Reading the oldies (pre-1994): would you give this book to a child? v. 4

The impetus for this thread arose in this discussion: Science Fiction for Children?

I explained what I was aiming to explore in the first post in the first instalment of the thread:

Reading the oldies (pre-1994): would you give this book to a child?

In brief, the focus of the thread is character representation in science fiction and fantasy published before 1994. The analyses, at least those produced by me, are NOT meant to be reviews--be prepared, for instance, to see literary, pioneering, technical etc. aspects of the work neglected, while any number of what may seem minor points could be discussed in detail.

Everyone is invited to contribute, whether you adopt the format I follow (in which case your information will be added to the summaries) or not.

Discussion of the premises or how they affect any given title, situation etc. is always welcome.

The summary of links to the first block of twenty titles, 1-20, is here.

The summary of the links to the second block of titles, 21-40, is here.

Third block of titles, 41-65.

The numbers are links to posts; the titles are touchstones. Asterisks (*) indicate authors awarded the "Grand Master" title by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

41. Dorsai! by Gordon R. Dickson
42. The quest of the three worlds by Cordwainer Smith
43. The Super Barbarians by John Brunner
44. To your scattered bodies go by Philip José Farmer*
45. Who? by Algis Budrys
46. The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz
47. Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
48. The voyage of the Space Beagle by A. E. van Vogt*
49. Martians, go home by Fredric Brown
50. Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick
51. Sentinels from space by Eric Frank Russell
52. Sign of the labrys by Margaret St. Clair
53. The drought by J. G. Ballard
54. The Listeners by James E. Gunn*
55. City of the Chasch by Jack Vance*
56. The gods themselves by Isaac Asimov*--Hugo winner (1973); Nebula winner (1972)
57. The mind parasites by Colin Wilson
58. Venus Equilateral by George O. Smith
59. Ishmael by Barbara Hambly
60. The space-born by E. C. Tubb
61. The Callahan touch by Spider Robinson
62. Memoirs found in a bathtub by Stanislaw Lem
63. Strata by Terry Pratchett
64. The silver eggheads by Fritz Leiber*
65. Undersea Fleet by Frederik Pohl* and Jack Williamson*

A basic analysis of representation in the first sixty-five works and their authors.

There were 65 titles by 57 unique authors. Author sex, race, orientation, minority status are given according to what information's available; please add or correct if possible.

A number following an author's name (e.g. Vance 2) means that there have been multiple works by that author, so that they need distinguishing by the order in which they came up (Vance 2=the second title by Jack Vance).

AUTHOR DIVERSITY

Women: 6/57 ; 10.5% (Norton; Randall; Dibell; Tepper; St. Clair; Hambly)

Persons of colour (PoC): 0/57 ; 0%

Relative minority, sexual orientation: 2/57 ; 3.5% (Gerrold; Clarke)

Other relative minority: 0/57 ; 0%

REPRESENTATIONS OF DIVERSITY IN THE WORKS

a) Main characters

Women: 5/65 ; 7.7% (Panshin; Randall; Tepper; Asimov; Pratchett)

PoC: 6/65 ; 9.2% (Norton; Heinlein; Panshin; Randall; Dickson; Pratchett)

Relative minority, sexual orientation: 1/65 ; 1.5% (Gerrold)

Other relative minority: 0/65 ; 0%

b) Works with any appearance of:

Women: 60/65 ; 92% (none in Norton; Lem; Clarke; Campbell; Van Vogt 2)

PoC: 34/65 ; 52.3%

Relative minority, sexual orientation: 10/65 ; 15.4% (Leiber; Brunner; Gerrold, Farmer, Moorcock; Randall; Ballard; Asimov; Robinson; Leiber 2)

Other relative minority: 7/65 ; 10.8% (Moorcock; Stapledon; Tepper; C. Smith; Dick 2; Vance 2; Robinson)

RELATIVE SEXUAL MINORITIES

What are the attitudes to non-heterosexual characters and behaviour?

--Positive/tending to positive: 3/65 ; 4.6% (Gerrold; Randall; Tepper)

--Negative/tending to negative: 7/65; 10.8% (Leiber; Farmer; Brunner; Moorcock; Farmer 2; Wilson; Leiber 2)

OTHER RELATIVE MINORITIES

What are the attitudes to characters in other discriminated-against categories?

--Positive/tending to positive: 3/65 ; 4.6% (Stapledon; Tepper; Robinson)

--Negative/tending to negative: 3/65 ; 4.6% (Moorcock; Dick 2; Vance 2)

For the last 45 titles I looked at whether the text passes the Bechdel test (BT), and the reverse (r-BT). In all but one title there were solid r-BT passes (two male characters talking to each other about something other than a woman); in contrast, only 13 titles (13/65, 20%) had BT passes (two female characters talking with each other about something other than a man). It's also notable that these BT passes were frequently, perhaps predominantly, very tenuous.

Anyone who's been following these threads can probably by now predict what sort of observations I'm likely to make about these numbers. What these analyses are pointing out has been known for decades anyway--that's why, for instance, feminist SF came about.

One new thing--if it's new, I'm losing track of my own spiel :)--I'd like to emphasise is that I'm consciously going with more loose, more "forgiving" approach whenever I'm trying to discern whether there is a non-"standard" (i.e. not a straight white male) character and what role they may play.

If, say, we demanded a strong explicit and consistent description of a character as black or PoC, then Donal Graeme (Dorsai! by Dickson) would not be included, nor would Pratchett's Kin Arad.

In choosing who to call a "main" character, I have included some cases where women only shared the focus with male characters-- in Randall, Tepper, Asimov. Clearly, exclusion of these would make the numbers for female main characters even worse.

If your own criteria would tend to be more strict, you might then take these numbers as expressing only the "best case" scenario.

You are torturing me. I await the review of Offutt. :-}

No. 66

 

The Galactic Rejects by Andrew J. Offutt

Publication date: 1973 ; Story date: unspecified future

(From the front cover): Interstellar war catches up with three unusual humans stranded on a backward planet.

Main characters: Jake Rinegar, telepath, 50 yo; Corisande, female, "poltergeister", 16 yo; Berneson, male, teleporter, 25 yo.

Other characters: Junn Grenn, male, Borean; Galeaneh Grenn, Junn's wife; Junty and Hoke Grenn, their sons; Besaneh, Junn's and Galeaneh's daughter; Laramen Skeal, male, Borean, carnival owner; Theerd Smisel, male, Borean, magician; General Takhnu, male, Azuli; other named and unnamed Boreans and Azuli.

Representation of women: Stereotypical sexist. The Borean society is stuck in some prelapsarian hillbilly stage, all simple farming and cow-milking, with a version of T-model Ford for family outings on fair days. The women are wives and mothers and cooks. The Azuli forces on Bor don't seem to contain any women.

The Earth's army seems to include women, some at least, going by Corisande's presence.

Corisande (Cory) is the only important female character. She is sixteen, blonde, pouty, "temperamental", given to screaming and crying. Rinegar slaps her basically as soon as he meets her, then threatens more slaps and a spanking; Berneson too threatens to kick her where her tights "are the tightest". There's an unfortunate clash between these two adult men treating her like a bratty child (and that back when physical punishment was A-OK), and the text poring over her attractiveness. Surprisingly, given this extremely inauspicious beginning, subsequent treatment of Cory's character lets her show intelligence, courage, resourcefulness, generosity and initiative outstripping her two male companions. Also, I feel like thanking heavens that Offutt, miraculously, did NOT have her get involved with either of the humans, nor do they try to make her or something. I was dreading something like that was being set up, so picture my relief. Not only that, but the worst Cory suffers is a couple Boreans and Azuli not being able to take their eyes off her.

Offutt can't have taken great care about characterization or really anything much in tossing off this work--at one point he has Rinegar recommend the carnival attraction of "the Tunnel of Love" to a 6-foot 20-something guy, and Besaneh--who is eleven.

So, it's all over the place, but not as bad as it could have been, or as bad as I've seen. This is not much of a praise, though, nor do I feel like praising it.

Representation of race and ethnicity: The Boreans, at least the ones we meet, are described as "red-brown", with some even darker (and also "yellow") people on the planet, so it would seem they are all PoC. Even the Earthmen seem to be darker than whatever white may be, given that Berneson has trouble fitting in--because he's so pale. Corisande's "golden" hair is much made of, but at least her complexion must be darker than Berneson's.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, some r-BT passes. Corisande and Besaneh talk with each other but no dialogue is given.

Would I give this book to a kid: tolerate rather than give, and not without some discussion. I can't honestly say it's worse than the average, slapping included. I mean, is that worse than the worshipping blowjob in Men in the jungle? Corisande at least, after that initial mess, gets respect as an equal from her companions and is treated by the author as a character of equal importance to the men, or greater.

Up next: Dark Dance by Tanith Lee

The following contains spoilers.

No. 67

 

Dark dance by Tanith Lee

Publication date: 1992 ; Story date: contemporary

A woman tries to get away from her dark heritage.

Main character: Rachaela Day

Secondary characters: Ruth Day, Rachaela's daughter; Adamus (Adam) Scarabae, Rachaela's and Ruth's father; Emma Watt, Rachaela's neighbour; Uncle Camillo Scarabae; Anna Scarabae, Adamus' mother.

Minor characters: male and female Scarabae and their servants; Jonquil, female, Rachaela's boss, owner of feminist bookshop; Denise, coworker; Miss Barrett, one of Ruth's teachers, Dr. Chatterjee, male, PoC; other named and unnamed male and female characters.

Representation of women: The story can be seen as symbolic of female struggle to get away from male dominance and/or biological "destiny" as such is interpreted for women. In that context, Rachaela is a rebel, someone not compliant with the role she was assigned. However, she doesn't get away entirely--the goal of her mysterious clan, that she should procreate (with her own father, in order to ensure the line) has been achieved. Once Ruth is born, this goal shifts to her--and Ruth, it seems, is ready to identify with the Scarabae and enthusiastic about her betrothal to her father/grandfather.

Apart from the eldritch Scarabae women, there is a fairly large cast of other women, but most seem to fall into stereotype. And yet Lee seems very conscious of the sexism of everyday life and bitter about the wrongs visited on women. Perhaps there's no escaping "biologisms" in a story that's so much about a woman's maturing, sexuality, desire (heterosexual anyway, and concomitantly relationship to men).

In terms of personality, there's little to be said for any of the women. Rachaela is cold and detached except during the brief sexual liaison with her father, pretty much hates her daughter (although she will, for some reason, rally to help her in the end), and apart from loving books and classical music seems to have no goal, no ambition and no love for anyone. It's her ruling passivity and lack of any zest for life I find more repellent than her not being "good".

Ruth is a psycho. Feminist bookshop owner Jonquil is (perhaps affectionately? I can't tell) made a bit of fun of, as man-hatin' feminist stereotype. Co-worker Denise, surroundings notwithstanding, is a slave to awful boyfriend. Miss Barrett is a spinsterish teacher, Emma Watt a kind and motherly widow who only feels alive when she's caring for someone; Mrs. Mantini the antique shop owner is a bitch.

The scene in the family planning clinic, where Rachaela goes in the second attempt to end her pregnancy, paints the waiting crowd of women in depressing, even revolting colours--although the sole and male doctor is called a "god" no doubt sarcastically.

Representation of race and ethnicity: One very minor character is an Indian.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): There are quite a few fairly "solid" BT passes--and no r-BT passes! Only the second time this has happened.

Would I give this book to a kid: no. There may be an outside possibility that the incest could be academically digested and explained however people explain the myths such as Lot or Myrrha to kids, but not, I think, when the sex is described graphically and at length.

Up next: Ultimate world by Hugo Gernsback

>6 LolaWalser: Did you know that Andrew Offutt's son Chris Offutt just wrote a memoir of his father? My Father, the Pornographer. There was a great teaser piece in the New York Times last year:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/magazine/my-dad-the-pornographer.html

>10 southernbooklady:

I saw that but it didn't register that he wrote only two science fiction books out of 400!!!--so, wow, I guess "The Galactic Rejects" is special in a way. Can't say it builds up an appetite for any type of the guy's work, though, literary-wise. Of course, I'd be curious to check out "the best of" his porn, although I can tell you right now that he certainly did NOT "pioneer" attention to the clitoris. I don't know what the earliest mention in this context might be, but it's a staple already in Victorian porn.

I'm a little surprised there's a whole book in this, I don't quite see the interest? He doesn't seem to have been a particularly noted figure in the sf world?

But, the Gernsback book... not what I expected, to put it mildly. Has anyone else read it? It's the GOOFIEST thing ever.

P.S. I see that there are free ebooks available (not familiar with those sites...) C'mon, people, join the fun.

>11 LolaWalser: I'm a little surprised there's a whole book in this, I don't quite see the interest? He doesn't seem to have been a particularly noted figure in the sf world?

Andrew Offutt is not of interest, per se -- at least not in a literary sense, but his son Chris Offutt is a wonderful writer. The book is memoir -- about his relationship with his father (which was difficult in the extreme), his own development as a writer (when he told his father he he was being published Offutt senior said something to the effect of "I'm sorry if I drove you to become a writer"), against the backdrop of growing up in Kentucky, where the way his father made money was a family secret. Offutt Jr has some great stories about attending different Cons as a kid in the 70s. He says he lost his virginity at one.

Anyway, back to the topic, sorry for the digression. I just saw the name "Offutt" and had to chime in.

>13 southernbooklady:

No, please, it was great to hear this, I had no idea Chris Offutt was himself a writer. Chime in any time.

I don't suppose you'd be familiar with any of his dad's work, I'm just wondering what if any impact he might have had--apparently he thought it was something, whereas my impression is that nothing's so ephemeral as commercial pornography.

>10 southernbooklady:

What a fascinating article. I was aware that Offutt Sr. wrote pornographic fiction, but (like Lola) am amazed at how fecund he was in this area. Thanks for sharing.

>14 LolaWalser:

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction offers the following brief assessment of his work:

Offutt's urgent, sometimes rather hasty style and his sharp intelligence were most effectively deployed in sf stories depicting a hectic urban world and, though he clearly found all sorts of material congenial, his later career was not of striking interest (http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/offutt_andrew_j)

I assume this is in reference to his work in the speculative fiction genres. I have no idea if his claims of importance/worthiness in the field of pornography/erotica are accurate.

More on Offutt Sr.'s erotic comics work (images definitely NSFW):

http://www.tcj.com/this-week-in-comics-22515-shades-of-the-grey-lady/

Wow, this thread's gone all edumacational. :) I had no idea there was a Eric Stanton/Steve Ditko connection--but then again, I can't believe a single artist who ever bothered with figuration didn't indulge in some nekkid people doodling etc. In short, there MUST be loads of contacts between the comics and pornography. Depraved monkeys, the lot of them.

So C. Offutt also writes "True Blood"--I've never seen it but I understand it's a huge hit.

So A. Offutt's porn was published by no less than Grove Press? That's impressive. I see those are not particularly cheap on Abe--circa 40-50 bucks + on average for us Canadians.

>17 LolaWalser:

I can't believe a single artist who ever bothered with figuration didn't indulge in some nekkid people doodling etc. In short, there MUST be loads of contacts between the comics and pornography.

Oh yeah. Superman co-creator Joe Shuster is another famous example of someone who did a fair amount of erotica in order to make ends meet (as detailed in Secret Identity: The Fetish Art Of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster):

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103290167

Somebody oughta put together an LT list entitled "Secret Pornographers of the 20th Century" or some such thing. It's a whole non-fiction sub-genre waiting to be codified, I tell ya! :D

Depraved monkeys, the lot of them.

"Starving" is probably a more accurate way of putting it. You can support a family working in the comics industry now, but it didn't pay jack shit back in the day. For example, the great Jack Kirby (whose estate would be worth millions if not billions in a just world (i.e., not the one we live in)) had to crank out four or five pages of fully penciled comics art a day back in the fifties and sixties just to put food on the table. Therefore, folks in the industry used to put scruples aside and take whatever work they could get more often than not.

All this discussion of Andy Offutt is funny for me. I always thought he was, at best, an okay SF writer, but I loved his characters in the Thieves World books. I own two novels he wrote from that shared world, and both of them were fine. Then again, that's from memory. The last one was published in 1993, and I think I reread it some years ago, and it seemed less wonderful.

I think I've read some short stories by him not in the TW universe, and found them forgettable.

His son sounds like an interesting character. Now I feel compelled to look for Kentucky Straight.

>19 Lyndatrue:

The Galactic Rejects is forgettable hackwork indeed. Can't say I detected a sign that the 399 other titles might be much better, but who knows...

>18 artturnerjr:

Oh, sure, it's a story common enough, but I doubt they had many scruples to suffer to begin with; no one gets involved in drawing and writing porn if they are not at least a little bit an aficionado. Offutt and Stanton clearly were. Who wasn't, really?*

Anyway, I was joking. There's nobody here except us monkeys. :)

Speaking of monkeys... seriously, will no one join me for this Gernsback? Must I start quoting?

*Jack Cole, the creator of my favourite superhero, Plastic Man (actually the ONLY superhero I care for these days, now that they RUINED! RUINED! RUINED! Wonder Woman), is another case in point--mild cartoonist husband and father slash Playboy's porn-lite peddler afflicted with yet heavier undigested tendencies.

Then there are all the canonical artists who produced pornographic art, truly a legion...

>20 LolaWalser:

Must I start quoting?

Yeah, do it! :D

>20 LolaWalser: I admit that I tried. I honestly tried to read it, but my attention span doesn't work that way. Maybe if it were in the middle of winter, and I had no other distraction, but when the sun is out, and there's gardening to do, the competition is too great...

No. 68

 

Ultimate world by Hugo Gernsback

Copyright date: 1971 ; Story date: 1996

Alien invaders of Earth plan to accelerate humankind's evolution into an intelligent, pacifist species.

Main character: Duke Dubois, physicist

Other characters: Donny, Duke's wife, ex-supermodel; Georgi Popoff, Russian premier; Madame Popoff, his wife; Xenor Dubois, Duke's and Donny's "ectogenetically" born son; other named characters with indirect appearance in the text; other unnamed characters.

Representation of women: Extremely "trad", with only a few weak indications that the future may be more egalitarian: e.g. "Xenos", the aliens, modify both girls and boys into "geniuses"; children produced "ectogenetically" comprise both girls and boys; the existence of "American Ladies Space Club" at least allows the possibility that women contribute to space research.

But these nods aside, it's a world in which all the scientists, experts and politicians are male, and women who have children assumed to have no jobs outside the home.

Recently {Donny} had been elected the United States chairman of the "Society of Xenofied Children's Mothers". These harassed mothers, most of whom no longer cope with, what had become known--not too euphemistically--as "the little intellectual monsters" were at their wits' end.
The mothers had reached the zero point in their self-esteem, self-respect and discipline. They were nonentities vis-à-vis their supermind offspring, and were rapidly disintegrating as mothers and housewives. The situation became so serious that many had to be placed in mental institutions. Others just left home. The fathers were no better off, but at least they could escape to their jobs.

