Subject: File: "FEMINISTSF LOG9805D" ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 07:17:29 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: OT "..fairly able and intelligent men.." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Okay, I am breathing again, and my plane has not yet arrived..... [comments of reference clipped below] IMHO, It is fine to rest ones arguments of "male/female difference" on psychological research. Happily, there is enough of it to justify ANY and EVERY perspective or strongly held personal conviction. It is a mildly useful calisthenics for ones brain. However, IMHO, it is not fine to argue that "fairly able and intelligent" can describe or define ANY individual, man or woman, who would contrive, construct, uphold, sanctify and/or defend slavery or apartheid. The concepts are mutually exclusive. And I am delighted to place myself in the role of judge and jury on this one. Please let know one assume I am as calm as I may appear about this issue. Thankfully, it veers so completely off topic that perhaps I will not be compelled to address it more strongly in the future. Donna (donnaneely@earthlink.net ) Re: Dan Krashin >Oddly enough, there are many decades of psychological experiments >supporting the idea that women, on average, are better for monotonous >detail work than men> >I guess I don't understand Timmi Duchamp's point too well -- is it that >because the system of men, women, and blands is evil, therefore it is >pointless to ask whether it makes sense or works in logical >ways? I have to disagree......When you look at what some "evil" societies >-- say the slaveowning South of the USA, South Africa under apartheid, >ancient Sparta -- each was administered by fairly able and intelligent men >doing what they thought necessary to preserve their system. The fact >that those systems were based on falsehood and injustice is a different >issue entirely. > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 07:28:46 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Elaine Kite Organization: North Valley School Student Serv Subject: To Donna Simone Comments: cc: cricket@shasta.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thank you. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 09:08:55 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: Re: SHADOW MAN Comments: cc: hoop1@USA.NET, jkrauel@ACTIONEER.COM Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The short answer on its status is: we are double checking. The longer, maybe more than one wanted to know about the way bookselling works, answer is: We were told about the Out of Print status of SHADOW MAN by our distributor, a middle source warehouse between retail booksellers like us and the publisher. They are pretty accurate, like 98%, so while we will follow up with St. Martin's customer service, we were prepared to accept their work on the book's status. In any event, I do like the "check the library" suggestion. I'm pretty much a creature of compromise, rather than extremes. While I wouldn't want everyone to use libraries exclusively because it would put me and a number of authors out of business, neither do I believe everyone *must* purchase every book s/he reads or s/he encourages friends to read. Pax, Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 17:25:59 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: SHADOW MAN In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 09:08 AM 5/22/98 +0100, Maryelizabeth wrote: >... >In any event, I do like the "check the library" suggestion. I'm pretty much >a creature of compromise, rather than extremes. While I wouldn't want >everyone to use libraries exclusively because it would put me and a number >of authors out of business, neither do I believe everyone *must* purchase >every book s/he reads or s/he encourages friends to read. > > I agree, and think it's important to support public libraries. I often check out books that I wouldn't necessarily buy, and then if I like them I put them on my "buy" list. I got Mists of Avalon from the library last week, although I expect to end up buying it. jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 22:51:21 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joslyn Grassby Subject: [Fwd: BDG: Halfway Human] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------AB37A930D7257A548147A8C3" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------AB37A930D7257A548147A8C3 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joslyn Grassby wrote: > Some time back, when I posted a message to start discussion of Gilman's > book, I promised to post further when I had completed rereading this > very interesting book. Below, with the usual imho disclaimer, are some > further thoughts. > > 1. Oooops. Used the pronoun "she" for Tedla, possibly in the spirit of > Galele's remark that the blands seemed to serve some of the same social > functions or inhabit a social niche similar to that occupied by women in > some societies. In reading the book, I found it difficult to think in > terms of "it" and it always seemed that the kinds of things that > happened to Tedla and its (I'm trying to be careful with pronouns) > behaviour seemed more akin to the kinds of things that happen to women > and its behaviour seemed to mirror the seductive behaviour women may > exhibit to get something they want when they are otherwise powerless. > > 2. Tedla and Galele. When I reflected back on earlier events in the > book after having read the section near the end when Tedla behaves in a > seductive fashion toward Val, I thought more highly of Galele, the > pederast. It seems reasonable to assume that Tedla had, possibly in an > earlier, simpler and less practised fashion, behaved in a similarly > seductive fashion toward him. He, whether because his treatment or > conditioning was still working or out of love for Tedla, resisted any > overtures that it may have made and behaved instead as a teacher. I am > more inclined to think it was the latter since after Tedla left, his > conditioning seemed no longer to function (which was represented as a > rare occurrence). > > 3. Blands and slavery. In the descriptions of blands' place in > Gammadian society and their relations with humans there, I was > irresistibly reminded of slavery in the United States and the relations > between blacks and whites in the years that followed the American Civil > War. Then I started asking myself what I based this on, and realized > that my only knowledge of slavery in the US is based on fiction, whether > books or films. But, there was nothing in "Halfway Human" that happened > to blands that I had not already seen portrayed. It still seems to me > that Gilman has taken the American experience, at least as I have seen > it in American books and films, and used gender instead of race. > > 4. Tedla and self-image. I found myself getting rather impatient with > Tedla's total lack of self-knowledge. It makes a number of intelligent, > sometimes witty (vide, the biggest bibliography) remarks on scholarship > and on the role of gender but seems unable to grasp the idea that it is > intelligent and doing well in its studies, despite considerable evidence > that this is the case. Tedla seems to be a sharp observer of everything > but itself and to have so woefully low a self-image that it is unable > to reflect on its own character and abilities. > > 