on impulse. I sometimes think of him as the Trickster of some Indian cultures (US) -- Coyote, Raven, others. Part of his story is about the negative pole of that kind of behavior/character, particularly when you are not a kid any more (in CHILD) -- it gets to be a lot less appealing and a lot more destructive to others. Eykar worries everything to death, before and after it happens, and acts because he must and with forethought, and has a thing for books that Servan could never understand or, literally, sit still for. So while the labels from that review are not adequate to the characters, I don't think they're too far off as rough indicators. >When we discussed _Wild Seed_ we stressed the importance of surviving. >Servan is certainly a survivor, Eykar would never come so far without him, >Servan does the dirty work for him (out of a sort of love). Why should >surviving be a virtue when A... (name?) does it, and a bad thing when Servan >does it? Good question; maybe because Alldera uses her survival to try to improve survival chances of others, while Servan only considers himself (mostly). But if you judge by *results,* which one of these two causes the most may- hem? I don't know the answer. >In addition, both times I read the part of the book told from Eykar's >perspective I was shocked by how he despises his body, tries to overcome >it, punishes it. I was after the interior experience of a certain kind of ascetic male, the sort who fills many slots in various Christian heirarchies, for ex- ample; people who can hardly wait to get out of this crazy, demanding flesh and off this lunatic, tragic planet, so they often wind up in religion, straining madly upward and outward but without the spaceship, as it were. People who take themselves very, very seriously, and thereby make their own (and other people's) lives hell. It's a kind of adolescent angst that intellectual boys may never outgrow. Eykar does, because I force him, I pound on him until he *must* move beyond it. I wanted to see what it might take. Took a *lot*. >What did others think of Servan? Did you perceive him only as bad? Oh, I love his spirit, his sarcastic optimism, his energy and imagination, his knowingness and willingness to look beyond what he's been taught -- don't we all admire a rebel, at least a little? But when he's a shit, he's a worse shit than most because he's smart enough to know (or anyway sus- pect) better. I'm glad to hear that some readers find him attractive as well as awful, because to be able to be convincing as a leader there have to be attractive aspects to him *that are true,* not assumed. I don't think men follow leaders who are totally repulsive -- why would they? And I wanted it to be clear that Eykar's solution, in CHILD, *costs* -- it hurts and it costs, because for men to give up that style of casually brutal machismo and cunning would be painful, don't you think? It *looks so good,* and it has the energy of simplicity (me for myself alone) and beauty, or who would follow? Suzy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 23:52:41 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: BDG: Slave and Free -- Bek and the Man Problem Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Janice wrote: >I have been surprised at the success of a recent >project: reading the books aloud to my friend Orson. Not only is he >enjoying the tale, I am experiencing a new dimension of the texts by >speaking the words. It's been very interesting. It's also a sensual pleasure. I read my own work aloud to an empty room before it goes to my editor first because there are always errors of style and pacing and repetition etc. that can *only* be caught by ear, and I can only do this work if the book is absolutely as good as I can get it to be at the time it's completed -- even down to the smallest things -- be- cause then later on I *never* have to be embarrassed by slapdash work or evidence of haste when I re-read my own work, or someone else criticizes it (this includes, sometimes letting by a passage that I know isn't quite right, but I also know I don't know how to set it righter but the story requires that this bit not be left out). But secondly, with most of my work, there's a real reward in *hearing* the text, all of it, unroll by voice (so much so that I resent it a bit when I catch a glitch during reading, because it interrupts the roll of the sound -- that's why the method exposes errors so clearly). But I'm also the kind of reader who could only do certain "big books" on tape, like the great Russians, and the Bible from end to end, so maybe it's all just a quirk. Best recent discovery via tape, Byatt's POSSESSION, which turned me off on paper, is utterly luscious by ear. By not reading aloud socially any more I think we're losing a whole dimension of fiction; too bad. Suzy Charnas ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 18:36:10 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Bree Subject: Re: Further to representation of men Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Suzy and other list subscribers, I think what i meant by "other novels" was an attempt to view the representation of men made by various other female authors in relation to gender, the body, and characterisation. For example Adrienne Rich evokes a vision she specifically genders female:- Vision begins