Space Station Mir

I would have no problem being a human father. Being a human mother, on the other hand, is much more complicated. Science fiction, however, offers some inspiration, and after I finished reading Becky Chambers' Galactic Commons books, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet and A Closed and Common Orbit, I   realized--I want to be an alien mother. I’ve long been impressed by the parenting solutions of science fiction. For example, the group marriage parenting in Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land , or the village parenting model in Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time . However, Heinlein’s solution problematically had only women doing the parenting, which, although it freed up some of the women to pursue careers, is marginally superior to today’s model of childcare for those who can afford it. Piercy’s solution has long seemed the most elegant to me. Get rid of women’s unique biological ability to bear children, and--voila!--goodbye gendered inequality overall, and inequali...

2014 was a fantastic year for SFF Lit, and I think my choices this year may be less controversial than in previous years. 1. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie Unusual, ambiguously-gendered-and-identified character; feminine pronouns for all; great big morally ambiguous concept (people=parts of ship); epic scale; and alien cultures reflective of our own failings. Win. 2. Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie See above, with extra servings of novum (estranging device that allows us to look as detached observers at aspects of our own culture). 3. Baba Ali and the Clockwork Djinn by Danielle Ackley-McPhail and Day Al-Mohamed Vivid re-imagination of ancient tale; realistic investigation of Islamic and Victorian cultures; feminist implications; comments on wonders and dangers of technology. 4. "Sultana's Dream" by Rokheya Shekhawat Hossein South Asian. feminist. sci-fi. utopia. Short, but sweet.

37. Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie If Ancillary Justice was an epic space opera bursting with its core concept, Ancillary Sword is the magnifying glass pulled closer, examining the implications of this universe, and this character, on just one planet. One of my favorite aspects of Ancillary Justice was the twin story arcs, one from the past, and one in the present, that cohered to explain the narrator, Breq's, identity. The first book had an epic ending to go with its epic scope, but the second book picks up in the same place. Going forward is slower going and makes for a different, but no less thoughtful, novel. The pace is different, instead of a race to discover the corruption at the heart of civilization, this is a slower, more revealing investigation of the injustices on just one planet (okay, solar system). Breq, now Breq Mianaai, official cousin to Anaander Mianaai, leader of the Radch empire, is sent to protect the Athoek System from the recently outbroken war. I...

35. Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie Have you ever heard the joke that one person is a world? In Ancillary Justice , one person is a ship. It's an idea that we can all relate to, stunningly realized by Ann Leckie in crisp, simplistic diction. This idea, of a ship that is a person, is what makes this story sing (literally). Ancillary Justice is a compelling example that great science fiction is essentially the literalization of metaphors (according to Seo-Young Chu in Do Metaphors Dream of Literal Sleep? ), or a cognitive estrangement from the mimesis of reality (a wordier but not more complicated idea from Darko Suvin's criticism). Breq, the narrator, is the last remaining "piece," if you will, of a vast artificial intelligence network that controlled an enormous troop carrying star ship, which led ominous "annexations" for thousands of years. To complicate matters more, Breq is actually a human body, that hundreds or thousands of years ago was wipe...

If you haven't heard of the SFF Lit Project, click here and join in! I haven't gotten to read as much SFF Lit as I would like this year. Fortunately my Utopian Sci-Fi class in the spring introduced me to a few really strong books, and I knew where to look for authors who had stood the test before. 1. Shattered Pillars by Elizabeth Bear I didn't think it could get much better than Range of Ghosts , but Shattered Pillars brought new depth to characters and more magic to the kingdoms of the Eternal Sky. I'm looking forward to the third book this year! 2. Necessary Evil by Ian Tregellis Tregellis has still got his way with words, and this time around I even got to like detective Raybould Marsh, both as his scarred back-from-the-future self and idealistic younger self. And Gretl-a madwoman who can change time because of man-made powers? A book to ponder, for sure (despite the icky man-with-a-gun cover). 3. Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy Mattapois...