5. Pronouns in general. Just as an interesting aside, in one language > with which I am familiar, Thai, the third person pronoun for what in > English would be "he", "she" or "they" is the same word, "khaw", which > can also be possessive, "khong khaw" (anyone who knows Thai will have to > excuse the transliteration). Similarly, there is a general term of > address, "khun", which does not distinguish on the basis of gender. On > the other hand, the pronouns for "I" are different for men and women as > are polite particles at the end of sentences. What Thai IS very > particular about is the relative social class and age grading of the > person speaking and the person "khaw" is speaking to. > > 6. Halfway Human. The title puzzled me: to whom does it refer and what > does it mean? It's too easy and so obvious as to add nothing to the > story to think that it applies only to Tedla. In a moment of satori, > however, I decided that it applied to every character in the book, in a > different way for each. The Gammadians, the ruthless information > brokers, are indeed half human and becoming less so. Tedla, Val, Val's > family are halfway human but moving in the opposite direction--towards > humanity. To the Vinds, too, perhaps because they have passed through > humanity on their way to what, I don't know. > > Joslyn Grassby --------------AB37A930D7257A548147A8C3 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-ID: <356649E8.2010B91C@nlc-bnc.ca> Date: Fri, 22 May 1998 21:00:41 -0700 From: Joslyn Grassby X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win16; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: listserv@listserv.uic.edu Subject: BDG: Halfway Human Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Some time back, when I posted a message to start discussion of Gilman's book, I promised to post further when I had completed rereading this very interesting book. Below, with the usual imho disclaimer, are some further thoughts. 1. Oooops. Used the pronoun "she" for Tedla, possibly in the spirit of Galele's remark that the blands seemed to serve some of the same social functions or inhabit a social niche similar to that occupied by women in some societies. In reading the book, I found it difficult to think in terms of "it" and it always seemed that the kinds of things that happened to Tedla and its (I'm trying to be careful with pronouns) behaviour seemed more akin to the kinds of things that happen to women and its behaviour seemed to mirror the seductive behaviour women may exhibit to get something they want when they are otherwise powerless. 2. Tedla and Galele. When I reflected back on earlier events in the book after having read the section near the end when Tedla behaves in a seductive fashion toward Val, I thought more highly of Galele, the pederast. It seems reasonable to assume that Tedla had, possibly in an earlier, simpler and less practised fashion, behaved in a similarly seductive fashion toward him. He, whether because his treatment or conditioning was still working or out of love for Tedla, resisted any overtures that it may have made and behaved instead as a teacher. I am more inclined to think it was the latter since after Tedla left, his conditioning seemed no longer to function (which was represented as a rare occurrence). 3. Blands and slavery. In the descriptions of blands' place in Gammadian society and their relations with humans there, I was irresistibly reminded of slavery in the United States and the relations between blacks and whites in the years that followed the American Civil War. Then I started asking myself what I based this on, and realized that my only knowledge of slavery in the US is based on fiction, whether books or films. But, there was nothing in "Halfway Human" that happened to blands that I had not already seen portrayed. It still seems to me that Gilman has taken the American experience, at least as I have seen it in American books and films, and used gender instead of race. 4. Tedla and self-image. I found myself getting rather impatient with Tedla's total lack of self-knowledge. It makes a number of intelligent, sometimes witty (vide, the biggest bibliography) remarks on scholarship and on the role of gender but seems unable to grasp the idea that it is intelligent and doing well in its studies, despite considerable evidence that this is the case. Tedla seems to be a sharp observer of everything but itself and to have so woefully low a self-image that it is unable to reflect on its own character and abilities. 5. Pronouns in general. Just as an interesting aside, in one language with which I am familiar, Thai, the third person pronoun for what in English would be "he", "she" or "they" is the same word, "khaw", which can also be possessive, "khong khaw" (anyone who knows Thai will have to excuse the transliteration). Similarly, there is a general term of address, "khun", which does not distinguish on the basis of gender. On the other hand, the pronouns for "I" are different for men and women as are polite particles at the end of sentences. What Thai IS very particular about is the relative social class and age grading of the person speaking and the person "khaw" is speaking to. 6. Halfway Human. The title puzzled me: to whom does it refer and what does it mean? It's too easy and so obvious as to add nothing to the story to think that it applies only to Tedla. In a moment of satori, however, I decided that it applied to every character in the book, in a different way for each. The Gammadians, the ruthless information brokers, are indeed half human and becoming less so. Tedla, Val, Val's family are halfway human but moving in the opposite direction--towards humanity. To the Vinds, too, perhaps because they have passed through humanity on their way to what, I don't know. Joslyn Grassby --------------AB37A930D7257A548147A8C3-- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 11:11:56 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: fairly able and intelligent men Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > From: donna simone > Subject: OT "..fairly able and intelligent men.." > [comments of reference clipped below] > > However, IMHO, it is not fine to argue that "fairly able and intelligent" can > describe or define ANY individual, man or woman, who > would contrive, construct, uphold, sanctify and/or defend slavery or apartheid. > The concepts are mutually exclusive. > And I am delighted to place myself in the role of judge and jury on this one. ----------------------------------------------------- I guess Donna you're saying that able, intelligent people could not support or uphold slavery. That's like saying able intelligent people couldn't have propogated the holocaust. That's a lovely idea, but from what I have seen of life, very untrue. People are quite capable of being able and intelligent, friendly, god-fearing and immoral, and see no contradiction in their character. Bumbling fools would cause much less destruction in this life than evil, able intelligent people have. Joyce Jones ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 15:39:21 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: fairly able and intelligent men In-Reply-To: <19980523161125.9927.qmail@www0a.netaddress.usa.