to happen in such a life as if a women quietly walked away from the argument and jargon in a room and sitting in the kitchen, began turning in her lap bits of yarn, calico and velvet scraps putting the temets of a life together with no mere will to mastery, only care for the man-lived, unending forms in which she finds herself. I think its this sort of "pulling together" in an ordinary world that Adrienne Rich talks about in "Transcendental Etude" which has accorded the status of "vision". Is this so?? Should it be?? As you can see my original thoughts have taken a slight tangent yet i think the comments made by Atwood have been addressed by many great authors (V.Woolf, A.Carter, T.Morrison). Her comments urged me to go back and analyse the representation of men within these novels more thoroughly then i had done before and in turn had wondered if others had looked at the same issues in their readings. Thankyou for your comments.... im hoping that more can be discussed on this issue as i am very interested in its development throughout feminist science fiction. Regards, Bree >From: SMCharnas >Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC > >To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 10:56:26 -0700 > > >After reading Margaret Atwood's Cats Eye recently, i was left thinking >about > >her comment "you can have a men's novel with no women in it except >possibly > >the landlady or the horse, but you cant have a womens novel with no men >in > >it". I began to consider the veracity/implications of this comment on >its > >own terms, as well as starting to consider how men are represented in >other > >novels. > > >What do you mean by "other novels" -- other than what? > >Suzy Charnas ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 22:47:07 +1000 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Julieanne Subject: Re: Further to representation of men In-Reply-To: <19991002083611.4284.qmail@hotmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 18:36 2/10/99 EST, Bree wrote: > >I think what i meant by "other novels" was an attempt to view the >representation of men made by various other female authors in relation to >gender, the body, and characterisation. > >I think its this sort of "pulling together" in an ordinary world that >Adrienne Rich talks about in "Transcendental Etude" which has accorded the >status of "vision". Is this so?? Should it be?? > >As you can see my original thoughts have taken a slight tangent yet i think >the comments made by Atwood have been addressed by many great authors >(V.Woolf, A.Carter, T.Morrison). Her comments urged me to go back and >analyse the representation of men within these novels more thoroughly then i >had done before and in turn had wondered if others had looked at the same >issues in their readings. Bree - I remember thinking of these issues, when watching films. Many popular films, which feature women as main characters, still focus heavily on male characters, (or particular male influence on their lives) - even when the male characters have little, or no, actual presence in the film. I may be remembering the wrong author, but I think it was Virginia Woolf who wrote one of her women characters saying to her husband, that the reason women knew far more about men, than men did women - is for the same reason African slaves knew more about their white masters, than the reverse. Like the slaves, women's lives depended on it, and they were defined by their relationship to their oppressor. One of the things I love most about feminist sci-fi is its exploration of 'worlds' which question, redefine, or even remove that definition. In WALK and throughout the books, the women are constantly having to redefine their 'visions' of what it means to be women who are undefined by their relationship to men. This is a relatively new concept to women as a whole, and in feminist sci-fi (and feminist art) its still in its 'infancy', so to speak. Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 12:20:18 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: Further to representation of men Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >the women are constantly having to redefine their >'visions' of what it means to be women who are undefined by their >relationship to men. This is a relatively new concept to women as a whole, >and in feminist sci-fi (and feminist art) its still in its 'infancy', so to >speak. > >Julieanne What an excellent point! Thankyou, I hadn't actually thought about it in these terms, but that is certainly what Eykar comes to realize in THE FURIES, that bit about how the struggle has been about women, not about men. Maybe what Eykar demands -- what everyone needs -- is for men to figure out how to be be men undefined by their relations to women -- to sort *them- selves* out, for pete's sake, without dragging us into it all the time as the unwilling Other, enemy, and prize, and *then* set about reframing their relations with women. But I wonder how possible this is, since it seems that everybody, male or female, initially defines her/himself first as NOT MOM, if you see what I mean. On another topic, I've been enjoying this discussion so much, I wonder whether the list would like to invite Eleanor Arnason to participate in the upcoming discussion here of A WOMAN OF THE IRON PEOPLE? I don't know whether she'd