Dear Joel,
Haven't read Melissa Scott, but
Nicola Nixon wrote a fabulous article for Science Fiction Studies 4 or so
years ago about the subtexts of Gibson's Neuromancer, which debunked the
idea of cyberpunk as a revolutionary genre at least so far as feminists
were concerned. The details I remember particularly were how the computer
matrix- a chaotic and quasi-mystical space- was encoded feminine,
populated by the likes of 3Jane, and mama Brigette. It should come as no
surprise that console cowboys (generally male) "jack in" and "ride" the
(female) matrix, and finally (sort of) triumph in a John Wayne on the
frontier kind of way.
Against this, however, is the figure of Molly
Millions, who with
her knife-like retractable nails and silver eyes, and fundamental dislike
of emotional entanglements with Case reminded me strongly of
Jael in The Female Man(whose use of Davy the human-chimpanzee figure seems
more or less how Molly was trying to treat Case). MM is quite
impressive in Istanbal- I think she killed someone who insulted her in a
sexist way...reminiscent of Jael and the "Boss-Man" scene when Jael takes
that bloke from Manland literally apart. Nixon points out that the phrase
"When it Changed" occurs in
Neuromancer, describing when the matrix goes from rational to irrational.
*sigh*
Neuromancer seems to me to have a surface text which preports to be aware
of feminist issues, and a sub-text which denies them. Somehow I doubt that
Melissa Scott does the same thing, although it would be interesting to
compare her encoding of technology with Gibson.
I must admit I am a little uneasy at the idea of "turning on" feminist
analysis for a novel by a woman, then turning it off again for "everybody
else", which your e-mail sort of implied Joel, but I may well be jumping
to conclusions.
But every novel by a women on reading lists helps......
Tanya
PS Thanks to those who commented on "The Furies"- I will definitely read
it: I'm a bit limited by the U of T book selection, alas, as I am too poor
to actually buy books. Must go down to the famous Judith Merril collection
sometime very soon.
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