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think, Donna and Joyce, you are both right in some way. The difference, though, is that from _objective_ point of view a higly educated and intelligent person who supports depriving other humans from the rights he/she enjoys, obviously has some mental deficiency that prevents him/her from understanding that social inequality has no natural or logical excuse. The understanding that normally comes with knowledge. In that sense, they are not particularly smart when it's not convenient to them. On the other side, of course, everyone considers themself intelligent, Hitler and company certainly did. The view of oneself is subjective, and not always true (the same as one's preception by others, to be fair). However, the main thing is that this is not as much a question of intelligence, as of morality. Hitler was definetly talented in certain areas, the problem was what he used it for. In the end, it all boils down to the definition of intelligence -- whether it means knowledge, analytical abilities, intuition, social adaptation skills, morality, or all of the above. For what I know, they (those who care) have been arguing about "what is intelligence" for ages, and never came to any agreement. And I doubt they ever will. Neither will we, for that matter, I am afraid. But it still can make a good topic for a flame war. Marina On Sat, 23 May 1998, Joyce Jones wrote: > > From: donna simone > > > However, IMHO, it is not fine to argue that "fairly able and > intelligent" can > > describe or define ANY individual, man or woman, who > > would contrive, construct, uphold, sanctify and/or defend slavery or > apartheid. > > The concepts are mutually exclusive. > ----------------------------------------------------- > I guess Donna you're saying that able, intelligent people could not > support or uphold slavery. That's like saying able intelligent people > couldn't have propogated the holocaust. That's a lovely idea, but > from what I have seen of life, very untrue. People are quite capable > of being able and intelligent, friendly, god-fearing and immoral, and > see no contradiction in their character. Bumbling fools would cause > much less destruction in this life than evil, able intelligent people > have. > Joyce Jones > > ____________________________________________________________________ > Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 > "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society happens to be selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 17:43:51 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Kmfriello Subject: Re: fairly able and intelligent men Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-05-23 12:12:24 EDT, you write: << I guess Donna you're saying that able, intelligent people could not support or uphold slavery. That's like saying able intelligent people couldn't have propogated the holocaust. That's a lovely idea, but from what I have seen of life, very untrue. People are quite capable of being able and intelligent, friendly, god-fearing and immoral, and see no contradiction in their character. Bumbling fools would cause much less destruction in this life than evil, able intelligent people have. Joyce Jones _____ >> This is so true: and the definitions of "evil" and "immoral" are fluid and subjective, anyway--- just look at the propaganda on both sides of the abortion issue. To reiterate a well-known tenet of the genre: SF offers an opportunity to tweak and reverse, and therefore examine, such definitions and judgements. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 23 May 1998 18:36:35 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Alison Page Subject: Re: fairly able and intelligent men MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > from what I have seen of life, very untrue. People are quite capable > of being able and intelligent, friendly, god-fearing and immoral, and > see no contradiction in their character. Bumbling fools would cause > much less destruction in this life than evil, able intelligent people > have. > Joyce Jones I've been thinking about all these comments a lot. I think it is important to realise that 'bad' things can be done by people who are not overtly wicked. Sometimes this is because they get sucked into it by incremental steps, and sometimes its because they live in societies which have different standards from our own. Here's an example which nobody has mentioned - footbinding in ancient China. If a man deliberately crippled his daughters in our country(s) we would rightly think he was a psychopath. But we don't believe that the entire aristocratic population of China for a thousand years were psychopaths. I'm not being a cultural relativist - I do think these practices are genuinely wrong, by any standards - I'm just saying that peple who do 'bad' things may not be so obviously evil as we might think. Also in stories I think it is more interesting to show the 'baddies' as complex characters, who may even be doing good by their own lights. presuming one is writing a story with baddies in it of course :-) Another scary thought is that people in the future might look back on the things we do now and wonder how fairly able and kindly women could do those terrible things. Alison ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 25 May 1998 22:32:51 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: BDG Halfway Human In-Reply-To: <199805182310.LAA208320895533029@mail.iconz.co.nz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I finished *Halfway Human* about a week ago and have been thinking about it since then. I found it to be an enjoyable, intriguing story. Following are my comments. The book called other works to mind for me. *The Left Hand of Darkness* & "The Matter of Seggri" by Le Guin, Susan Matthews' *Prisoner of Conscience* (if you thought Tedla's mistreatment was bad, compare it to some of the torture in PoC), M.J. Engh's *Arslan*, Octavia Butler's *Kindred* and Suzy McKee Charnas' Holdfast series. A common theme in these works (except LHoD) is the oppression of one group by another and whether or not it's possible for people from the two groups to form relationships free from this oppression. The depth of the subject is immense and I always enjoy thoughtful approaches to it. Tedla's relationship to Tellegen is very interesting in this way -- Tellegen is wracked with guilt because he is violating his own morals and Tedla is confused yet very grateful to be treated kindly. It's clear that Tellegen still has the upper hand and does not hesitate to exert his power when he thinks he knows what is best for Tedla, but it's hard for me to call his sexual relations with Tedla rape. Tedla could have said no and it fully understood that option, but it chose not to. It said that it enjoyed physical intimacy with Tellegen even though it had no sexual feelings. Obviously it wanted to continue to please Tellegen for fear of being posted elsewhere, but I don't think this means that their relationship can be boiled down to simple one-way exploitation. Many real life relationships could be vastly oversimplified in the same way. Some have said that they don't understand Tedla's insistence on being a bland & not human, even though it is no longer on Gammadis. Perhaps there would be more complete healing for Tedla if it had entered a free bland community (as Alldera in Charnas' *Motherlines* becomes a part of the Riding Women). But instead Tedla is among sexed humans, beings who are still profoundly