accept such an invitation, but in case she would, I'd hate for her to miss the opportunity. I have her e-mail address. Any thoughts? Suzy Charnas ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 12:20:21 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: Further to representation of men Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >One of the things I love most about feminist sci-fi is its exploration of >'worlds' which question, redefine, or even remove that definition. In WALK >and throughout the books, the women are constantly having to redefine their >'visions' of what it means to be women who are undefined by their >relationship to men. This is a relatively new concept to women as a whole, > >Julieanne I hadn't thought about it in those terms, but yes, I agree; and it seems to me that what Eykar is demanding throughout the last two books is that the men redefine what it means to be a man undefined by their relationship to women: to get themselves sorted out first without dragging women in as the bedrock of definition ("Well, whatever I am I'm not THAT"), the unwilling Other, enemy, and prize. Only then can they be accepted back into society as human beings on a level with the rest of the New Holdfast, maybe. Only I'm not at all sure it's *possible*, if it's true that every child of whatever gender initially defines itself as NOT MOM, if you see what I mean -- the formation of ego-awareness being grounded in distancing the female from the get-go (I/ME = NOT-MOM). So what may be possible is simply a practical requirement, by men of men, that the inevitable Other be treated as existing on a level of parity rather than equality: I/Me = not-mom AND not-better-than-mom, not-worse-than-mom. It's almost impossible to *say*, let alone think through! To turn to easier matters -- I've been enjoying this discussion of my work so much that I would suggest offering Eleanor Arnarson the opportunity to join or at least listen in on the upcoming discussion of A WOMAN OF THE IRON PEOPLE (that is slated next, isn't it?). She may decline if asked, but I'd sure hate for her to miss the opportunity if she *would* like to join. Thoughts? Suzy Charnas ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 14:22:28 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Margaret McBride Subject: suggestion for Oct. discussion MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Absolutely, invite Eleanor to "listen" in and comment as the group discusses Ring of Swords. I've loved reading Suzy's comments. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 2 Oct 1999 19:54:19 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Keith Subject: Re: suggestion for Oct. discussion In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19991002142227.00696494@oregon.uoregon.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII At the risk sounding more than slightly syncophantic, I thought Ms. Charnas has been unusually objective about criticism of her work. It was a very pleasant suprise to be able to say out loud where I disagreed with her books, and not only not have it taken personnaly, but discussed! Speaking as a mere reader, I *know* I would not have been able to have this attitude about my own writing. It's a rare trait, methinks. Kathleen On Sat, 2 Oct 1999, Margaret McBride wrote: > Absolutely, invite Eleanor to "listen" in and comment as the group > discusses Ring of Swords. I've loved reading Suzy's comments. > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 02:17:12 -0400 Reply-To: Amy Harlib Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Amy Harlib Subject: Re: Further to representation of men MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Eleanor Arnason joining in---what a WONDERFUL idea! Wish she'd publish another book continuing Ring of Swords. > > To turn to easier matters -- I've been enjoying this discussion of my work > so much that I would suggest offering Eleanor Arnarson the opportunity to > join or at least listen in on the upcoming discussion of A WOMAN OF THE > IRON PEOPLE (that is slated next, isn't it?). She may decline if asked, > but I'd sure hate for her to miss the opportunity if she *would* like to > join. Thoughts? > > Suzy Charnas > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 10:03:16 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: suggestion for Oct. discussion In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Authors of current, past, and future discussion books, or of any works whatsoever, are always welcome in our community. We have had varying degrees of author participation in scheduled discussions, and while I haven't had time to follow each message I must agree that Ms. Charnas's participation has been most enthusiastic. It certainly enriches our place here to have them part of us. We don't "officially" invite authors to participate, mostly because I don't think any of the BDG volunteers know many authors. Yet I believe most authors whose works are discussed here are aware of it, either through lurking personally or via on-line friends. It is always their choice how to partipate. As Kathleen points out, it must be extraordinarily difficult for authors to participate in this kind of forum. Also, while she points out it didn't keep her from voicing critical comments, that might not have been the case for everyone (not that there's anyone who has said anything like this, I'm just guessing this might be the case given our diverse group and how difficult this might be.) I think there's a bit of an uncertainty principle corollary here - the author's very presence changes the discussion in ways that can't be measured once it's done. It seems most of us are glad to have it, but it is a delicate balance and one we should not take for granted. Our structure is an evolving thing and always open to improvement -- the success of this recent discussion is based partly on learning from our earlier experiences. I would encourage each of you to think about Robin Reid's suggestions about how to participate with authors present -- see http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Comet/1304/bdg_discussion_guidelines.html Regards, Jennifer jennifer@krauel.com At 07:54 PM 10/02/99 -0700, Kathleen "Keith" wrote: >At the risk sounding more than slightly syncophantic, I thought Ms. >Charnas has been unusually objective about criticism of her work. It was >a very pleasant suprise to be able to say out loud where I disagreed with >her books, and not only not have it taken personnaly, but discussed! > >Speaking as a mere reader, I *know* I would not have been able to have >this attitude about my own writing. It's a rare trait, methinks. > >Kathleen > >On Sat, 2 Oct 1999, Margaret McBride wrote: > >> Absolutely, invite Eleanor to "listen" in and comment as the group >> discusses Ring of Swords. I've loved reading Suzy's comments. >> > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 12:09:22 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Margaret McBride Subject: Ring of Swords MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I was planning on bringing up the idea of a sequel to Ring of Swords but since Amy mentioned it, I will dive right in. According to an article in the New York Review of Science Fiction, Eleanor has a sequel written but Tor is reluctant to publish it. I wrote both Tor and NY Reviewwith my strong regrets about that decision. Ring of Swords and Woman of the Iron People are some of my favorite books and I will go into the reasons why as other comments are written this month. If someone had asked me what book are you most interested in reading a sequel to, my answer would have been Ring of Swords. It really ticks me off that it's written but not published! ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 16:17:26 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: suggestion for Oct. discussion Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jennifer wrote: >We don't "officially" invite authors to >participate, mostly because I don't think any of the BDG volunteers know >many authors. Yet I believe most authors whose works are discussed here >are aware of it, either through lurking personally or via on-line friends. >It is always their choice how to partipate. Does anyone know whether Eleanor is aware that her book is to be discussed here next? >principle corollary here - the author's very presence changes the >discussion in ways that can't be measured once it's done. It seems most of >us are glad to have it, but it is a delicate balance and one we should not >take for granted. I agree absolutely, and while I didn't raise this when I joined the dis- cussion of my own work, it was certainly the reason behind my asking if it was okay before stepping in. It is certainly possible that things could go very differently with a more "sensitive" author, or even that there are members of the list who have held back from commenting on THE SLAVE AND THE FREE or phrased their comments differently than they would otherwise have done solely because I made my presence known on the list. There is certainly no *guarantee* that discussions including the author must always work well, or ever work well for all participants. If my question implied that this is a simple matter, then my phrasing of it was inadequate. Suzy C. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 16:17:22 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: suggestion for Oct. discussion Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Kathleen wrote: >I thought Ms. >Charnas has been unusually objective about criticism of her work. It was >a very pleasant suprise to be able to say out loud where I disagreed with >her books, and not only not have it taken personnaly, but discussed! Thanks, Kathleen. Because I've been having such a good time here, I've given my own stance some thought. As an author, I don't think of a book as "mine" or at any rate the same way "mine" (mine to change, to make better), once it's published. Publishing means turning it over to the public -- not the income, of course, or the copyright, but the fun of figuring it out, interpreting it, playing with it, which is more than half of the pleasure of reading fiction in the first place. At that point, I figure that readers own a book too, and apart from outrageous, hostile attributions of goal and method, your interpretation is, on the face of it and until (and maybe even after) we argue it out, as sound as my own. In other words, I can tell you what I *meant* to do in a given work, but only readers can tell me what I have actually *done* -- that is, what the written piece does to its readers, one by one and taken as a group. Which is why I like hearing what readers have to say. I do know authors who find this a stupid, irresponsible, irritating, and downright threatening perspective, though. Suzy C. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 15:58:21 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Dave Samuelson Subject: laura quilter's website MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Is there some reason the feministsf website is off limits to me? I've seen a couple of postings by Laura inviting list serv members to go there, but I get a notice that I can not access it "from this server." One attempt was from the very e-mail mesage authorizing me to access the listserv. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 16:45:00 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: laura quilter's website MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Never mind. I've found all the connections I need, I think. Sorry. Dave Samuelson wrote: > Is there some reason the feministsf website is off limits to me? I've > seen a couple of postings by Laura inviting list serv members to go > there, but I get a notice that I can not access it "from this server." > One attempt was from the very e-mail mesage authorizing me to access the > listserv. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 12:07:06 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Bree Subject: Re: suggestion for Oct. discussion Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I must firstly apologise for my ignorance! I am very new to this list and hadnt realised that the previous discussion we were having was based around S.Charnas work (representation of men in feminist works) Im hoping that i can get more familiar with her work, as i have not struck it along my travels in womens writing. This now makes the responses i was getting on Atwoods work as well as Woolf, Carter etc was in reference to Charnas!..... i feel completely stupid for not realising sooner, but i came into the discussion too late. Please send me a list of your novels suzy, which i will endeavour to hunt down all over Australia if need be, too bring myself up to speed! Regards Bree >From: SMCharnas >Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC > >To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Subject: Re: [*FSF-L*] suggestion for Oct. discussion >Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 16:17:22 -0700 > >Kathleen wrote: > > >I thought Ms. > >Charnas has been unusually objective about criticism of her work. It was > >a very pleasant suprise to be able to say out loud where I disagreed with > >her books, and not only not have it taken personnaly, but discussed! > >Thanks, Kathleen. Because I've been having such a good time here, I've >given my own stance some thought. As an author, I don't >think of a book as "mine" or at any rate the same way "mine" (mine to >change, >to make better), once it's published. Publishing means turning it over to >the public -- not the income, of course, or the copyright, but the fun of >figuring it out, interpreting it, playing with it, which is more than half >of the pleasure of reading fiction in the first place. At that point, >I figure that readers own a book too, and apart from outrageous, hostile >attributions of goal and method, your interpretation is, on the face of it >and until (and maybe even after) we argue it out, as sound as my own. > >In other words, I can tell you what I *meant* to do in a given work, but >only readers can tell me what I have actually *done* -- that is, what the >written piece does to its readers, one by one and taken as a group. Which >is why I like hearing what readers have to say. > >I do know authors who find this a stupid, irresponsible, irritating, and >downright threatening perspective, though. > >Suzy C. > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 3 Oct 1999 19:29:58 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Steve Subject: Re: suggestion for Oct. discussion Comments: To: Bree In-Reply-To: <19991004020708.39871.qmail@hotmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 12:07 PM 10/4/1999 -0500, Bree wrote: >Please send me a list of your novels suzy, which i will endeavour to hunt >down all over Australia if need be, too bring myself up to speed! > >Regards >Bree We're at a great point in time: all four of the Holdfast Chronicles are in print at once. And anyone with access to the Internet can purchase them; you don't need to scour the outback in your search. Here are the links, for those of you who need them: Walk to the End of the World & Motherlines: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312869126/o/qid=939003745/sr=2-3/002 -1900020-2342063 The Furies: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812548191/qid=939003745/sr=1-2/002-1 900020-2342063 The Conqueror's Child: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312857195/qid=939003745/sr=1-1/002-1 900020-2342063 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 18:45:22 EST Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Bree Subject: The body Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Im trying not to harp on about this issue, but i was thinking that what Atwood was saying, is more along the lines of male freedom to depict women in any form they wish, adverse to that of women. That women dont have the right