Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 15:58:02 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Samantha Lee's _Childe Rolande_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Has anyone read Samantha Lee's book, _Child Rolande_? Or alternatively has anyone heard of this author because I certainly haven't ever seen any other books she's written? A book listing would be particularly useful. It's not the sort of book I'd normally pick up to read but I snatched it out of our library's discard bin on my way to the airport yesterday and got hooked into it. It deals with gender issues in what I think is an extraordinarily innovative way and I was wondering if she's a well-known writer in this interesting field. If it isn't too controversial I'd be very interested in other people's opinions (if it is then offlist comments would be welcome). Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 19:26:07 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the Union Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Margery Kempe wrote: >I think this is where Cherryh shows her great skill. >She never yielded to the temptation to paint her protagonists and >antagonists in black and >white (the "good" Alliance and the "evil" Union). Other authors lack this >skill and thus aim their >books at a narrow market (Russ who we discussed >earlier was like this). She also shows the "enemy" which ever side it is according to the point of view of the character she's writing) as an organisation with a human side. I think that this point in the history of the Union was a turning point from a time when the Union was "enjoying" complete overall military successes, although they lost individual battles, to a time when the Merchanters gave the Union their first pause. I know you're all going to jump on me for saying this, *but* I think that the first sign of the Gehenna Doctrine was the yielding of the Union to the threats of the Merchanters, to what is the formation of the Alliance. I know this had nothing to do with any aliens (which the Gehenna Doctrine was primarilay about), but it showed the first signs of a pragmatism in Union replacing the "gungho spirit" of the past. >From here on in, although with many exceptions the Union rather than fight blindly against any enemy would back down if the cost of fighting appeared greater than the rewards a victory would offer and Union used a conservative or pessimistic view to decide what the rewards would be. I think that this was of course Cherryh's aim. She set _Downbelow Station_ at a time when the "universe" was *irrevocably* changing so that it would be a time of great conflict, but also a time which allows her to develop the main theme most effectively. Cherryh is a master of describing the lives of people and events at times of stress ... which is why almost all of her books are set at keypoints in the lives of her characters, her "universe" or most often both. Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 19:28:17 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: Re: Samantha Lee's _Childe Rolande_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Mike Stanton wrote: >It's not the sort of book I'd normally pick up to read but I snatched it >out of our library's >discard bin on my way to the airport yesterday Id have thought you'd have enough to do reading about the tennis where I presume you'll be over the weekend. Or haven't you thought of a good enough excuse yet?? Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 07:35:17 HST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Margery Kempe Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the Union Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: >So, as I see it, Cherryh set up the Unionists as ambitious conquerors, bred >for conquest, desiring conquest and when the book starts, having >started conquest. The problem of the tax which offended Cyteen so much, >wasn't really a problem at all, it was simply the excuse for war, a real >excuse fortunately, or Cyteen would have had to manufacture one. I think that Cherryh tried to show that Union had much bigger ambitions than we've discussed to date. I've given this a lot of thought since we started on World War II, but I think we were all wrong. All the countries that took part in WWII were weak, or weaker than anyone who wants to start a major war should be. Even Germany and Japan, the two real aggressors had flawed economies, armies which weren't really suited for a long term war. Britain, France and the US were relatively weak and were all in the process of re-arming. I suggest that a better model would be the First World War where one opponent (Germany) had been arming for a long time and was spoiling for war. Germany had a powerful economy, a vigorous flexible army and generals trained for war. Her opponents were weak (Russia), traditionbound and inflexible (France) and a naval but not a land power (Britain). I know the analogy doesn't fit well in many details but overall, I think its a good one if we consider Germany as Union, France as the stations which Union attacked and Britain as the forming Merchanter Alliance. The excuse of the tax in _Downbelow Station_ is a sort of parallel to the excuse of the assassination of the Archduke in Sarajevo which the German Emperor used. What Germany had (and Union fortunately didn't for them) is an arrogant halfwit as Emperor. The Unionists were at heart Merchants and they knew that the time comes when you've got to cut your losses and accept that you can't win. The German Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm was too arrogant ever to accept that sort of thing. So the bigger plans which I think Cherryh inserted into the minds of the top Union command had was an attack on Earth and the Sol system which I must admit I can't justify from the book. Mike's comment about Union needing Pell as a "schwerpunkt" (good description Mike) was way off beam because the Union needed to conquer Pell to stop the stationers from stabbing Union in the back if it launched an attack directly against Earth. Cherryh, *I think*, is indicating as much when she stresses the ties of sentiment between Pell and Earth both in the book and in the timeline of her website. The great betrayal of the stationers and the Fleet by Ayres commission which made the stationers and Merchanters reduce ties with Earth was made so much worse by the fact it was Earth's treachery ... like a mother betraying her child. Margery Kempe _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 19:47:03 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Samantha Lee's _Childe Rolande_ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I seem to recall posting about this book some while back during a discussion (I think) of matriarchal societies in fantasy and sf. I suggested that it could be seen as part of a mini-trend in sf by UK women set in dystopian matriarchies - all appearing in the late 80s after a decade of Margaret Thatcher... Lee I think has also written children's fiction but as far as I know _Childe Rolande_ is her only adult genre work. Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 08:30:23 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: Samantha Lee's _Childe Rolande_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 2 Jul 99, at 19:28, Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: > Id have thought you'd have enough to do reading about > the tennis where I presume you'll be over the weekend. > Or haven't you thought of a good enough excuse yet?? After our false alarm on Wednesday night, if I even thought up an excuse to be in London today or tomorrow and even if I could get tickets and even if the Queen herself were to back up my spiel, I'd be drawn and quartered and hung out to dry. We're going to be able to watch the finals tomorrow on SatTV now that our system is up and running. Next year though... Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 08:31:15 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: Samantha Lee's _Childe Rolande_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 2 Jul 99, at 19:47, Lesley Hall wrote: > I seem to recall posting about this book some while > back during a discussion (I think) of matriarchal > societies in fantasy and sf. I suggested that it could > be seen as part of a mini-trend in sf by UK women > set in dystopian matriarchies - all appearing in the > late 80s after a decade of Margaret Thatcher... I haven't been able to find a copy in our dbase but this may be a failure of the online search applet. I'd be very grateful for a copy if you have one available. > Lee I think has also written children's fiction > but as far as I know _Childe Rolande_ is her only > adult genre work. I'm not surprised that she hasn't published any more. The book is too outre for the "mainstream" and - starting with the dedication - not the sort of thing a serious reader of the genre would like. I thought I detected traces of some of what Natasha Walter put in _The new feminism_, but I think that may have been mere coincidence. I just thought _Childe Rolande_ was interesting enough, although it's not at all my type of book, to want to read more of her work. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 00:39:09 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Suzanne Hartman Organization: ZDNet Mail (http://www.zdnetmail.com:80) Subject: Re: _Downbelow station_: the Union Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Margery Kempe wrote: > I suggest that a better model would be the First World War where one > opponent (Germany) had been arming for a long time and was spoiling for > war. Germany had a powerful economy, a vigorous flexible army and generals > trained for war. Her opponents were weak (Russia), traditionbound and > inflexible (France) and a naval but not a land power (Britain). I know the > analogy doesn't fit well in many details but overall, I think its a good > one if we consider Germany as Union, France as the stations which Union > attacked and Britain as the forming Merchanter Alliance. I agree with you about WWI although the role of Britain which was a great naval power at that time is very iffy. The general conditions would apply to a lot of the European wars in the 18th and 19th centuries. > So the bigger plans which I think Cherryh inserted into the minds of the > top Union command had was an attack on Earth and the Sol system which I > must admit I can't justify from the book. Mike's comment about Union > needing Pell as a "schwerpunkt" (good description Mike) was way off beam > because the Union needed to conquer Pell to stop the stationers from > stabbing Union in the back if it launched an attack directly against > Earth. That doesn't hold up if you look at the map. Pell is much too close to Mariner, Cyteen and Fargone to be a safe place to attack Union forces heading towards Earth because it's too vulnerable. Cherryh showed this in the many conversations Damon and the other stationers had about refugees right through the first book. Union had already conquered Russell's and they had secured their southern flank (I'm using the directions we agreed to last week). You may well be right about the attack on Earth but I think even if it were true, Earth was still so strong and powerful (it's population was many time that of the rest of the human planets put together) that any aggressor must have paused for thought before attacking it. I think that Cherryh intended Earth to remain inviolate, the great (if declining) power in her universe at this time. I've always found the threats of the Merchanters which caused Union to halt its conquest dubious because I don't see how armed merchantmen could succeed in deflecting an enemy as powerful as Union when Mazian's battlefleet couldn't do it. As Cherryh showed, her aim was to emphasise Union's pragmatism, the way that Union was prepared to back down if the cost outweighed the rewards as you say. There I think you've definitely hit on the answer ... Cherryh's whole universe was a commercial one with decisions being taken on rational business grounds rather than on emotional appeals to honour and gl! ory. Cherryh's wars in all her books have, if you look at them closely enough, the same sort of motivation. > Cherryh, *I think*, is indicating as much when she stresses the > ties of sentiment between Pell and Earth both in the book and in the > timeline of her website. The great betrayal of the stationers and the > Fleet by Ayres commission which made the stationers and Merchanters reduce > ties with Earth was made so much worse by the fact it was Earth's > treachery ... like a mother betraying her child. Perhaps this treachery was the final break between Earth and its colonies. Up until this point there were still bonds of affection between the mother planet and her "children" in the colonies. Once Earth through Ayres and his treachery had shown the colonists that Earth, once she wasn't able to exploit them any more, didn't really care what happened to the colonies provided trade resumed and Earth companies and citizens started seeing some profits. The corruption and smuggling on Earth may have been illegal, but they were probably important generators of income and jobs. After all there are lots of countries on Earth today where drug smuggling, corruption and theft contribute more to the GDP than all legitimate businesses put together. The loss of these could, as Ayres implied, have very severely affected Earth's economy that political unrest was inevitable. Sue Free web-based email, anytime, anywhere! ZDNet Mail - http://www.zdnetmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 15:32:23 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: Samantha Lee's _Childe Rolande_ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In response to Mike Stanton's query, I've looked back over my own e-mail archives, and find that the discussion about matriarchal dystopias took place in the autumn of '97: conflating 2 messages on this topic, what I wrote was: --- There was a little cluster of dystopian matriarchies by British writers coming out around the late 80s, which struck me as perhaps somewhat determined by the political ambience... the ones I particularly remember actually being by female writers. Samantha Lee's 'Childe Roland' (actually set in some kind of post-disaster Scotland); something by Storm Constantine the name of which I've forgotten (could it really have been something like 'In the Mother's Country'--or was this something else entirely?); and Gill Alderman's 'The Archivist' , which I never actually finished, but I gather from reviews that the background was some kind of static matriarchal society (it certainly wasn't set in any kind of archive that I recognised...) May well be more. --- I think N Walter's _The New Feminism_ came out well after this - another blow for the prescience of imaginative literature theory? Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 00:00:01 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: SMCharnas Subject: the mother's land Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Samantha Lee's 'Childe Roland' (actually set in some kind of post-disaster >Scotland); something by Storm Constantine the name of which I've forgotten >(could it really have been something like 'In the Mother's Country'--or was >this something else entirely?) >Lesley Hall >lesleyah@primex.co.uk This sounds like Elisabeth Vonarburg's IN THE MOTHER'S LAND -- least that was the title given to the edition I saw, which I think was US. The title in French was, I believe, MERELAND. Suzy Charnas ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 10:53:53 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: the mother's land MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit No, the book I read was definitely by Storm Constantine - I think it had a very similar title to the Vonarburg, but I'm not sure where my copy now is - I think I lent it to someone and haven't had it back, so am unable to check. Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk -----Original Message----- From: SMCharnas To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Date: 04 July 1999 07:16 Subject: [*FSFFU*] the mother's land >>Samantha Lee's 'Childe Roland' (actually set in some kind of post-disaster >>Scotland); something by Storm Constantine the name of which I've forgotten >>(could it really have been something like 'In the Mother's Country'--or was >>this something else entirely?) > >>Lesley Hall >>lesleyah@primex.co.uk > >This sounds like Elisabeth Vonarburg's IN THE MOTHER'S LAND -- least that >was the title given to the edition I saw, which I think was US. The title >in French was, I believe, MERELAND. > >Suzy Charnas > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 16:11:09 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: the mother's land Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 4 Jul 99, at 10:53, Lesley Hall wrote: > No, the book I read was definitely by Storm > Constantine - I think it had a very similar title to > the Vonarburg, but I'm not sure where my copy now is > - I think I lent it to someone and haven't had it > back, so am unable to check Lesley I wonder if you're correct on this? Attached to the end of this note is a listing (dumped from our library files) of the Storm Constantine books my wife had bought or has on order; knowing AJ's feelings for Constantine's writing, it's probably close to a complete listing of her fiction books. I've only read 6 or 7 of them so I can't say much from personal knowledge. On the *subject* of comparisons with _Childe Rolande_, I think you must be referring to the _Wraethru_ trilogy which at first glance is very similar in concept and was published about the same time. It was this similarity in concept which prompted me to read _Childe Rolande_ and rescue it from our discard bin. Constantine's works are, in my opinion, much superior in both concept and storytelling to that of Lee (although I'm basing my opinion on only one book of hers). Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) _____________________________ Storm Constantine's books *Aleph / Orbit 1991 *Burying the Shadow / Headline 1992 *Calenture / Headline 1994 *Hermetech / Headline 1991 *Scenting Hallowed Blood / Signet 1996 *Sea Dragon Heir / VG 1999 *Sign for the Sacred / Headline 1993 *Stalking Tender Prey / Signet 1995 *Stealing Sacred Fire / Penguin 1997 *The Bewitchments of Love and Hate / Futura 1988 *The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit / Futura 1988 *The Fulfilments of Fate and Desire / Orbit 1989 *The Monstrous Regiment / Orbit 1991 *Thin Air / Warner 1999 *Wraeththu / TOR 1993 Omnibus volume containing: **The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit **The Bewitchments of Love and Hate **The Fulfilments of Fate and Desire) *Three Heralds of the Storm (On order) *The Oracle Lips (On order) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 18:45:10 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: the mother's land MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Neither was the Constantine book part of the Wraethu trilogy! it was very definitely a matriarchal not an androgyne society - though there were distinct similarities - e.g. the gendered hierarchical role-playing in a situation one might have thought would get beyond the binary. As I recall, it was the first part of a duology or trilogy. Looking at the titles you list it _could_ be _Monstrous Regiment_. This would make sense from my recollection of the plot and setting. While impressed with the Wraethu triology when I first read it I found it did not stand up well on re-reading. If anything _Child Rolande_ came out better - though it was direly copy-edited in the edition I read, I can still remember the tension-dispelling chuckle at 'odalisque' where the context surely demanded 'obelisk' (halfway up a mountain in a snow-storm, as I recall) Lesley Hall lesleyah@primex.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 20:01:28 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I just wanted to remind the "debaters" that tomorrow we are due to start on _Pride of Chanur_ and finish on 22 July. As agreed, the next three books in the series (_Chanur's Venture_, The Kif strike back_ and _Chanur's Homecoming_) will also form part of the discussion. Let's try and keep the discussion on list so please use this note to reply to. As agreed, I'll open up with a brief discussion of the series. Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 20:02:27 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: Re: the mother's land Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Mike Stanton wrote: >On the *subject* of comparisons with _Childe Rolande_, I think you must be >referring to the _Wraethru_ trilogy which at first glance is very similar >in concept and was published about the same time. It was this similarity >in concept which prompted me to read _Childe Rolande_ and rescue it from >our discard bin. Mike Thanks for the listing. The _Wraeththu_ trilogy, which I read one by one as they came out, struck me as being very oppressive, and if I hadn't been interested in following up all the loose ends that Constantine left, I might not have continued ... which would have been a mistake, because read as a single work the _Wraeththu_ trilogy is far more interesting than at first appears. I re-read the stories two years ago and found them rather dated because, I think, Storm Constantine appeared to have used the 80s gay-chic, punk-rocker style in combination with a sort of throw back to 60s gothic horror tales. I haven't checked her later works and I must see if I can pick up some paperbacks. The one thing that put me off in some ways was that, stripped of the horror, the backbone of the _Wraeththu_ trilogy was not much more than a raunchy romance (with pretty odd protagonists to be sure). I'm surprised that you liked this writer's books because they definitely don't seem to be your sort of thing ... sex, unusual handling of gender and so on. Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jul 1999 21:52:48 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: the mother's land Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 4 Jul 99, at 20:02, Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: > I'm surprised that you liked this writer's books because they definitely > don't seem to be your sort of thing ... sex, unusual handling of gender > and so on. I didn't say I like them, I just said I *read* them . But you're right, I didn't particularly like the themes and disliked her stories because they're far too bleak for me. What I did like though was the way she writes and her storytelling ability. She has an excellent, concise yet descriptive style in "setting the scene" and conveys a great deal in a relatively few words - something I like in a writer (I also like the opposite - a powerfully opulent writer like JV Jones) To forestall your next comment , I read them so that AJ and I could discuss them in person and by email. I've increasingly done this over the last year (and especially over the last few months) because although I may find a book boring, our discussion of that book never is! Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1999 16:53:00 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed _The Pride of Chanur_ is unusual among Cherryh's books because it is written mainly from the POV of an alien, Pyanfar Chanur, the (female) hani captain of a trading ship, _The Pride of Chanur_. Although the existence of the only significant human (Tully) in the book is pivotal to the story, his "part" is relatively trivial. Unlike Mike and Margery, I don't agree that Pyanfar is a highly believable *alien*, I think that she is a standard Cherryh character (a hani Damon Konstantin) dressed up in an alien suit. I don't think any less of the book for that, but let's not go overboard as Mike does on Cherryh's ability to describe aliens ... as shown in this book. The "action" takes place in an area called Compact Space (see map in _Chanur's Venture_ ) which is divided, under a loose trading association called the Compact, into trading zones controlled by several alien species, the most important of whom are the hani, the mahendo'sat, the stsho, the kif, the tc'a, the chi and the knnn. Descriptions of these creatures are given in the Appendix to _Chanur's venture_ and I strongly recommend we all re-read this Appendix before starting. All species are avid traders ("hagglers"?) each striving to outwit the others for commercial advantage and the whole story is set around this particular attribute. Unlike humans, all species of the Compact (except the stsho) can pass through "jump" without drugs although sharp changes in velocity are still either hard to bear or impossible. The kif are the villians of the piece but it would spoil the discussion to continue. _The Pride of Chanur_ was evidently originally published in abridged form in the Science Fiction Digest in 1981 (I've never heard of the magazine nor read this original version). The version I've got is the Daw 1982 version(Daw Book Collectors No.464 - 1982). The other books are: _Chanur's venture_ (DBC No. 609 - 1985), _The Kif strike back_ (DBC No. 658 - 1986) and _Chanur's homecoming (DBC No. 695 - 1987). I've only given a few snatches because to give more would inhibit discussion (or send Mike crazy!) Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 08:09:09 HST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Margery Kempe Subject: _Pride of Chanur_: Tully's role Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed In her opening discussion, Claudia refers to the pivotal role of Tully, but suggests that he occupies a minor role in the story and, by extension, in the books. To some extent, I agree with Claudia. The role of Tully was clearly (in my copy of _The Pride.._) blown out of all proportion by the blurb writer who implies that the whole book is about Tully. However, I don't agree with the suggestion that "Tully's existance" (and not the man himself) is pivotal. Tully appears in the beginning as an escapee from the kif who Cherryh clearly means to be admired as courageous, "attractive" (as a person and not in looks) and intelligent. His courage - although he's not "heroic" in everything as his cringing at the sight of the kif shows - not only sparks the admiration and liking of the whole crew. In fact, the whole crew admires and respects him so much that they - bright, supremely confident and outrageously brave as they are - defer to him almost slavishly. Why? The answer to this is why I regard this as among the most "feminist" of Cherryh's works. They defer to him because he's male, even though he's a male of a very different species and there is not chance of "breeding" (obviously "sex" is possible). It's something that Pyanfar resents, but is unable to prevent either in the crew or, to some extent even in herself. Pyanfar has been conditioned by her society *both* to regard males with respect AND simultaneously to exploit them. Hani society is in the most important ways like the old joke that "a man is the master in his house but his wife is the ruler". Cherryh uses the example of Tully - as an extreme case - to show the foolishness of, and to some extent the long term non-viability of a society in which the sexes are treated unequally in ways which have little to do with their physical and biological state. She shows that a society with modernizes itself in the technological field, but retains old customs and ways of living sets up intolerable stresses which sooner or later (in this case sooner) will tear the society apart. Sorry for the delay in starting off the first topic ... I've been very busy over the holiday and today. Margery Kempe _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 08:12:35 HST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Margery Kempe Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: >Unlike Mike and Margery, I don't agree that Pyanfar is a > highly believable *alien*, I think that she is a standard Cherryh >character (a hani Damon Konstantin) dressed up in an >alien suit. It's not surprising therefore that the hani should strongly resemble us but to call them humans "dressed up in alien suits" is to ignore the constraints placed on any author by the need to sell her books. Cherryh had to introduce a human character, and to keep him alive and the dramatic tension high, he