different from it, beings whose sexual appetites are in large part identical to its Gammadian oppressors'. How could it not still feel like an outsider? Maybe it doesn't WANT to be human? Re: Joslyn Grassby's irritation with Tedla's low self-esteem: isn't it amazing how so many women in our society, though very intelligent, are convinced that their bodies just aren't good enough, despite the assurances of their friends and full awareness of the existence of eating disorders? Why do so many women starve themselves in pursuit of an impossible ideal? It simply has nothing to do with objective reality. If the conditioning to think that you are fat, dumb, ugly, etc. is strong enough no amount of opposite conditioning will ever erase its effects. I think Tedla did quite well to stand up to Nasatir at all. Jessie Stickgold-Sarah wrote: >in fact the gendered characters that >I remember as most moving the story along were the squire, Galele, the abusive >man whose name I can't even remember at Brice's, maybe the administrator at >the creche who tells Tedla to reflect on its actions towards Joby. The women >(Elector Hornaby (??), Ovide, Annika) seemed to do much less in terms of >really moving the action forward. This is an awfully subjective assessment -- >did other people have this reaction, or an opposite one, or think it was >balanced? It didn't seem that way to me. I thought Ovide did perform an important function, choosing Tedla for Tellegen and introducing Galele to both of them. And the woman at Brice's is the one who asks Tedla what it really thinks of her and has it punished when she doesn't like the answer. Anita Easton wrote: >Did anyone find any merit in the ending at all? It seemed like a total >cop out, but I'm hoping I missed something. It did seem like it came out of the blue, but when you think about it, Gossup didn't have all that much to lose by diverting Tedla to C4D. No one on Capella Two would hear about it from Gammadis for 50 years (or however long it was exactly -- a long time) & as long as Tedla and Val keep quiet on C4D there's no menace from that quarter. There's some risk to him, perhaps it isn't completely convincing, but I didn't mind it too much since it made no difference at all to the main story line. Joyce Jones wrote: >I really wanted to think that Tedla's lack of metamorphosis was a mistake. >The idea presented by Patricia Mathews that it was made a bland >specifically so it could be used as a sex slave was just nauseating. Well, >there is no end to the depravity of human kind, but wow, this was not a >thought I had while reading the book. Though it isn't explained, I think it plausible that there might be a quota system at work here. "We need x number of blands this year and they need such and such talents or attributes." It seems that as the population of blands increases, the humans find more and more use for them (vis. Tedla's comment that it came to understand how a staff of many blands can be kept busy caring for a few humans). And perhaps other considerations, like "we can't have any ugly humans" or "no humans who can't play well with others or are below such and such IQ" (like Bigger, who seemed to be developing sex by itself without the hormone treatments and was surgically altered to be a bland). Stacey Holbrooke wrote: >The whole idea that "there are blands in every society" seemed to >be tacked on at the end. I don't think so. I thought it was clear from the beginning that the society of Capella Two is heartless in a way very similar to Gammadis -- people looking for excuses to devalue others and shut others out. Timmi Duchamp wrote: >In other words, Gilman shows us that sexuality & sexed-ness is as >constructed as gender is. Yes. Tedla even says at one point that it learned a whole other language of interaction once it started spending more time with humans -- the "flirting" and sexual innuendo that is injected when appropriate. Tedla even goes so far as to say that most sexuality is expressed here rather than in bed. (p. 345) Tedla's perceived gender: at first I thought of Tedla as an effeminate male, but as I read on I began to identify with it more and more, so eventually I was able to think of it simply as "the outsider", as that is often how I feel when I observe highly gendered behaviors in our society. What do I mean by highly gendered? I guess behaviors that I think of as "macho" or "feminine" like being physically aggressive or very willing to accept physical constraint (high heels, clothes that need to be adjusted all the time -- don't let anyone see up that skirt!). Tedla's expected role didn't seem to fit either of these extremes. At 11:12 AM 5/19/98 +1200, Jenny Rankine wrote: >I find the great wadges of description of past events almost undigestible. >There are all these long pieces of Tedla's story, and then Val suddenly >starts responding, and you realise it was all in the past. It lurches >really badly from static past narrative to present action. I found the past narrative far from static. What exactly do you mean? The only difference of narrative style that I can tell is that Tedla's is in the 1st person and the present time narrative is in the 3rd person. >Hopefully, I'll finish it, but I have to agree with one of the other posts >which described it as turgid. I'm a non-fiction editor and don't usually >feel an urge to edit fiction, but this book has a solid kernel of good >story and ideas in a bad structure, which cries out for a severe rewrite >and edit. I can easily imagine that the book could have been structured differently and better; however I don't understand the criticism that the book is turgid. Turgid, to me, means that there is a lot of extraneous material that could have been left out, unnecessary verbiage, cliche phrases... but I didn't think there was anything extraneous. Tedla's narrative is all there because it is describing its life, what it means to be a bland and how its own views of blands and humans have been changed by its unusual experiences. Everything seemed to fit. (Now, *The Mists of Avalon* is a turgid book, but that's a whole other book discussion!) Well, I think this is enough for one message. My compliments to Carolyn Ives Gilman for her thought-provoking novel! ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: XTC's English Settlement; Bran Van 3000's Glee "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 13:39:21 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Stahl, Sheryl" Subject: Re: BDG Halfway Human MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > ---------- > From: Janice E. Dawley[SMTP:jdawley@TOGETHER.NET] > > Some have said that they don't understand Tedla's insistence on being > a > bland & not human, even though it is no longer on Gammadis. Perhaps > there > would be more complete healing for Tedla if it had entered a free > bland > community (as Alldera in Charnas' *Motherlines* becomes a part of the > Riding Women). But instead Tedla is among sexed humans, beings who are > still profoundly different from it, beings whose sexual appetites are > in > large part identical to its Gammadian oppressors'. How could it not > still > feel like an outsider? Maybe it doesn't WANT to be human? I had been mulling over this point also - It seems to me that part of the issue is that Tedlas definition of human changed - on its world male or female = human; bland = not human. I think Tedla discovered