Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF-LIT LOG0210A" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 11:29:15 -0400 Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: Gwen Veazey Subject: The Annunciate MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0099_01C2693D.C64000C0" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0099_01C2693D.C64000C0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Have enjoyed the comments on _The Annunciate_ although sparse. I liked = the novel despite its depressing story. Having attempted some fiction = writing, I really appreciate sparkling wordsmiths like Severna Park = because I know how hard it is to write this well. Memorable, vivid = images for me included seeing inside Naverdi's body - the alien blobs = taking hold, and the barren planet, Paradise, with its "charred = silhouettes of broken buildings . . .flat as cardboard against the = violet horizon." In regard to earlier comments about the meaning of the word Annunciate, = I would add: =20 The powerful story of the Angel Gabriel's visit to Mary is unique to = Luke. (The only other birth narrative in the Bible, from Matthew, has = the angel speaking to Joseph.) In Luke, a betrothed virgin receives a = visit by the angel of God and learns of her forthcoming pregnancy and = God's empowering protection of her. This passage allows readers to think = of Mary, unrealistically, as a non-sexual being and honor her for being = maternal. She may be seen as submissive. Yet . . . in the cultural = context of the first century, the only beings who gave birth to gods = were themselves sacred. This may be the closest the Christian tradition = comes to female divinity, other than Sophia references in Proverbs. Mary = may be understood as a divine being. She is partner with God. She is = God-bearer. Some would say this passage is a stunning instance of God's = direct interest in a woman. I'd love to see a feminist theology critique of this novel. Peace, Gwen ------=_NextPart_000_0099_01C2693D.C64000C0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Have enjoyed the comments on _The Annunciate_ although = sparse. I=20 liked the novel despite its depressing story. Having attempted = some=20 fiction writing, I really appreciate sparkling wordsmiths like Severna = Park=20 because I know how hard it is to write this well. Memorable, = vivid=20 images for me included seeing inside Naverdi's body - the alien blobs = taking=20 hold, and the barren planet, Paradise, with its "charred silhouettes of = broken=20 buildings . . .flat as cardboard against the violet horizon."

In regard to earlier comments about the meaning of the word = Annunciate, I=20 would add:

The powerful story of the Angel Gabriel=92s visit to Mary is unique = to Luke.=20 (The only other birth narrative in the Bible, from Matthew, has the = angel=20 speaking to Joseph.) In Luke, a betrothed virgin receives a visit by the = angel=20 of God and learns of her forthcoming pregnancy and God=92s empowering = protection=20 of her. This passage allows readers to think of Mary, unrealistically, = as a=20 non-sexual being and honor her for being maternal. She may be seen as=20 submissive. Yet . . . in the cultural context of the first century, the = only=20 beings who gave birth to gods were themselves sacred. This may be the = closest=20 the Christian tradition comes to female divinity, other than Sophia = references=20 in Proverbs. Mary may be understood as a divine being. She is partner = with God.=20 She is God-bearer. Some would say this passage is a stunning = instance of=20 God's direct interest in a woman.

I'd love to see a feminist theology critique of this novel.

Peace,

Gwen

------=_NextPart_000_0099_01C2693D.C64000C0-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2002 12:12:05 -0400 Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: Dave Belden Subject: Re: The Annunciate Comments: To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia In-Reply-To: <009c01c2695f$4e6ef7a0$61c0fea9@vistatech.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0002_01C26943.C1AD98A0" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0002_01C26943.C1AD98A0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Gwen wrote: Have enjoyed the comments on _The Annunciate_ although sparse. Not sure how other silent voices have felt, but I confess my lack of comment on the book was because I just couldn't get into it. I gave up after a struggle at page 60 something. Felt like everything was a downer. Some sf books just seem to have everybody against everybody in dog-eat-dog fashion (I think of it as Frank Herbert sickness, especially the later Dune books). The most interesting ideas by page 65, for me, had concerned the network they were linked into, but it was never described clearly enough for me to get a real sense of how it worked - it never became plausible to me. There was a fight among spaceships, where I was really lost in understanding what was going on. Probably required a deal more concentration than I could give it, or more prior understanding of nanotech ideas in sf than I seem to have. Anyone else feel that way, or am I just out of it this month? Dave ------=_NextPart_000_0002_01C26943.C1AD98A0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Gwen=20 wrote:

Have enjoyed = the comments=20 on _The Annunciate_ although sparse.