had to live in a ships were conditions where conditions were "earthlike". This dictated the form and, to a very large extent, the type of culture into which Tully had to fall. The hani are mammals (or at least the equivalent of mammals) and one would expect them to have many characteristics in common with the higher mammals of earth, especially the highest mammals, the thinking mammals - humans. Cherryh has clearly modelled the hani on us and she has given them the characteristics that we would expect any society of thinking mammals to have - the ability to cooperate, ability to feel affection (especially within family groups), acquisitiveness and so on. Cherryh clearly regards cultures within and between which "trading" takes place as the natural state of all sapient beings (almost all her cultures in all books are like this) so, allowing for variations, all of the cultures of compact space are capitalists. The hani are therefore mammals with a capitalist society based on a form of "family". Cherryh has described the hani "people" and their culture in terms which make them familiar to us, not because she's described "humans in alien suits" but because within the constraints of the biology and universe she's given them, that is exactly what they must be. The kif, the mahendo'sat and even the stsho to a less extent have "human" characteristics although you must admit they are all truly alien. These "human" characteristics aren't just human, they are characteristics which *all* sapients must have, gievn the universe Cherryh describes. Margery Kempe _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 12:07:06 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Suzanne Hartman Organization: ZDNet Mail (http://www.zdnetmail.com:80) Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: > All species are avid traders ("hagglers"?) each striving to outwit the > others for commercial advantage and the whole story is set around this > particular attribute. Unlike humans, all species of the Compact (except > the stsho) can pass through "jump" without drugs although sharp changes in > velocity are still either hard to bear or impossible. The kif are the > villians of the piece but it would spoil the discussion to continue. Why is it that almost all writers assume, like Cherryh, that the main contact between alien species and human, or even between different groups of aliens, will always be commercial? In the _Chanur_ series, each of the alien races differ from humans and the other alien races in ways which make it seem as if they have no common characteristics at all, but they still trade and trade in exactly the same way. I *personally* don't know any aliens (never having been abducted by them - any aliens reading this please note) but I'm sure that some alien trading practices must be so strange that no human could possibly understand them but in every book in which trading figures (and thats almost every book in which humans meet aliens), the aliens act just like 19th century Brit traders meeting the heathen. Also the kind of things they trade for are exactly the same sort of things humans trade for. I can understand metals and some other commodities, but how much could methane breathers like the tc'a or chi (if they're not "pets" of the tc'a or the knnn have in common with oxygen breathers. Most trade, except in dealings with the Third World, on Earth is in manufactured goods. What sort of manufactures could methane-breathers have that would attract oxygen breaters, remembering that methane is relatively "inert" compared to oxygen, and goods built for use in methane atmospheres might be combustible in oxygen. Sue Free web-based email, anytime, anywhere! ZDNet Mail - http://www.zdnetmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 20:03:36 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 5 Jul 99, at 16:53, Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: > Unlike Mike and Margery, I don't agree > that Pyanfar is a highly believable *alien*, I think that she is a > standard Cherryh character (a hani Damon Konstantin) dressed up in an > alien suit. I see that Margery has commented on the "believeable aspect, so I'd like to say something about the the "Damon Konstantin". I think that the resemblances between Damon (from _Downbelow Station_) and Pyanfar are merely those resulting from the fact that these two characters in some ways (but NOT in _The Pride of Chanur_) fulfill the same role in roughly similar situations. The differences, especially that in their most significant role, between them are much greater. Cherryh has shown Konstantin as a leader of his people, as a strong person in the right place at the right time who fights for his *own* people and, while doing so, changed his *own* people's socio-political systems. Pyanfar's role was quite different; although she did make some changes to her planet's socio-political systems, her main role was as (eventually) "ruler" or rather facilitator and arbitrator of a trading association of aliens and humans. Her role was based not upon the need to govern societies, but on the need to control trading, to arbitrate in commercial disputes and to effect compromises between the disparate needs and wishes of highly incompatible species. To put it in our terms: Damon Konstantin was a practical activist and idealist (if that's not a contradiction in terms) with all the flaws of a politician while Pyanfar Chanur was a pure master merchant of the John Company type, the sort that conquered India by accident in the name of trade. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk). ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 12:32:01 PDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lisa Hopkinson Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Mike Stanton wrote: >Pyanfar Chanur was a pure master merchant of the John Company type, the >sort that conquered India by accident in the name of trade. Mike, Im going to write about this but first what was "John Company"? Please don't think that Im a "know-nothing" as AJ calls them and I hope you won't take this badly but you sometimes use references which probably mean a lot to Europeans but not much to Americans. Lisa _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 20:30:26 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Lisa Hopkinson wrote: > Mike, Im going to write about this but first what was > "John Company"? Please don't think that Im a > "know-nothing" as AJ calls them and I hope you won't > take this badly but you sometimes use references which > probably mean a lot to Europeans but not much to > Americans. Lisa I'm sorry and I know you're right. The "John Company" was the short name for the "Honourable East Indian Company" or (in long form) "The United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies". As you know from our discussions of Andre Norton's Free Trader books, I think that Cherryh based her "Merchanters" on the British merchants of the 17th-19th Centuries who weren't colonizers except by accident, just as Cherryh's traders weren't colonizers except by accident (as, for example, at Gehenna or in _Foreigner_). Like the Merchanters, the Brit merchants were intesnely brave men who fought not for honour and glory but for the chance of making a fast buck. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 15:36:04 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "S.M. Stirling" Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 7/6/99 1:32:55 PM Mountain Daylight Time, lisahopkinson@HOTMAIL.COM writes: << Mike, Im going to write about this but first what was "John Company"? >> -- "John Company" was a slang term for the British East Indian Company, a chartered company originating in the early 17th century which had monopoly rights to British trade in India and points east. It also had the authority to raise its own armed forces, make war, administer justice, and make treaties with local rulers. It eventually ended up conquering and running India, although it never deliberately set out to do so. After the Indian Mutiny of 1857 it was wound up and the British government took over its role. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 13 Jun 1999 01:23:58 CDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Barbara Benesch-Granberg Subject: Re: "Wing Commander" and Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Mike Stanton wrote: > >Has anyone seen the film _Wing Commander_? I saw it earlier this year >and >felt it was - _Top Gun_ *meets* _Battlestar Galactica_ *meets* >_Das Boot_ >*meets* _Captain Horatio Hornblower_. In other words a >ripe lot of old >hooey. The film has just opened near where a friend >lives and he saw it >yesterday; he was much taken by the "feminist >theme" running through the >film. I didn't really notice any; possibly >I blinked at the wrong moment. >Did anyone else? I saw Wing Commander when it came out, lured by the (false) promise of the newest Star Wars trailer (I married a rabid fan, what can I say? I'd rather a rabid sci-fi fan than a rabid sports fan any day. grin). I agree with your assessment of it as a hodge-podge of other movie references and basically, it was really crummy. As far as the "feminist theme" running through the film... I'd have to say that this film is feminist in the same way that most science fiction movies *try* to be feminist - there are females in the movie, and they officially have the same rank as the men in the movie. In reality, I found the movie to be roughly the same sort of "feminist" as Starship Troopers and other movies of that caliber. The one woman who is 'one of the guys' ends up having sex, followed shortly by death, and the other woman (since we really only ever see two - has anyone else noticed this, even in movies where women are supposed to be equal, there are only ever two women to represent this notion?) is involved with the hero, either we never *see* her having sex, or more commonly she simply does not have sex, and she lives, although she frequently ends up passing the Big Chance At Glory over to the hero at the last moment. So, unless I chanced to blink at the same times you did, I don't think you missed any major themes. Hmm. I'd just realized that I can't think of a science fiction movie/TV series in which women are supposed to be equals that shows more than two women in major roles (by which I mean, if they're missing from even a single episode, their absence is explained within the plot). Original Star Trek only had one woman. Original Star Wars only had one. New Star Wars only has one (I wouldn't count Amidala's 'double', since most of the time that's actually Amidala, and besides, she's in service *to* the other woman). Star Trek: TNG had Crusher and Troi. DS9 had Dax and Kira. Babylon 5 had Ivanova (replaced by the Tracy Scoggins character) and Delenn. Starship Troopers had "Dizzy" and Carmen. Wing Commander had Rosie and "Angel" (hmm, which side of the coin did she play again...??? sigh). Matrix, although it didn't have the two easily discernable 'types' of women, still only had two. Star Trek: Voyager does have three women in Janeway, Torres, and first Kes followed by Seven of Nine. Does this make sense to anyone else or am I imagining things? I can't think off-hand of any other recent science fiction TV/movies that I've seen enough of to speak of. Can anyone else think of other examples? I'm reminded of something I heard (I'm afraid I can't substantiate more than that, except to say I heard it here on the list) once: That most men will claim that women are in the 'majority' of a group if more than 30% of the groups membership is female. Be it a classroom, a committee or a dinner table. Hmm. Gonna have to give this one some more thought..... Barbara Benesch-Granberg _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 20:14:30 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Dave Samuelson Subject: Re: "Wing Commander" and MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------D0F7AC53F8153753A39D4507" --------------D0F7AC53F8153753A39D4507 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Barbara Benesch-Granberg wrote: > Does this make sense to anyone else or am I imagining things? I can't think > off-hand of any other recent science fiction TV/movies that I've seen enough > of to speak of. Can anyone else think of other examples? There was a dreadful UPN film a few weeks ago in which men were virtually extinct (a common thread in some feminist utopias). It may be more likely we'll see equal coverage and ranking for aliens (who are not known to exist) than for women (who do). > I'm reminded of something I heard (I'm afraid I can't substantiate more than > that, except to say I heard it here on the list) once: That most men will > claim that women are in the 'majority' of a group if more than 30% of the > groups membership is female. Be it a classroom, a committee or a dinner table. Some middle-class blacks say the white comfort level around them drops when they approach 30%. Will Herberg in Protestant Catholic Jew (early 1950s) pointed out that WASP managers thought Catholics and/or Protestants were "taking over" (or at least equal in number) when they reached visibility. I suspect the 30% figure holds fairly steady for any out-group that is supposed to be invisible, not just in American or European society. > > Hmm. Gonna have to give this one some more thought..... > > Barbara Benesch-Granberg > > _______________________________________________________________ > Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com --------------D0F7AC53F8153753A39D4507 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit  

Barbara Benesch-Granberg wrote:

Does this make sense to anyone else or am I imagining things? I can't think off-hand of any other recent science fiction TV/movies that I've seen enough of to speak of. Can anyone else think of other examples?
There was a dreadful UPN film a few weeks ago in which men were virtually extinct (a common thread in some feminist utopias).  It may be more likely we'll see equal coverage and ranking for aliens (who are not known to exist) than for women (who do).
I'm reminded of something I heard (I'm afraid I can't substantiate more than that, except to say I heard it here on the list) once: That most men will claim that women are in the 'majority' of a group if more than 30% of the groups membership is female. Be it a classroom, a committee or a dinner table.
Some middle-class blacks say the white comfort level around them drops when they approach 30%.  Will Herberg in Protestant Catholic Jew (early 1950s) pointed out that WASP managers thought Catholics and/or Protestants were "taking over" (or at least equal in number) when they reached visibility.  I suspect the 30% figure holds fairly steady for any out-group that is supposed to be invisible, not just in American or European society.
 
 
 
Hmm. Gonna have to give this one some more thought.....

Barbara Benesch-Granberg

_______________________________________________________________
Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com

--------------D0F7AC53F8153753A39D4507-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 17:49:16 +1200 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Ianthe Subject: Re: "Wing Commander" and Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Barbara wrote: >Original Star Wars only had one woman. It actually had two, Leia... and... the female commander who was with the Alliance along with Admiral Ackbar (fish-head guy!) *grins* Jenn ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:14:25 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Mike Stanton wrote: >As you know >from our discussions of Andre Norton's Free Trader books, I think that >Cherryh based her "Merchanters" on the British merchants of the 17th-19th >Centuries who weren't colonizers except by accident, just as Cherryh's >traders weren't colonizers except by accident (as, for example, at Gehenna >or in _Foreigner_). Like the Merchanters, the Brit merchants were intesnely >brave men who fought not for honour and glory but for the chance of making >a fast buck. We thought that when we read _The Pride of Chanur_ for the first time. My husband (who's a Elizabethan history buff) spent hours reading through Hakluyt's _Voyages (sorry Mike, Richard Hakluyt's 1589, 1598-1600 _The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffics and Discoveries of the English Nation_ ... we've got a full beautifully bound 18th C set of the 3 volumes) trying to pick out which voyages Cherryh used but I think her model was much likely the later 17th-18th Century traders who John Keay describes in _The Honourable Company_. I've come to realise that while Cherryh used the European traders as her model, her overall structure was based on 19th-early 20th Century history with the Alliance as the "bloc" of European colonial powers and the US as "Union". Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:17:25 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed S.M. Stirling wrote: >[The Honourable East India Company] eventually ended up conquering >and running India, although it never deliberately set out to do >so. After the Indian Mutiny of 1857 it was wound up and the British >government took over its role. It's the "Honourable East *India* Company", the "East *Indian* Company" was much later and short-lived. The HEAC was finally *wound up* in 1873 although its *dissolution* was in 1858. It had lost almost all of its powers by 1857 starting shortly after Robert Clive's (in)famous letter of 1759, through the India Act of 1784 and ending with the 1813 Charter Act which claimed all of the company's possessions for the British Crown. Anyone (even African-descended people from former colonies like me) who went to a certain British public (US=private) school 15 years ago, came out with all the important dates of British colonial history etched into her heart . Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:18:48 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_: Tully's role Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Margery Kempe wrote: >Why? The answer to this is why I regard this as among the most "feminist" of Cherryh's works. They defer to >him because he's male, even though he's a male of a very different species >and there is not chance of "breeding" (obviously "sex" is possible). >Cherryh uses the example of Tully - as an extreme case - to show the >foolishness of, and to some extent the long term non-viability of a society >in which the sexes are treated unequally in ways which have little >to do with their physical and biological state. I agree with you that there *is* a character whose role is as you say but I don't think that it's the human Tully, I think that it's Khym (Pyanfar's husband) who fills that role. While I'm sure Cherryh introduces the "male problem" using Tully and while his "relations" with Hilfy (Pyanfar's niece) are suggestive, I think that Cherryh must have realised the absurdity of having a non-breeding male (a sort of virile eunuch) illustrating stresses within the hani society. Khym is a male who has "enjoyed" both sides of the coin, he was master of a large household and then defeated and outcast. His predicament illustrates the entire sequence because he's an intelligent hani, forced into an artificially, exaggerated macho lifestyle, denied the opportunity to contribute to society, kept ignorant, and forbidden to release his agression in meaningful ways. He is defeated but, instead of giving up the ghost, comes to Pyanfar for help and also to help her in difficulties. As the series progresses, Cherryh shows his development from a "macho" male, to a real partner in the fight. Even in _The Pride of Chanur_, his help against the kif, both as a fighter and a thinker, is critical in winning the battle. *I* think that Cherryh is trying to show that partnership rather than dominance is the most effcient way of running a family and by extension a society. Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 12:12:21 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 7 Jul 99, at 9:17, Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: > Anyone (even African-descended people from former > colonies like me) who went to a certain British public > (US=private) school 15 years ago, came out with all > the important dates of British colonial history > etched into her heart . Isn't it funny how I (an Irish Catholic) and you (a former Ugandan of African descent) - from England's first and last colonies - should know so much about British colonial history just from attending British schools and universities? One would have thought we would have rejected the whole shebang, but instead both of us seem to have a perverse pride in their achievements. Such is human nature! Mind you, education in Britain has changed a lot over the years from when it was the best in Europe. My sister and brother-in-law moved to Britain just to give their children an English education but moved back after 10 months when they found it was little more than trendy-lefty hogwash and neglect of the basics. It was costing them #20K a year to change the 3 children from early readers to innumerate politically correct ignoramuses. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 12:15:54 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Octavia Butler Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I don't know how many people read the _Writer's Digest_, but for those people who DON'T and are also admirers of Octavia Butler, there is an article by her on "Blasting writer's block" in the June issue. I saw it a few weeks ago, but forgot to mention it here until a friend on another list reminded me of it. It's a very good article which shows the "positive" side of writer's block. In a sidebar on page 14, she give a humorously self-deprecating look at herself which alone is worth the US$3.49 (#1.95) for the magazine. To go from the sublime to the ridiculous: on the cover is a shot of the nauseating child star of _The Phantom Menace_. I took my host's children to see that movie just before I left the US and I was pleasantly surprised to find I enjoyed it more the second time around - perhaps the children's enthusiasm was infectious! Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 08:24:48 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jocelyn & Sheryl Denton-LeSage Subject: Re: "Wing Commander" and MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This might have some truth to it. I read recently in the Chronicle of Higher Ed (I think it was there, at least) that university education may actually have reached that critical mass--the point at which males decide that there are "too many" women in certain fields and thus begin to abandon those fields, for fear that they--the men--will be thought of as wimps for choosing a woman's job. If I recall, these majors are not actually dominated by women, for the most part--the men just perceive them that way. Obviously this is not true of engineering or business or the hard sciences (excluding biology), but it seems to be a trend in almost all other areas. It also reminds me of the difficulties women have sometimes had breaking in to, say, rock music. Melissa Etheridge has said that she was told overtly that her records couldn't be played (back in the late 80's, not now) because the stations already HAD a female artist in the rotation (Stevie Nicks is the one she mentioned: quite the similarity there, eh?!?). Lord knows they couldn't have 2--that would constitute a majority! Men, do you think this attitude is still prevalent? If so, why? Maybe it's more true of younger men, who are still finding their way in a big scary world, and have the constant fear that they won't live up to expectations. Sheryl >I'm reminded of something I heard (I'm afraid I can't substantiate more than >that, except to say I heard it here on the list) once: That most men will >claim that women are in the 'majority' of a group if more than 30% of the >groups membership is female. Be it a classroom, a committee or a dinner >table. > >Hmm. Gonna have to give this one some more thought..... > >Barbara Benesch-Granberg > > >_______________________________________________________________ >Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 10:33:18 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Todd Mason Subject: Re: Octavia Butler: Stanton MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" -----Original Message----- From: Mike Stanton [mailto:m_stanton@POSTMASTER.CO.UK] I don't know how many people read the _Writer's Digest_, but for those people who DON'T and are also admirers of Octavia Butler, there is an article by her on "Blasting writer's block" in the June issue. --Butler fairly frequently writes for WRITER'S DIGEST, and not a few other items of SF interest are included in the June issue, if one can still find it outside a library. It is a measure of how careers often run in this field (or how long I've been paying attention) that she had nearly a decade between Clarion and KINDRED, the first novel I remember getting much of a push by its publisher, ca. 1978...and that a career stretching over thirty years still puts her into the relatively-new-writer category in my mind... To go from the sublime to the ridiculous: on the cover is a shot of the nauseating child star of _The Phantom Menace_. I took my host's children to see that movie just before I left the US and I was pleasantly surprised to find I enjoyed it more the second time around - perhaps the children's enthusiasm was infectious! --You're a braver man than I, Mike. Sitting through that drek once (and almost falling asleep twice) was enough for me. Perhaps because I went with an enthusiastic SW fan who was absolutely furious with the film by the end, although she did come away with an appreciation of N. Portman. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:12:42 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Suzanne Hartman Organization: ZDNet Mail (http://www.zdnetmail.com:80) Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: > I've come to realise that while > Cherryh used the European traders as her model, her overall structure was > based on 19th-early 20th Century history with the Alliance as the "bloc" > of European colonial powers and the US as "Union". Claudia I think it's too easy to pick one large country as a model for "Union" and smaller countries as the impending Alliance. You could just as easily take 16C-17C Spain for the "Union" and Britain, Holland, Denmark etc as the small countries. You could even take 19C Britain as the large country and other European countries like Belgium and Italy as the small ones or even the growth of Prussia in the last century upto the point where it defeated France, previously the greatest European land power. I think that Cherryh's model was all of these and none of them because she just picked characteristics from each period of history but blended them with her own ideas of a state built on artificially produced people. Union is too different to any of the countries mentioned in almost every single way for any ONE of them to be even remotely a SOLE model. If I were to guess at the time period for which she modelled her trading blocs (NOT her universe) in Compact space, I'd have guessed that she chose the late 13th Century, the time when the Hanseatic League was at its height. The league was based on cities like Cologne, Breslau and Lubeck which cooperated but were still rivals (in the same ways the "Alliance" was based on stations), controlled the Baltic trade (in the way the Merchanters controlled trade in Cherryh's universe or the individual groups in Compact space controlled trade to their worlds) and a major part of their trade which gradually fell away, was with external "powers" England and Flanders (for Cherryh's universe, the "power" - which was only potential in _The Pride of Chanur_ - was human controlled space which the human ship at the end of _The Pride of Chanur_ hinted at). Sue (the former history teacher) Free web-based email, anytime, anywhere! ZDNet Mail - http://www.zdnetmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:13:41 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Suzanne Hartman Organization: ZDNet Mail (http://www.zdnetmail.com:80) Subject: OT Schooling Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mike Stanton wrote: > Mind you, education in Britain has changed a lot over the years from when > it was