that these equations were false - 'human' has to do with attitude, behavior, sense of self, etc. - Since Tedla learned that it (I keep having to backspace over 'she') was more than 'just a bland' and was infact human - there was no reason to change. If the point is that anyone would want to be like the norm - then all women would want to change into men since that is the 'norm' in our society. Not all (or even most) lesbians and gays would want to be changed just for the sake of being 'normal' sheryl > Re: Joslyn Grassby's irritation with Tedla's low self-esteem: isn't it > amazing how so many women in our society, though very intelligent, are > convinced that their bodies just aren't good enough, despite the > assurances > of their friends and full awareness of the existence of eating > disorders? > Why do so many women starve themselves in pursuit of an impossible > ideal? > It simply has nothing to do with objective reality. If the > conditioning to > think that you are fat, dumb, ugly, etc. is strong enough no amount of > opposite conditioning will ever erase its effects. I think Tedla did > quite > well to stand up to Nasatir at all. > > Jessie Stickgold-Sarah wrote: > >in fact the gendered characters that > >I remember as most moving the story along were the squire, Galele, > the > abusive > >man whose name I can't even remember at Brice's, maybe the > administrator at > >the creche who tells Tedla to reflect on its actions towards Joby. > The women > >(Elector Hornaby (??), Ovide, Annika) seemed to do much less in terms > of > >really moving the action forward. This is an awfully subjective > assessment -- > >did other people have this reaction, or an opposite one, or think it > was > >balanced? > > It didn't seem that way to me. I thought Ovide did perform an > important > function, choosing Tedla for Tellegen and introducing Galele to both > of > them. And the woman at Brice's is the one who asks Tedla what it > really > thinks of her and has it punished when she doesn't like the answer. > > Anita Easton wrote: > >Did anyone find any merit in the ending at all? It seemed like a > total > >cop out, but I'm hoping I missed something. > > It did seem like it came out of the blue, but when you think about it, > Gossup didn't have all that much to lose by diverting Tedla to C4D. No > one > on Capella Two would hear about it from Gammadis for 50 years (or > however > long it was exactly -- a long time) & as long as Tedla and Val keep > quiet > on C4D there's no menace from that quarter. There's some risk to him, > perhaps it isn't completely convincing, but I didn't mind it too much > since > it made no difference at all to the main story line. > > Joyce Jones wrote: > >I really wanted to think that Tedla's lack of metamorphosis was a > mistake. > >The idea presented by Patricia Mathews that it was made a bland > >specifically so it could be used as a sex slave was just nauseating. > Well, > >there is no end to the depravity of human kind, but wow, this was not > a > >thought I had while reading the book. > > Though it isn't explained, I think it plausible that there might be a > quota > system at work here. "We need x number of blands this year and they > need > such and such talents or attributes." It seems that as the population > of > blands increases, the humans find more and more use for them (vis. > Tedla's > comment that it came to understand how a staff of many blands can be > kept > busy caring for a few humans). And perhaps other considerations, like > "we > can't have any ugly humans" or "no humans who can't play well with > others > or are below such and such IQ" (like Bigger, who seemed to be > developing > sex by itself without the hormone treatments and was surgically > altered to > be a bland). > > Stacey Holbrooke wrote: > >The whole idea that "there are blands in every society" seemed to > >be tacked on at the end. > > I don't think so. I thought it was clear from the beginning that the > society of Capella Two is heartless in a way very similar to Gammadis > -- > people looking for excuses to devalue others and shut others out. > > Timmi Duchamp wrote: > >In other words, Gilman shows us that sexuality & sexed-ness is as > >constructed as gender is. > > Yes. Tedla even says at one point that it learned a whole other > language of > interaction once it started spending more time with humans -- the > "flirting" and sexual innuendo that is injected when appropriate. > Tedla > even goes so far as to say that most sexuality is expressed here > rather > than in bed. (p. 345) > > Tedla's perceived gender: at first I thought of Tedla as an effeminate > male, but as I read on I began to identify with it more and more, so > eventually I was able to think of it simply as "the outsider", as that > is > often how I feel when I observe highly gendered behaviors in our > society. > What do I mean by highly gendered? I guess behaviors that I think of > as > "macho" or "feminine" like being physically aggressive or very willing > to > accept physical constraint (high heels, clothes that need to be > adjusted > all the time -- don't let anyone see up that skirt!). Tedla's expected > role > didn't seem to fit either of these extremes. > > At 11:12 AM 5/19/98 +1200, Jenny Rankine wrote: > >I find the great wadges of description of past events almost > undigestible. > >There are all these long pieces of Tedla's story, and then Val > suddenly > >starts responding, and you realise it was all in the past. It lurches > >really badly from static past narrative to present action. > > I found the past narrative far from static. What exactly do you mean? > The > only difference of narrative style that I can tell is that Tedla's is > in > the 1st person and the present time narrative is in the 3rd person. > > >Hopefully, I'll finish it, but I have to agree with one of the other > posts > >which described it as turgid. I'm a non-fiction editor and don't > usually > >feel an urge to edit fiction, but this book has a solid kernel of > good > >story and ideas in a bad structure, which cries out for a severe > rewrite > >and edit. > > I can easily imagine that the book could have been structured > differently > and better; however I don't understand the criticism that the book is > turgid. Turgid, to me, means that there is a lot of extraneous > material > that could have been left out, unnecessary verbiage, cliche phrases... > but > I didn't think there was anything extraneous. Tedla's narrative is all > there because it is describing its life, what it means to be a bland > and > how its own views of blands and humans have been changed by its > unusual > experiences. Everything seemed to fit. (Now, *The Mists of Avalon* is > a > turgid book, but that's a whole other book discussion!) > > Well, I think this is enough for one message. My compliments to > Carolyn > Ives Gilman for her thought-provoking novel! > > > ----- > Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT > http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm > Listening to: XTC's English Settlement; Bran Van 3000's Glee > "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; > the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and > servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 11:07:00 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: _Dragon's Winter_, by Elizabeth Lynn Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Satisfying. The