Not sure how=20 other silent voices have felt, but I confess my lack of comment on the = book=20 was because I just couldn't get into it. I gave up after a struggle at page 60 = something. Felt=20 like everything was a downer. Some sf books just seem to have = everybody=20 against everybody in dog-eat-dog fashion (I think of it as Frank = Herbert=20 sickness, especially the later Dune books). The most interesting ideas = by page=20 65, for me, had concerned the network they were linked into, but = it was=20 never described clearly enough for me to get a real sense of how it = worked -=20 it never became plausible to me. There was a fight among spaceships, = where I=20 was really lost in understanding what was going on. Probably required = a deal=20 more concentration than I could give it, or more prior understanding = of=20 nanotech ideas in sf than I seem to have. Anyone else feel that way, = or am I=20 just out of it this month?

Dave

------=_NextPart_000_0002_01C26943.C1AD98A0-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 12:38:45 +0100 Reply-To: "donna.fancourt" Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: "donna.fancourt" Subject: 'Your Faces O My Sisters!' - help!! Comments: To: Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Literature ON TOPIC MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, I am currently doing some work on Raccoona Sheldon's wonderful story 'Your Faces O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!' which was published in Vonda McIntyre and Susan Anderson's anthology Aurora: Beyond Equality (1976). I have two questions for you. I was wondering firstly whether any of you know if the title is a quote from somewhere? I haven't been able to find anything on it, but wondered whether it might be. Also, there is a reference in the story to the 'Last Man' whose grave the courier wants to visit, and hear tapes of his voice. Now, this is really bugging me - I haven't been able to find anything on this anywhere! There are a lot of refs. in the story to Longfellow's poem 'The Song of Hiawatha' but this Last Man doesn't appear to come from there! Help, please can someone put me out of my misery?? Thanks in advance, Donna donna.fancourt@ntlworld.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 12:31:15 GMT Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: 'Your Faces O My Sisters!' - help!! Comments: To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU > I was wondering firstly whether any > of you know if the title is a quote from somewhere? I haven't been able to > find anything on it, but wondered whether it might be. It sounds vaguely like Walt Whitman, but I haven't been able to identify it. Perhaps it is an altered version of a line from somewhere. >there is a > reference in the story to the 'Last Man' whose grave the courier wants to > visit, and hear tapes of his voice. Now, this is really bugging me - I > haven't been able to find anything on this anywhere This is surely a reference which is entirely internal to the story itself - i.e. in the courier's reality there are no more men, and the grave of the last one is memorialised like e.g. the grave of the last Tasmanian. I don't think you need to go looking for external sources for this. There is a novel by Mary Shelley (of Frankenstein fame) called _The Last Man_, but that is about the eradication of the entire human race due (if I recall) to a plague. There is also Olaf Stapledon's _First and Last Men_ and _Last Men in London_, but his 'last men' are a super-evolved species from far in the future. Neither of these seems relevant to the Sheldon story. Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk website: http://www.lesleyahall.