The sleazy (but so very goofy!) voyeurism of the scenes of forced lovemaking the human guinea pigs are subjected to by the aliens focuses on female nudity in detail, while the men's is barely acknowledged. The Russian premier's extra/marital arrangement is also gone into in unnecessary detail. We learn that powerful men's much older wives are wise to accept their husband's mistresses philosophically--after all, as wives they have gained "status and security". There are cultural lessons of similar tenor and value to be learned in hearing about a Muslim with a harem (complete with eunuchs)--poor dude died from a heart attack from the exertion with multiple wives, but first suffering the indignity of seeing his wives turn to these gelded servants (emasculated, yes, but not impotent!, as Gernsback instructively observes), in the frenzy imposed by the aliens' gas.

Gernsback was about 75 when he wrote this book, and he clearly wasn't a particularly gifted writer, and in combination with all that his interest in "sexology" serves to give this a rather creepy vibe... but I do believe his heart was in the right place, or at least not too far from it.

Representation of race and ethnicity: None that I noticed.

Representation of any kind of minority: The aliens experiment on homosexuals (including lesbians) as well as on heterosexuals, and moreover on various alt-sex groups (masochists are name-checked...). This seems to be stated with neutrality; there is no negative judgement made on the existence of these people.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): No BT passes, a few r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: erm, well, "give", I can't think why (rather dull and so poorly written...), but tolerate, yes in case of an older kid.

Up next: Space cadet by Robert A. Heinlein

No. 69

 

Space cadet by Robert A. Heinlein

Publication date: 1948 ; Story date: 2075

"Bildung" from boys to men in the Interplanetary Space Patrol.

Main character: Matt Dodson, cadet

Secondary characters: all male: cadets: Bill Jarman; Oscar Jensen; Pierre Armand; Girard Burke; officers: Lieutenant Wong; Captain Yancey.

Minor characters: Matt's parents and brother; Sergeant Hanako; Cadet Sabatello; Lieutenant Thurlow; Commodore Arkwright; Venerians, aliens, all female; blonde woman seen on Terra Station; other named and unnamed male characters.

Representation of women: It's pretty much all boys all the way down to the turtle until the last part, when Matt, Oscar and Bill get stuck on Venus with a sick officer on their hands, and the local aliens, who are all female, save them. These fundamentally peaceful, science-savvy aliens make up somewhat for the sexism that peppers the book in insidious little asides, such as glimpses of women purely as decoration, girlfriends and targets of lust and expressions such as "it cleans out the weak sisters" (re: rigours of training); "for the benefit of the women and children" (officer explaining to cadets); "no reason to behave like a bunch of schoolgirls" (officer to cadets); "Mom doesn't even know what holds the Moon up" (Matt's younger brother to Matt--to be fair, he gets rebuked); "I try to protect {your mother}. Women get worked up so easily" (Matt's father to Matt) etc.

It's a bit odd to think that just a little later Heinlein would write Starship troopers, which actually accommodates women in the military as pilots with superior mathematical skills etc.

Still, like I said, "Venerians" compensate for these slings and arrows--I particularly enjoyed the switch to female gender the cadets employ when speaking Venerian, referring to themselves as "sisters" and "daughters" and their officer as "mother"! Is this the first time someone did this? One must give it to Heinlein, he had real ideas.

Note that the cadets don't make fun of this, although the effect to the reader must be humorous. But they play it straight, simply going along with the custom--which also fits with the serious and unwavering defence of aliens' rights and civilization in the face of the threat by one of cadets' "own".

Representation of race and ethnicity: At least one of prominent characters, Lieutenant Wong, is, if we may judge from the name alone (no description), presumably of Chinese origin and possibly PoC. Other men with non-Anglo-Saxon names include Hanako and Lopez, and there are mentions (with no names or lines), of the black Lieutenant Peters, another black cadet seen in passing, two "swarthy" boys with turbans speaking Hindi, someone exclaiming "Allahu akbar!" etc. In short, it's a diverse bunch... at least in the background.

Representation of any kind of minority: Commodore Arkwright has been blinded on duty and needs assistance to orientate himself but is nevertheless a formidable figure to everyone.

While there's absolutely no direct mention of anything like homosexuality, heavens no, this is a great book if you're a gay boy who likes to daydream about being some place cosy and dangerous with hundreds of other boys. I don't know whether Heinlein was having some fun or not (no clue whatsoever about his stance on these matters), but it's simply irresistible to read certain lines and relationships in a certain way...

Bill on Oscar's asking whether he and Pierre would be welcome to room with Bill and Matt: "You can kiss me, Oscar, we're practically married." Oscar solicitously carrying Pierre's luggage and generally treating him with tenderness because Pierre, unused to Earth-type gravity, is suffering physically and struggling even more than others. Matt taking to horticulture in the nude (to save clothes in hot and humid atmosphere) and Bill dropping by to give him a message (go see the officer) but not relaying it immediately... and Matt, saving the erroneously sent package of pansy seeds and growing flowers from them, decorating the table, getting compliments from the Captain, who also later stifles another cadet (for smirking and "looking superior") by asking him "Smiling at the pansies, no doubt?" "Yes, sir."

Oh, have I mentioned Oscar actually SAYS, "I'm a woman-hater". Make of that what you will, but I think there's definitely another who smiles at the "pansies". :)

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of solid r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: well I'll never be a cheerleader for anything that glorifies the military, but it's worth noting that, contrary to the army in the Starship Troopers, the Patrol is throughout described as a peacekeeping force, favouring argument and persuasion over destructive action. And I really like the Venerians. Yes.

Up next: No blade of grass by John Christopher

The following contains spoilers.

No. 70

 

No blade of grass by John Christopher

Publication date: 1956 ; Story date: 1958

From the front cover: "...famine, terror, and lawlessness sweep the world--as a deadly virus forces mankind to the brink of extinction!"

Main character: John Custance

Secondary characters: Ann, John's wife; Roger Buckley, John's best friend; Olivia, Roger's wife; Pirrie, male, former gun shop owner; Millicent, Pirrie's wife; David Custance, John's brother

Minor characters: Mary and Davey, Custances' children; Steve, Buckleys' son; "Spooks", Davey's friend from school; Jane, about 15 year old girl compelled to join Custance's band after Pirrie and Custance killed her parents; Miss Errington, headmistress of Mary's school; Dr. Cassop, headmaster of Davey's school; other named and unnamed male and female characters.

Representation of women: It's the 1950s and it's like the tumultuous progress of the late 19th/early 20th century never happened--men absolutely rule the world, women are housewives and mothers... and it's all about to get worse.

Pre-apocalypse, brothers John and David watch John's kids race-swim and David completely dismisses Mary (who wins) because "she's a good girl, but..." She's a girl. Dismissable and unimportant except as a vessel of procreation, which is the only value women can have:

"Mary will marry", her uncle said, adding, "like any woman who's worth anything."

David himself is a confirmed bachelor and by this criterion worthless, but hey, men are so much more than women. And this detestable shit of an uncle just goes on and on belittling the girl. Ann mentions that, actually, Mary has decided she's going to be a doctor, and David replies that's a sensible idea--she can marry another doctor. There's more tripe of this kind from David, only feebly countered by Ann with some mild sarcasm; husband John gives right to his brother. Little Mary's future doesn't look terribly bright in 1956, with people who presumably CARE being such assholes.

But then it turns even worse. A year or so later, at fourteen, Mary and her mother Ann are temporarily abducted, and raped. After this ordeal, Mary, who was at least sketched initially as a bright, lively, touchingly considerate and likeable child, simply disappears from the narrative.

Father John has not a word or gesture of comfort after the rape for her, and he actually "stop(s) thinking of Mary as one of the children". She's all woman NOW!

Pirrie's wife Millicent--signposted "SLUT", in neon--tries to seduce John and tells him his raped wife "shouldn't take things too much to heart". John apparently concurs. It's only a day since they left London and their old life and habits of mind, but hey.

Pirrie catches Millicent hitting on John and kills her on the spot, with John's blessing ("The man is the proper head of his family--are we still agreed?"). It's hard times now (since yesterday) and the bitch totally deserved it. Never mind that he could have simply left her in the city, since it's clear he hated her for a long time... To others, John explains the murder thusly: "He felt he had a right to kill his own wife." Yep, that's how we roll... since yesterday.

That's how it is, once the apocalypse hits--women revert, not to being things, because everybody knows they are always truly things and it's mere convention, as farmer David preaches, that anyone pretends they are better than cattle, but to being openly TREATED like things.

Pirrie, who is "an old man"--well past fifty at least, possibly in his sixties--then announces to the girl Jane, who is about fifteen, that he will "take her to wife" or "what passes for that in those times", no won't be taken for an answer... Never mind that Pirrie had killed her father and John her mother, in cold blood, because they wanted their weapons. Them's the rigours, post-apocalypse.

Jane (who barely gets to say a word, and only when Olivia is persuading her to join them--never afterwards) takes to following him "at demure ten paces", as befits a wife. Pirrie consummates their relationship after a bout of shooting and killing of another band of migrants.

By the end of the book women are completely reduced to ciphers, mere attachments to men who own them.

The women did not shake hands. Their men pointed them out to him. Awkwright said, "My wife, Alice." Riggs said, "That's my wife, Sylvie." Foster, a thin-faced graying man, pointed. "My wife, Hilda, and my daughter, Hildegard."

Etc.

Ann, who was in the beginning the only character beside John whose thoughts were given some space, has also been in effect "killed" by the rape. She protests a few times, feebly, about her husband's and other men's behaviour, but her sarcastic remark from the beginning has actually become fact: "We are just chattels now."

A man remarks that "a woman's helpless on her own now"--it's not said regretfully.

I could go on, but it's time to sum up. The mentality on evidence here is, I'm given to understand, very common in "post-apocalyptic fiction". Like so much genre writing, this too belongs to the category of ego-tripping: the intrepid male hero, a mild-mannered accountant in a previous life, or a urbane, civilized architect as in this case, becomes the Chosen One to lead his people to safety and freedom (John Custance starts feeling "feudal" mid-way in the book, and by the end has expectations of a tin-pot "kingdom" in the valley.)

I'm sure it thrills many a guy to picture it all: the danger, the excitement, the killing, the raping, the "now helpless" women flocking to his side, begging practically to be let into a harem, the elevation to the kingly rank and the rule of Everything I See--heady stuff.

But, you know, it thrills me too. I'm just a worthless woman, nobody's king, and no doubt relatively easy to stomp over and kill... eventually... but this literature DOES energize me and concentrate my mind wonderfully. It makes me 100% sure and determined that, should scenarios such as these come to pass, I too would get arms (of which, incidentally, I know how to use quite a few--the advantages of small-country annual compulsory training in territorial defence) and start applying the lesson learned from this book. Which is, duh, obvious to any woman: Kill All Men, on sight.

Naturally, I couldn't kill them ALL. But I'd manage to kill a good many before getting knocked myself out of the round. And that gives me the same jolly serenity that wankers who enjoy this shit derive from contemplating the coming-of-age rapes of fourteen year olds and murder of bad wives. We all have our daydreams! Thanks, Mr. Christopher! :)

Representation of race and ethnicity: The disease spreads from China and other parts of Asia, where hundreds of millions people die. Ann (and to a point, John) are horrified and discuss the morality of their own behaviour and feelings about this. Roger Buckley is of a different mind,

"What's two hundred million?" Roger asked. "There's an awful lot of Chinks in China. They'll breed 'em back again in a couple of generations."

By the end of the story everyone is well past commiserating with the "Chinks" or anyone at all.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): There's a BT pass when Olivia is persuading Jane, who's just been orphaned by Pirrie and John, that she should come with the Custance band. There are many more r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: no. There is nothing valuable in merely showing dehumanization under pressure. Yes, chances of mere survival may be better if there is no limit to what you will do. But what survives is the animal, not the human being--and even that doesn't survive for long. We are complex. If our psyches don't survive then the survival of the body is pointless. It was seen in the concentration camps that, contrary to received wisdom, those who clung to their humanity, in however small a way, not only had better chances of surviving the camps, but better chances of surviving AFTER the camps.

So I'm interested in different post-apocalyptic scenarios, the ones that stress ingenuity and solution of problems before we are reduced to beasts, the ones that speculate on how one preserves humanity in terrible circumstances--we all know how to lose it.

Up next: Ibis by Linda Steele

>27 LolaWalser: Now here's a thing. 'No Blade of Grass' was quite notorious in the 1960s; the book was filmed, and 'John Christopher' (Sam Youd) got quite a lot of mileage out of being known as its author, at least over here in the UK. Yet I started reading sf seriously in about 1971, and I've never come across a copy of this book, either in a library or in bookshops, (specialist sf or mainstream book trade). To the best of my knowledge, it's never been reprinted in the UK; certainly not in the days when I was haunting bookshops looking for the latest paperbacks (and a lot of backlist did get reprinted in the 1970s and 1980s). (Go on, someone, prove me wrong.)

Perhaps survivalist (as opposed to just plain post-apocalyptic) sf has never been so popular over here, in part because we don't have the same gun culture. And even when we have explored the sub-genre, the stories have fallen into the category of what Brian Aldiss called the "cosy British catastrophe"; what few survivors there are retreat to Cornwall or the Lake District or the Scottish Highlands and begin to rebuild society in splendid isolation. I know that's broadly the plot of NBOG, but one book does not a sub-genre make, and the overall sense of the British contributions to the apocalyptic remains, indeed, cosy.

I recollect that the British magazine 'Interzone' did a special about Sam Youd at some point in the 1990s, hailing him as a 'neglected master'; and his obituary in the Guardian spoke of him as 'the best sf writer you've never heard of'. On this basis, one wonders quite if anyone writing those pieces actually read 'No Blade of Grass', or at least read it in the light of more contemporary sensibilities. Or perhaps no-one's actually re-read him since 1964?

>29 RobertDay: (Go on, someone, prove me wrong.)

Well if you insist... I've got a UK edition of The Death of Grass from the mid 80s. No Blade of Grass was the US title.

>30 mart1n: Who was the publisher?

I think of it as NBOG because that was the title of the film; you remind me that the UK title was indeed different.

>31 RobertDay: Sphere. 5th edition in 7 years FWIW. Looking at the available covers, it appears that Penguin might have a recent edition.

>29 RobertDay:

Hm, au contraire, as they say in Des Moines, IA, he seems to be present and reviewed in respectable numbers both here on LT and That Other Site... I've seen mentions--I just finished browsing a few reviews--of a Penguin Modern Classic reprint? So presumably there are copies afloat now.

Quite a few--almost all the one and two-star reviews (yes, I went to GR to check out those expressly, on LT it's all four five ten stars) mention and complain about the stuff I found objectionable--it's not like it's discreet or anything...

Overall, it's a gripping story with a considerable power to horrify. Pirrie is a great character and you simply have to find out what havoc he'll wreak next--but it's not, in terms literary, a distinguished effort. If this is his best... well, hm. I'd say it's good in a good hardboiled pulp way, but there are lots of technical problems. Except for Pirrie's increasingly bonkers character, it's predictable and rather creakily put together.

Christopher doesn't pull off believably the descent from moral heights into barbarism. The speed with which these nice middle-class people went from lavish teas in the garden lifestyle to shooting people in cold blood--literally from one day to the next--stretches credulity. One might find it ludicrous (I did in places. I actually had to force myself not to keep recalling BUT IT'S BEEN TWO DAYS ONLY). The government's scheme to murder its own urban population with atomic bombs (I kid you not) might be seen as a tad far-fetched, I don't know? Especially as the fallout could be expected to pollute what little stock and water the countryside has left.

And so on--lots of holes with the plot and characterization...

>30 mart1n:

Oh, thanks. I missed this... so, yes, in the UK it was Death of grass.

>29 RobertDay:

You know that the British title is/was The Death of Grass, right? ISFDB says it was reprinted in the UK by Penguin in 1970, multiple times by Sphere between 1978 and 1988, and then was out of print until 2005. So there was a long OOP spell in there, but not when you say you were looking.

I was a big fan of his juvenile work when I was at the right age for it. And looking at his author page, I recognise nearly all of the most listed books, so it seems that Death of Grass apart, his adult work was/is much less successful.

>27 LolaWalser:

Here's an Amazon review that echoes a lot of your concerns:

http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Classics-Death-Grass-Penguin/product-reviews/014119...

Hard to believe Penguin Modern Classics published an edition of this. Sounds more like self-published survivalist crap than something they would typically put out.

Isn't it odd how we all sometimes manage to give something an inadvertent body swerve that everyone else is so familiar with. On the strength of its reputation, I would certainly have picked up a copy of 'Death of Grass' had I seen one.

On the basis of Lola's discussion, I probably would deliver that body swerve anyway now.

I was grateful for her review. When she put the title up, the author was unfamiliar to me, and I'd considered getting the book. LT is remarkable in showing me things that I'd have never otherwise seen. After reading her review, I've filed away the author name as a nope, never, not-a-chance.

BTW, I note in >27 LolaWalser: that you wanted more post-apocalyptic novels (with caveats that probably disqualify this), and I see you have several Wyndham novels in your library, some of which fit into this theme. Okay, they fit marginally, but I'm still curious as to your opinion.

>39 Lyndatrue:

I'm a Wyndham fangirl!

>38 RobertDay:, >37 artturnerjr:

I had no intention of putting anyone off this, I even described it as "good" in a hardboiled pulp way. It's no worse in its attitudes than lots of other stuff I read for the thread, P. J. Farmer's books for instance. I'm sure there's plenty worse, and graphic (the period of writing still demanded some restraint put on expression).

I think it's eminently worth reading for anyone with an interest in British post/apocalyptic tradition, literary or cinematic--it reminded me a lot, in atmosphere and scenes of mobs in the countryside, of Threads, the 1970s Quatermass serial etc. and--crossing countries and genres--unpleasantly, of the mindset of Peckinpah's Straw dogs.

It fits a bit oddly, maybe, with its ambiguity (hard to tell whether intentional or inadvertent) and, as Robert mentioned, Americanesque presence of and readiness to use weapons.

The ambiguity is interesting for several reasons. It's not just that the "heroes" are murderers; it's common to see "good" people do terrible things. However, usually there's a price to pay--memory, guilt, remorse, things that come back to bite you in the ass... But Christopher's characters show no interest in morality at all once they abandon their old lives. Even Ann, perhaps the "conscience" of the group in the beginning, not only abandons her principles the very first day, in the end she meekly tells her husband he was "right" in everything.

What I can't decide on is whether Christopher really believed this, or whether he was being savagely sarcastic. The latter is possible, when one considers that he shows zero of that usual reverence for "pukka sahib" British traditions and myths, the grit that defeated the Huns and colonised the globe etc.

But if he was serious, then, well, it veers into fascism, really, like all the "strongman" ideologies.

P.S.

>37 artturnerjr: Wow, yes, that Amazon review sounds like written by a mind-clone! A long lost twin! :)

I think the post-apocalyptic genre really brings out the misanthrope in most writers - Huxley's Ape and Essence, for one, is a really excellent example of this.

It's certainly not difficult for me to imagine how a post-apocalyptic scenario could make humanity go to shit very, very quickly. Hell, I often turn on the news, or read the mindless spoutings of various Internet know-nothings (present company excluded, of course), and think it's gone to shit already.