the best in Europe. My sister and brother-in-law moved to Britain > just to give their children an English education but moved back after 10 > months when they found it was little more than trendy-lefty hogwash and > neglect of the basics. It was costing them #20K a year to change the 3 > children from early readers to innumerate politically correct ignoramuses. It's just as bad in the US. Schools are turning out students with high school diplomas who can't read or write and a lot of pressure is put on teachers to pass students who've flunked or even ones who havent attended school for more than a few days a month. It's gotten to where students think that they have a right to pass whether they know anything about a subject or not and where students threaten to kill or rape women teachers if they flunk students. In my last teaching post which was in a perfectly normal school, a teacher in the next room was stabbed and almost raped. I got out of teaching after just a few years because I found myself thinking of carrying a gun to school. Its worse now. Sue Free web-based email, anytime, anywhere! ZDNet Mail - http://www.zdnetmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:14:42 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Suzanne Hartman Organization: ZDNet Mail (http://www.zdnetmail.com:80) Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_: Tully's role Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Claudia Lyndhurst wrote: > I agree with you that there *is* a character whose role is as you say but > I don't think that it's the human Tully, I think that it's Khym (Pyanfar's > husband) who fills that role. While I'm sure Cherryh introduces the "male > problem" using Tully and while his "relations" with Hilfy (Pyanfar's > niece) are suggestive, I think that Cherryh must have realised the > absurdity of having a non-breeding male (a sort of virile eunuch) > illustrating stresses within the hani society. I go along with Claudia because if you read further into the series, Khym's role expands a lot, he becomes a partner and a strong support for Pyanfar (although she is always clearly in control). The worship of Tully because he's male, is just Cherryh's way of preparing the reader for hani culture. She always introduces information gradually feeding it in piece by piece. She uses Tully's case to set up for the shock of a *mere* male hani joining the real, working world of the trader, something that no other male has done in the history of the hani world. If she'd just introduced Khym when Pyanfar returned to hani, she either would have to put a lot of explanation in which isnt Cherryh's way or let the reader find out about it slowly, which would make the story confusing. Sue Free web-based email, anytime, anywhere! ZDNet Mail - http://www.zdnetmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 09:17:53 PDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lisa Hopkinson Subject: Re: _Pride of Chanur_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Everyone is talking about _The Pride of Chanur_ and the other 3 books as if they were a sequence of 4 books but that's not the case because the ending of _The Pride of Chanur_ is different in its thrust from the continuation of the story in _Chanur's venture. If you read the ending of _Pride_, the whole matter with the kif is sort of wrapped up, but _Chanur's Venture_ starts out as if Cherryh had had second thoughts about wrapping up the first book so she went back a few steps and started again ignoring what she wrote the first time round. I don't see that she left any more loose ends to tie up than she did in _Tripont_ or _Finity's End_ which are obviously one of a kind books. Lisa _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 12:08:38 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: SMCharnas Subject: Re: FEMINISTSF Digest - 5 Jul 1999 to 6 Jul 1999 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Barbara Benesch-Granberg wrote: >I saw Wing Commander (snip) >As far as the "feminist theme" running through the film... I'd have to say >that this film is feminist in the same way that most science fiction movies >*try* to be feminist - there are females in the movie, and they officially >have the same rank as the men in the movie. > >In reality, I found the movie to be roughly the same sort of "feminist" as >Starship Troopers and other movies of that caliber. The one woman who is >'one of the guys' ends up having sex, followed shortly by death, and the >other woman (since we really only ever see two - has anyone else noticed >this, even in movies where women are supposed to be equal, there are only >ever two women to represent this notion?) is involved with the hero, either >we never *see* her having sex, or more commonly she simply does not have >sex, and she lives, although she frequently ends up passing the Big Chance >At Glory over to the hero at the last moment. >Hmm. I'd just realized that I can't think of a science fiction movie/TV >series in which women are supposed to be equals that shows more than two >women in major roles (by which I mean, if they're missing from even a single >episode, their absence is explained within the plot). >Does this make sense to anyone else or am I imagining things? No, you're not. We've all grown up reading books with the (usually blonde) repressed, intellectual, ambitious woman who avoids sex and survives (The Virgin) and the (usually brunette) seductive live-wire who screws and dies (or is abandoned/betrayed/etc. and it's okay, she asked for it), which are the age-old stereotypes that writers reach for when they are too lazy or too sexist or too untalented to do better. Such writers usually write cardboard male characters too, but there's a much wider range of cut-outs for male roles -- think of all the guys in the war-story platoon, or the prison-break tale. I came up against this, hard, when I saw that a book I was writing (MOTHER- LINES, 1978) was going to have all female characters, and I panicked. I'd been raised on the same fictional Virgin/Whore pair as everybody else, and I couldn't imagine how I could possibly write about a bunch of women without running out of "types," since there really were only the two to choose from. The solution turned out to be looking at real women in the real world and modeling each character, for starters, on them for looks, tone, character- istic behavior etc. It was an eye-opening experience, to say the least. Since then I don't consider any book in any genre feminist in the slightest unless the author (male or female) demonstrates an ability to actually per- ceive women as half the human population by showing the hero/heroine as having the usual complement of female attachements -- a mother, maybe a sister or daughter, a wife, a girlfriend, female colleagues, female rivals, professionals, bus-drivers, etc., just like in reality; *or* takes the trouble to explain the absence of half the population from the story, bar- ring a token or two. >I'm reminded of something I heard (I'm afraid I can't substantiate more than >that, except to say I heard it here on the list) once: That most men will >claim that women are in the 'majority' of a group if more than 30% of the >groups membership is female. This was a sociological study done, I believe, in the seventies, about the perception of gender-proportion in crowds, using photographs of crowds with their faces turned toward the viewer. Your recollection of the percentage it takes to affect perception mirrors my own. I recall also that if some- thing like 2% of a crowd out in public space was female, viewers would de- scribe the crowd as about half men, half women. Men were so much the un- examined norm in public spaces that the handful of women in a public group took on the weight of the non-normal, the eccentric, which multiplied their presence in the viewer's eyes. I remember being stunned by this finding when I first read about it, and stunned more to realize that my own per- ceptions were in line with those of the test-subjects. Another poster responded: >Some middle-class blacks say the white comfort level around them drops >when >they approach 30%. Will Herberg in Protestant Catholic Jew (early >1950s) >pointed out >that WASP managers thought Catholics and/or Protestants were "taking over" (or >at least equal in number) when they reached visibility. I suspect the 30% >figure holds fairly steady for any out-group that is supposed to be invisible, Except that you might have a problem picking out the Protestants from the Catholics in a crowd, or Jews vs. Wasps, particularly in groups in modern, Western settings; but the eye automatically and persistently assigns gender, and the mind notices. Also racial mixes will be judged differently depend- ing on the racial mix in, say, the city that the viewer inhabits, but the gender mix perception pattern is probably pretty standard across European cultures (I think that was, in fact, part of the finding of the original study; anybody have a better handle on the study itself? And on whether anyone has re-run it recently, looking for signs of measurable change?). This is where SF can do some of its most important and striking work -- in changing the story to a time when different assumptions are at work, so that readers get to notice that there *are* such assumptions, and how they operate in the real world, too. Suzy Charnas ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 20:56:58 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: FEMINISTSF Digest - 5 Jul 1999 to 6 Jul 1999 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 7 Jul 99, at 12:08, SMCharnas wrote: > This was a sociological study done, I believe, in the > seventies, about the perception of gender-proportion > in crowds, using photographs of crowds with their > faces turned toward the viewer. Your recollection of > the percentage it takes to affect perception mirrors > my own. I recall also that if some- thing like 2% of > a crowd out in public space was female, viewers would > describe the crowd as about half men, half women. This effect is well known in other fields. There's a common test for environmental auditors in which the auditor is given photographs of plastic beads on a flat surface. Most of the beads are of one colour but there is a *small* (<5%) proportion of differently-coloured ones. She estimates the proportion by area of the differently-coloured beads by "eyeball" and, later, by pointcounting. "Eyeball" estimates by untrained observers are wildly inaccurate often by factors of over an order of magnitude compared to point-counting. The effect is due to "bias" in our perception and the object of the test is to convince auditors that the "eyeball" is not a precision measuring instrument - especially if you have to testify about something in court! Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 20:57:57 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mike Stanton Subject: Re: Octavia Butler: Stanton Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On 7 Jul 99, at 10:33, Todd Mason wrote: > --Butler fairly frequently writes for WRITER'S DIGEST, > and not a few other items of SF interest are included > in the June issue, if one can still find it outside a > library. It's an excellent magazine, but one of those that I'm always meaning to read but never get round to. The June issue indeed contains good articles on writing and one on starting a freelance business which will be of interest to some of AJ's and my offlist correspondents. > It is a measure of how careers often run in this > field (or how long I've been paying attention) that > she had nearly a decade between Clarion and KINDRED, > the first novel I remember getting much of a push by > its publisher, ca. 1978...and that a career stretching > over thirty years still puts her into the > relatively-new-writer category in my mind... I've heard of this "Clarion" but can you expand a bit? I think that there is at least one other writer on this list who's a Clarion "graduate". I've never been able to get into Butler, although the only one I've read completely is _Clay's Ark_ (possibly a bad choice). I thought there was a similarity between her writing and Neil Barrett's although if you pressed me for details I'd find it difficult to answer. On the "publicity" angle, I don't believe that I've ever seen anywhere an advert, a review or even info on one of her books - except on Amazon.com (and then only if I actually looked for it). I suppose that many feminist writers are in the same boat. > --You're a braver man than I, Mike. Sitting through > that drek once (and almost falling asleep twice) was > enough for me. Perhaps because I went with an > enthusiastic SW fan who was absolutely furious > with the film by the end, although she did come away > with an appreciation of N. Portman. It wasn't bravery - quite the opposite. I promised my hosts' children and a couple of their friends to take them for a meal and a movie of their choice. When I found out their choice was _The Phantom Menace_, I nearly backed out but didn't have the courage. I don't think there's a man alive who has the guts to renege on a promise to four teens and preteens! I'll tell you one movie I did enjoy - _The Mummy_. Mike Stanton (m_stanton@postmaster.co.uk) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 15:37:59 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Todd Mason Subject: Re: Octavia Butler: Stanton MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" -----Original Message----- From: Mike Stanton [mailto:m_stanton@POSTMASTER.CO.UK] On 7 Jul 99, at 10:33, Todd Mason wrote: I've heard of this "Clarion" but can you expand a bit? --Clarion is the oldest (or at least the oldest extant) writer's conference for beginning SF writers (although not everything produced or "workshopped" on site is SF). Currently in progress there is a Clarion at the Michigan campus in Lansing (a friend of mine, Fred Ollinger, is in attendance) and a Clarion West at a Seattle community college about two blocks from my ex's apartment (which I would've applied for if I could've afforded it). The name comes from Clarion College, where faculty member Robin Scott Wilson first attempted to bring some sense of the all-pro Milford Writers' Conferences, hosted by Damon Knight, Judith Merril, and James Blish initially, to the beginners in the field(s). Knight, Kate Wilhelm, Algis Budrys have been among the most frequent instructors; I think early grad Ed Bryant has done a number in the annual series. This year, "classic" Clarion has had Mike Resnick, Michaela Roessner, and Scott Edelman (in his SCIENCE FICTION AGE-editor avatar) among the instructors; the only C West instructor I can remember at the moment is editor Gordon Van Gelder. I think Karen Joy Fowler is scheduled for West. The Michigan hierarchy is currently considering whether the Clarion program should be allowed to continue there; how it possibly consumes more resources for the school than it produces I don't know. Ack politics? ----- On the "publicity" angle, I don't believe that I've ever seen anywhere an advert, a review or even info on one of her books __KINDRED at least got some display advertising in the fiction magazines, and in such larger nonfiction semiprozines as STARSHIP (the predecessor of SF CHRONICLE). She certainly gets reviews in the SF media; perhaps in comparatively friendly spots such as the WASHINGTON POST book-review spots as well. But I doubt you're surprised you haven't seen much, and not for her lack of audience (except as compared to the Grishams and Kings). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 18:46:12 HST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Margery Kempe Subject: Re: FEMINISTSF Digest - 5 Jul 1999 to 6 Jul 1999 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Mike Stanton wrote: >This effect is well known in other fields. There's a >common test for environmental auditors in which the auditor is given >photographs of plastic beads on a flat surface. Most of the beads are of >one colour but >there is a *small* (<5%) proportion of differently-coloured ones. She >estimates the proportion by area of the differently-coloured beads by >"eyeball" and, later, by pointcounting. "Eyeball" estimates by untrained >observers are wildly inaccurate often by factors of over an order of >magnitude compared to point-counting. The effect is due to "bias" in our >perception and the object of the test is to convince auditors that the >"eyeball" is not a precision measuring instrument - especially if you >have to testify about something in court! I'm not sure what Mike is saying here. He seems to be saying that the research quoted by SMCharnas is meaningless because no one knows how good the people in the study were at guessing the number of people in a crowd anyway. As I understand it, he's also saying that people are naturally poor at guessing the proportion of people, say "blonde men" in a crowd because they always overestimate. For this reason it's not surprising that both men and women badly overestimate the proportion of women in a photograph of a crowd with only a few women. Is that right? If so I know at least the first part is true. I often see a crowd of brokers at a bid and sometimes it looks as if half the crowd is bidding on stock but when you count the bidders, only 5-10% of the crowd is really involved. I think our eyes deceive us when it comes to picking out numbers in a crowd, especially the the ones we're picking out are very different from the average. Also what is "pointcounting"? Margery Kempe _______________________________________________________________ Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 06:49:09 CEST Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Claudia Lyndhurst Subject: Re: FEMINISTSF Digest - 5 Jul 1999 to 6 Jul 1999 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Margery Kempe wrote: >I'm not sure what Mike is saying here [snip] For this reason it's not >surprising that both men and women badly overestimate the proportion of >women in a photograph of a crowd with only a few women. Is that right? I think that he was trying to say, without offending anyone, is that the research SMCharnas quoted was a lot of "hooey" because the researchers made obvious errors of methodology. What you don't know, Margery, is that there's been many arguments on this list on the value of "soft science" compared to "hard science" and every one of the arguments has turned nasty with the "soft science" supporters accusing the "hard science" supporters of being anti-feminist, anti-women's movement, even anti-motherhood and a lot worse. I've always stayed out of these arguments because they're so certain to turn nasty and Mike is obviously trying to do the same but he can't let what he thinks of as "obvious nonsense" pass unchallenged. I suggest that we drop the argument here and now or move it offlist as we agreed we would with controversial topics. Claudia ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com