writing is clean and elegant and spare; a lot of images in not very many words. Deceptively simple. Each sentence seemed hand-crafted, but didn't necessarily require extra effort on my part. (For contrast, I'm also reading _The Dazzle of Day_, which is so loaded with meaning that it's hard for me to read. Plus it's depressing me. But that's another story.) Definitely a book that benefits from additional readings. In this book she uses more traditional gender roles than in some of her others; I remember that in _The Northern Girl_ both men and women held equal power, and I was very fond of the way a "non-gendered" person was referred to in the feminine. ("Move that board -- someone could trip and hurt herself.") In this one the men hunt and fight and the women stay home and cook or weave. However there is one woman who is a fighter and although male resentment is mentioned, it doesn't take center stage. It's an interesting balance. It's still out in hardcover, but y'all should go get it. Have other people read it? What did you think? Since we have this lull before MofA... jessie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 14:06:15 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marsha Valance Subject: _Dragon's Winter_, by Elizabeth Lynn -Reply Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="=_F5A1A6D1.4D2C4240" This is a MIME message. If you are reading this text, you may want to consider changing to a mail reader or gateway that understands how to properly handle MIME multipart messages. --=_F5A1A6D1.4D2C4240 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline I enjoyed it very much--as you mentioned, the style was clear, and the character development well-done. I especially appreciated the werewolf and his wife, and ***SPOILER ALERT*** was made very unhappy when they were killed off halfway thru. I find that Lynn has a great deal of insight into motivation, which comes thru in her characters. --=_F5A1A6D1.4D2C4240 Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="HEADER.TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="HEADER.TXT" Content-Description: WordPerfect 6.0 /1dQQwQDAAABCgIBAAAAAgUAAAAEBAAAAAIAAC0hJDdq1qrv1zVWcaxVJDeMdDjCSWLqFRu9MUom 1qrv5ZpShDRCQenJJnwLYob4citWJbnC+PG5vBOvCamRe0a2NCcqwPxNcKOLX7/rX5QAAwgo6sQm yoWZKV9lNOxm6x6bKu0D+Th+jMB4vDI4CjlmuxenTROORnfiGMVC82Y6xecQIxgb1lFr6f2aIh4b FGYzpZiM/zjPDpJYiPzbXbZtTuXhB2TQgtdtGYfX6zswRPnkcAr39qRS1fl19j67gJZPSF1fy4uD g1MSy0T8YJqd6AhaBOeEnfE7L5Zue11aq8z1w/DK4ZoX11xIEOsxIF0hXBOoSq201fKJJm84nitu G5lXe6JnIFh4NDxl/iiQGkyG1cPdqlusi1J6orVuJQy0cncRDobzbd+LlHtuzZEd3jNrYGjOc1k7 iZUAenC0ea1qREy+5fcjzxQu+4jy5dJk9OIhVQgWi0aaxS/aEph7C3lsMLeIXN1BOAYx7lIJs14L x4Za9YKqxVnOP+gIILlnuyNXpaWneGYiN1THnVlghSmHJ6goCpNBa37kLcVOf8n3r07auQGF25W4 BZKaUxTfEoq7b9ZkVHUOSLbQBAhV8ljW9Df3t08XlPYJ4Jj3x0olGdbRhvHfSEL/zRKZO/0Ftc0C AAcAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgCAQAAABAAAABiAgAAAFUBAAAARgAAAHICAAAJJQEAAAAGAAAAuAIAAAsw AgAAACgAAAC+AgAACHcBAAAACgAAAOYCAAAINAEAAAAUAAAA8AIAAAgjfAB4AAECAAABAAAAAQA8 ABAnAAAAAAAAEQkAAABaACMAAAAQLgBSAG8AbQBhAG4AIAAxADAAYwBwAGkAIABSAGUAZwB1AGwA YQByAAAAAAAAAAAAAQACAFgCAQAAAAQAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABEwIAJAChAAAAoQAA AAEAAAABAAEACwAFWLcgAAAAAAAAcABtAAAACPogAN0KEACDAQQAAwACACEQAN3dCwsAAwAABAsA 3fEAAQDxTWFyc2hhgFZhbGFuY2XMV2lzY29uc2lugFJlZ2lvbmFsgExpYnJhcnmAZi90gEJsaW5k gCaAUGh5c2ljYWxseYBIYW5kaWNhcHBlZMw4MTOAV2VzdIBXZWxsc4BTdC7MTWlsd2F1a2VlLIBX SYA1MzIzMy0xNDM2zDxtdmFsYW5AbXBsLm9yZz7MzCJUaGF0gEFsbIBNYXmAUmVhZCLMzE15gG9w aW5pb25zgGFyZYBteYBvd24tLXRoZYBsaWJyYXJ5gHdvdWxkbid0gHdhbnSAdGhlbSHwFQbw8QEB APE= --=_F5A1A6D1.4D2C4240-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 13:52:38 -0700 Reply-To: ltimmel@halcyon.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "L. Timmel Duchamp" Subject: Re: BDG Halfway Human MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Re the structure of the novel & some readers' discomfort with it (& with the book, generally)-- it's my sense that this may be a consequence of the way in which the book's structure sets up a moral test for the non-Gammadian characters, rather than simply presenting the sexed Gammadians as monsters in isolation from the Capellans. Right from the very first chapter, I thought that it was Val on the moral hotseat-- & later, that that position was extended to Val's mentor & all the others involved in determining Tedla's fate, & also to all the humans on the first expedition to Tedla's world. The tension in the story comes from *that*-- from our consciousness that the auditors (or readers) learning that story were on trial, & not from Tedla's experience of abuse (which is mitigated by the fact that it is telling the story of its past in the present). & of course because we-- like Val-- are auditors of Tedla's story, the book's structure places us readers in that position, too (& in the position of being identified with Val & her mentor & later with Galele, too). & I think that may be what is bothering those who find the story interminable, unbearable, or turgid (as I did not). My own sharpest discomfort was caused by the possibility that Val would betray Tedla-- & my understanding of the reasons her doing so would be considered normatively correct & simply sensible by other Capellans, while I took the sections of Tedla's narrative as an escape from that tension. Certainly I found it painful & anxiety-producing to consider the extent to which non-collaboration with evil is often punished in the real world (& might well be punished in the world of the book). Timmi Duchamp http://www.halcyon.com/ltimmel/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 18:31:11 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: _Dragon's Winter_, by Elizabeth Lynn MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Glad some others have read this! >Satisfying. The writing is clean and elegant and spare; a lot of images in not >very many words. Deceptively simple. Each sentence seemed hand-crafted, but >didn't necessarily require extra effort on my part. > Lynn is a very seductive writer to me. No matter what she is saying I cannot stop reading it. She holds true to form in this book in that regard. And no one writes about heartache and love better than her. >In this book she uses more traditional gender roles than in some of her >others; I remember that in _The Northern Girl_ both men and women held equal >power, and I was very fond of the way a "non-gendered" person was referred to >in the feminine. ("Move that board -- someone could trip and hurt herself.") >In this one the men hunt and fight and the women stay home and cook or weave. >However there is one woman who is a fighter and although male resentment is >mentioned, it doesn't take center stage. It's an interesting balance.