>41 artturnerjr:

Yes and no. Afghanistan sounds like a place not unlike the world Christopher pictures. Not that long ago--weeks--I read about a man who mutilated his wife because she objected to his plan to marry his 6-year-old niece. Six year old. His niece. He took a knife and carved up his wife. The interesting thing here is that he was not seen, before or after, as a lunatic, and his plan wasn't in itself a demented dream, it was something a random guy in Afghanistan can, apparently, conceive of and expect to execute as a matter of course (well, maybe not trumpet it to the foreigners, but, between us...)

Is everyone there shit and is it the way it is because everyone there is shit? And if they are all shit, but existing side-by-side on the planet with us, are we not shit too?

What I mean is, things are already bad--or crappy--globally in various ways and acutely in not a few places. The "apocalypse" is already here; always has been.

We can't be "more" shit than we were in the Congo or the extermination camps.

I'm not concerned about misanthropy at all, because it's bollocks. Everyone loves at least his own skin; those who don't, well, the solution's simple enough.

What upsets me is something entirely different--misogyny, and how books become and remain popular no matter what venom and vomit is poured on women. Nothing to do with the apocalypse.

No. 71



Ibis by Linda Steele

Publication date: 1985 ; Story date: unspecified future

In a Queen Bee's world, no man is king.

Main characters: Anii, queen of the nomari; Padrec Morrissey, xenobotanist

Secondary characters: Sam Toroya, xenobiologist; Hli, female, Anii's chief subservient

Minor characters: Martin Rubinsky; Janelle MacDonald; other named and unnamed Terrans and nomari.

Representation of women: Humans are observed only for a short time and from an alien's perspective, but it would seem that they live in enlightened, egalitarian conditions.

The alien world, Ibis/Mi, is entirely different--its humanoid species has evolved a matriarchal caste system very similar to that of social insects, with only a handful of truly intelligent individuals--the queens--and only a handful of males--drones, all of whom are unintelligent and die the first time they mate. The rest of the population is either female or sexless, with intelligence on a continuum from queen's sharp advisers, through middling warriors, to stupid workers.

Anii is a formidable and interesting character. I think Steele does a very good job in conveying why and how alien and incomprehensible she finds humans, and how this inevitably leads to her causing much grief to Padrec, even as she thinks she is favouring and honouring him, even "loving" him.

There are lessons here for everyone--in short, the situation presents an inversion of common tropes of our misogynistic society.

Representation of race and ethnicity: No special mention, unless one counts names as indicative of either.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): There are a few short BT and a few short r-BT passes, but as the nomari talk a lot about human men, and human men talk a lot about the nomari, for once the "other sex" dominates pretty much equally conversations on either side.

Would I give this book to a child: to an older one, yes. It would be an excellent introduction to a discussion about sexual morality, consent, rape etc. as well as ethics in general.

Up next: The World of Null-A by A. E. Van Vogt

The following quite possibly contains spoilers.

No. 72

 

The world of Null-A by A. E. Van Vogt

Publication date: 1945 ; Story date: 2560

A man who doesn't know who he is finds himself manipulated for mysterious reasons by unknown forces in a planetary war.

Main character: Gilbert Gosseyn

Secondary characters: Jim Thorson, agent of Enro; Patricia Hardie; Eldred Crang, commander of a galactic base; John Prescott, agent; X., male

Minor characters: Michael Hardie, president of Earth; Amelia Prescott, John's wife; Lauren Kair, male, psychiatrist; Dan Lyttle; Blayney, Crang's soldier; Enro the Red; other named and unnamed male characters.

Representation of women: There are only two female characters, both sympathetic. Patricia's role is the much bigger and significant one, although it's hard to tell, within the harebrained plot, what her function and impact are meant to be.

There's a goofy moment (out of a hundred) when Gosseyn takes time to wax lyrical about women:

Woman the nurturer, he thought, woman the healer, the teacher, the understanding spirit, the lover. Woman! Not merely an imitation of man. (...) she was a woman's woman in the fullest null-A sense... warm-hearted human being...

Initially described as impulsive neurotic--but was that real or feigned?--Patricia is revealed as a balanced, attractive, well-integrated null-A personality, whatever that may mean.

Representation of race and ethnicity: Except for Elder Crang being described as looking Middle Eastern or Mediterranean, no other mention.

Representation of any kind of minority: Mysterious X., bits of whom are plastic, is described as a "cripple", the result of some accident. At first he comes across as a villain, but NO HE'S NOT.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of solid r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: IIRC, I said no to Slan because it was so badly written. The good news is, this one seems to me less badly written. The bad news is, that's a bar still so low one must accept stuff like this:

Fear must derive from the very colloids of a substance.

Even worse than problems with style (but connected to them, probably) are the problems with ideas, although I see this is a beginning of a series so maybe it all becomes (she said in utterly doubtful tones)... clearer... eventually...

Van Vogt: tolerated; hardly ever (so far) outright recommended.

Up next: Nightwings by Robert Silverberg

If I recall correctly, Gosseyn = Go Sane.

I also recall reading The Pawns of Null-A...

>45 LolaWalser: It's funny. I have several books by van Vogt. There are less than it seems at first glance, since, I have three Weapon Shops of Isher, and two of Voyage of the Space Beagle. I'm sure that others are duplicated as well. van Vogt was known for the clever trick of reworking (or sometimes just retitling) a story to resell. There are a few of his works (Space Beagle) that I'd actually say he did well on, although Amazon's gushing description is a bit overdone.

Here's a note from my review of his autobiography, which you may (or may not) find interesting:

It's interesting to note that Vogt was deeply influenced by both Dianetics and General Semantics, of which the most notable offshoot of that was Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It's quite interesting to see how deeply influenced he was by both pseudo-sciences, and reading many of his works in this light is informing.

I read Weapon Shops of Isher when I was young enough, and impressionable enough, that it overwhelmed me. I was actually a libertarian for about six months (hey, I was 11 or 12, and it was a revelation to me). He died from complications of Alzheimer's. *Shudder*

He loved, and was very supportive of, his wife (Mayne Hull), including encouraging her into writing on her own (there was a lot of discussion on that, during the time, but his respect for her was genuine). It may be harder to view him, and his world, looking back. Still, he helped form most of my favorite authors (and me).

On the other, other hand. I own multiple books by van Vogt that I've never read (I bought them out of sentiment, and for the covers). I always wonder what would become of him if Mayne (and then he) had not fallen under the influence of L. Ron, in those long ago days).

I dunno.

>48 Lyndatrue: I've always had a soft spot for van Vogt's novels, although pretty much all of them are really bad. He's famously the most successful sf author to build a career on the advice given in a "how to write" book - basically, 800-word sections, always ending on a cliff-hanger. It's pretty clear in a lot of his books that he wrote himself into corners all the time. The only book of his I actually rate is The House That Stood Still, which is a fascinating mix of California noir and pulp sf.

>49 iansales: I will gently disagree with you on the "really bad" statement. I think you had to be there; the world is so different than it was then. Although I agree that much of his work is repetitive, taken as a body of work, it did not seem that way at the time. Once in a while, I'd read something (or start to), and realize it was just retitled, and that I'd already read it. Consider the number of writers that admire him, who are themselves admirable.

This thread is about what would be recommended to give to a child, and I would not give any of van Vogt's books to a child, albeit not just the reasons that LolaWalser has mentioned. They're locked in a past that is not recoverable. Some things do not age well. I recently re-read multiple books I'd read perhaps 20 years (or so) before. They should (mostly) have been left to memory.

Currently I'm reading a book of Albert Camus' collected essays that I'd first read not too long after they were published. Then, it seemed like there were solutions to things. Now? I've actually wept over a couple of them, because things he'd predicted have come to pass.

Enough.

>47 Maddz:

Yes, that was mentioned in the intro (by Van Vogt)--I admit I'm not sure I'd have seen it on my own.

I have other Van Vogts in the pile, but I don't recall whether they include other among the five titles LT lists...

>48 Lyndatrue:

It's interesting to note that Vogt was deeply influenced by both Dianetics and General Semantics, of which the most notable offshoot of that was Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It's quite interesting to see how deeply influenced he was by both pseudo-sciences, and reading many of his works in this light is informing.

Some of this came up when I was looking at reviews. That was the period of a general trend, a popularity of anything "psy", when even the military (or especially the military) were going for ludicrous studies in "paranormal" phenomena.

I think (but I could be wrong) that there's an interesting kernel of a real project in Van Vogt--trying to connect behaviour to psychological/cognitive/neural processes--to externalize the mind--but; he just, imo, didn't have the technical means, the talent, to do it well, I mean from the artistic side of things at least. So we get atrocious sentences about a character replying to another that involve the thalamic nuclei and behaviourism and whatnot.

Which is not to deny his power to transport, especially at the presumably younger age of his original readers. In fact (and I may have observed this before), quite often what's absurdly muddled might function as tantalisingly ambiguous and stimulating.

>49 iansales:

Thanks for the ref.

>50 Lyndatrue: I read most of his stuff back in the 1970s - he was in fact my favourite author for a time. Hence my soft spot for his works. But I've found them almost unreadable on recent rereads. I've changed; the books haven't. And yes, he was infamous for fixing up unconnected stories into different novels, and often retitled his works for no obvious reason. A van Vogt bibliography runs to a couple of hundred pages because of that...

>45 LolaWalser: I wouldn't describe Null-A as a series. There was a sequel.

>53 EnsignRamsey: There were two sequels - The Players of Null A and Null A Three, and John C Wrong recently wrote a further sequel, Null-A Continuum.

deleted

>54 iansales: Yes I forgot there was a third book. My bad! I still think it was Wrong to write a fourth book.

>54 iansales: It's Wrong of him to write anything :-)

>57 iansales: Ah, John C. Wright! lol. He looks vaguely familiar. Wasn't he one of the suspects in the attempted Hugo Awards heist?

>59 iansales: He's an ally of Beale, who is the total scumbag behind the Rabid Puppies.

>54 iansales:
>58 EnsignRamsey:

Wright is big on that sort of thing. He's also written a bunch of stories set in the universe of William Hope Hodgson's 1912 novel The Night Land.

>60 artturnerjr: I have no problem with authors writing licensed sequels, or exploring other writers' universes (with their permission, of course), but I do have a problem with John C Wrong :-)

Sorry this was delayed so long. Had an awful summer. Oh, wait, it's still not over...

The following contains spoilers.

No. 73

 

Nightwings by Robert Silverberg

Publication date: 1968 ; Story date: +40000 years

An Earth conquered by aliens finds new hope in universal brotherhood.

Main character: Tomis, male

Secondary characters: Avluela, female, Flier; Gormon, alien, male; Enric, the Prince of Roum; Olmayne, female

Minor characters: Male: The Surgeon; Bernalt, Changeling; Manrule Seven, alien; Elegro; Bordo the Artificer; Chancellor Kenishal; Samit; many other. Female: Murta, Samit's wife.

Representation of women: Avluela turns out to be an important character in the end, but she's absent for about 80% of the narrative. She's seventeen "but looks younger, thirteen or fourteen", apparently anorexic (her slenderness, thinness, slimness is repeatedly marvelled at and it's even specified her thighs never touch, separated by several inches of empty space), and over and over infantilised as "child", "girl-child", "only a child" etc. When she shows up again in the end she "looks even younger" than she did in the start--you know, when she looked "thirteen or fourteen". To make this as gross as possible, everyone wants to bang Avluela, beginning with the decrepit (as he was then) watcher Tomis, who feels like a father toward her--except it's like a father who wants to screw his daughter.

As soon as Tomis, Gormon and Avluela get to Roum they run into the Prince, who promptly pulls her into his litter and rapes her on the spot, which he then continues in his palace. The next time Tomis and Gormon see Avluela Tomis notices she's "emotionally distressed", but nothing is made of that; the event is more important in disclosing Gormon's attachment (he and Avluela had been lovers) and jealousy. Gormon actually interrogates Avluela on who gave her the greatest physical pleasure and she responds it was the Prince (yes, her rapist)--BUT!--she "despises" him because he's a heartless bastard.

Avluela disappears at this point, to resurface when Tomis, still in his decrepit body, reaches "Jorslem" (guess) and is renewed into a young, bangable stud. I love happy ends.

Olmayne, wife of Elegro the Rememberer (and herself a Rememberer, not that it means much for her characterization--coulda been a simple cook) is gorgeous but bad through and through--she cheats on her husband, kills him (to be fair, AFTER he has killed her lover), is vain, lustful, selfish etc. Well, can't have that, can we? Although she too, like Tomis, is accepted for "renewal", something goes horribly wrong in her case and she just regresses to infancy and death.

Murta the Somnambulist looks grotesque (and maybe has a gay husband? "dainty, mincing" with a "high-pitched whiny voice"--you tell me how to read that) but at least she just has the job of going into trance and describing the future for Tomis, which she does competently, and doesn't even die for it.

A passing mention of a middle-aged female Flier and a female Servitor is all there is besides, while everyone else is male.

Representation of race and ethnicity: The Surgeon, a "native of Afreek", is probably black, and a reference is made to how rare is white skin (such as Olmayne's, and Avluela's). So presumably most of the characters are what we'd call "people of colour". At least, it can certainly be read that way.

Representation of any kind of minority: (Edited): Maybe Murta's husband Samit is meant to ping our gaydars, but maybe they are just a comedy mismatched straight duo, who knows. One mention of a male alien's "boy friend", calling them/him one of "those" (italicised in the text).

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: eh, no, nope, am down on it, just sick of the "dirty old man" fug about it. What the heck IS IT with sexualising "childlike" bodies? Just quit, you old bastards. Keep it to yourselves. Something.

Up next: The Sodom and Gomorrah business by Barry N. Malzberg

oh, lol

>62 LolaWalser: Just a brief note for anyone who read the original, which was a short story published in one of the magazines (I think Analog, but I'm too lazy to check), and then later, as the lesser part of a Tor double (which I have, and have read). The original was far better. I bought, and started to read, the novel (the one you've just reviewed), and I was less kind. I ended up doing the standard for me, which was to become impatient, read the last couple of pages, and then pitch it against the wall.

It went to the used book store long ago. The original short story was okay; I liked Jack Vance's work much more. I'm not sure either has held up to the test of time, though (the sixties were a LONG time ago).

>64 Lyndatrue: I've read the novella that's in the Tor double, and only last year, IIRC. I didn't think it especially memorable - a thin idea stretched ouyt way past its breaking point, and only held together by Silverberg's skill as a writer of commercial sf.

The emphasis was all wrong, could have been a better book if instead of endlessly dwelling on the dull inner monologues of that boring-ass creepy old Watcher, he concentrated on the mutants, their promise, overcoming of old prejudice... there was little action and less plot. Just this guy rolling by inertia from point A to point B.

>66 LolaWalser: There are only a few works by Silverburg that I admired; notably, I found Gilgamesh interesting and reasonably well done. I thought that Silverburg contributed more when he moved into publishing/editing, rather than writing. His writing was always good, but the subject matter and characterization never fired me up, in the way that Tiptree (for example) used to.

There are many of his works that I liked when I read them, but I've learned in the past year or so that it's best to leave most things to memory.

>67 Lyndatrue: My limited reading of Silverberg has left me mostly feeling rather, "Meh." To date, the one exception was the Tor double where he wrote 'In Another Country' as a sequel to C.L. Moore's Vintage Season. As a fan of Moore's work, I was surprised to enjoy Silverberg's story more than the original - which was also very, very good. If you can find that double, it's well worth reading in my opinion.

Good to hear that Gilgamesh the King is worthy as I have it on my TBR shelf.

I still have a soft spot for thr Majipoor books, although they're clearly written to be commercial.

I enjoyed Lord Valentine's Castle as a teenager, although I haven't revisited it since. More recently, I found things to like about The World Inside.

(redacted double-post)

>61 iansales:

Don't know that much about him, but I attempted to read one of his blog posts on the 2016 American presidential election*, got as far as the third sentence (which begins "I would gladly pull the lever for either {Donald} Trump or {Ted} Cruz"), and said, "Yeah, this probably isn't someone I'd enjoy having dinner with". :)

>67 Lyndatrue:

I thought that Silverburg contributed more when he moved into publishing/editing, rather than writing.

I own a couple of Silverberg-edited anthologies (The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One and Science Fiction 101 (more commonly known as Robert Silverberg's Worlds of Wonder). Both are excellent; Silverberg's essays that follow each story in the second book are particularly illuminating.

* http://www.scifiwright.com/2016/03/unimpressed-and-undecided/

>62 LolaWalser: Basically agree with your feelings, there was a lot of ogling of a character described as extremely young and frail looking. It was a bit weird how much it got mentioned. I don't think the characters had much reason to even be interacting with each other.

There was a mention of a the aliens having same sex relationships but only in passing. One of the invading male aliens had a boyfriend. The merchant, who gave Olmayne and Tomis a ride in his fancy car, said he supplied drugs to the alien so he could give them to his boyfriend as a gift. I think the merchant might have said of the boyfriend "they have those too" as in, among all the other ways they are similar to us they also have gay people, not sure.

Regarding Avluela, and her confession to having been given the most physical pleasure by the Prince. I thought the message, if any, to that exchange, was it was still rape when consent was never given, whether your body responds or not.

>73 wifilibrarian:

There was a mention of a the aliens having same sex relationships but only in passing. One of the invading male aliens had a boyfriend. The merchant, who gave Olmayne and Tomis a ride in his fancy car, said he supplied drugs to the alien so he could give them to his boyfriend as a gift. I think the merchant might have said of the boyfriend "they have those too" as in, among all the other ways they are similar to us they also have gay people, not sure.

Please give me a page reference for this.

That's okay, found it. Thanks for mentioning it, definitely needs to be noted. (Italics in the text.)

"This was {Comt of Perris's} chariot. It was supposed to be part of a museum, but I bought it off a crooked invader. You didn't know they had crooked ones too, eh?" The Merchant's robust laughter caused the sensitive mantle on the walls of the car to recoil in disdain. "This one was the Procurator's boy friend. Yes, they've got those, too. He was looking for a certain fancy root that grows on a planet of the Fishes, something to give his virility a little boost, you know, and he learned that I controlled the whole supply here, and so we were able to work out a little deal."

Reflects a negative attitude toward homosexuality, in my view, at least as ascribed to the character.

I got as far as p.39, and that's it for this one. I might have soldiered on for a less obscure author or title, but this seems to be safely off the radar, and meanwhile the TBR Pile is only growing.

By page 39 a couple of trainees of a curious Institute escape into the savage outer world looking to wreak havoc and mayhem, up to and including murder, for vague reasons or no reasons--all the images of violence they've been fed apparently made them yearn for the real thing, plus car crashes and similar give them hard-ons (o where have we read that tedious crap before?) The nameless narrator claims to be interested in finding "females", to determine "whether I truly desire females and would be capable with them..."--the inmates of the Institute are all male and "pair-bond" for "homosex". (Malzberg, who I gather is gay himself, at least doesn't stoop to homophobia, but one might wish for less clumsy "support", to say nothing of the concomitant misogyny.)

Speaking of which, that reaches an early apogee on p.34-36, such that I decided I could do without the remaining ninety.

They run into a man, a child, and a "female".

I take out my gun fully then. Before this it has dangled from a hand, dangled into a fold of the jacket. Now I expose it to her as if I had whisked a tumescent prick out of clothing to give her a look at the real treasures. Indeed, my erection is throbbing below, painfully full of conviction, urging me onward. It is disgraceful that I should be excited at a time as crucial as this, but on the other hand my problems must be considered. "Do you see this?" I say to her.
(...)

