I've been lurking for some months now, downloading all the book
recommendations for my next holdiays, and feeling frustrated by the movie
discussions. I live in Auckland, New Zealand, which takes around six
months to get Hollywood movies after they open in the US. So GI Jane
hasn't even got here yet.
I first read adult SF and fantasy in my teens in Australia, where I was
lived for my first 25 years. I started with Asimov, Heinlein and Tolkein.
After discovering feminism at 26 in Newzild, I looked for women writers,
and discovered the wonderful 70s and 80s feminist SF&F wave. Many of those
authors have given me hope many times (you may have heard of New Zealand's
prolonged and disastrous free market experiment - it makes this particular
feminist activist despair sometimes).
Joan Slonczewski, Octavia Butler, Suzy McKee Charnas, Susan Haden Elgin,
Nicola Griffith, Rosemary Kirstein, Marge Piercy, Sherri Tepper, Elizabeth
Vonarburg, Kate Wilhelm, and Jane Yolen are among my favourites. I've read
and enjoyed all yours, Vonda, except for the Star Trek/movie tie-in novels
and your new one, which I look forward to. (I guess that supports your
contention that the audiences for original SF and tie-ins are different
groups of people.)
A Star Wars aside - I can't get over how they managed to film a universe of
people including only about six women - and get away with it! So many
non-feminist and non-SF people I know who like the movies haven't even
realised how token the female presence is. I hope the new SW movies allow
a few good roles for women. I am getting very tired of proto-feminist
movies where the heroine is set up as stroppy and independent but falls
predictably into the arms of the hero with the same relationship dynamics
as her non-proto forebears. However, that's another topic and this post
has got too long anyway.
Two quick questions - has Rosemary Kirstein produced a sequal to The
Outskirter's Secret, has Jayge Carr ever done a followup on Leviathan's
Deep, and does anyone know of any recent books by Janrae Frank? I hope
it's okay to ask these kinds of questions on this list.
Jenny Rankine
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