25. Necessary Evil by Ian Tregellis Publisher: Tor Release Date: April 2013 Ian Tregellis is one of my favorite new authors. The Coldest War hooked me with the first line, "Wizards do not age gracefully." The final book in the triptych, Necessary Evil , is no slouch either for poignant turns of phrase. The protagonist, given his own voice for the first time, summarizes the book poetically; "Who was I but a scarred and sweaty madman railing against the woman who twirled history around her fingers like so much yarn?" That woman, the "raven-haired demon," the "witch" with "wires in her braids," is Gretel, and she is not only the most fascinating character in Tregellis' triptych, but one of the most compelling villains in fiction. From the first time I learned of her incredible ability to read the future (more accurately, the lines of possible futures) and to shift it one way or another, I wanted to know more. In Necessary Evil...

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is a little more challenging than it would normally be for me, as I've read significantly fewer books at this point in the year than any other year in recent memory. Of course, I've also read far more academic articles and parts of academic books at this point in the year than any other year in recent memory! 1. Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver (review to come) 2. Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy 3. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin 4. The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord 5. Every Boy Should Have a Man by Preston L. Allen 6. Contact by Carl Sagan 7. Shattered Pillars by Elizabeth Bear 8. Triton by Samuel R. Delaney I don't really have more that I think deserve to be on this list, but I'm sure there will be more before too long!

2. Porn & Revolution in the Peaceable Kingdom by Micaela Morrisette Another Tor. com short story or "novelette." Summary: A sentient slime mold can't keep his pet human from rutting with the neighbors' pets and feral humans. My Thoughts: I wonder if merely switching the roles of humans and animals in society is a "novum"* or a mere costume-change. I think the novum, or estranging device, in this story might be methods of reproduction. In the story, animals (including bacteria) reproduce asexually, while humans remain sexual, in order to maintain their evolutionary inferiority. *Novum means "strange newness" It is the term that sf critic Darko Suvin uses to denote the device of estrangement in an sf novel. Favorite Quotes: "She had a big bathtub shaped like a conch shell that Tim could fill with different human-safe soaps so the taps spilled out warm bubbling water in just the right combination of perfumes and cleansers....

For my Utopian Science Fiction class, we just finished reading Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. We have also recently read The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, Triton by Samuel R. Delaney, and The Female Man by Joanna Russ. The following post looks at the use of language and gender in the utopian society (Mattapoisett) in Woman on the Edge of Time and compares to the other books. Connie, an older Mexican-American woman in a mental hospital, is the protagonist from our time (the 1960s) and Luciente is a woman from the future who is able to mentally link with her and allow her to see her time. In class, we discussed terms having to do with feeling such as "bottomed" (sad), "feathered" (happy), and "bumped" (frustrated/angry). We observed that these terms feel more physical in nature, rather than abstract like our current terms and what this means about the difference between our society and Mattapoisett. If we accept the premise that these ...

14. Every Boy Should Have a Man by Preston L. Allen Release Date: May 7, 2013 Every Boy Should Have a Man is a classic in the vein of Voltaire and Swift. A quick read in simple language, this account of a world where giants keep men as pets and for food has many implications on issues ranging from animal rights to racism to environmentalism. There is nothing else quite like this being written right now. This is one of those books that will appeal on many levels to multiple people. Both children and adults could get something out of this. In the first half of the book, I couldn't help thinking my dog would get a kick out of it! What is the relationship between ownership and companionship? Can loyalty be commanded? What is consent and what is bestiality? Some of those latter questions might not have relevance to our world, but then again they might or might in the past or future. I wouldn't strictly define Every Boy Should Have a Man as science fiction, but it definitely ...

In class (I got in!) we are reading The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin. The subtitle is "an ambiguous utopia." I've read other books in the Hainish Cycle, and this one is both noticeably different and recognizably Le Guin. It's the first in chronological order, and the protagonist discovers the equations that will lead to the ansible-"an instantaneous communication device." In the rest of the cycle, this is the device that the protagonists use to record their observations of other worlds. Shevek is the only protagonist in the cycle (at least of those I've read) that is of the race that he observes. However, he is and is not. Shevek is from Anarres, a desert mining colony on the moon of Urras, a water-rich planet. On Anarres, the Odonians have built a two-hundred-year old anarchist commune, where nobody owns anything. On Urras, the larger powers are still "propertarian" (i.e. capitalist) and exploit their resources, using a money economy...