...I pass my pistol over to the rather astonished Lawson, lurch from the car, managing to topple her in the opening action of the door, and drag her over to a little clump of bushes where I set upon her like sainted Zapruder himself, and to prove my estimate of her humanity, my worth, my need, I rape the shit out of her.

Up next: The Ophiuchi hotline by John Varley

>76 LolaWalser: At the risk of generalizing, homosexuals have always been the worst misogynists. Even the most chauvinist straight men admit that women have a role in the world, albeit a very limited one.

>78 EnsignRamsey:

I don't doubt there are and have been some frightful gay misogynists but I'm not sure "the most chauvinist straight men" result any better in comparison. Seems to me that's a typically male point of view--as if women ought to be grateful for being seen as "useful" at least as sex toys.

I won't presume to speak for all women, but personally, in a "desert island" test, I'd rather be stranded with a gay misogynist who wouldn't want to fuck me, even if he ended up trying to roast me for dinner (probably a mutual plan tbh), than a straight one who'd want the same AND to fuck me. Women don't typically fear roving gangs of gay men.

I don't know enough about Malzberg to pronounce on him as a person. My impression of the text, as far as I got, is that the rapey machismo and the obvious imitation of Ballard was meant to appeal to a straight male audience (also making the "homosex" more palatable--sort of ancient-Greeky etc.--after all, the Institute's all-male inmates had no choice etc.)

>76 LolaWalser: This is The Sodom and Gomorrah Business? Just checking, because I want to make sure I never accidentally pick up the book you describe.

>80 ronincats:

Yes.

Let's see, I remember ditching three books to date (not all for the same reasons):

1. Beasts of Gor

2. something by Hubbard--Doc Methusalem or some such

3. this one

On checking out what the Other Site had to say about Malzberg's book--only two reviews--there's this (from the longer review):

Malzberg only allows for two female characters in the whole story—one is raped and murdered, and the other is a submissive member of the westerly harem, a broken woman who does as she is told. I don't really know what point he’s trying to make with this novel, and it only gets murkier and harder to grasp from this point on.

At first I really enjoyed the promise of the Sodom and Gomorrah Business, with its dystopian-lite setting and staccato three page chapters, but in the end the story was a light stab at social commentary drenched in the sweat and blood of sado-masochism. The result is bascailly a not-nearly-as-fun precursor to Escape From New York.

I can't say that I recommend the Sodom and Gomorrah Business on any level. Probably the weirdest part of this book is that it is dedicated to Malzberg's daughter.

Right, there's a dedication "For Stephanie Jill Malzberg", apparently not, as I hoped, a much-hated aunt. He dedicated this to a daughter? WTF?

Also, it seems I was totally wrong thinking Malzberg's gay. Apologies to anyone who feels personally offended by my supposition!

Also also, gay or straight, I guess we can confirm personal misogyny--from Wikipedia:

Malzberg was a regular contributor to the SFWA Bulletin published by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. In 2013, articles he wrote for the Bulletin with Mike Resnick triggered a controversy about sexism among members of the association. Female authors strongly objected to comments by Resnick and Malzberg such as references to "lady editors" and "lady writers" who were "beauty pageant beautiful" or a "knock out." Bulletin editor Jean Rabe resigned her post in the course of the controversy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_N._Malzberg

I thought I had one of Malzberg's books, but I was thinking of The God Box by Barry Longyear. I probably read some of his short stories back in the 60s and 70s, but don't recall any of them.

>82 LolaWalser: If Malzberg isn't gay, that rather invalidates my comment.

>79 LolaWalser: I like to think that if Friday had been a woman, Robinson Crusoe would have been a perfect gentleman. I mean, why resort to rape? A man and woman, stranded indefinitely on a desert island? Surely time and nature would take their course?

>85 EnsignRamsey: Surely time and nature would take their course?

What course would that be?

>85 EnsignRamsey:, >86 southernbooklady:

Sullen mutual resentment?

>85 EnsignRamsey:

Really? So all women are going to sleep with all men if they're the only one available, and vice versa? Setting aside the possibility of one or both of them being gay, have you never heard the phrase "Not if you were the last man on Earth?"

>87 paradoxosalpha:

lol!

That reminds of--I think Damon Knight's?--story about "the last two people" on Earth, can't think of the title... they are male and female and straight (the question doesn't even pose itself, does it) but also well past forty, ordinary and completely unattractive. The guy's a sleazy bastard and the woman is a fool and a repressed prig. For whatever reason the selfish and unlikely hero yet feels they have a duty to the species so he does his best to persuade the horsey and leathery blushing spinster she ought to regard him as her husband (the sooner the better, given their age), despite the lack of official blessings. Finally she gives in. Just before they mean to set off to look for a convenient abode he pops into the loo for a moment--more blushes from the new Eve, who decides to wait for him as far away from the bog as possible--and gets himself locked in.

And realises eventually that never, ever, will she dare come looking for him in the gents. That's just not done.

:)

>89 LolaWalser:

That reminds of--I think Damon Knight's?--story about "the last two people" on Earth, can't think of the title...

Yeah, it's Damon Knight. It's called "Not with a Bang":

https://talesofmytery.blogspot.com/2014/04/damon-knight-not-with-bang.html

>90 artturnerjr:

Yes, that's it, thanks!

The following contains spoilers.

No. 74

 

The Ophiuchi Hotline by John Varley

Publication date: 1977 ; Story date: 26th century

Five hundred years after the original alien invasion displaced them from Earth, humanity again faces complete extinction.

Main character: Lilo-Alexandr-Calypso, genetic engineer, female

Secondary characters: Cathay, primary teacher, male; Vaffa, guard, female; Tweed, leader of the Free Earth party, neutersex; Parameter/Solstice, female human-plant symbiont; Javelin, spacer, female.

Minor characters: Mari, medic, female; Vejay, scientist, male; Jasmine, scientist, female then male; Cass, Cathay's son; Iphis, spacer, male; William, Ophiuchi spokesman, original alien gender uncertain. Other male, female, neuter, androgynous or gender/sex/race-undetermined characters.

Representation of female characters: There are little things that make it clear Varley's not exactly a progressive millennial on Tumblr, but the scene he paints is refreshingly egalitarian compared to most of the stuff I've seen from people "like him". Not only is there a female main character of definite yet reasonable capability and valour, female characters keep popping up in various roles, the important ones as well as in the background. Amazingly, Varley's women frequently smile at and are said to like other female characters. I don't remember another title in which sympathy between female characters was so pointedly present. The Bechdel test had multiple solid passes--and no r-BT passes.

Representation of race and ethnicity: Except for one historical character, mentioned in a "flashback", a black female astronaut called Purunkita "black as space", no other character is described as belonging to a specific race or ethnicity.

Representation of any kind of minority: Medicine and cosmetic surgery have reached a level such that physical disabilities don't exist, while physical alterations that might be debilitating in a less developed society are common--limblessness, or multiple limbs, chimeric and cyborg organs etc.

Regarding sexuality, and gender, Varley posits an apparently unlimited freedom of interaction and change. However, although he writes there is a "no-preference majority", meaning that most people in this future have no preference for being male or female and switch from one to other as they wish (everyone getting to be the mother of the single child they are allowed), both Lilo and Cathay happen to be minoritarian "female-stable" and "male-stable" individuals, respectively. Lilo did spend "three years as a male" at some point, but Cathay is a cis-male heterosexual and that's that. Not only was he never and never will be a girl, when his previous partner Jasmine decides to have a sex change, they split up.

For her part, Lilo is open to sex with women but makes clear it's only second-best, not on the same plane of experience, to her preference for men.

Once again we see a presumably universal liberalisation of sexual mores through the behaviour of female characters, not male.

But overall, I'd count this a positive representation of a society in which neither gender nor sexuality of any kind are obstacles to happiness.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): Multiple solid BT passes--and no r-BT passes! The multitude and importance of female characters have ensured that the male characters interact mostly with women.

Would I give this book to a kid: to an older one, yes.

Up next: 334 by Thomas Disch

>92 LolaWalser: The Ophiuchi Hotline has been a favourite of mine for many years. Back in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the stuff he was writing was genuinely exciting. Not all of it has aged especially well, although his oeuvre is a lot less embarrassing than most of his contemporaries. (We won't mention the film Millennium because, well havde you seen it?). I still ike The Ophiuchi Hotline for a number of reasons, but one of them is the fact it throws away an entire novel in a handful of lines, when Lilo eventually meets the alien who have been running the hotline...

>94 iansales:

Varley is the only contemporary (and not-yet-dead!) writer whose name I actually recall from the time I was still subscribing to a few sf mags (probably cca 87-88), and the reason I remembered him is the impression a female character of his made on me--I had never encountered one like that. She was a half-Asian brilliant computer hacker, and although she met (I think) a dire end, and one of her prominent characteristics was a big chest (breast implants being the first thing she splurged on after making money), everything else about how she was written, from dialogue and how the other characters saw her to her not being the usual blonde bimbo (boobs aside) was so novel and unusual I distinctly remember wishing more stories were like that. It seems impossible, but it felt, or I remember it now, as the only instance in which a female character was highly intelligent, important to the plot, and not one-dimensional; quirky in the best sense.

I don't know the movie you mention... And yes, there were bits in this book for a lot more--I see it's listed as the first title in a sequence? Maybe there is more. I was intrigued by the symbiont character, with hands on all her limbs... Oh yes, I just remembered what it reminded me of:

The Spider (Choreography and dance by Milena Sidorova)

>95 LolaWalser: The Ophiuchi Hotline is the first novel in a rough sequence set in the Eight Worlds, but all of the books are standalone. The others are Steel Beach, The Golden Globe and the forthcoming Irontown Blues. Pllus a lot of short fiction.

The film Millennium is best avoided. It has a clever plot, and Cheryl Ladd and Kris Kristofferson are good in the lead roles, but the production design is awful and the plot never quite adds up (unlike the novel Varley wrote from the screenplay he adapted from his short story 'Air Raid').

It knocked me back rather seeing John Varley as one of the oldies.

No. 75

 

334 by Thomas M. Disch

Publication date: 1974 ; Story date: skips within the 2021-2026 interval

From the back cover: "...a visionary portrait of the underbelly of 21st-century New York City... a world of rationed babies and sanctioned drug addiction."

Main point of view characters: Birdie Ludd, male, black ("Negro"); Ab Holt, male; Alexa Miller, female; Juan Martinez; Boz Hanson, male; Nora Hanson; Shrimp Hanson, female, lesbian

Secondary characters: (in order of appearance) Arnold Chapel, black; Lottie Hanson; Milly Holt; Amparo Martinez, female; January, female, black, lesbian

Many diverse minor characters.

Representation of women: They don't come off as worse than men.

Representation of race/ethnicity: People are still aware of race, as shown in a few instances of verbal description and racist slurs, but racism isn't the focus of the stories for any of the black characters. Still, we get the sense it is ever-present in the background.

Representation of any kind of minority: Besides the two lesbian characters, there are scattered mentions of at least two gay male couples and Boz Hanson indulges occasionally in homosexual flings. Sexual orientation and gender seem not to be a big deal. Babies are mostly grown outside the body and men can experience motherhood if they so wish. Boz gets grafts from his wife in order to nurse their daughter himself.

Necrophilia gets a subplot. Representation still negative... ;)

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): Several solid BT passes, r-BT passes too.

Would I give this book to a kid: Yes. Disch is a fine writer, this book is to most other stuff here as a hippo to kittens.

Up next: Tetrasomy Two by Oscar Rossiter

>99 LolaWalser: Every once in a while, you come up with one that's new to me. I went right to Amazon to read the reviews (and the book's no longer for sale by Amazon, just third party sellers). There's only three, and they are years apart, but this review, and the comments, make me very interested in your impressions of it.

https://www.amazon.com/review/RHSLS5FXZZATU/ref=cm_cr_dp_title?ie=UTF8&ASIN=...

(I really loathe Amazon links, but I'm too lazy this morning to edit it down to the bare essentials.)

The review is amusing (in a writing style sort of way), but the comments on this review are even better, including suggestions for other books. I'm now very interested to read your impressions of this work.

>100 Lyndatrue:

I never heard of this writer or the book either so I won't be clicking on that until I'm done!

There's a naked woman on the cover. This will be good or disastrous. :)

>101 LolaWalser: I'm about to do some serious updates on the author page. You'll probably want to ignore those until you're done reading, as well.

The following contains spoilers.

No. 76

 

Tetrasomy Two by Oscar Rossiter (pseudonym of Vernon Skeels)

Publication date: 1974 ; Story date: presumably contemporary

Super-dorky young psychiatrist discovers one of his least responsive patients harbours extraordinary talents.

Main character: Steve Boyd, psychiatrist

Secondary characters: Ernest Peckham, patient; Grace Waggoner, nurse; Drs. Shields; Hahn; Adler, all male; Mrs. Vukov, Peckham's sister

Minor characters: Mrs. Bailey; Mrs. Kappleman; Mrs. Hatch et al., nurses, all female; Eng; Potter et al., doctors, all male.

Representation of women: The gender segregation of the medical profession, male doctors on this side, female nurses on that, feels too retro even for the 1970s. Grace Waggoner, the sexy nurse, is seen most often "mounting" young Stevie's erections, and it's never clear how much of her insatiable appetite is natural to her and how much artificially induced and manipulated by the recumbent and steadfastly mute (except for sporadic terse telepathic notes) Mr. Peckham. Then again, Steve is under his influence too, so the one rapist would seem to be the catatonic genius.

Representation of race and ethnicity: None.

Representation of any kind of minority: There's a quick flippant mention of homosexuality as something that one must expect in orderlies (implicitly presumed all to be male), and the advisability of choosing those the least obvious.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: well, not so much "give" as not mind, because it's actually sort of fun, at least in the first half when it's still completely ambiguous how much is real and how much is Steve's fantasy. The writing has flair, there is a solid education behind it, the send-up of the profession and some social commentary are sharp and entertaining. Steve's narration is hilariously undermined by the reactions of his environment (much funnier and skillful than the same device used by Michael Coney in The Jaws that Bite, the Claws that Catch). But it's a rather long wrapping for a thin central idea, besides the sexist datedness.

Author's obit from The Seattle Times: Like "Tetrasomy Two," Skeels was a true original

>100 Lyndatrue:

Wouldn't disagree with that review, although it's clear they enjoyed it more than I did, at least by the end.

Up next: The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

The following contains spoilers.

No. 77

 

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

Publication date: 1971 ; Story date: 2002

Dreams shape reality.

Main character: George Orr

Secondary characters: Dr. William Haber, oneirologist, bisexual; Heather Lelache, black

Minor characters: Mannie Ahrens, elevator guard/building manager; Penny Crouch, Haber's receptionist; Tiua'k Ennbe Ennbe; E'nememen Asfah, aliens, neuter gender? (referred to as "it")

Representation of women: Le Guin writes beautifully but her female characters, the whole gender balance and set-up, could have come straight out of earliest Asimov. Okay, Heather is interesting but also scary in some way that seems nebulously connected to her being black. She thinks of herself as "Black Widow" and Le Guin repeatedly uses insect metaphors (yes, "insect" is actually the word she uses once--sorry, entomologists!)--Heather is sharp, thin, she clicks, clacks, scurries--and even reptilian--Heather's nature is sly, shy, "squamous".

Heather's parents had a tense mixed race marriage, between a Black Power type who "hated and loved" his white wife and eventually abandoned her and the kid to go search for his roots in Africa. White mum came from privilege turned hippie died a junkie. When they first meet, Heather confides to George that she doesn't know whether she's black or white. "Brown", says George. Heather's colour is important to her and to George, who loves her immediately as she is and for how she is.

But uncomfortable things happen to Heather in various versions of reality George dreams up. In one of them she becomes George's wife--and also white. Which is maybe better than not existing at all, as seems to have happened in the version when the whole world turned grey-skinned (in a "solution" to racial conflict), but still seems a cruel, loaded thing to happen. Fortunately the final version restores Heather as a black person, but she's still not the same she was--she got downgraded professionally from lawyer to legal secretary. Then again, as George's wife she seems not to have worked at all.

Since there's only one other female character that even gets noted (and with maybe a word or two of dialogue), and she's a receptionist slavishly loyal to her Man-Boss, and the one general mention of women paints the whole population as "housewives"--this does seem a shame.

Representation of race and ethnicity: Heather is the only PoC character but the story raises deep questions about racism through her transformations.

Representation of any kind of minority: Haber lives for his work and takes care of his sex life through meetups with "semipros" female and male. This is remarked without a trace of judgement, which makes a previous mention (in Heather's speech) of "a terrific repressed homo {who} got arrested for trying to bugger a twelve-year-old boy in broad daylight..." all the more egregious. WTF, Ursula.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, tons of solid r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: yes, but with a preface, lecture, discussion, the whole works.

Up next: The avengers of Carrig by John Brunner

Argh, a pterodactyl! I hate prehistory...

>107 LolaWalser:

Another second/third string Brunner.

>108 andyl:

Bread and butter pulp. :)

The following contains spoilers.

No. 78

 

The avengers of Carrig by John Brunner

Publication date: 1969 ; Story date: far future

Galactic Patrol intervenes in a society in an early stage of development.

Main characters: Saikmar Corrie, male; Maddalena Santos, PoC

Secondary characters: Gus Langenschmidt, Patrol Major; Pavel Brzeska, Patrol Commandant; Ambrus Knole, male

Minor characters: Trader Heron, male; Sir Bavis Knole, regent; Belfeor and Pargetty, usurpers, male; Slee, Patrol's spy, pimp, male; Nyloo, priestess; Pettajem, little girl; Graddo, male; other characters, mostly male.

Representation of women: Science fiction--the only genre you can rely on to write pterodactyls better than women. I ended up wishing EVERYONE was a damn bird dinosaur.

Still, it could have been so much worse... Consider that Maddalena is twenty-five and presumably a highly capable and well-trained individual, with the ambition of becoming a full-fledged spacer and Patrol member. Contrary to all that, when we meet her she has supposedly spent a year throwing a toddler's temper tantrum, complaining about food, her rustic colonial colleagues (she is Earth-born and raised), boredom and so on--so that she is about to get booted, "the most cordially detested person who has ever been stationed..."

This sets Maddalena up for ingesting quite a bit of humble pie. She can return to Earth in shame, the whiny bored complainer with a "pretty hollow head", or she can go on a mission to a wild planet and be a whore in the name of a higher cause--spying. Decisions, decisions. Maddalena opts for honourable dishonour and obediently brainwashes herself with psych tapes meant to help her accept mentally her imminent submission to a bunch of smelly barbarians.