> I must say I was troubled and disappointed by this. Okay, I admit I am disappointed from the perspective of my own expectations. But still I am a religious consumer of E. Lynn's books BECAUSE she always made an effort to examine gender roles and power relationships. This book is almost reactionary in the absence of questioning of gender roles and power/authority issues. The kings are kings and they are male. end of subject. And other than the Dragon's relationship, no one else is in an alternative relationship of any . Yes there is shapeshifter with a human but the relationship in regard to male/female roles is very traditional in its configuration. Moreso, most if not all of the "outsider" characters (shapeshifters/mages) are alone and not in relationship at all. So is the message that if you are different you will traverse the globe alone? I find myself wanting to ask E. Lynn why she moved away from it all. Too hard to write? Been done too much? Traditional roles are now where she thinks it is at? What? Wish I could have been at Mary-Elizabeth's for her appearance. Donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 26 May 1998 20:09:02 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: Re: _Dragon's Winter_, by Elizabeth Lynn In-Reply-To: <013f01bd88f5$fff73cc0$9dae2499@donnaneely> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 06:31 PM 5/26/98 -0400, Donna Simone wrote: >I must say I was troubled and disappointed by this. Okay, I admit I am >disappointed from the perspective of my own expectations. But still I am >a religious consumer of E. Lynn's books BECAUSE she always made an >effort to examine gender roles and power relationships. This book is >almost reactionary in the absence of questioning of gender roles and >power/authority issues. Sadly, this confirms my hasty assessment of the book in Barnes & Noble a couple of months ago. I saw it on the shelf and thought, "Oh, goody! A new Elizabeth A. Lynn book!" But after reading the first 15 or so pages and skimming ahead a bit I came to the conclusion that the plot was a tired retread of evil guy vs. good guy and their epic struggle, destiny, supernatural powers, etc. etc. Maybe that's overstating it a bit, but I had come to expect a certain adventuresomeness in gender roles and narrative style from Lynn and felt very disappointed. I put it back on the shelf. Perhaps I'll read it eventually, but right now I'm not well disposed. ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/jedhome.htm Listening to: XTC's English Settlement; Bran Van 3000's Glee "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 07:47:59 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: Re: DRAGON'S WINTER by Elizabeth Lynn Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Some quick comments. I'm frantically preparing to go to a bookseller's conference this weekend. Janice E. Dawley commented: >But after reading the first 15 or so pages and >skimming ahead a bit I came to the conclusion that the plot was a tired >retread of evil guy vs. good guy and their epic struggle, destiny, >supernatural powers, etc. etc. Maybe that's overstating it a bit, but I had >come to expect a certain adventuresomeness in gender roles and narrative >style from Lynn and felt very disappointed. I put it back on the shelf. >Perhaps I'll read it eventually, but right now I'm not well disposed. In reading it it is a little more complex than good v. evil, at least among the two brothers who are pitted together. I agree it is a retelling of some of the classic fantasy ideas, but I wasn't disappointed, just put DW in the same category as ROSE DAUGHTER et al. I don't always need a new story or new ideas, although I can understand Janice's expectations for a certain something from Lynn. When she was at the store, she did make the comment to my friend buying the "Chronicles" books that she should not read them and then immediately read DW, as they are different types of books. ~~~~~~~ Marsha Valance commented: >***SPOILER ALERT*** > >I enjoyed it very much--as you mentioned, the style was >clear, and the character development well-done. I especially >appreciated the werewolf and his wife, and > >***SPOILER ALERT*** > > > > > > > > >was made very unhappy when they were killed off halfway >thru. I find that Lynn has a great deal of insight into >motivation, which comes thru in her characters. It also made me sad, but I thought it was very true to the kinds of lives she had set up. Sometimes short, nasty and brutal, but still with moments of joy. What I found more disturbing personally was the King's casual attitude towards violence against his troops, etc. I think it may have just been the dragon is his nature, but it still bothered me. Speaking of which: donna simone made many comments, including: Yes there is shapeshifter with a human but the relationship in regard to male/female roles is very traditional in its configuration. Moreso, most if not all of the "outsider" characters (shapeshifters/mages) are alone and not in relationship at all. So is the message that if you are different you will traverse the globe alone? I took this more as a comment that the shapeshifters were kind of exotic in the particular land, other than the dragon/king, but were less of a minority elsewhere. For exapmple, with regard to Wolf's and Thea's pregnancy, when Wolf is reassuring her about the status of the newborn, one gets the feeling of precedent. Also, Hawk is discussed as being one of many sisters, IIRC. In other news, am reading THE BLUE PLACE, the new Nicola Griffith. IT's a mystery set in the South. Am enjoying it greatly (my fave scene so far is where the main character seduces a woman while playing pool...) except for having a hard time with the main character's name: Aud. Too extraordinary for me, and it throws me a bit each time I read it. :( In some ways it reminds me of Lynn's work, with the appreciation for the body and its abilities. Almost makes me want to give up being a couch potato. Almost. Pax, Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 18:33:22 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: CRONES Comments: cc: Melnjo , shander@cdsnet.net, Maryelizabeth Hart , Ines Lassnig , ligeia@concentric.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To all CRONES and potential CRONES, CRONES - (did anyone save my original post, I didn't - by accident }:-(, so I think it was) Crazy Russ Oldtimers Needing Essays to Survive. I am now returned from a month of travel in May and am finally tackling the creation of our "reading Joanna Russ's new essays" web site. Lilith (bless her large heart) has been generously advising me and it looks like we will initially just set up a message board format for folks to post their comments. Gosh knows where it all will end. I temple to Joanna Russ? Who knows. I will work in to the site info on what essay is being read and when etc.. I will also manage archiving comments after each discussion etc. I plan on asking Laura if she wants to let us link to her site, etc. I am not sweating the details because I just want to GET GOING with it. If _anyone_ has suggestions or recommendations for how to go about this all, reply please. It is never too late and the more the merrier I say. I know there is a lot of expertise out there. (Note to Anthea: plz reply, I have "lost" your e-mail address. Thanks dear.) More Soon. Go buy the book! ;) ;) ;) (or see if the library has ordered it. Time to start the groundswell) donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 21:54:34 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: DRAGON'S WINTER/BLUE PLACE MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Mary-Elizabeth, enjoy your "frantic" conference! Good point this (below). Thanks. >I took this more as a comment that the shapeshifters were kind of exotic in >the particular land, other than the dragon/king, but were less of a >minority elsewhere. For example, with regard to Wolf's and Thea's >pregnancy, when Wolf is reassuring her about the status of the newborn, one >gets the feeling of precedent. Also, Hawk is discussed as being one of many >sisters, IIRC. comment to this below: >... am reading THE BLUE PLACE, the new Nicola Griffith. IT's a mystery set in the South. Am enjoying it greatly .......In some ways it reminds me of Lynn's work, with the appreciation for the body and its abilities. Almost makes me want to give up being a couch potato. Almost.