Grad school is subsuming my life, but I came across this definition in the reading for a class I'm hoping to take (*fingers crossed*) on Utopian Science Fiction: "SF is a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author's empirical environment." -Darko Suvin, "Metamorphoses of Science Fiction." That would seem to count a lot of fantasy novels as SF, which traditionally upsets the SF hardliners. However, it jives well with my view of the genre and its uses (and pleasures). Thoughts?

I started my SFF Lit project last year, and decided to make it an ongoing project for the blog. Here are my criteria for literature that I established last year: "I look for a distinct and effective writing style that uses language appropriately and creatively, a plot with a distinct structure (beginning, middle, and end, not necessarily in that order but present) that is appropriate to the genre/topic/characters, and characters that feel like real people and who can be understood, identified with and/or emotionally reacted to." I've also been heavily influenced by Litlove's thoughts on what is literature . Here's my list of SFF Lit Read in 2012: 1. The Coldest War by Ian Tregellis Tregellis' writing style is inundated with imagery and wit, and populated with dark but human characters. I'll never forget that opening sentence, "Wizards do not age gracefully," nor the terrifying Borg-Queen-esque Gretel or the well-meaning traitor Will B...

How many books read in 2012? 51, as of December 28th. How many fiction and non-fiction? 8 non-fiction and the rest fiction. That's an unusual amount of non-fiction for me! Male/Female author ratio? 19 male and 26 female authors. I had a feeling I'd read more women this year, but didn't know it was that many more! Favorite book of 2012? Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and/or The Winter Palace by Eva Stachniak. Least favorite? Last Night at Chateau Marmont by Lauren Weisberger Any that you simply couldn’t finish and why? Not that I can remember. Oldest book read: Plato's Symposium , written between 385-380 BCE. Newest? The Particle at the End of the Universe by Sean Carroll came out in November 2012. Longest and shortest book titles? The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making ; Symposium Longest and shortest books? I think Lorna Doone was the longest, not sure about the shortest, maybe Symposium again or...

Alas, I lost my notes on who the panelists were and immediate thoughts I had on the panel. In fact, I've lost all my notes, which is why I've been slow on posting, in the hopes of finding them. Either no such luck, or they will turn up as soon as I post this. The central questions of the panel: What is the role of sex and romance in science fiction and fantasy? Do they even belong in science fiction and fantasy? The panelists included four women and one man, all of whom were authors. One writer writes romances as well as sci fi romances, one writes primarily sword n' sorcery adventure, one was a short story writer who writes erotica and children's stories, one writes...science fiction, I think, and the man writes fantasy, I remember (I really wish the website had left up the schedule so I could get these people's names). In any case, their collective answer to the second question was a resounding yes. The romance writer in particular was emphatic that she wa...

23. The Coldest War by Ian Tregellis Why did Tor send me the sequel to a book I had never read? I pondered this as I sadly prepared to set the book aside in favor of something I was better qualified to review. But that book just sitting there next to my desk, with its dark doomsday cover, was haunting me. So I cracked it open. And the opening line, "Warlocks do not age gracefully," caught me. I read on. The next page had a paragraph stuffed full of the kind of sensory imagery I longed to share with my then-class of kids, who seemed to have a hard time explaining senses other than sight and using words other than "wonderful," "awesome," and, the term they were particularly self-satisfied with, "epic." Ian Tregellis is Elizabeth Bear writing a Steampunk version of X-Men. Except his best characters are not the good guys. Tregellis brings to life the Magnetos, the Mystiques, the Juggernauts. His hero could be any old Sherlock Holmes, but ...

My reading goals for 2011 were: 1. Find 10-20 good quality science fiction/fantasy novels 2. Make a dent in my list of seminal works to read The second one was virtually ignored, so let's just forget about that. However, I promised a round-up of SFF Literature and I will deliver, although I think this will continue to be an ongoing project here. I read 16 SFF titles this year, 17 including Gloriana's Torch , which has a large alternative history element. Of these, I'm going to designate 6 books/series as part of the elusive category, "Literature." My qualifications for Literature may be slightly or even radically differently from anybody else's, but essentially I look for a distinct and effective writing style that uses language appropriately and creatively, a plot with a distinct structure (beginning, middle, and end, not necessarily in that order but present) that is appropriate to the genre/topic/characters, and characters that feel like real peop...