At this point I wasn't sure I'd make it through, but fortunately this scenario gets changed, or at least deferred. Maddalena is saved by a darling pterodactyl, then meets Saikmar, who, barbarian or not, is the best-behaved eighteen-year-old ever, then she does some nifty things herself, like turning on the food synthesizer for the hungry refugees and coming up with the plan to save Carrig and restore Saikmar etc. So the net result for the character is positive, if that offsets the poor characterisation and the humiliations visited on her. I take particular issue with the following passage:

...Carrig was masculine-dominated and women were relegated to a secondary position. However, there was always one weapon a woman could use to acquire influence over men: her body. It was highly likely, therefore, that in order to establish herself in a really secure situation in Carrig she would need to make herself the mistress of some local notable, perhaps a clan-chief. So she would have to rid herself of her instinctive distaste for the population of Fourteen as dirty barbarians. They were dirty, true. They were barbarians, also true. Which meant reconciling herself to the prospect required a deep restructuring job on her prejudices.

Let me note here that if it's stated as "true" that they are dirty barbarians, then thinking that is hardly a "prejudice". But, pass. What's really horrific is how flippantly it's expected that a woman will submit to prostitution and rape--that, in fact, failure to do so would be a fault (due to her "prejudice") or even frigidity:

Just how ingrained those prejudices were, she had discovered when she was first told what her cover was to be. Evidence that it was the most convenient and most reliable and available simply bounced off her frigid armor of preconception.

(Emphasis mine.)

Well, fuck you, JB. Too bad YOU never got to test your "armor of preconception" regarding getting fucked up the ass by a horde of dirty barbarians!

Representation of race and ethnicity: I have Maddalena down as PoC for being "olive-skinned" with black glossy hair, which I know is open to discussion, but she's not described in terms of explicit whiteness, so there's that.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): There is one BT pass, consisting of two sentences between Nyloo and Maddalena: '"How did you come here from Dayomar?" "I---I don't rightly know," the girl said after a pause.'

Lots of solid r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: tolerate rather than give. That Brunner could write comes through even in trifles like these, which he seemed to have tossed off in semi-drunk sleep with one hand tied behind his back.

At the head of the procession, Trader Heron reined his graat to a halt. Patiently the big-headed beast snuffled and grunted, carrying on an endless conversation with itself.

How lovely is that? The imaginary animal, the whole procession came to life in that one phrase. If only Maddalena were that real!

Anyway, the premise/story is pure ripoff of a certain novel by the Strugatsky brothers, a million times more worthy.

Up next: Hot Sleep by Orson Scott Card

>110 LolaWalser:

Just a quick note that The Avengers of Carrig is an expanded version of Secret Agent of Terra which was published in 1962.

>112 andyl:

Ha, expanded! It's more like a long short story anyway.

And, still a ripoff. ;)

>111 LolaWalser: Seriously, avoid Card.

Aha... this title in particular or everything? Is it because he's an objectionable so-and-so? I wondered about that but I decided it's best, when it comes to widely popular authors, to take them into consideration at least theoretically. I wouldn't spend money on his books nor would I recommend them, that much I can say in advance, but the very popularity IMO forces a reckoning.

I've similar doubts about Marion Zimmer Bradley. I know there are multiple books by her in the pile and I just recently heard she assisted or abetted her husband's paedophilia. And yet she's a big name, no? I wonder actually how such revelations reflect on enduring popularity... probably too early to tell...

I've never been interested in reading Card myself, but I'm curious to see how his work sits in Lola's scales.

We're coming back to the old argument about whether you can separate the artist and their works. In terms of SF, for example, I know from first hand experience that John Brunner was one of the most objectionable people you could meet, but The Shockwave Rider and Stand on Zanzibar are considered masterworks of the genre. (And no, I haven't re-read them recently and don't really have plans to, so I can't say right now how they stand up to a more enlightened reading.)

>117 RobertDay:

I suppose it depends on just how the "objectionability" relates to the work (if at all). Writers in particular would be held to a higher standard (IMO) because of their assumed position of public broadcasters of opinion. If some engineer or bus driver is a homophobe, it probably won't be obvious except to his narrow circle; in the case such as Card's, it becomes a manifesto and a programme.

What was the problem with Brunner?

>27 LolaWalser:

It is your right to dislike stories of human degradation—to want a post-apocalyptic that stresses "ingenuity and solution of problems before we are reduced to beasts." Who among us doesn't like a MacGyver episode? But The Death of Grass ain't that book.

Far from being a fantasy, Pirrie's "taking" of Jane is depicted as degrading and shocking, revelatory of his character, and part of the step-by-step dehumanization—a process Pierrie always seems a few paces ahead in. We aren't supposed to "revel" in a weird, cold old man killing a girl's parents and then "claiming her," making it clear he'll murder anyone who objects; we're supposed to be disgusted and chilled by it on multiple levels. Good grief, the payoff of the book is that the protagonist kills his actual brother, the prospect of whose brotherly love and support, when they finally got there, has been the object of the whole thing. You can almost hear the "duhn duhn DUHN!"

I don't think the book's a classic. It aims to be Lord of the Flies--a serious novel about barbarity--and isn't good enough to carry the weight. But that isn't a license to misunderstand what the author's trying to do.

>117 RobertDay: >118 LolaWalser: If a writer is an arsehole in person, I'm not especially bothered. If they hold offensive views, but those views are private and absent from their writing, then I'm not especially bothered. But when they use their position to promote offensive views - campaigning against marriage equality - and even write novellas based upon those offensive views, Hamlet's Father, as Card as done... then I won't read them or even give them the time of day.

(Historical figures, like Pound or Céline... a bit of a grey area: the causes they championed are gone, they're no longer around themselves, and AFAIK, their art didn't promote those causes anyway.)

>118 LolaWalser: and others; in person, John Brunner was arrogant and full of his own self-importance. He had to be the centre of attention in any group he was in; the conversation was automatically about him. His approach to fans was "I'm a professional writer, so if you want me to come to speak to your fan group, here's my price list" (the vast majority of pros I've known have broached the question of money as an afterthought and generally were happy to consider their speaking fee to include expenses, as talking to fans was something they did because they had themselves been fans, liked fans, considered such exercises as being part of doing the round of promoting their work, and in any case could wrote it off against tax).

I suppose the model I was thinking of in my original comment, as I listen to lot of his music, was Wagner. Debate rages over how much his art (as opposed to his published opinions) promote unacceptable attitudes. The thing there is that times and opinions have changed; whereas in the case of Card, at best you might say that opinions have changed within his lifetime. And not having read a lot of his short stories, I haven't developed a sense of Card the man as against Card the writer. (And yes, I am aware of his reputation.) I suppose that if I did read something by him that offended me, I would re-evaluate my position as a reader of his work; I've done that with others in the past, albeit not specifically within SF.

>119 timspalding:

But that isn't a license to misunderstand what the author's trying to do.

You sure take a lot of license to misunderstand everything I post...

Nobody cares about what Christopher "intended" and how we are "supposed"--in your or anyone else's opinion--to read his book. For my part, I haven't said a syllable on either, as I usually don't.* "Intention" is bollocks used to justify and excuse most horrific stuff; what matters is representation, what is there, and what gets propagated.

It's no coincidence that post-apocalyptic stories teem with extreme misogyny, or that there are so many of SUCH stories.

One doesn't have to believe Christopher was evilly-intentioned, pro-apocalypse, pro-fratricide or even pro-female slavery, to judge his book misogynistic.

Lastly, one point to bear in mind is that I'm reacting to this literature as a woman. Presumably that's a perspective very few male readers--or writers--ever try to imagine. But that's the whole reason for this exercise--to observe this literature from other points of view.

*The most I've said on "intention" is when discussing satire, such as Coney's Jaws that bite..., or individual scenes, character traits.

>120 iansales:

Yes, I agree, "promotion" is what bothers me.

>121 RobertDay:

Like Ian, I can overlook (I suppose we all do, all the time) if there's personal assholery and obnoxiousness--actually, most of the time I go out of my way NOT to know what authors are "really" like. But their public opinions are a different matter.

Writers "teach", don't they--and the question is especially fraught for genres popular with the young.

Indeed, Lola, I think that we are sometimes forgetting the thrust of your thread. We are adults and can have adult reactions to things or people we find objectionable, and I suppose part of growing up is this learning to discriminate between the artist and their works. I took umbrage against John Brunner because some of his assholery was directed against me and some friends; but I was younger then. That doesn't mean that I would accept that from anyone and everyone; as I said, I've had Ian's reaction to some people and have removed their sort of negativity from my life, and I feel the better for it.

But as you say, you are concerned about the impact of some of these books on children. Whilst I don't normally go on "Protect our children from this filth!" (a British tabloid newspaper reaction to some things we'd find fairly innocuous), if you are acting as gatekeeper or guardian of a curious and inquiring young mind, then there's a responsibility involved that goes beyond mere libertarian total disclosure on the one hand and prescriptive book-banning on the other. We are (hopefully) intelligent adults who want to pass on our enthusiasm for our favourite genre to the next generation, and so we need to be thoughtful about how we do that.

>123 RobertDay:

Yes it's good to remind ourselves-- I've discussed before the clumsiness of the thread title and how it's meant to stand for "would you like to see the attitudes, opinions etc. in this book propagated further in time and space". In this context, "children" are "future people", who will exist in and build future societies.

>123 RobertDay: We are (hopefully) intelligent adults who want to pass on our enthusiasm for our favourite genre to the next generation

Right. As the father of an 11-year-old girl, I'm disinclined to tell her not to read anything, but if I'm going to recommend a book to her, I want it to be one that will increase the overall quality of the culture that she's exposed to. And it's not as if she doesn't have her own capacity for judgment. If the sf she reads (at her own initiative or my suggestion) is full of misogynist claptrap, she'll quickly decide the genre isn't for her.

>125 paradoxosalpha:

If the sf she reads (at her own initiative or my suggestion) is full of misogynist claptrap, she'll quickly decide the genre isn't for her.

It's possible, the more so as feminism has filtered through the culture at large, but I wouldn't bank everything on her immunity.

Generations of women (myself included) grew up absorbing misogynist claptrap in various stuff, much of which we even loved.

>126 LolaWalser:

Oh, understood. But she also has years of support from two parents informing her judgment against that sort of thing, in addition to whatever has "filtered through the culture at large."

Kudos!

It's no coincidence that post-apocalyptic stories teem with extreme misogyny, or that there are so many of SUCH stories.

Indeed. It seems to me that many authors believe that the collapse of civilization will throw humanity back centuries, to when women were treated even worse, or anyway strip men to their innate savage, misogynistic nature. It's no coincidence because it's the very point of the thing. One might as well darkly muse that it's no coincidence that coloring books include lots of thin black lines.

You may not like books that contain misogyny, but it's scarcely misogynistic to write about it. Misogyny is basic to feminist post-apocalypses too--take the Handmaids Tale, Parable of the Sower, or the recent Mad Max movie.

Parable of the Apocalypse gets some of its power from being narrated by someone who (ought to be) powerless. Perhaps you wanted that sort of input here. But I don't think it follows that a limited-omniscient perspective--that of the male protagonist, but without much emotional coloring--is necessarily misogynistic.

This is the first time I heard this about Bradley, and I see The Door Through Space is in my "to be read" pile. Oh well, as Ian Fleming used to say "the bitch is dead now."

>129 timspalding:

You may not like books that contain misogyny, but it's scarcely misogynistic to write about it.

It's all about HOW it's written about.

>130 SFF1928-1973:

Well at least money isn't going directly to the culpable--although I don't know who holds the copyright in her case etc.

>131 LolaWalser: I bought it used, so just the bookseller I guess.

>131 LolaWalser: According to this wikipedia link, royalties from some of Bradley's works goes to charities that help victims of abuse.

It's all about HOW it's written about.

Obviously so. No Blade of Grass has flat matter-of-factness that takes in the cozy, ordinary Englishness at the start with the same basic tone as it takes shooting people in the fact and claiming as a "wife" a girl whose parents you've killed. So does The Road, FWIW.

The same applies to your objection to the dialogue:

"What's two hundred million?" Roger asked. "There's an awful lot of Chinks in China. They'll breed 'em back again in a couple of generations."

This is racism, but it doesn't make the book racist. The whole topic of the Chinese--about how the English will do better, and how, as one puts it "we must forget them"--anticipates the very points and word patterns the whole novel does. It's not casual racism. They say this stuff when they still imagine the English will do much better, but the English turn out worse, and the moral "forgetting" present even among the civilized and comfortable at the start ends in the "River Lepe."

>134 timspalding:

This is racism, but it doesn't make the book racist.

That notion's arguable, but the main thing is that I haven't said it "made the book racist" in the first place (in fact I didn't voice any "objection" to the quotation, simply reporting it), so I don't know where you want to go with that strawman.

>133 ScoLgo:

Thanks, good to know.

>122 LolaWalser:

Lastly, one point to bear in mind is that I'm reacting to this literature as a woman. Presumably that's a perspective very few male readers--or writers--ever try to imagine.

Well, I'm one of the very few, then. It's actually something I have an intense curiosity about, to the point of contact female friends and asking them to read stories so I can get their thoughts on them.

Additionally, I've been following these threads for a couple of years now - I doubt I'd do that if I wasn't interested in getting a woman's perspective! :D

>134 timspalding: I think it important to remember LolaWalser is assessing the suitability for children of The death of grass. It may be great literature as may Lolita. Or Delta of Venus but that does not mean any of these works will pass her criteria.

>137 SimonW11:

LolaWalser is assessing the suitability for children of The death of grass.

Eh, stated like that, NO. As I mentioned only a million times, the question is whether the attitudes and opinions expressed in a given book are the sort we want to see alive and well in the future. Children are the vectors of ideology INTO the future. There is no absolute category of "suitability for children" in my view.

It may be great literature as may Lolita. Or Delta of Venus but that does not mean any of these works will pass her criteria.

"No blade of grass" not only isn't "great literature", it's not even as good as genre can be. So no worries on that account.

As for Nabokov and Nin, one is not genre, the other is pornography, so they fall outside the scope of discussion.

It boils down to this: that "No blade of grass" is a completely and profoundly misogynistic text with no trace of recoil at or criticism of that feature; on the contrary, it consistently justifies and finally establishes extreme misogyny as a natural system, accepted by everyone. I don't approve of that, do not want to see that spread and propagated in future, so I would not, as this thread puts it, give it to a kid.

>137 SimonW11:

It goes to a deeper question about how children process, or can process, morally objectionable characters, themes and so forth. Children can, obviously, handle a sexist whose sexism is called out clearly by the author. But picking out sexism without that--realizing that characters can be evil without the author doing that pointing, or doing it obviously--takes some skill, literary sophistication and experience of more adult literature. It's something I talk to my son about a fair amount--for example, when we listened to Tunnel in the Sky together.

FWIW, I think the skill of noticing things in books that aren't called out specifically--evil, unreliable narrators, etc.--is one of the main things reading can teach us. Because life doesn't have a narrative voice saying "this is evil" or "something's wrong with that story." We have to pay special attention.

Children are the vectors of ideology INTO the future

Ve must make insure zer ideology is korrect!

completely and profoundly misogynistic text with no trace of recoil at or criticism of that feature

I know you are very smart, Lola, but if you don't see the recoil, something is amiss. I'm hardly the only person who notices that very feature—indeed regards it as something of a signal feature of the work. Given that the book is hardly subtle, I'm at a loss for why you do not detect what so many others do.

>139 timspalding:

if you don't see the recoil, something is amiss. I'm hardly the only person who notices that very feature—indeed regards it as something of a signal feature of the work. Given that the book is hardly subtle, I'm at a loss for why you do not detect what so many others do.

Too funny--what's amiss with you for not noticing all the negative reviews saying pretty much what I do? Are you saying I'm the only person calling it misogynistic? Or do only we fools and/or women think so? LOL.

Where exactly do you see the recoil? Go ahead, quote! There's nothing but your decision that the author "intended" something drastically other than what radiates from his text. No doubt you could spin that Gor guy as a die-hard feminist too. After all, someone representing such disgusting misogyny is clearly doing it in order to turn our stomachs, no? And the fans of that shit are reading solely to get their stomachs turned and fight all the harder for women's rights.

I don't care whether you accept or not my interpretation; I've given above sufficient reason for it, with quotations, descriptions and explanations. Other intelligent people agree with me, if that's important. Intelligence isn't everything when it comes to recognising the experience of being spat on, systematically.

However, you might want to take a look at your resistance to the idea that a point of view different from yours might actually be a better one. Especially when you find yourself explaining to women that what they find misogynistic isn't so, and so on.

P.S. If anyone would like a group read of No blade of grass, I'd be very glad to amplify on my criticism and show just what I meant by saying its misogyny is complete and profound.

No. 79

 

Hot sleep by Orson Scott Card

Publication date: 1979 ; Story date: far future

Genius telepath spaceship captain gets a chance at building a civilisation from scratch.

Main character: Jason Worthing

Secondary characters: Abner Doon; Willard "Hop" Noyock, Jason's agent; Arran Handully, female; Fritz Kapock, Garol Stipock

Minor characters: Nita, Jason's mother; Hoom, male; Dilna, female; Wix, male; other mostly male named and unnamed characters

Representation of women: Many fewer than men and firmly in the backseat, they are not completely objectified, but neither are they fully equal, whether in the highly developed Empire or in Jason's bronze-age colony. Arran gets punched and slapped around a lot at first meeting Jason, whom, admittedly, she has tried to drug. Like other beautiful women in the Empire she's more or less a whore and Noyock suggests she take it up again when they are on the run and in need of sustenance. (They sure need career counselling in the schools there...)

However, Card rescues her character (not very deftly, alas) and by the end she's Jason's consort and matriarch of his inbred (for he has the precious telepath genes, transmitted strictly father to son) clan.

Dilna, the girl who grew up on the colony planet with no knowledge of Earth's history or any other history than that of the colony, is actually quite a strong character, within the framework--she marries (at fourteen, as is custom) the boy she loves, then sleeps with another whom she also likes. This does not end well, but oddly enough, neither she nor her lover are killed (although they get punished in a different way). Still, we gather that her life goes on rich and long. She gets called a bitch too. I guess that's the mildest an adulteress can expect to get away with, in the bronze age and all. The only other female character who speaks and acts directly (as opposed in historical record) is, in contrast to Dilna, a classic submissive caveman wife.

Representation of race and ethnicity: None, but at one point there occurs a little phrase that may or may not refer to (or be) a racist slur, in or out of context: "Me Gook".

Abner Doon is teaching Jason to swim and suddenly pushes him under water, as if he meant to drown him, but releases him, and Jason chokes and gasps for air.

"This," Doon said, "was an object lesson. May I assure you that you are in over your head? A figure of speech that you may not have known."
"I knew it," Jas said. "Me Gook system."

I'm not entirely sure what is being referred to--the swimming lesson turned life threat, or just the figure of speech "in over your head". The former seems more logical to me--why would a mere turn of phrase be designated as a "system"?--, but then I get this unpleasant resonance of having Doon's dangerous and duplicitous quasi-martial behaviour, no matter how "pedagogical", called by 1) a vaguely Asian-ish name 2) that actually incorporates a known racist slur.

No idea what gives, but I'm reminded of a, in retrospect not a little comical, quarrel I had on LT years ago about Card's calling the enemy in Ender's game "buggers". To my (originally UK-English-trained) mind and ear, it was simply impossible that any English-speaking adult in the late 20th century could use that word without knowing it was a homophobic slur. The other person insisted Card used it in all innocence.

So, I don't know. "Me Gook"--just a stupid failure of imagination... or a conscious jibe?