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 11:28:01 -0700 Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: Lee Anne Phillips Subject: Re: 'Your Faces O My Sisters!' - help!! Comments: To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU In-Reply-To: <004001c26a08$451853a0$906c68d5@vaio> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 12:38 PM 10/2/02 +0100, donna.fancourt wrote: >I am currently doing some work on Raccoona Sheldon's wonderful story 'Your >Faces O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!' which was published in >Vonda McIntyre and Susan Anderson's anthology Aurora: Beyond Equality >(1976). I have two questions for you. I was wondering firstly whether any >of you know if the title is a quote from somewhere? I believe it is ultimately a reference to Paul's Letter to the Corinthians, "For now we shall see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood. I Cor. xiii, 12-13 This image of "real" faces suffused with light as transcendent knowledge has been with us for quite a long time. C.S. Lewis wrote a book on it, 'Til We Have Faces. And of course Paul stole the idea from Apuleius, whose story of "Cupid and Psyche" was used by Lewis for 'Til We Have Faces and whose general outline forms the basis for the Corinthian paragraph. Psyche (the soul) longed for Cupid (Divine Love) but was ignorant of Cupid's real nature because Cupid only came to her in darkness. After long struggle and many trials, Psyche was at last reunited with her love and became immortal, able to look Cupid in the face and be not destroyed by his bright beauty. There's little or nothing that is new under the sun... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 11:42:45 -0700 Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: Lee Anne Phillips Subject: Re: 'Your Faces O My Sisters!' - help!! Comments: To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU In-Reply-To: <004001c26a08$451853a0$906c68d5@vaio> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="=====================_8285748==_.ALT" --=====================_8285748==_.ALT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 12:38 PM 10/2/02 +0100, donna.fancourt wrote: >find anything on it, but wondered whether it might be. Also, there is a >reference in the story to the 'Last Man' whose grave the courier wants to >visit, and hear tapes of his voice. Now, this is really bugging me - I >haven't been able to find anything on this anywhere! There are a lot of >refs. in the story to Longfellow's poem 'The Song of Hiawatha' but this Last >Man doesn't appear to come from there! Help, please can someone put me out >of my misery?? Hiawatha itself is a white man's sentimental farewell to the "last Indian," personified in Hiawatha. The last lines are: Thus departed Hiawatha, Hiawatha the Beloved, In the glory of the sunset,. In the purple mists of evening, To the regions of the home-wind, Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin, To the Islands of the Blessed, To the Kingdom of Ponemah, To the Land of the Hereafter! Just before this pretty scene Hiawatha describes Jesus and: How the Jews, the tribe accursed, Mocked him, scourged him, crucified him; How he rose from where they laid him, Walked again with his disciples, And ascended into heaven. thus demonstrating his sturdy American anti-semitism as well as his contempt for the Indians, except for those few who, like Hiawatha, knew their place and went off to die with dignity when the white men arrived to take their proper place as lords and masters of the new continent. --=====================_8285748==_.ALT Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" At 12:38 PM 10/2/02 +0100, donna.fancourt wrote:

find anything on it, but wondered whether it might be. Also, there is a
reference in the story to the 'Last Man' whose grave the courier wants to
visit, and hear tapes of his voice. Now, this is really bugging me - I
haven't been able to find anything on this anywhere! There are a lot of
refs. in the story to Longfellow's poem 'The Song of Hiawatha' but this Last
Man doesn't appear to come from there! Help, please can someone put me out
of my misery??

Hiawatha itself is a white man's sentimental farewell to
the "last Indian," personified in Hiawatha. The last lines
are:

Thus departed Hiawatha,
Hiawatha the Beloved,
In the glory of the sunset,.
In the purple mists of evening,
To the regions of the home-wind,
Of the Northwest-Wind, Keewaydin,
To the Islands of the Blessed,
To the Kingdom of Ponemah,
To the Land of the Hereafter!

Just before this pretty scene Hiawatha
describes Jesus and:

How the Jews, the tribe accursed,
Mocked him, scourged him, crucified him;
How he rose from where they laid him,
Walked again with his disciples,
And ascended into heaven.

thus demonstrating his sturdy American
anti-semitism as well as his contempt for
the Indians, except for those few who, like
Hiawatha, knew their place and went off
to die with dignity when the white men
arrived to take their proper place as lords
and masters of the new continent. --=====================_8285748==_.ALT-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 21:07:45 -0400 Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: The Annunciate Comments: To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 12:12 PM 10/1/2002 -0400, Dave Belden wrote: >The most interesting ideas by page 65, for me, had concerned the network >they were linked into, but it was never described clearly enough for me to >get a real sense of how it worked - it never became plausible to me. There >was a fight among spaceships, where I was really lost in understanding what >was going on. Probably required a deal more concentration than I could give >it, or more prior understanding of nanotech ideas in sf than I seem to have. >Anyone else feel that way, or am I just out of it this month? I'm with you, Dave. The propagats as described in the book made no sense, unless they possessed faster-than-light communication ability. Information just doesn't pass instantaneously from one corner of a triple-star system to another unless it's being transmitted by an ansible or something like it. Yet there was no mention of this detail. Likewise, there was no real investigation of how the succubus so conveniently transported people from planet to planet. It was frustrating, but after a while, I concluded that technology just wasn't a priority of the book. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://therem.net/ Listening to: Coldplay -- A Rush of Blood to the Head "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 19:01:52 +0200 Reply-To: p.mayerhofer@web.de Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: Petra Mayerhofer Subject: AW: [*FSF-L*] The Annunciate Comments: To: feministsf-lit@uic.edu In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20021002203224.02ddd748@incoming.verizon.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As we are on the less convincing points in the book: what did you think of the economy described? For me it was incomprehensible to unbelievable. People who are shifted from camp to camp. A sect of addicts (Father Dunne) at one camp that helps refugees. Queen Red who distributes Staze for free. Smugglers at another point. Spare parts and environmental suits bought at a street-market. Where does the money, the ressources come from? Who does the repairs to the spaceships? Where does the food come from? The Kevate to produce Staze ... If stazed people sit around quietly dreaming half the time and the other half try to find more Staze and most people are addicts, how is anything accomplished? Apparently somewhere in ThreeSys is a working economy but does this mean there's no civil war there as in the parts we are shown? As I see it the society/people described could not keep up this high-tech level. But as somebody else already said, I enjoyed the book. I read it in one sitting and hardly could put it down. It was my first book by Severna Park, I think, I will read some more. Petra -- Petra Mayerhofer p.mayerhofer@web.de www.feministische-sf.de ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 11:14:04 -0700 Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: Lee Anne Phillips Subject: Re: AW: [*FSF-L*] The Annunciate Comments: To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU In-Reply-To: <000a01c26b04$115d65d0$0100007f@pc> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 07:01 PM 10/3/02 +0200, Petra Mayerhofer wrote: >As we are on the less convincing points in the book: what did you think of >the economy described? For me it was incomprehensible to unbelievable. >People who are shifted from camp to camp. A sect of addicts (Father Dunne) >at one camp that helps refugees. Queen Red who distributes Staze for free. >Smugglers at another point. Spare parts and environmental suits bought at a >street-market. Where does the money, the ressources come from? Who does the >repairs to the spaceships? Where does the food come from? The Kevate to >produce Staze ... If stazed people sit around quietly dreaming half the time >and the other half try to find more Staze and most people are addicts, how >is anything accomplished? Apparently somewhere in ThreeSys is a working >economy but does this mean there's no civil war there as in the parts we are >shown? As I see it the society/people described could not keep up this >high-tech level. I don't think that this is unbelievable at all. If you wander the streets in the inner city, any inner city, the people you notice are the addicted, mentally ill, criminal, and some good citizens busily hurrying past these unsavory characters to enter another safe enclave. All the immediately products of our modern technology are available on the street, often through illegal channels; cell phones, TVs, stereos, software, computers; why is it so difficult to imagine that in a future world these products and more are easily to hand? The US economy seems to trundle along with very high levels of substance abuse, and in fact gin was subsidized in Dickensian England to keep the masses content in their squalor. There are many who believe that crack cocaine serves a similar purpose to the powers that be and has been deliberately introduced into the ghetto for exactly the same reason gin was cheap in Industrial Revolution London. Slums themselves are a relatively modern invention, with their appearance in the US made about 1820 in the Five Points area of New York City. As productivity improves, it is little stretch to believe that a handful of people with production facilities in a single room can affect the course of a civilization and most of the world go to Hell in a handbasket while things just keep ticking along otherwise. Isn't that what Bush and company are in the process of starting a war over? War too is no bar to production. No war is everywhere, even if it seems so when in the thick of it or from reading the papers. Many in England only heard about the war on the radio, or saw airplanes overhead, or had a husband or son in it and killed. And the same process that makes, or will make at some point in the imaginary future, ragtag groups of terrorists a threat to "world peace," may make it possible for a select few of a largely nonessential society able to produce more than enough for all. We'll leave aside in this analogy the tiny but inconvenient facts that there is currently no such thing as world peace and and that anyone who believes that our shiny new modern technologies could have, for example, had any real effect on the scourge of smallpox without the help of an army of aid workers spread throughout the world is a self-deluded cretin. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 11:24:29 -0700 Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: Lee Anne Phillips Subject: Re: AW: [*FSF-L*] The Annunciate Comments: To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia , FEMINISTSF-LIT@UIC.EDU In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20021003104651.0287cec0@www.leeanne.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 11:14 AM 10/3/02 -0700, Lee Anne Phillips wrote: >All the immediately ***USEFUL*** products of our modern Whoops. And to belatedly add another bit to the mix on The Annunciate, Severna Park is an African-American woman. It doesn't take too much imagination to see where she's coming from with Staze. http://www.assumption.edu/WebVAX/ProRe/FAIR19Dec96.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 20:11:02 -0400 Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: The Annunciate Comments: To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20021003111740.02836880@www.leeanne.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 11:24 AM 10/3/2002 -0700, Lee Anne Phillips wrote: >And to belatedly add another bit to the mix >on The Annunciate, Severna Park is an >African-American woman. It doesn't take >too much imagination to see where she's >coming from with Staze. Severna Park is a pseudonym. The author's real name is Suzanne Feldman. Check out her web page at http://users.erols.com/feldsipe/Index.htm -- I don't think she's African American. Even if she were, it would seem reductive to me to say that Staze MUST be a reference to a particular conspiracy theory about crack cocaine. A person's race does not automatically tell you where they are coming from on any particular issue. I took Staze to be just one flavor of the control metaphor that filled the book. We've been talking a bit about plausibility lately. I thought it odd that no one in this book ever attempted to go cold turkey. The idea of a drug that is addictive after one dose and that remains addictive *forever*, for *all* addicts, is pretty absurd. What's even more absurd is that no one appeared to be researching an antidote! The possible dollar value alone ought to have been funding multitudes of labs on every planet. But economic and scientific possibility was secondary to the metaphor of "power over" that IMO took its most disturbing form with Naverdi's experimental "pregnancy". I've probably watched the *Alien* movies many more times than is good for me. I kept imagining the alien bursting from Naverdi's body in a fountain of blood, leaving her an empty, dead husk. That didn't happen, thank peep. In fact, I thought it interesting that both the pregnancy, which began with such a hideous violation, and the Staze addictions of billions of people, which seemed so hopeless, turned out to be not nearly as bad as I expected. The author seemed to be saying, "even if you're mercilessly oppressed and helpless, there is hope; things might not turn out the way you think." ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://therem.net/ Listening to: Coldplay -- A Rush of Blood to the Head "I've built my white picket fence around the Now, with a commanding view of the Soon-to-Be." -- The Tick ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 14:09:47 -0400 Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: BDG Nomination Time Is Here Again! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Hello, everyone -- October has crept up on us. After *The Annunciate*, *The Books of Great Alta* is the final book on our current roster, which means we need to choose another four months' worth of books for discussion. We have from now until next Thursday (Oct. 10) to send nominations to the list. The nomination period will then be closed and we will have a week (Oct. 11-17) to consider the list of books and send our votes to Terri Wakefield (terrierg@maine.rr.com). There will be more information on the voting process as the time approaches. To make it clear, you can nominate as many books as you want for discussion (the rule used to be one nomination per person) -- just make sure the books haven't been previously selected for the BDG (list included at the end of this mail), are available in paperback (in the US), and that all pertinent info on each book is included in your nomination message. That means: - author - title - publisher - list price - ISBN For example: Nalo Hopkinson: Brown Girl in the Ring. (July 1998). Warner Books; ISBN: 0446674338, List Price: $12.99 The more general nomination rules are as follows (quoted from the BDG web site at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Comet/1304/): During the nomination period (announced on the FeministSF-Lit list) list members can nominate any feminist "speculative fiction" book. Nominated books can include novels or short story collections and can be any flavor of SF such as science fiction, fantasy, utopian fiction, alternative history, etc. but should not include critical essays. If you nominate a short story collection, be sure to specify which stories in particular you think the group should discuss. It is recommended that the first book in a series is nominated. When a sequel is nominated after all, the nominator should offer information on whether the later book is comprehensible without reading the prequel(s). When you nominate a book, it's important to include a description of why you feel the group should select it. The description will be included in the nominated books list on this web site to help members decide which books to vote for. Books may be recent or "classic", but they must all be available in mass market or trade paperback in order to keep the price within everybody's range. This unfortunately eliminates the out-of-print or very new books, but there's still plenty of great material that qualifies. Please confirm the availability of any title before nominating it by contacting Maryelizabeth at Mysterious Galaxy (www.mystgalaxy.com) or by looking it up on Amazon.com. During the nomination period, you can nominate as many books as you like by sending email to the FeministSF-Lit list with "BDG Nomination" in the subject line. Please include relevant information like publisher, ISBN and list price in your nomination. A volunteer collects the nominations daily during the nomination period and updates the nomination list on this web site. If a person nominates more than one book, or if the nomination doesn't include full information or does not appear to be available for purchase, the volunteer will return the nomination e-mail. Members vote for four books each, and the four books receiving the most votes are read and discussed for the next four months. If multiple works by a single author are nominated, all votes for that author's works are counted together; if the total votes for the author's works are among the four highest, then the book by that author with the most votes is selected for discussion. Nominations are open for one week, and then voting is open for a week. Nominators of books finally selected are expected to kick-off the discussion when their books are due for discussion. Nominators can do this any way they want but it should be more than the sentence 'the BDG discussion on book XYZ is opened'. Tell us what you liked or disliked about the book, list and/or quote on- and offline reviews, list similarities to other books, say which character impressed you most, etc. We will contact successful nominators before we fix the BDG schedule so that we can take their time constraints into account. Book discussion titles may be purchased anywhere or borrowed from the library -- we recommend supporting your local independent feminist or SF bookseller. For those without such resources, Mysterious Galaxy offers a 15% discount on book discussion titles. ----- That's it! As nominations proceed I will occasionally send status messages to the list, but if you want to check what has been nominated at the web site, I will be updating a page at http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Comet/1304/bdg_nom_0210.htm at least once daily. Looking forward to your input... -- Janice, for the BDG volunteers List of previously discussed books: Arnason, Eleanor: Ring of Swords Ash, Constance (ed.): Not of Woman Born Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid's Tale Bradley, Marion Zimmer: The Mists of Avalon Bull, Emma: War for the Oaks Butler, Octavia: Dawn Butler, Octavia: Wild Seed Carter, Angela: Nights at the Circus Carter, Raphael: The Fortunate Fall Charnas, Suzy McKee: The Conqueror's Child Charnas, Suzy McKee: The Slave and