Re: SF Canon?

From: Nalo Hopkinson (bl213@FREENET.TORONTO.ON.CA)
Date: Tue Apr 01 1997 - 22:05:34 PST


On Wed, 2 Apr 1997, lissa bloomer wrote:

> Nalo: you are hilarious.

NH: :) And here I thought people were just deleting my posts.

  but i'm surprised you even dare to display your
> science fiction for your literary friends to see. i have been known to toss
> delaney's novels under my bed (he'd be so pleased) before guests arrived.

NH: By the time it occurred to me to do that, the damage had been done.

> ah me. the tangled webs. have you read _The Motion of Light in Water_?

NH: I have my own Delany shelf. I re-read his autobio often, and just
recommended it to a friend today.

>
> To Everyone: i'd like to read more sci-fi and need your suggestions.

NH: Whee! I'll try to stick mostly to things I've not heard mentioned so
far. Other people will have tons more:

Elizabeth Lyn's "Chronicles of Tornor" series (The Watchtower, The
Dancers of Arun, and Northern Girl); Candas Jane Dorsey's first novel
_Black Wine;_ anything by Suzy McKee Charnas, Pat Murphy and Karen Joy
Fowler; anything by Sherri Tepper; _Bone People_ by Keri Hulme (you won't
think it's sf for the first 7/8ths of it, but hang in there); for that
matter, _The Windeater_ by Keri Hulme; I think you already mentioned
Gloria Naylor's novel _Mama Day;_ try her _Bailey's Cafe_ (I found it very
interesting to compare it with Spider Robinson's "Callaghan's Crosstime
Saloon" series); Nancy Kress; _The Gilda Stories_ by Jewelle Gomez;
Octavia Butler; _When Fox is a Thousand_ by Larissa Lai; _The Spiral
Dance_ by R. Garcia y Robertson--not to be confused with the book of the
same title by Starhawk; _Hermetech_ by Storm Constantine; _An Open Weave_
by Devorah Major; _Voodoo Dreams: a novel of Marie Laveau_ by Jewell
Parker Rhodes; _I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem_ by Maryse Conde'; _The
Armless Maiden and Other Tales of Childhood's Survivors,_ ed. Terri
Windling; the "Snow White, Blood Red" series of re-interpreted folk tales,
ed. by Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow (_Snow White, Blood Red,_ _Black
Thorn, White Rose,_ _Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears,_ _Black Swan, White
Raven_); _The Lusty Man_ by Terry Griggs, and I've always been partial to
the Bene Gesserit 'witches' in Frank Herbert's "Dune" series. It would be
so cool to be able to control people solely by your tone of voice, and to
know that if they still got snippy, you could kill them with a kick.

>
> perhaps we could make a feminist sf canon (if that isn't an overwhelming
> contraditory of terms).

NH: Why would it be a contradiction?

-nalo

        "When it rains, why don't sheep shrink?"
        "Why isn't 'phonetic' spelt the way it sounds?"



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