Representation of any kind of minority: There's one mention that someone, a man, "preferred little boys" to women. Given Card's record, it's not clear to me this was meant to denote actual paedophilia, or if, as is common with homophobes, preferring "little boys" is meant to symbolise homosexuality.

The interaction between Doon and thirteen-year-old Jason has weirdly homoerotic vibes, by the way. All the more odd as Doon is Jason's father.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of solid r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: in real life, I'd boycott Card on principle, and even "in theory" (if, for instance, I imagine this written by someone else), I wouldn't be enthusiastic about it for multiple reasons, aesthetic and literary as well as ideological. But, written by someone else, it would fall in the "tolerated" camp easily enough.

Though that "Me Gook" thing... that's really obnoxious... one would have to say something.

Up next: Dark universe by Daniel F. Galouye

Too funny--what's amiss with you for not noticing all the negative reviews saying pretty much what I do? Are you saying I'm the only person calling it misogynistic? Or do only we fools and/or women think so? LOL.

I think that's a fair point. But, things would be different were I say "Oh, don't be silly. That's just life," or something. I'm not saying that at all. I hazard we all see the same basic thing. The novel contains ample misogynistic violence. The question is how we are to understand it.

We get this a lot today, when a book contains something vile, and some people react against naively. Thus, for example, many today read Huckleberry Finn and see only the word "nigger." Racist, they say. Good grief, the main character feels bad when he decides to help an escaped slave--what further proof could there be of its moral depravity?! Others who read with a little more sophistication see an anti-racist novel.

In this case, you seem to read Death of Grass as an adventure story. You imagine that men read it to experience sympathetic pleasure at all the evil done to women. You seem to think men cheer and feel titillated over an old man claiming a young girl whose parents he's killed as property. I see it--with many others--as an attempt to pull of another Lord of the Flies, a novel of social collapse and the inhumanity that occurs without external pressure--an inhumanity that was there all along, even if didn't manifest itself in blowing women's faces off and so forth.

However, you might want to take a look at your resistance to the idea that a point of view different from yours might actually be a better one.

We've been arguing for years now, Lola. I disagree with you, and you most certainly disagree with me.

>143 timspalding:

I hazard we all see the same basic thing. The novel contains ample misogynistic violence. The question is how we are to understand it.

No, we obviously don't "see the same basic thing", we merely read the same words. And the question isn't how we are to understand the violence, but rather why you are denying MY experience of it.

This is not new--you have amply demonstrated in the past your unwillingness to recognise your own blind spots (that you even HAVE blind spots). Hence also your irritation with the idea of privilege etc.

We get this a lot today, when a book contains something vile, and some people react against naively. Thus, for example, many today read Huckleberry Finn and see only the word "nigger." Racist, they say. Good grief, the main character feels bad when he decides to help an escaped slave--what further proof could there be of its moral depravity?! Others who read with a little more sophistication see an anti-racist novel.

Seriously, you think I need to be told this? Does it not occur to you, if you sincerely think I've a smidgen of intelligence--or if you've been paying attention to how I've been analysing these almost-eighty titles by now--that it might be worth just, I don't know, listening to what I'm saying?

I'll repeat for the third time that I have given above evidence, quotations and explanations for why the book is, in my view, "completely and profoundly misogynistic". I don't want to repeat myself verbatim or expand at this point, and I shouldn't need to. I'll urge for the last time to try to read the book with those points in mind:

--that the beginning, pre-apocalyptic set-up is already standard-sexist, with men absolutely in positions of authority, and women in the background, home-bound roles

--that even in this pre-apocalyptic setting (which, let's remember, corresponds to a real-world society that had already made significant progress in women's rights, such as are not reflected in the position of the women in the book) the theme of women's strictly biological "worth" contrasted to the independent worth of men as human beings, is entered without significant criticism (nothing except the mother's feeble gesture at remonstrance, hardly stronger than a "tut-tut now"), that this theme is introduced at the expense of a young girl who actually is described (by her mother) as having ambition of her own, to be a doctor--only to have this symbolically trampled on by the adult men's contemptuous reduction of that ambition to "yes, good, that way she can get a doctor husband"

--that this girl AND her mother, the only character who makes even a feeble protest against the systematic degradation of women--but only in the beginning--are raped into silence and submission, one disappearing from the narrative, the other turning by the end into a completely compliant victim, actually saying to her husband on the last page that "he was right" and asking pardon.

--that violence, and specifically extreme violence against women, rape, murder and enslavement, is unquestioningly taken to be "normal" (this literally a few days after abandoning 20th century urban lifestyle) and part of the natural order of things--by everyone, with not a single female character shown to protest

So, yes, I am mortified and deeply offended by this depiction of women, the will shown to brutalise and degrade them not just at the hands of male characters (functionally all villains, oppressors), but in the portrayal of women themselves. Do you get that, why a woman might feel this way?

In this case, you seem to read Death of Grass as an adventure story. You imagine that men read it to experience sympathetic pleasure at all the evil done to women. You seem to think men cheer and feel titillated over an old man claiming a young girl whose parents he's killed as property. I see it--with many others--as an attempt to pull of another Lord of the Flies, a novel of social collapse and the inhumanity that occurs without external pressure--an inhumanity that was there all along, even if didn't manifest itself in blowing women's faces off and so forth.

Well, it IS an adventure story, and people get messages of all kinds--moral, philosophical, ethical--out of adventure stories all the time. That's the whole reason I'm doing this thread--because of those messages.

And I'm not objecting to the violence of blowing women's faces off per se (let's remember I'm the sort of person who finds instruction and edification in reading Sade), I'm objecting to the fact that this violence is shown as universally accepted as normal and natural, including by the women themselves.

I never said men would read this kind of stuff solely for sadistic pleasure, but I'm only getting more convinced that that's a large part of reason for it, its popularity, and endurance.

As I observed many times now, most common is science-fiction fantasy as a wishful ego-trip--something that, traditionally, white men in particular, because they dominate(d) the genre as producers and consumers, got at the expense of women and everyone "other".

Hell, it's taken for granted, no? That the "lead" will be a guy, that it will be about a guy's life, a guy's victories, successes, conquests, agonies, problems etc.

>144 LolaWalser:

Be careful. The last time I suggested to Tim that he might be speaking from a position of privilege he informed me that was a personal attack.

It's also disappointing but not surprising that he completely misses the more nuanced arguments around the use of the n-word in Huck Finn, that it poses a barrier to the study of the book by black students, and make it difficult to actually get to the anti-racist nature of the novel by turning classroom discussions of the novel into discussions about the word rather than the book.

>145 lorax:

Yes, it's amazing how hard it is for some to take in account that there are different point of views not only because people have different ideas out of some individual genetic variation in whimsy and fancy, but because people exist in different, dramatically unequal positions in the world.

What also puzzles me is how anyone can refuse to see that passage of time and social change naturally require always new, period-appropriate expressions even of purportedly "good" ideas, "good" "intentions". I've described this as "writing yourself out of children's literature"--when the text demands lengthy lectures in history, explanations and ethical caveats--when it needs to be taught--then it's no longer something one can simply wordlessly, innocently "give". It's neither pure entertainment, nor can it be expected to convey exactly the same message as on origin.

No. 80

 

Dark universe by Daniel F. Galouye

Publication date: 1961 ; Story date: a century or more in the future

Descendants of humans who survived a nuclear war develop for generations in a system of underground shelters.

Main character: Jared Fenton

Secondary characters: Della; Romel Fenton, Jared's half-brother; Mogan, leader of "Zivvers"; Lorenz, adviser; Anselm Noris, leader of the Upper Level; Leah, Different One, telepath

Minor characters: Owen, Jared's friend; Zelda; Guardian Philar, male; Cyrus, The Thinker; The Forever Man; Ethan, Different One; Thorndyke; Estel, little girl; other mostly male characters

Representation of women: Overshadowed by men in terms of character numbers as well as function, women have no part in leadership, are not among the "Elders", and seem to devote themselves only to "women's work": washing, cooking etc. Jared and Della's planned "Unification" seems to depend mostly, perhaps even solely on his decision.

Della's ability to "ziv", which Jared doesn't have, seems to him too great a hurdle for marriage because he'd feel himself inferior to her, and "that would never do".

Representation of race and ethnicity: none.

Representation of any kind of minority: All the Upper and Lower Level survivors are "differently-abled" in our context--people who have exchanged seeing for hearing, infra-red detection or telepathy--but as they haven't lost so much as forgotten the ability to see, that's not really a disability. Does make one think about the conditions for navigating a world--this one or a completely dark one.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of solid r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: yes.

Up next: Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon

The following contains spoilers.

No. 81

 

Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon

Publication date: 1960 ; Story date: contemporary

Better life--and better people--through androgyny.

Main character: Charlie Johns

Secondary characters: the androgynous Ledom: Philos, historian; Seace, head of Science One; Nasive and Grocid, heads of Children's One; Mielwies, head of Medical One. Ordinary humans: Herb and Jeanette Raile; Smitty, Railes' neighbour; Tillie Smith, Smitty's wife.

Minor characters: Dave and Karen Raile, Railes' 5-yo and 3-yo son and daughter; other named and unnamed mostly Ledom characters.

Representation of women: Jeanette and Tillie come across as odd creatures, caught between the old sexist ways ("Mrs. Herbert Raile") and rather clumsily represented emancipation (Jeanette and Tillie go bowling; the husbands stay at home looking after the babies and watch the TV together, and even discuss models and colours of men's briefs.)

Bowling notwithstanding, Jeanette is a strict gender role enforcer for the kids, complaining that Herb will get little Karen "mixed up" if he allows her to call herself a boy (which she does in imitation of her brother) and insisting on buying a proper miniature bikini for the 3-year old, which Herb finds creepy (he thought she'd be just fine in boys'-type boxers). But Herb is far from gender-blind when it comes to his kids--he gives Karen an effusive good night hug and kiss, and then only shakes hand with the boy. Who then wallops his sister out of hurt feelings, setting the pattern for male violence.

This is the first title, as far as I can recall, that makes misogyny its big theme--not a motif or ornament, but a subject that's addressed in lecture-style rhetoric and length. Smitty, Railes' neighbour, increasingly dissatisfied with life, is also increasingly misogynistic. When Herb, reading the newspaper, innocently remarks why are there "so many dirty sons of bitches", Smitty seizes on it to come back with "That's easy. Every one of 'em was born out of the dirtiest part of a woman."

Herb lets the remark "go by like a bad odor" but it haunts him for days. In three pages of Herb's thoughts Sturgeon gives the longest and most coherent observation and critique of misogyny.

Is that what is meant by the inescapable taint of Original Sin? Is it men's disgust of women that makes so many of them treat women with such contempt? is it that which makes it so easy to point out that the Don Juans and the Lotharios, for all their hunger for women, are often merely trying to see how many women they can punish? (...)

Why wouldn't it ever occur to anyone to say humanity was full of sons of bitches because it issued from the filthiest part of man? It wouldn't, you know; not ever.

Because, it says here, man is superior. Man--mankind (and oh yes, women have learned this trick!) mankind has in it a crushing need to feel superior. This doesn't have to bother the very small minority who actually are superior, but it sure troubles the controlling majority who are not. If you can't be really good at anything, then the only way to be able to prove you are superior is to make someone else inferior. It is this rampaging need in humanity which has, since pre-history, driven a man to stand on the neck of his neighbor, a nation to enslave another, a race to tread on a race. But it is also what men have always done to women.

And so on. Oddly enough, for all this insight and revulsion at misogyny, when Smitty later puts up a misogynistic sign in his rumpus room (which distresses his wife Tillie terribly), Herb finds it "deliciously funny", and seems to agree with Smitty's comment regarding Tillie's reaction that "women are squares". The sign says, in Gothic script and fake Olde Englishe, "A good woman (as an old philosopher observes) is but like one eel put in a bag amongst 500 snakes, and if a man should have the luck to grope out that one eel from all the snakes, yet he has at best a wet eel by the tail."

There's a post-scriptum in my copy in which Sturgeon requests that people stop writing him with their troubles, that he "wears no silken sporran" (the garment the androgynes wear in the genital region). He also mentions that after the publication of the story about alien homosexuals (was it called "The lovers"?) he started receiving "scads" of scented letters in purple ink etc. I can understand it wasn't easy to challenge the macho piggery of the times in any way (even today...) but it's still sad to see the author feeling he had to place his genital and sexual orthodoxy officially on display.

Representation of race and ethnicity: None.

Representation of any kind of minority: The androgynous Ledom people are idealised as something humanity might do well to strive for and this is not subverted by making them tyrannical, coldly robotic or otherwise scary, not even after the revelation that they are "made", not naturally born androgynous. They are better, healthier and smarter than the ordinary humans corralled into insane gender roles from earliest age.

Homosexuality is briefly mentioned when Herb and Smitty are watching TV and Herb comments on a young pop singer; it would seem Herb is neutral. The androgynes, despite being androgynous, are throughout referred to with male pronouns and Charlie Johns in his ugly fit at the end exclaims that "men marrying men" is perverse etc.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail--there is one businesslike conversation between Jeanette and Tillie when they are out bowling but it involves all men, the husbands and bosses. Funnily enough, the r-BT passes (several) include conversations about styles of men's underwear and child-caring advice.

Would I give this book to a kid: to an older one, yes.

Up next: Past Master by R. A. Lafferty

>149 LolaWalser: Maybe the 'Loverbirds' from Sturgeon's "The World Well Lost"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Well_Lost

Thanks, yes, that's the one! Wow, 1953. Would that be the earliest appearance of homosexuals in sci-fi, I wonder? And a positive representation at that.

According to an anecdote related by Samuel R. Delany, when Sturgeon first submitted the story, his editor not only rejected it but phoned every other editor he knew and urged them to reject it as well.(4)

Bah! Props to Sturgeon.

>151 MyriadBooks:, >152 LolaWalser: I translated that story for a Swedish magazine. It holds up wonderfully well for being so old.

>152 LolaWalser: I don't think I know of any earlier, at the very least none so pointed. But I'm adding that publication Delany was quoted in, Uranian Worlds, to my wishlist -- it sounds like a promising source for historical information.

>153 anglemark:

First translation ever? That's such a nice distinction!

>154 MyriadBooks:

Yeah, me too.

>155 LolaWalser: As far as I know it was the first (and only) translation, yes.

This was linked elsewhere and as it speaks AS IF COMMISSIONED to some of the debate here recently, not to mention the broad themes of the thread--I'm crosslinking here:

Fear of a Feminist Future: The alt-right hopes to be saved by the apocalypse

This bit hardly needs comment from me, so I simply underlined:

Over at Return Of Kings, an alt-right discussion hub and steaming compost-heap of the sort of diatribes that pass for serious philosophy in the less hinged corners of the conservative internet, writer Corey Savage tells us “4 Reasons Why Collapse Will Be The Best Thing To Happen For Men.”

The collapse will mean the restoration of natural order: the rule of the jungle . . .

One of the best aspect of the new order would be the return of masculine virtue . . . only an organized group of men with strength, courage, mastery, and honor . . . will prevail in the post-apocalyptic world. Men will be men again. Who knows what savage energy is begging to be unleashed within that man serving as an office drone?

And guess what? There won’t be feminist harpies demanding “equality” when strong men are needed to rebuild civilization and defend against gangs and rival tribes. They’ll be begging for some of that “toxic” masculinity to come and protect them. They’ll kneel in submission to a patriarchal order faster than they would have screamed “rape!” in the previous world . . . the unstable and fat ones will likely disappear first as they offer no value to anyone.

Wishful thinking, straight from the wishful horse's this or that orifice.

>157 LolaWalser:

A fascinating piece, especially once the author connects her theme to what's going on in the current American presidential election. Ties in quite nicely with my current reading and viewing:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-women-are-defeating-donald-t...
(Discussion here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/235524)

http://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/gloria-steinem-on-election-year-culture-wars-7...

Thanks for sharing. :)

No. 82

 

Past master by R. A. Lafferty

Thomas More, author of Utopia, is recruited to help build one in far future.

Publication date: 1968 ; Story date: 2535

Main character: Thomas More

Other characters: Male: Paul; Cosmos Kingmaker; Peter Proctor; Fabian Foreman; Rimrock; Maxwell; Battersea; Shanty; Father Oddopter, black; The Metropolitan, black; Scrivener; Slider; The Crank; Pottscamp; Walter Copperhead, others. Female: Evita.

Representation of women: Evita is a female avatar, rather than character--she is "girl-woman", "woman-child", legendary demon, monster, devil, ghost, supernatural, brat, that tiresome abstraction The Eternal Feminine, but also a good Catholic girl.

Mentions of other women, actual "real" characters, are both extremely sparse and of most superficial nature--More says Evita reminds him of his daughter; wives and whores and an old woman are referred to in general and/or indirectly.

Lafferty has a laugh with the fairy tale transformations (transitory) that affect passengers through time--Paul the pilot and Thomas More both experience gender change, but while Paul is amused (one chance to sing soprano), More is profoundly offended. You may think being a woman is as good as being a man, but the gender balance of this fiction speaks for itself.

Representation of race and ethnicity: Father Oddopter, the monk, is described as a green-robed "blackish man". The Metropolitan, head of Astrobe's nearly extinguished church, is a "thin old black man".

Representation of any kind of minority: The Crank, a heretic rising against Astrobe's "golden dream", rails about "pornography" being given equal time with ethics in school and about "perversion and normalcy" being given equal time in literature and on stage--and adds that "although normalcy at the time gained by the ruling". 'Tis a fallen world indeed...

Overwhelming evidence would seem to point to this attitude being Lafferty's own, or at least favoured as the "right" one within the narrative (humanism, materialism, scientific progress BAD; Catholicism GOOD).

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: I'd tolerate it, but I couldn't recommend it. Quite apart from the (to me) repulsive religiosity of the thing, halfway through it became clunkily messy and boring, despite flashes of humour and interest.

Up next: Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

>160 LolaWalser: Coincidentally I read Pirates of Venus just last month, so I'll be interested in your assessment. Personally, although I often find Burroughs' female characters interesting, they usually seem to be there simply to provide the hero with a love interest.

>160 LolaWalser:

Ooh. This should be fun. :)

No. 83

 

The Pirates of Venus by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Intrepid young hero aims for Mars, lands on Venus, has adventures.

Publication date: 1934 ; Story date: contemporary

Main character: Carson Napier

Secondary characters: Male: Kamlot and Danus, Venusians from Vepaja; Gamfor; Kiron; and Zog, Venusians from Thora. Female: Duare, Venusian from Vepaja.

Minor characters: Men from Vepaja: Duran, Olthar, Mintep and others. Women from Vepaja (no dialogue): Zuro and Alzo. Moosk, a bird-man. Other named and unnamed male characters.

Representation of women: There's one damsel in distress, Duare, the king's daughter and "hope of Vepaja", with whom Carson falls in love and saves a couple times. She's very attractive.

We learn that Vepajans don't have marriage and men and women associate freely, but usually end up in committed relationships (expressed as "women are attached to men"--not the inverse). The age threshold for women for sexual relations is twenty years old. (Not clear whether the same is true for men.)

As can be deduced partly from the imbalance in numbers of male and female characters, women seem to be relegated to domesticity, away from power and central action; at least, there's no presence or mention of a single professional or political female functionary.