to redefine the boundaries of gender and the roles that have been set out for each. The male body, the female body, the raced or ethnicised body are not neutral. They are accorded social value and significances within cultures and ideologies. In this sense the "body" is lived as a site of repression and/or resistance especially for women. Bree >From: SMCharnas >Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC > >To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 10:56:30 -0700 > > >After reading Margaret Atwood's Cats Eye recently, i was left thinking >about > >her comment "you can have a men's novel with no women in it except >possibly > >the landlady or the horse, but you cant have a womens novel with no men >in > >it". > >So she's never read AMMONITE or MOTHERLINES; surprise, surprise. Unless >by "womens novel" she means what the pub. trade means, which is family >stories about generations of matriarchs and patriarchs, in which case it's >a case of the type of book being self-defined to include men and women be- >cause it centers on traditional family/clan structure and function. > >As for mens books with no women: consider a movie called THE RED TENT. >It's an oldie (Peter Finch is in it, and he's been dead for years), >and it's clearly a filmed stage-play (NOBODY nowadays makes a movie of a >trial taking place in the living room/mind of an insomniac General look- >ing back on the defining mess he made in his life, complete with dead folks >sitting in to offer opinions and verdicts), and it is most distinctly a >*men's* movie, about an ill-fated Arctic expedition and how other men rush >to try rescue them. It's really about leadership issues in male groups >essay- >ing dangerous tasks, and the one female role in it is an irritating add- >on they would have done much better without (and had a shorter, punchier >film that doesn't insult and dismiss women by making one laquered maniquin >stand for us all in a cast of variegated, if similarly symbolic, men). > >Seems to me that a realistic story of women "without men in it" is pretty >unlikely (I can't think of one) as long as the real world that women >readers >and authors have to live in is ruled and shaped by guys trying to grab, as >Joanna Russ put it, all "the good stuff" for themselves. Hell, even >MOTHER- >LINES "has men in it" in the sense that the Riding Women are warriors >large- >ley to defend their society from the men across the mountains, and the Free >Fems are deformed by lives of slavery to male masters. So AMMONITE is the >only unassailable example I can think of right off the bat, even in SF. > >Suzy Charnas ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 08:55:49 -0400 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: suggestion for Oct. discussion In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 04:17 PM 10/3/1999 -0700, Suzy McKee Charnas wrote: >Does anyone know whether Eleanor is aware that her book is >to be discussed here next? I saw her at Readercon in July and told her about the upcoming discussion. She seemed interested. I later sent her an email with instructions for joining the listserv, but haven't heard anything since. Maybe she needs a reminder? ---------------------------------------------------------- Janice E. Dawley ............. Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening to: Moby -- Play "Reality is nothing but a collective hunch." - Lily Tomlin ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 08:47:17 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: The body MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bree wrote: > Im trying not to harp on about this issue, but i was thinking that what > Atwood was saying, is more along the lines of male freedom to depict women > in any form they wish, adverse to that of women. That women dont have the > right to redefine the boundaries of gender and the roles that have been set > out for each. The male body, the female body, the raced or ethnicised body > are not neutral. They are accorded social value and significances within > cultures and ideologies. In this sense the "body" is lived as a site of > repression and/or resistance especially for women. > > Bree > > >From: SMCharnas > >Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC > > > >To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > >Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 10:56:30 -0700 > > > > >After reading Margaret Atwood's Cats Eye recently, i was left thinking > >about > > >her comment "you can have a men's novel with no women in it except > >possibly > > >the landlady or the horse, but you cant have a womens novel with no men > >in > > >it". > > > >So she's never read AMMONITE or MOTHERLINES; surprise, surprise. Unless > >by "womens novel" she means what the pub. trade means, which is family > >stories about generations of matriarchs and patriarchs, in which case it's > >a case of the type of book being self-defined to include men and women be- > >cause it centers on traditional family/clan structure and function. > > > >As for mens books with no women: consider a movie called THE RED TENT. > >It's an oldie (Peter Finch is in it, and he's been dead for years), > >and it's clearly a filmed stage-play (NOBODY nowadays makes a movie of a > >trial taking place in the living room/mind of an insomniac General