> Maryelizabeth and all, I strongly recommend folks read Nicola's article from SF EYE on "Writing From The Body". We did a panel on it at WISCON to our audiences great delight it seems. (no one left early! LOL) It is extremely pertinent to our recent reading of her book, and she specifically addresses the creation of AMMONITE and SLOW RIVER. I am sure BLUE PLACE fits with the thoughts she puts forth in the article. If anyone wants more info let me know. I believe someone at WISCON said it is at her web site also? I will check. donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 23:50:48 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Geoffrey D. Sperl" Subject: [Slightly Off-topic] I'm back Comments: To: "fantastic.&.utopian.literature"@mail1.wayne.edu Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit All- I highly doubt anyone's been looking for me, but I figure it's safest to say that my e-mail's been out of commission for a month. If you sent me anything, please re-send it...and it's nice to be here again... ;) - Geoffrey ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 07:25:38 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: Edit Ink lawsuit results Comments: To: Science Fiction and Fantasy Listserv Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Can't remember which digest this was being discussed on recently ... >Subject: Edit Ink loses! > >FROM: http://www.authorlink.com/pubnews.html#editink > >Shady Publishing Ring Thwarted > >BUFFALO, NY/ 5/13/98--A ring of fraudulent literary agencies, >editorial services and publishers this month was ordered by >the New York Supreme Court to stop defrauding unsuspecting >writers and to pay cash restitution to every person who had >their manuscript edited by a company called Edit Ink. > >The scheme, which spread from New York State to California, >had reportedly netted the perpetrators more than $5 million >before the New York State Attorney General's Office began >investigating last winter. > >Named in the case are: William S. Appel and Denise Steers, >both individually and as president of Edit Ink; Eduardo E.Gahona, >individually and formerly doing business as Amherst Press; >Kelly Culmer, individually and formerly doing business under >the names: Aardvark Literary Agents, The Silver Branch >Literary Agency, and Crescent Books; and Charles C. Neighbors, >individually and formerly doing business as Aardvark Literary Agents. > >The decree, handed down May 1 by New York Supreme Court >Judge John A. Michael, J.S.C. called their practices >"fraudulent, deceptive, and illegal in inducing authors to >employ the services of Edit Ink." The group also formed fake >publishing houses as part of its front. > >By about August 1, 1998 Edit Ink must provide a full accounting >of all monies collected from writers for editing since January 1, 1995. >The list, including agents or publishers who referred each person, >will be used by the New York State Attorney General's Office as >the basis for pro-rata repayment to defrauded authors. Should >Edit Ink fail to provide the accounting and payment, they will >be permanently barred from accepting any monies from authors. > >In addition to restitution payments, Edit Ink is ordered to >pay civil penalties of $500 for each author from whom it >received payments, and from each author who was referred >to Edit Ink from Gahona, Culmer or Sterrs. Restitution must >be paid to all authors whose manuscripts were edited by >Edit Ink regardless of whether they were published or not, >got agents or not or were satisfied or not. > >The order requires all of the named parties tell writers >that Edit Ink pays referral fees to persons who refer authors >to Edit Ink for editing. Edit Ink is banned from saying that >referral fees are "standard industry practice", or from >indicating that publishers or agents will not consider >manuscripts that have not been professionally edited. >The order further bans the parties from implying that >a manuscript edited by Edit Ink may have significant >commercial potential. Also Edit Ink may not say that >having a work edited by Edit Ink will bring the author >"closer to publication," or in any way indicate that the >manuscript's prospects of being published are increased as >a result of having been edited by Edit Ink. = > > >The order bars Edit Ink and others involved in the suit >from misrepresenting their experience, credentials and the >quality of the editing performed by Edit Ink. > >New York Assistant Attorney General Dennis Rosen, >in charge of the case, told Authorlink! that he is >"concerned about whether the parties are complying with >the order." He also said that another party not named >in the suit but who reportedly works with Edit Ink, = > >"Mark Maine of AAA or Authors Assistance Agency is saying >that he has talked to me and that everything is okay with >Edit Ink. I want writers to be particularly alerted to this >agency." He invited anyone with a complaint about Edit Ink >or the other parties to contact him at (716) 853-8417. > >END OF REPORT Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 12:04:05 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Kathleen M. Friello" Subject: Re: Edit Ink lawsuit results Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I think this was discussed somewhere else, although the SFWA editing links page did report this as a shady outfit. Thanks for the report! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 19:06:02 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: [Slightly Off-topic] I'm back MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Not true Geoffrey. Welcome back. donna >All- > >I highly doubt anyone's been looking for me, but I figure it's safest to say >that my e-mail's been out of commission for a month. If you sent me >anything, please re-send it...and it's nice to be here again... ;) > >- Geoffrey > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 19:48:39 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Writing From The Body MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ta-Dum, Ms Griffiths has been generous enough to offer her essay for reading at her web page. This link takes you directly to it. Though I recommend surfing the entire site. It is extremely well maintained and her "imprint" is throughout. http://www.sff.net/people/Nicola/body.htp Enjoy fellow list members! ;) Donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 19:50:21 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: Writing From The Body MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Profuse apologies to the author. It is Griffith not Griffiths. fumble fingers again. dn >Ta-Dum, > >Ms Griffiths has been generous enough to offer her essay for >reading at her web page. This link takes you directly to it. Though I >recommend surfing the entire site. It is extremely well maintained and >her "imprint" is throughout. > >http://www.sff.net/people/Nicola/body.htp > >Enjoy fellow list members! ;) Donna >donnaneely@earthlink.net >