Representation of race and ethnicity: There's the rub... Venusians are all "PoC", darker than Carson but "not so dark as negroes". In relation to the "good" Venusians from Vepaja Carson develops respect and affection (it's worth mentioning the cordiality also between him and the "Mexican laborers" who built his "torpedo"), and obviously feels colour is no barrier to love. That, however, may be a question of shade...

That physiognomy is destiny becomes clear in the description of the worker revolutionaries from Thora, who are as stupid and mean as they are ugly and vice versa (Venusians from Vepaja are beautiful to a man/woman) and, even more, in the characterisation of the "bird-men", who are much darker than other Venusians, basically black, and whom Burroughs directly associates with black people when he writes their voices are reminiscent of the Negro spirituals. Which one might think is actually a nice feature--if it weren't for the accompanying description that is, basically, of big dumb black chickens, comic when they aren't terrifying.

They had low, receding foreheads, huge, beaklike noses, and undershot jaws; their eyes were small and close set, their ears flat and slightly pointed. Their chests were large and shaped as those of birds, and their arms were very long, ending in long-fingered, heavy-nailed hands. (...) They are all alike; commencing near the root they are marked with a band of white, next comes a band of black, then another of white, and the tip is red. Similar feathers also grow at the lower extremity of the torso in front, and there is another, quite large bunch just above the buttocks--a gorgeous tail which they open into a huge pompom when they wish to show off.

And then it get worse later on, when we learn that the birdmen are a kind of "natural" slaves, obeying whoever commands them:

Kiron laughed. "They received no orders one way or the other," he explained. "They have no initiative. Unless they are motivated by such primitive instincts as hunger, love, or hate, they do nothing without orders from a superior."
   "And they don't care who their master is," interjected Zog. "They serve loyally enough until their master dies, or sells them, or gives them away, or is overthrown; then they transfer the same loyalty to a new master."

And the worst, at least in terms of frankness, is the blunt association of "Soldiers of Liberty", the group of Thorist anti-government rebels to whom Carson gets attached, with no less than the KKK, those celebrated freedom fighters.

"Sit close to us, Zog," directed Kiron; "I have something to say that no one but a Soldier of Liberty may hear."
   He did not say Soldier of Liberty, but "kung, kung, kung," which are the Amtorian initials of the order's title. Kung is the name of the Amtorian character that represents the k sound in our language, and when I first translated the initials I was compelled to smile at the similarity they bore to those of a well-known secret order in the United States of America.

Representation of any kind of minority: None. Oddly enough, the narrator of the framing story, the recipient of Carson's tale, makes a crack about Victorian gentlemen writing about "wooing Morpheus" and weren't they embarrassed about such a turn of phrase--Morpheus being MALE? I say oddly because hinting at homo-anything in a boys' own tale of that vintage strikes me as risqué--then again, maybe they assumed such innocence that nothing but drollery remained, sort of how putting a man in a dress is a comic staple of centuries.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: No.

Up next: The Rose by Charles L. Harness

>163 LolaWalser:

And now I know why I've never read any of Burroughs' Venus/Amtor stories. Small wonder they didn't claim shelf space in late-20th/early-21st-century public libraries.

>165 paradoxosalpha:

I just skimmed the reviews here and on That Other Site and most are positive, hardly any mention the racism, and only one person seems to have noticed the "kung, kung, kung" but is almost sure no one ran off to join the KKK on account of it. :)

All that aside, it's also just a boring, perfunctory knockoff of Princess of Mars. Pure self-plagiarism...

That said, I have more titles in the series.

>166 LolaWalser:

Ryan Harvey (LT member Z-Ryan) singled out the KKK thing as the "Most Uncomfortable Moment for the Modern Reader" in his review of the novel for Black Gate:

https://www.blackgate.com/2011/08/23/edgar-rice-burroughs%E2%80%99s-venus-part-1...

>167 artturnerjr:

Oh good, so I'm not crazy... totally. :)

Goes to show... as recently as my own sojourn in the Deep South, people could be found casually relating so-and-so's uncle or pappy is the Great Lizard or Centipede or whatchamacallit in the Klan and whatnot, like they might say they are Friends of the Library.

Yes, this is just an all-around disappointment, although it does, as he says, pick up a little after the--looooong--intro. But it's still very "been there, done that. And better."

By the way, it was "a case of" Burroughs I had on my mind (mostly) way back in the discussion that started this. The Library of America had published lovely "original-lookalike" editions of Tarzan and Princess of Mars for the Burroughs centenary and of course I bought them ASAP. I was a huge Tarzan fan in childhood--never had the books myself, but a friend lent me hers, a beautiful (especially to a ten year old's eyes) illustrated hardcover edition, of I don't remember how many titles--I want to say twelve, minimum. (John Carter I didn't know.) Plus of course the gajillion comics and movies and imitators.

Imagine my surprise when I read Tarzan now. Most strikingly, there was that black servant of Jane's, a complete withering caricature, that now wasn't in the least funny.

Then someone in another group made a complaint about that edition: in the introduction, Junot Diaz, who favours the vernacular, used the word "fuck" (once, IIRC), and this person was extremely put out about it, because he wanted to give the book to a young male relative, and now he couldn't, because of the word "fuck" in there.

And it struck me as... interesting... that people would complain about that but consider that caricature of a black servant perfectly "giveable" to a young male relative without any comment. Blatant racism is not a problem, but impolite language is.

That's where the whole "giveability" issue, question, came from...

>168 LolaWalser: And it struck me as... interesting... that people would complain about that but consider that caricature of a black servant perfectly "giveable" to a young male relative without any comment. Blatant racism is not a problem, but impolite language is.

That is more than a little weird.

>169 southernbooklady:

But very common, as far as I can see.

>169 southernbooklady:

Forgot to add, also--"that is more than a little weird" is pretty much what I'm trying to say with all this. :)

>168 LolaWalser:

Sounds about par for the course. An old friend who has dual US/UK nationality but was raised in the UK decided to make a new life in the US with his young family after loosing his job. He went out there first; he came back in a matter of weeks saying he didn't want his children raised in the US because of the casual racism.

He'd been staying in Salt Lake City (IIRC), and there were a number of families with young children in the block of flats, including one family of Asian descent. None of the other children would play with the children and the family was not included in any group activity, whereas he was...

>168 LolaWalser: I'm baffled that anyone would feel impelled to use the word "fuck" in an introduction to a Tarzan novel.

>172 Maddz:

That's a pretty small sample size on the basis of which to indict an entire community. Among other prominent Asian-Utahns, Randy Horiuchi and Tom Shimizu were popular enough to serve on the Salt Lake County Council.

>174 cpg:

Wait a second. The "family of Asian descent" didn't happen to be named "Khashoggi" did it? ;-)

>172 Maddz:

From what I gather, Utah might be a tough proposition for non-whites (any minority really) in more than one respect. I know at least one person who ran away the second she could (to college, and hasn't stopped since :)).

>173 SFF1928-1973:

Why not?

No. 84

 

The Rose by Charles L. Harness

Science versus Art, to death.

Publication date: 1953 ; Story date: contemporary

Main characters: Anna van Thuyl; Ruy Jacques

Secondary characters: Martha Jacques, Ruy's wife; Matthew Bell; Colonel Grade

Minor characters: Willie the Cork; Violet; other unnamed characters

Representation of women: Taking the "plot" on face value, it's amazing that there are two large, important roles for women, both of whom are described as "genius" at that--Anna as a composer, Martha as a scientist--but given the psychological trappings that hark to the battle of the opposites--good vs. evil, art vs. science, emotion vs. thought and so of course men vs. women--that is finally not so surprising. And, typically, one might say, the male hero dominates both women--Anna sacrifices herself for him, and Martha, as the representative of monstrous Science, is repeatedly defeated by Ruy the representative of Art.

Martha Jacques said: 'Why can't you make him come to his senses? I'm paying you enough.'
    Anna gave her a slow wry smile. 'Then I'll need your help. And you aren't helping when you deprecate his sense of values--odd though they may seem to you.'
    'But Art is really so foolish! Science--'
    Anna laughed shortly. 'You see? Do you wonder he avoids you?'
    'What would you do?'
   'I?' Anna swallowed dryly.
   Martha Jacques was watching her with narrowed eyes.
'Yes, you. If you wanted him?'
Anna hesitated, breathing uneasily. Then gradually her eyes widened, became dreamy and full, like moons rising over the edge of some unknown, exotic land. Her lips opened with a nerveless fatalism. She didn't care what she said:
   'I'd forget that I want, above all things, to be beautiful. I would think only of him. I'd wonder what he's thinking, and I'd forsake my mental integrity and try to think as he thinks. I'd learn to see through his eyes, and to hear through his ears. I'd sing over his successes, and hold my tongue when he failed. When he's moody and depressed, I wouldn't probe or insist that-I-could-help-you-if-you'd-only-let-me. Then--'
   Martha Jacques snorted. 'In short, you'd be nothing but a selfless shadow, devoid of personality or any kind of individuality of your own. That might be all right for your type. But for a scientist, the very thought is ridiculous!'
   The psychiatrist lifted her shoulders delicately. 'I agree. It is ridiculous. What sane woman at the peak of her profession would suddenly toss up her career to merge--you'd say "submerge"--her identity, her very existence, with that of an utterly alien male mentality?'
   'What woman, indeed?'
   Anna mused to herself, and did not answer. Finally she said: 'And yet, that's the price; take it or leave it, they say. What's a girl to do?'
   'Stick up for her rights!' declared Martha Jacques spiritedly.

Representation of race and ethnicity: None.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): Anna and Martha have a few conversations but they are all about Ruy specifically or generally. Curiously there are no r-BT passes either, as men mostly speak with women or about them.

Would I give this book to a kid: yes, it's interesting in style and ideas, despite the retro gender psychology.

I'd never heard of Harness, how come? The blurbs are all, "legendary" sf classic, BEST sci-fi novel EVER--you'd think something would have percolated down to the masses...

Up next: The running man by J. Hunter Holly

>168 LolaWalser:

I remember that!

https://www.librarything.com/topic/135302

Speaking of Jane's servant (Esmeralda), my favorite passage in Diaz' intro is about her:

"And what about Jane's servant Esmeralda? Try reading the parts in Tarzan where Esmeralda appears aloud on the A train and let me know how it goes."

:D

>176 LolaWalser: I'd assume a lot of kids read Tarzan, and it's certainly not a word Burroughs would have used. Also, until recently the word wasn't used in polite conversation. I don't know what context it was used in, but writing for publication is different to chatting with your mates down the pub.

>177 LolaWalser: Harness didn't produce a large volume of work, but what there was is very fine. The Paradox Men is noteworthy. I really need to re-read The Rose sometime.

>173 SFF1928-1973:

Why should he feel compelled not to?

>180 SFF1928-1973:

No, Burroughs would not have printed the word "fuck", but he got in print blatant racism and all the other discriminatory -isms. Which (as I argue here, and the LoA may agree with--they are not a children's publisher, and their editions serve primarily a historical and archival mission, reflected in their non-profit nature) effectively render his books unsuitable for merry kiddie entertainment today--at least from a progressive point of view.

The following contains spoilers.

No. 85

 

The running man by J. Hunter Holly

Aliens threaten Earth through a religious cult.

Publication date: 1963 ; Story date: contemporary

Main character: Jeff Munro

Secondary characters: Cory Bennett, Jeff's friend, male; Rogers, cultist, male; Montgomery Hicks, cultist; Sam Kirby, FBI agent; Ariki, alien.

Minor characters: Thomas Sullivan, "the running man"; "The Wiggler", cultist, female; Angela Berri, Jeff's co-instructor; other named and unnamed male and female characters.

Representation of women: Wow, first, completely surprised to see the author is a woman, never crossed my mind, although I DID wonder whether it might not have been a gay man. Reasons--and they pertain to this rubric--mainly to do with the absence of... I don't know exactly how to describe it, that certain leering quality to the descriptions and handling of female characters I've come to expect--absence of objectification. But it's not just that; in addition, all the big roles are filled by men, and--most important to forming my impression--the way the friendship between Jeff and Cory is crucial to the plot, and the way Jeff thinks about Cory's responses in his inner monologues etc. In the first few pages I thought Cory might be Jeff's wife. Just to illustrate, from page 1, the very first mention of Cory:

He chided himself for using the word, "hate". Cory would say it was characteristic of him and his too-strong opinions. (...) Driving the miles alone, Jeff wished he had Cory beside him so they could argue it out, their favourite pastime on quiet evenings. {Etc.}

So, can you blame me? ;)

Anyway, to women--quite a profusion and many named, but all minor, most getting a single scene. Still, one at least gets the sense that there ARE women everywhere.

Representation of race and ethnicity: Coming on the heels of Burroughs, I wasn't happy to see another alien homely and apparently sub-intelligent species is also dark-skinned, but, as it turns out, there's a pretty neat twist at the end that upends the picture.

Representation of any kind of minority: Wallllll, I don't know, two attractive men, best friends, whose "favourite pastime" is arguing with each other on "quiet evenings", in a one-horse town... Anything could happen... :) OK, OK, "None".

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: yes.

So who was J. Hunter Holly?! The novel itself is a bit odd. I thought this was someone with a solid grasp on technique (excellent competent writing, mastery of vocabulary, you have no idea how I came to cherish them) and some interesting ideas, but the whole is rather disappointing. But in an interesting way.

Still, a great find, similar to "Ansen Dibell".

And yet another for the "hidden female authors" column.

Up next: The master by T. H. White

>179 artturnerjr: Thanks for the link. As I often say, it's all about context. After wading through the first six pages of the introduction I was less shocked by the reference to "fucked up racialist shit" than I was by the revelation that Tarzan apparently had a hobby that involved lynching black men.

>141 LolaWalser: "Though that "Me Gook" thing... that's really obnoxious... one would have to say something."

Cheap play on I Grok that? Stranger in a Strange Land, Card was originally compared to Heinlein when first published - then a quick downhill slide into "youngish" YA fraught with cringe worthy plots & juvenile logic IMOHO But he is rich now so I don't mind being negative.

>187 DugsBooks:

I guess only Card could answer that, if you wog what I mean?

That sort of thing. You'd think an adult would know to avoid. Always assuming, of course, they didn't do it deliberately.

The following contains spoilers.

No. 86

 

The Master by T. H. White

Twelve-year-old twins and their dog must stop a would-be dictator.

Publication date: 1957 ; Story date: contemporary

Main character: Nicky, boy

Secondary characters: Judy, girl. Men: The Master; The Chinaman; Mr. Frinton; Pinkie, black, mute; Jones.

Minor characters: Mr. Pierrepoint, the children's uncle; Duke and Duchess of Lancaster, the children's parents.

Representation of women: Although Nicky and Judy share a lot of focus and action, the boy is "the chosen one" and that openly simply by virtue of his being a boy. While Judy falls immediately and deeply into the Master's power, Nicky the white-haired boy turns out to be more resistant to him than anyone, including the adults.
Some fun is poked at sexist assumptions and Judy does shine in several moments, but there's no serious doubt about the justice of traditional gender roles, with the traditional favouring of men over women. The humour only reinforces the stereotypes, with Judy, at twelve, being called "the housewifely sort", "enchanted" by the kitchen.

Nicky was the man of the two--he had the logical worries and the duty of protection.

At one point Judy ponders the "hideous unfairness of the woman's fate":

First of all, your brother got the title. Second, you had to wear skirts at parties. Third, you were not supposed to climb trees. Fourth, you got mesmerized. Fifth, he got educated. He did, you didn't. Oh, damn and damn the favouritism and beastliness of everybody and everybody and everybody.

Presumably that sort of attitude will get knocked out of her by the time she's ready to run her own kitchen.

Representation of race and ethnicity: This not only takes unusually much space, the writer took some trouble with it. White pointedly subverts one stereotype--but only one, and only partially. "The Chinaman" is at first described as the typical Fu Manchu villain (Sax Rohmer name-checked), but then becomes a real human being, positively likeable. There's another twist that shows he's still a villain, but at least a more complex, practically understandable one.

The second important non-white character, while the most sympathetic of all and no doubt the best human being in the bunch, is very much straight stereotype. "The Chinaman" turns into a "Mr. Blenkinsop" (the name he legally adopted to spare his white friends at Oxford the difficulty of Chinese), but "Pinkie" the gentle black giant remains just "Pinkie". He is a master artisan, a cook, the children's saviour, a vegetarian and a follower of Gandhi, but also "simple in mind".

Pinkie is called a "blackamoor" I suppose in the same spirit as the other one "the Chinaman", and as Victorian stage characters are explicitly invoked, one might presume irony. But it does go on, with the children wanting to sing "Darkies sing a happy song", and Pinkie's tongue having been cut out by the man he's serving, and the story ending with Pinkie now the servant in the children's ducal (if impoverished) household and wanting--voluntarily, himself--to wear a footman's livery in order to impress all the better the visiting tourists.

As for Jones, we learn only at the end that that was his name, and that he was a Welshman. I don't know if that's supposed to mean something, the character is kind, stupid, an idiot savant, and lies a lot, although that may be only due to the circumstances.

Representation of any kind of minority: None beside maybe Pinkie, rendered mute (using tablets and chalk for communication).

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, a few r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: not without a lot of talk.

Up next: Analogue men by Damon Knight

No. 87

 

Analogue Men (Hell's Pavement) by Damon Knight

Publication date: 1955 ; Story date: 22nd century

In a world dedicated to Consumerism, where people have their aggressive and rebellious instincts programmed out, groups of Immunes arise and organise.

Main character: Arthur Bass

Secondary characters: Francis Laudermilk; Anne Silver; Higsbee, male; Morris, male; Ezius Migliozzius

Minor characters: Wesley Marks; Flynn; Marcia Hambling, other named and unnamed, mostly male characters.

Representation of women: Narratively, men dominate in terms of numbers and importance of functions. The setting includes several socially diverse consumerist societies (all within the ex-US) with different treatment of women. Arthur's "Gepro" is a "patriarchy" with severe restrictions on sexual behaviour and no women's rights to speak of, in "Darien" everyone's hanging out in a gigantic orgy, and there's even an enclave where women "rule", by which is meant that they treat men like pashas treat women--buying, trading, enslaving.

Laudermilk's organisation doesn't seem to exclude women, since Anne is there, but then she's the only one. For what little we see of her, she's capable and courageous.

Overall, there's some kind of unease and revulsion whenever women are mentioned. Lots of flabby and repellent flesh sightings, and the women in Hambling's coterie are described with frank disgust as "multi-paras", with their much-used bellies hanging out in front of them etc.

Representation of race and ethnicity: None.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: I found it incredibly messy, and boring, so in "real life" it has no chance of getting on the list, but in terms of this thread, yes.

Up next: The purple cloud by M. P. Shiel

The following contains spoilers.

No. 88

 

The Purple Cloud by M. P. Shiel

Publication date: 1930 (1901) ; Story date: circa 1900

Single white male tours the globe post-apocalypse.

Main character: Adam Jeffson

Secondary character: "Leda", Turkish or Circassian girl

Minor characters: Men of the Polar Expedition: Clark; David Wilson; Aubrey Maitland; other named and unnamed characters. Countess Clodagh, Jeffson's fiancée; Mackay, prophetic crank.