the Free Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee: The Mistress of Spices Donoghue, Emma: Kissing the Witch Dorsey, Candas Jane: Black Wine Elgin, Suzette Haden: Native Tongue Elliott, Kate: Jaran Gentle, Mary: A Secret History: The Book of Ash 1 Gilman, Carolyn Ives: Halfway Human Gloss, Molly: The Dazzle of Day Gomez, Jewelle: The Gilda Stories Griffith, Nicola: Ammonite Griffith, Nicola: Slow River Hartman, Keith: The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse Hopkinson, Nalo: Brown Girl in the Ring Kress, Nancy: Beggars in Spain Le Guin, Ursula K.: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea Le Guin, Ursula K.: Always Coming Home Le Guin, Ursula K.: The Dispossessed Lynn, Elizabeth A.: The Northern Girl Maguire, Gregory: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West Marley, Louise: The Terrorists of Irustan McIntyre, Vonda: Dreamsnake McIntyre, Vonda: The Moon and the Sun Moon, Elizabeth: Remnant Population Notkin, Debbie (ed.): Flying Cups and Saucers Nunn, Alice: Illicit Passage Piercy, Marge: He, She and It Piercy, Marge: Woman on the Edge of Time Rusch, Kristine Kathryn: Alien Influences Russ, Joanna: The Female Man Russell, Mary Doria: The Sparrow Scott, Melissa: Shadow Man Slonczewski, Joan: Brain Plague Starhawk: The Fifth Sacred Thing Tepper, Sheri S.: The Gate to Women's Country Tepper, Sheri S.: Grass Tepper, Sheri S.: Singer from the Sea Vinge, Joan D.: The Snow Queen Willis, Connie (ed.): A Woman's Liberation Willis, Connie: To Say Nothing of the Dog Yolen, Jane: Briar Rose Current discussion: Park, Severna: THE ANNUNCIATE Upcoming next week: Yolen, Jane: THE BOOKS OF GREAT ALTA ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 19:10:36 -0700 Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: BDG nomination: Into the Forest Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I'd like to nominate Into the Forest, by Jean Hegland: Bantam Books; ISBN: 0553379615; List price $13.95 This story is a coming of age story about two sisters living in a remote California town. For various reasons, society breaks down and we follow them as they become isolated, and finally alone in their house in the woods. The writing is rich and compelling and the characters felt believable to me. The most real thing to me was their experience of the social decline. There was no cataclysm, no event strong enough to signal the end of civilization and yet that's what happened. It really made me look at little things in a different way: what if the market never recovers, and the war happens and the economy stalls and... well, maybe living in the woods is not such a bad place to end up. I think there was considerable crossover success with this book when it came out a few years ago, and it's not really positioned as SF. But I think this group would really enjoy this book. Think of it as a dystopian response to the Fifth Sacred Thing. Here's the amazon review: "Jean Hegland's prose in Into the Forest is as breathtaking as one of the musty, ancient redwoods that share the woodland with Nell and Eva, two sisters who must learn to live in harmony with the northern California forest when the electricity shuts off, the phones go out, their parents die, and all civilization beyond them seems to grind to a halt. At first, the girls rely on stores of food left in their parents' pantry, but when those supplies begin to dwindle, their only option is to turn to each other and the forest's plants and animals for friendship, courage, and sustenance. Into the Forest, an apocalyptic coming-of-age story, will fill readers (both teens and adults) with a profound sense of the human spirit's strength and beauty." And hey, if we get stuck on the discussion there's even a list of questions for book groups: http://www.randomhouse.com/resources/bookgroup/intotheforest_bgc.html ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2002 19:19:29 -0700 Reply-To: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia Sender: friendly STRICTLY ON TOPIC discussion of Feminist SF/Fantasy and Utopia From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: BDG nomination: The Falling Woman Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Since we're not limiting nominations, and I see there are no Pat Murphy books on our list of past discussions, I'll also nominate Pat Murphy's The Falling Woman: Tor Books; ISBN: 0312854064, List price $11.95 I'll read any story that Pat writes. I really wanted to nominate The City Not Long After, which would be a great comparison to the Fifth Sacred Thing (also set in a future San Francisco), but sadly that's out of print. This book is more standard SF than Into the Forest, as you can see by the Nebula award. The characters are compelling, and the story is magical. I'd love to have this excuse to re-read it. Here's the Amazon.com review: "Elizabeth Waters, an archeologist who abandoned her husband and daughter years ago to pursue her career, can see the shadows of the past. It's a gift she keeps secret from her colleagues and students, one that often leads her to incredible archeological discoveries and the realization that she might be going mad. Then on a dig in the Yucatan, the shadow of a Mayan priestess speaks to her. Suddenly Elizabeth's daughter Diane arrives, hoping to reconnect with her mother. As mother, daughter and priestess fall into the mysterious world of Mayan magic, it is clear one will be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice. The book won the 1988 Nebula Award. " Jennifer