look- > >ing back on the defining mess he made in his life, complete with dead folks > >sitting in to offer opinions and verdicts), and it is most distinctly a > >*men's* movie, about an ill-fated Arctic expedition and how other men rush > >to try rescue them. It's really about leadership issues in male groups > >essay- > >ing dangerous tasks, and the one female role in it is an irritating add- > >on they would have done much better without (and had a shorter, punchier > >film that doesn't insult and dismiss women by making one laquered maniquin > >stand for us all in a cast of variegated, if similarly symbolic, men). > > > >Seems to me that a realistic story of women "without men in it" is pretty > >unlikely (I can't think of one) as long as the real world that women > >readers > >and authors have to live in is ruled and shaped by guys trying to grab, as > >Joanna Russ put it, all "the good stuff" for themselves. Hell, even > >MOTHER- > >LINES "has men in it" in the sense that the Riding Women are warriors > >large- > >ley to defend their society from the men across the mountains, and the Free > >Fems are deformed by lives of slavery to male masters. So AMMONITE is the > >only unassailable example I can think of right off the bat, even in SF. > > > >Suzy Charnas > > ______________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com I don't buy the accuracy or exclusiveness of the proposition, but I have heard it opined that men are better at characterizing women (really?) than women are at characterizing men, because they were closer to their mothers than their fathers during child rearing. Women who sense that they are part of an underclass, however, are far more likely to pay attention to the public image and actions of men than are men in the reverse direction. Women standup comics, on the third hand, spend a lot of time making jokes about men--as a coping mechanism? The bottom line is probably that some men's ignorance about women and their writing about exclusively male relationships in fiction (god forbid it should be confused with "same-sex" relations) exist because it has been tolerated for so long (a "frozen accident" of history). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 10:32:05 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: suggestion for Oct. discussion Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks, Bree! There is one other book in print, a YA fantasy called THE KINGDOM OF KEVIN MALONE, from Harcourt, also available from Amazon, B&N, or other net stores. I find myself in the scarcely believeable position of being a mid-list (as opposed to "best-selling") author with about half of her backlist in print and available -- although with the rapid development of print-on- demand and, at a greater remove, e-publishing, the vanishing mid-list book appears to be receding into the mists of time as a problem. Who says there's no progress? Suzy C. >At 12:07 PM 10/4/1999 -0500, Bree wrote: >>Please send me a list of your novels suzy, which i will endeavour to hunt >>down all over Australia if need be, too bring myself up to speed! >> >>Regards >>Bree > >We're at a great point in time: all four of the Holdfast Chronicles are in >print at once. And anyone with access to the Internet can purchase them; >you don't need to scour the outback in your search. Here are the links, >for those of you who need them: > >Walk to the End of the World & Motherlines: >http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312869126/o/qid=939003745/sr=2-3/002 >-1900020-2342063 > >The Furies: >http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0812548191/qid=939003745/sr=1-2/002-1 >900020-2342063 > >The Conqueror's Child: >http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312857195/qid=939003745/sr=1-1/002-1 >900020-2342063 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 10:31:35 -0700 Reply-To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: suggestion for Oct. discussion In-Reply-To: <19991004020708.39871.qmail@hotmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 12:07 PM 10/4/1999 -0500, Bree wrote: >I must firstly apologise for my ignorance! I am very new to this list and >hadnt realised that the previous discussion we were having was based around >S.Charnas work (representation of men in feminist works) Im hoping that i >can get more familiar with her work, as i have not struck it along my >travels in womens writing. > >This now makes the responses i was getting on Atwoods work as well as Woolf, >Carter etc was in reference to Charnas!..... i feel completely stupid for >not realising sooner, but i came into the discussion too late. Actually, all topics of feminist science fiction are always appropriate! The Book Discussion Group was suggested some time ago when we found that we were reading many of the same books, but at different times. To facilitate discussion we informally agreed to schedule these books, so that we could all talk about them while they were fresh in our minds. (October's, by the way, is Eleanor Arnason's _Ring of Swords_, which I'm going to read REALLY SOON now.) However, we're happy to have other topics and questions going on at the same time. As you can see, several people (including me) are interested in discussing your question. