File: "FEMINISTSF LOG9706E" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Jun 1997 13:58:44 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Emilie Falc Subject: A couple SF questions MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I am a researcher at Ohio University seeking reactions from fans of Octavia Butler, C.J. Cherryh, Anne McCaffrey, Vonda McIntyre and Elizabeth Scarborough. It's great to find this FEMINISTSF list! I am especially interested in your reactions to The Parable of the Sower by Butler, Rimrunners by Cherryh, The Crystal Singer series by McCaffrey, The Powers That Be series by McCaffrey & Scarborough, and The Starfarers series by McIntyre. Have you read any of these novels or series? If you have a few minutes, would you respond explaining what you like about the novel(s)? What do you like about the characters, societies, or story-lines? Are these stories feminist, humanist, or sexist? What don't you like? How would you describe these stories to someone who has not read them? Details: Your responses might appear in print in the dissertation that I am writing. You must be 18 years old to respond. All responses are confidential; if they appear in print, your name will be changed. Thank you. Emilie Falc ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 15:34:42 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Nina Brown Subject: Biblio MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi! Just joined the list. Am very excited about catching up on some good feminist sf reading. Haven't kept up with the literature for several years and would love to get hold of a book list so I can start reading. Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks! Nina ninab@wilmington.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 21:25:06 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Janet Dowling Subject: Re: Archive Is there an archive of this list so that i can go and look up past discussions, without having to save everthing that I think that I might want to refer to later. There is so much discussion on this list that I am finding useful, and I need to be able to read some of the books people mention, and then come back to the discussion. And is there a way of getting a weekly digest so that when i go away I don't have too many messages overloading me. Thanks muchly Janet Dowling (Still lurking, looking and liking) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Jun 1997 23:57:37 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: Good Delaney In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.16.19970626175906.1fe75a44@kent.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Delany has gotten progressively harder to read as the years have gone by. His two award winning novels, both early, are Babel-17 and The Einstein Intersect. Both are superbly written, full of neat ideas, and just a little bit pulpy. The slightly later Nova is similar and excellent. Dhalgren is very long, wonderfully well written, full of neat characters, but virtually plotless. Triton, recently reprinted as Trouble on Triton, is the closest Delany gets to utopian fiction and quite well done as well. I find the later fiction, Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand, the Neveryona books, They Fly at Chiron, much slower going, although many peoply who I respect love Stars in my Pocket. He also wrote a number of outstanding short stories which have been collected in Driftglass and one or two other collections. Mike Michael M. Levy levym@uwstout.edu Department of English levymm@uwec.edu University of Wisconsin-Stout off. ph: 715-834-6533 Menomonie, WI 54751 hm. ph: 715-834-6533 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 00:00:44 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: The Sparrow In-Reply-To: <01BC82F3.CE64AF20@rj1.lib.msu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Ruth Ann, I heard Russell speak a couple of times at Wiscon too, but didn't hear anything about the sequel to The Sparrow that you mentioned, The Children of God. Can you tell us anything else about it? Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:55:46 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Ruth Ann Jones Subject: Re: The Sparrow I believe Russell said the scheduled pub date for _Children of God_ is March 1998, and I'm pretty sure she said the book centers around a return trip to Rahkat but I'm not positive. She read an excerpt from an early chapter which was a conversation between Emilio, Vincenzo, and another character, but they were discussing the earlier events in The Sparrow, not giving away any details about what was to come. However, it was marvelous! I'm really looking forward to the sequel. --Ruth Ann ---------- From: Michael Marc Levy[SMTP:levymm@UWEC.EDU] Sent: Monday, June 30, 1997 1:01 AM To: FEMINISTSF@listserv.uic.edu Subject: Re: The Sparrow Ruth Ann, I heard Russell speak a couple of times at Wiscon too, but didn't hear anything about the sequel to The Sparrow that you mentioned, The Children of God. Can you tell us anything else about it? Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 09:18:57 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Kate Bolin Subject: "Parable of the Sower" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I unfortunately deleted the message that asked about this particular novel. So, instead, I'll just post my response here. I first read Octavia Butler in junior high school, her "Xenogenesis" trilogy. I had read her two Hugo-award winning stories beforehand and really liked them. In the second year of high school, the entire school was assigned to read "Kindred", her time-travelling Antebellum South novel. I got rehooked on Octavia Butler and was overjoyed when she came to my school to discuss the book. I then read "Parable of the Sower" soon afterwards. That one hit me hard. I grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, and reading the tale of an adolescent girl growing up in those suburbs in the future definitely hit a chord with me. I also deeply appreciated the fact that there was this intricate religion set into it. Instead of random New Age mutterings (like one too many SF novels have had nowadays), Earthseed was well thought out. It made sense in a senseless world. Lauren Olamina was a heroine of mine throughout the rest of my high school days. Even now, in college, I reread "Parable of the Sower" at least once every six months. Kate Bolin ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Ralph, Jesus did not have wheels." Kate Bolin http://studentweb.tulane.edu/~kbolin Founder of Delenn Deserves Better!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 16:30:23 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Emilie Falc Subject: Re: "Parable of the Sower" In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Kate Bolin wrote: Lauren Olamina was a heroine of mine throughout the rest of my high school days. What makes Lauren Olamina a heroine with whom you can really identify? Emilie Falc ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 16:18:24 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Kate Bolin Subject: Re: "Parable of the Sower" Comments: To: Emilie Falc In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > Kate Bolin wrote: > Lauren Olamina was a heroine of mine throughout the rest of my high school > days. > > What makes Lauren Olamina a heroine with whom you can really identify? > Because she was young. And smart. And knew that, no matter what the situation, she had to survive. She was very down-to-earth, but she still had her eyes turned towards the stars. She was, basically, what I hoped I could become. Someone who could handle whatever came her way, and do it in a way that seemed natural, realistic (unlike a lot of other heroes/heroines that seem to be able to do superhuman feats). What also got me was her inner peace. The fact that she was able to create "Earthseed" by herself. Something like that would take great inner peace and great wisdom, and she was only eighteen! I always hoped that I could be that calm, that resourceful, that amazing. kate ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 18:53:59 EST5EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Monica Gaudio Subject: Help? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Again, could someone PLEASE tell me how to get off this list? Thank you monica ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 20:31:06 +0000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Valerie Renwick-Porter Subject: Re: "Parable of the Sower" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT It was actually through "Parable of the Sower" that I came to be on this email list. I had just read it, and was having a fantasy that I'd be able to find a hardcopy, bound book of the Earthseed writings alone, for use as a spiritual/political text. (perhaps that someone else had created, being sufficiently inspired by Butler's work) I looked up the Feminist SF webpage, and sent an inquiry to find out if Laura Quilter (host) knew of such a book. In surfing that webpage, I found out about this list. I've had no luck in finding an Earthseed text--I admit that it's unlikely anyone has published it, but the force of my hope that one exists is strong enough that I wanted to put out the idea at least. I also really enjoyed " Kindred", and just yesterday finished "Adulthood Rites". The incredible power/desire around touch as used in that book was instrumental in inspiring me to mend a rift between me and my partner due to a fight we'd had last weekend. It's not usual that a book has such a direct positive influence in my life! Enjoying the dialogue on this list.... Valerie ============================================ Valerie Renwick-Porter ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 19:56:19 +0100 Reply-To: bernip@ix.netcom.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Berni Phillips Organization: The Huntingdon Library Subject: Re: The Sparrow MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ruth Ann Jones wrote: > > I believe Russell said the scheduled pub date for _Children of God_ is > March 1998, and I'm pretty sure she said the book centers around a return > trip to Rahkat but I'm not positive. She read an excerpt from an early I'm sure there's a return trip to Rakhat. Why? Several times in _The Sparrow_, she tells of the Jesuit who preached to the American Indians (I forget which tribe), was tortured, returned to Europe, and then came back to America, where he was eventually tortured to death. I'm betting this is a set up for Emilio's return. Berni Phillips