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 13:25:22 0100 Reply-To: mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: BDG Ring of Swords MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT As apparently nobody else does I start the October BDG discussion on Eleanor Arnason's novel _Ring of Swords_. I liked this book very much. The gender concepts presented intrigued me, e.g. men on the perimeter fighting, women in the center doing the 'real thing', homosexuality as the norm, women being on average larger than men. I am curious what list members have to say about this. It was written in a very detached way. At least I didn't get emotionally involved with the story, even in the end when a lot is at stake. Nicholas' torture are also only perfunctorily described (not that I enjoy reading such scenes). IMO, Nicholas is the most likeable character, he has a lot of charm. Although most is told from Anna's viewpoint, I did not get such a clear picture of her, probably because while she tells a lot about Nicholas he in his parts mentions her not so often (at least as I remember). What do you think about the issue in the end, when the Hwarhath decide whether humans are people? How did you react to that? What do you think about the Hwarhath rules of war, especially in relation to our rules of war now and in the past? In _Ring_ the Hwarhath rules are not questioned by the Hwarhath despite their contact to another culture. Do you think that probable? Petra Petra Mayerhofer mailto:mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de -- BDG website http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Comet/1304/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1999 13:50:47 0100 Reply-To: mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de Sender: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC Comments: Sender has elected to use 8-bit data in this message. If problems arise, refer to postmaster at sender's site. From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: BDG Ring of Swords - Online Sources MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT There are not many online sources on _Ring of Swords_ (RoS). I've found only one meaningful review, by P. Douglas Reeder in The Linköping Science Fiction & Fantasy Archive http://sf.www.lysator.liu.se/sf_archive/sf- texts/books/A/Arnason,Eleanor.mbox#199507110648.CAA13808@ postbox.acs.ohio-state.edu Quote: 'Arnason's style keeps the reader at a distance from the characters, which weakens the novel for me. Other elements that troubled me but may not trouble you are what seems to me to be a bland third-worldism to future human culture and an extremely negative view of capitalism (when Gwarha seeks an English word to translate a Hwarath concept, Anna suggests 'capitalist', but Nicholas corrects her with 'canibal'.) The book also suffers from several logical flaws. When human military intelligence plans treachery at early negotiations, they are totally unprepared for a counterattack by the Hwarath. Later negotiations are held on a Hwarath station far from human space, with the humans at the mercy of the Hwarath. Nicholas asserts that Hwarath are far better warriors than human because of their ferocity (this might be only his opinion, but the text offers no countervailing view). Technology, industrialization, and competence are more important in modern, technological, industrial war than ferocity, and Arnason presents the Hwarath as roughly equal in technology. So why did I like this book? It's far more intelligent than most books published. It examines issues at the heart of our humanity and civilizations, without preaching. The characters and the Hwarath society are highly plausible (if difficult to like). The action feels like real events, not conventional story plotting.' RoS was short-listed for the 1993 Tiptree, see http://www.tiptree.org//1993/short.html for comments of the jury members (Susan Casper, Jeanne Gomoll, Ursula K. Le Guin, Maureen F. McHugh). An interview with Arnason: Elise Matthesen (1995) Vampires and Aliens - Pam Keesey and Eleanor Arnason. Online reproduced from Lavender Lifestyles November 24, 1995 http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/m391/d- lena/Vampires%20and%20Aliens.html Quote: 'Ring of Swords is a strong portrayal of an alien society. Amason notes, "I started the book because I was very mad at Jesse Helms. I wanted to write a culture that was homosexual and had always been homosexual, and was somewhat. prudish. They knew decent sex from perversion, and when they met human beings, they were disgusted." Amason laughs, and then returns to a serious tone, "in 1989, with the whole NEA thing, I kept feeling that there was a flavor of defensiveness among the defenders, as if deep down there was an assumption that heterosexuality was the norm." She shakes her head, then continues, "And I see no evidence that it is the norm. Sex serves a lot of purposes, more than simply making sure there is a next generation. Also, I wanted to write a romance. Plus, I wanted to write about men having strong feelings."' An Eleanor Arnason page, a fan page maintained by David Lenander http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/m391/d- lena/Eleanor%20%26%20trog.html with news on the author, links and some stories Petra Petra Mayerhofer mailto:mayerhofer@usf.uni-kassel.de -- BDG website http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Comet/1304/