Representation of women: Countess Clodagh is an evil witch, a femme fatale and a poisoner. Like unto the original Eve, she incites Jeffson's vainglory and greed and from there to serial murder is but a skip and a hop.

I was rather enjoying Jeffson's solitary rampage through Europe and welcomed "Leda"'s appearance with a shudder and a sinking heart. The good news is, it ain't as horrible as it could have been. The bad news is how it is. Jeffson's first impulse on seeing this lovely and naked and speech-less "creature" is to kill her, but settles for a period of beatings and torture. Curiously, this impulse never goes completely away and even reaches a climax by and by, AFTER the Pygmalion perfects his Galatea. For in Jeffson mighty forces, called "White" and "Black", are constantly battling, and as he's transforming his Eliza, he can't make up his mind whether it would be Good or Evil to mate with her and start the whole story again.

Considering humanity's record, he inclines toward a) killing her b) killing them both c) putting the ocean between them; she to remain in Europe, he to sail away to the Americas.

Which c) he actually does--but still they phone each other. And love prevails. Or, at least, Jeffson--who is by now an Adam of fifty-something, if I calculate correctly--finally makes up his mind that this is a plan by a benevolent higher power, i.e. a loving God, and decides to trust in Him yet again.

I trailed away into the plot because what little good can be said about Leda's character is all in her function of Jeffson's redeemer, of someone who humanises him. Despite his ghastly treatment of her, she is not, as he rails, "a second Clodagh", and her defence of life is evidently superior to his service to death.

But whether other readers would forgive her lisp--she can't pronounce "r"--I can't tell. :)

Representation of race and ethnicity: You'd think that with every other person on earth dead there'd be little scope for stereotypes and racism, but, not so! Jeffson's decadence and megalomania are explicitly pegged to his return to a more primitive, "Eastern" state of mind, accompanied by his adoption of Oriental garb. ("...surely I am hardly any longer a Western, "modern" mind, but a primitive, Eastern one...") His casual cruelty to Leda and subsequent domination is very much in the style of an Eastern despot--he even makes her wear a veil.

Even in death the "Westerns" are more attractive than others: "...two tziganes, their brown mortality more abominable still than the Western's..." and so on.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, multiple r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: to an older one, yes.

Up next: Gladiator by Philip Wylie

(aaack!)

No. 89

 

Gladiator by Philip Wylie

Publication date: 1930 ; Story date: cca 1890s-1920s

Idealistic superman is too super for this world.

Main character: Hugo Danner, man of steel, faster than a speeding bullet etc.

Minor characters: Abednego and Matilda Danner, Hugo's parents; Anita Blake, Hugo's first girlfriend; Lefty Foresman, Hugo's college mate; Iris; Tom Shayne, Hugo's comrade; Charlotte; Roseanne Cane; Skorvsky, revolutionary; Daniel Hardin, archaeologist; other named and unnamed mostly male characters.

Representation of women: Wylie's awful vision of women is here in full evidence, although subdued in comparison to the other two books of his I've read (Generation of vipers; The party). There's a positive side to keeping your hero busy with the manly work of college football and war--no need to give any important roles to women. On the other hand, those settings almost inevitably entail the presence of whores, which here number more than three dozen ("thirty" showgirls-cum-escorts from a Broadway show joining a frat outing in one evening alone, plus scattered other).

Charlotte, whom Hugo defiantly describes to friends as "a tart I'm living with" (although they ended up living together because Charlotte, starving and all, couldn't bring herself to undertake prostitution), "realises" that Hugo is so superior to her that it is only natural he should leave her, and in fact facilitates this for him, as he's too noble to desert her without proper justification. Charlotte seems to enjoy some of author's sympathy because she's not worthy and admits it. However, "(s)he knew that womankind lived at the expense of mankind" and so she engineers her exit by seducing a friend of Hugo's.

Besides "tarts", Hugo attracts some sweet innocents, an unhappy housewife, and a specimen of "the vanguard of emancipated American womanhood", an intelligent and independent sophisticate whom he prudently limits to a one-night stand--she has a somewhat withering effect on him, but he leaves an indelible mark on her:

She taught him a great many things that night. And Iris learned something, too, so that she never came back to Hugo, and kept the longing for him as a sort of memory which she made hallowed in a shorn soul. It was, for her, a single asceticism in a rather selfish life.

Riiiiiiiiiight. This is how my exes feel too--our dead passion a uniquely hallowed memory in their now cold, miserable, shorn lives. I just KNOW. Hugo, I feel you.

Other than Hugo's love, or more accurately, sex interests, there are a few mothers and mother figures--Mrs. Danner, a grim, stupid bigot and harpy, the bane of her meek husband's life; Tom Shayne's unnatural slut of a mother who doesn't mourn her dead son but does have a lover and wears tight dresses; and Roseanne the unhappy housewife who consoles Hugo like a mother might, but with extra sex.

Representation of race and ethnicity: A couple mentions of a "Negro" farmhand and porter, a few French characters in the Foreign Legion, a Czech steelworker.

Representation of any kind of minority: I'm not going to suggest Wylie was secretly gay. But, what with the pathologically strident misogyny and the copious descriptions of male beauty, I will suggest that he's another who missed out big time by not being gay. What a waste. Instead of lifelong ranting about the worthlessness of women, we might have had thousands more pages describing iron muscles, bulging thighs, noble countenances of idealistic youths, and naked soldiers bathed in blood.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, multiple r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: I wouldn't "give" Wylie to anyone outside a psychiatric study. But in terms of the thread, yes to older.

Up next: Fuzzy sapiens by H. Beam Piper

Lola, I am enjoying your trip through the Golden Age (or maybe not!) of science fiction. I never did like Damon Knight, Edgar Rice Burroughs, van Vogt, etc. You are really wading through some trash but I like following your trip.

Indeed, this is one of the most interesting literary projects I know of.

>197 jerry-book:, >198 anglemark:

Thanks, always glad to hear someone's having fun here.

No. 90

 

Fuzzy sapiens by H. Beam Piper

Publication date: 1964 ; Story date: unspecified future

Further adventures with and exploration of the fuzzies.

Main POV characters: Victor Grego, Company manager in chief; Jack Holloway, prospector, 74 year old

Other characters: Men: Juan Jimenez, scientific officer; Frederic Pendarvis, chief justice; Bennet Rainsford, governor; Leslie Coombes, Company's chief attorney; Gus Brannhard, attorney; Hugo Ingermann, attorney; Pancho Ybarra, psychologist; Harry Steefer; Morgan Lansky, Company police; Conrad Evins, chief gem buyer; Ernst Mallin, psychologist; Joe Verganno, master computerman; Ahmed Khadra, police; Christiaan Hoenveld, biochemist; Malcolm Dunbar, chemist; Henry Stenson, instrument maker; Gerd van Riebeek; more than a dozen other named and unnamed male characters.

Women: Ruth van Riebeek, psychologist; Lynne Andrews, pediatrician; Claudette Pendarvis, wife of chief justice; Sandra Glenn, secretary then "Fuzzy sitter"; Myra Fallada, Grego's secretary; Charlotte Tresca, lab tech.

Assorted male and female Fuzzies, with only two males, Diamond and Little Fuzzy, having "lines".

Representation of women: The numbers and assigned functions pretty much say it all--this is still a male-dominated world with gendered professional and political divide. Ruth van Riebeek (Ruth Ortheris before marriage), a talented psychologist, actually intends to give up her career and "keep house". Lynne Andrews is by definition an MD and an adult woman but gets called "that Andrews girl" by a man in charge. There are many reference to "girls" in offices and the labs, all doing underling work that is trivialised in several places. Grego tells an office "girl", Sandra, that she isn't doing anything they can't do without so she's made a Fuzzy guardian on the spot--and given a raise. Besides Sandra, Ruth and Lynne, Claudette Pendarvis too is involved with children or the childlike fuzzies, through her Juvenile Welfare Association. The men, meanwhile, busy themselves with everything and anything--and rule it all.

All the women have tiny roles, and the only one whose contribution to the plot can be said to be important is Charlotte the tech, whose "intuitive" hunch about a scientific problem bests her obnoxious boss.

Representation of race and ethnicity: There is no explicit mention of race (except in the "species" sense when talking about the fuzzies) but the presence of "ethnic" names presumably signals diversity--Ybarra, Jimenez, Khadra etc.

Representation of any kind of minority: None except, as I think I mentioned already with the first book, the presence of an old man as the main, central or important figure. He's not as much the focus here as in the previous book.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): There is a BT pass when Ruth and Lynne discuss fuzzies in general. Many r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: yes.

Up next: Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle.

Heh! From "Fuzzy sapiens" ==> "Doctor Rat"...

Representation, why does it matter, in one image:



That is the banner on the @POTUS Twitter account in the US in the year 2017. Remember it, there'll be nothing else, those dinosaurs won't even leave their skeletons behind to recall them.

No. 91

 

Doctor Rat by William Kotzwinkle

Publication date: 1976 ; Story date: contemporary

Anthropomorphic fantasia about the animals' Vietnam: animal experimentation and food industry.

Main POV character: Doctor Rat, a lab rat, male, white

Other characters: Humans: Learned Professor, male; Jonathan Dowling, reporter; Allan Black, ship's captain; Sir James Jeffries, conductor; Dimitri Rakoczi, violinist; two anonymous, male and female, graduate assistants to the Learned Professor. Animals: Lem Kee; Li Young; Yenshee, male Chinese bamboo rats; Hop Toy, female Chinese bamboo rat. Many unnamed rats, dogs, pigs, hamsters, cats, elephants etc., overwhelmingly male.

Representation of women: Female characters are few, very much in the background and only discussed in terms of sexuality. When Doctor Rat runs into the four Chinese bamboo rats, he immediately addresses the three male rats as "fellow scholars", but Miss Hop Toy, found in that same company, is excluded. Learned Professor's female grad assistant is every time described only in terms of her sex appeal--lovely blonde, lovely blondie, what he'd do to her etc. The narrating rodent asserts he can gauge the woman's sexual "receptivity" and declares that she's hot for the Learned Professor, who, in the fabled manner of Learned Professors, doesn't see it. If I got a moment with Doctor Rat, I might feel the need to discuss "clichés" and "projection". The male assistant and students are mentioned in connection to the research they are doing and the kind of papers Doctor Rat predicts they'll get out of it.

Representation of race and ethnicity: The four Chinese bamboo rats have a strong orientalist flavour about them--they are very polite, clean, clever, but also scheming and traitorous little bastards.

Representation of any kind of minority: There's a scene in a gay rats' "club" when Doctor Rat (castrated in childhood and incapable of heterosexual copulation) gets romanced in a sec and "buggered" the next. Doctor Rat apparently decides to make the best of it, as it's a small sacrifice to make for science. I'm not sure where on the good-bad spectrum to place this passage, perhaps the positive and the negative cancel each other out. Homosexuality is presented as a biological variation and the hypocrisy of its persecution pointed out by the presence in the club of so many good rat citizens, including two "soldier" rats. But Doctor Rat gets raped, with other rats holding him down for the assailant. Hardly the sort of thing to make a boy think kindly of his gay brothers.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, several r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: to an older one, yes.

Up next: A dream of Wessex by Christopher Priest

>206 LolaWalser: Good grief, I remember that being published and now it's an 'oldie'. I hate to think what that makes me... :-(

Heh. Bloody tempus fugit, innit?

>206 LolaWalser:

I actually come from under where it's set... I thought I've still got a copy but it seems not.

For some reason I'm confusing Christopher Priest with Michael G Coney; I suspect my books by both shared a cover artist and publisher.

>209 Maddz: Easy mistake to make; back in the 1970s Coney and Priest shared a UK paperback publisher, Pan, and they had a consistent house style for all their SF front covers, irrespective of author.

That was it... I still have 3 Coney's (Syzygy is missing the cover!) and I seem to recall the Priest being very similar. You know, thinking back I think I would appreciate the Priest a lot more if I read it now - I recall it being very literary in style.

I've read only one book by Priest before, The inverted world, and it's one of my all-time sf favourites. Really glad this showed up, but a little afraid of comparisons. So far, there's only one sf author I know of who consistently based his writing on philosophical ideas and sharp abstract concepts as opposed to the ubiquitous adventure-story type storytelling, and that's Lem.

The only Priest I've read is The Prestige, and it's great too.

>213 paradoxosalpha:

The bloke has that one and another (a sequel?) in his books. I saw the film and am not sure whether I want to read the book... (I have enough TBR anyway without adding to it...)

>214 Maddz:

I liked the film, but it fell far short of the book. It's not a book I would have thought to inspire a film treatment--it's pretty intensely textual, with a frame story in which the descendants of the feuding magicians are examining their grandfathers' journals.

THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS SPOILERS

No. 92

 

A dream of Wessex by Christopher Priest

Publication date: 1977 ; Story date: 1987 and 2137

Seeking solutions for today's problems in a collective fantasy of the future.

Main characters: Julia Stretton; David Harkman

Secondary characters: Paul Mason; Don Mander; John Eliot; Mary Rickard; Marilyn James; other named and unnamed, predominantly male characters.

Representation of women: Because the romance between Julia and David is central to the plot there is an unusual (for this genre) emphasis on Julia's inner life and POV. However, women in general are underrepresented (higher than 6:1 ratio of male to female characters) and tend to occupy the usual secondary, marginal or submissive roles.

Julia herself is the sort of female character that drives me up the wall--presumably intelligent, educated, adult, and yet freakishly weak and passive in the face of her male tormentors. She also can't seem to think of anything other then men, whether what they are doing to her or what they did to her. Only past the middle of the book do we learn what's her profession--geologist--not that that's of any great consequence.

Possibly the worst aspect of the character is that she's subjected to sadistic treatment by her ex, Paul (who raped her and generally tortured her psychologically and physically) and even subjects herself to something similar when she invents a dream-Wessex boyfriend character who uses her sexually without regard for her own wishes. It's also notable that the only way she resolves her traumas is through a new dependency on a "good" man--her newfound strength derives from him.

The other two female characters with more than a passing mention, Marilyn the physiotherapist and Mary Rickard the biochemist (but potter in dream-Wessex), are both sympathetic characters who show Julia an appealing friendship.

Representation of race and ethnicity: None.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): A few BT passes, a few r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: to an older one, yes, but not without discussion.

Up next: Journey beyond tomorrow by Robert Sheckley

No. 93

 

Journey beyond tomorrow by Robert Sheckley

Publication date: 1962 ; Story date: 2000

Anti-war and general anti-stupidity satire.

Main character: Joenes, male, white

Other characters: Men, mostly white: over forty characters; Women: about four characters.

Representation of women: As is often the case with satirical works, it's not easy to tell what exactly the author thinks is "normal" and what he's poking fun at, but given it's Sheckley, it's probably safe to assume he's poking fun at everything. The 21st century Joenes moves through appears even more retrograde than 1962, as far as I can tell. For example, the college at which Joenes accidentally gets a teaching job boasts not a SINGLE female professor--and more than a dozen are name-checked in more than a dozen departments. It's a co-ed institution and in fact the most prominent student in the episode is a hapless Miss Hua, a "tall, very homely, bespectacled" drudge who does all the dogwork (or plain work) for everybody and of whom one of the professors remarks she's so useful it's "a pity she's so ugly".

Other three female characters are all present as Joenes' sex interests. But from street to mental institution to college to government to the military to Moscow and back, practically everyone Joenes meets in a position of authority, or as information-giver, or with some function in society, is male.

There are a few hints of making fun of machismo, as in the Theseus episode where, after the biased interpretations of the story from Theseus and the Minotaur, we get a glimpse of Ariadne's reaction. And Joenes, we are told, goes through a gender change and a spell of living as a woman, when he learns "what few men know".

Representation of race and ethnicity: Joenes, although white, hails from a Pacific island (his parents were missionaries) and leaves there a brown girlfriend, Tondelayo, who talks thusly:

"Hey, you fella white men all alike, I think. You chumbi-chumbi allatime little wahine okay, then you want walk-around look for chumbi-chumbi alonside popaa white woman American, I think. My word! And yet, the palm grows, the coral spreads, but man must die."

More a poke at how white people picture wahines than at Tondelayo, I think.

Representation of any kind of minority: In prison Joenes runs into a shady character who tries to persuade him women are unnecessary to "real men". A direct mention of homosexuality occurs when the professors explain to Joenes how they omitted the concept from the language they developed for a primitive commune they organised. No word for it--no it. It's not easy to deduce from this whether Sheckley was tolerant of homosexuality, but I certainly liked that he laughed at some of the more stupid assumptions about it.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): No BT passes, lots of r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: yes.

Up next: The Lion Men of Mongo by... it says "adapted by" Con Steffanson.

>218 LolaWalser: Apparently Journey Beyond Tomorrow was given the title The Journey of Joenes in the UK.

No. 94

 

The Lion Men of Mongo by Ron Goulart (using the pseudonym "Con Steffanson")

Publication date: 1974 ; Story date: unspecified future?

Flash, Zarkov and Dale meet Emperor Ming on the planet Mongo.

Main character: Flash Gordon

Other characters: Men: Dr. Zarkov; Tun, lion man; Ming; Captain Hakes; more than a dozen other named and unnamed characters. Women: Dale Arden; Zarkov's assistant and Flash's girlfriend;
Princess Aura, Ming's daughter.

Representation of women: Couldn't be more stereotypical than this, but I guess it follows faithfully the comic strip template. The only two women, decoratively young and pretty, get least "screen time" and end up in similar situations as damsels in distress and negotiating chips. We follow Flash and Zarkov separately on their more involved adventures after the crashing of their vessel, but Dale just gets captured. Princess Aura gets in trouble on her joy ride and saved by Flash. Dale and Aura are instant rivals over Flash and don't exchange a word, not even of introduction. Ming's head scientist doubts that Dale could help him understand the weapon she carries because "It's a rare woman who could understand--" but Ming replies she's an explorer with a scientific background. But this quotation conveys better than any analysis the general air of the thing, and without really trying :) :

Flash eased into the pilot seat, studying the control panel. "I'm going to need your help with this, Aura."
"I can fly the ship", she offered.
"No, I'll do it. You can, though, act as co-pilot."
"I'll sit in the back here someplace", said Dale.

Representation of race and ethnicity: Mongo boasts diverse humanoid groups, lion-, bird-, ape-men and there seems to exist discrimination but maybe not against all groups equally. The lion men and the bird men are shown as righteous rebels against Ming, as intelligent as humans. The one ape-man is brutish and can barely speak.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: yes.

Up next: Gateway by Frederik Pohl

The following contains spoilers.

No. 95

 

Gateway by Frederik Pohl

Publication date: 1977 ; Story date: unspecified future

Prospector in space takes chances in uncharted territory with alien tech he doesn't understand.

Main character: Robinette (Bob, Rob, Robbie) Broadhead, male

Secondary characters: Sigfrid, mechanical shrink, gendered male; Gelle-Klara Moynlin, prospector and instructor; Shikitei Bakin, garbage man; Dane Metchnikov, prospector and instructor, bisexual

Minor characters: Sheri Loffat; Louise Forehand; Francesco Hereira; Emma Fother, personnel director; Mr. Hsien, maintenance;
Sam Kahane; Muhammad Tayeh; Dred Frauenglass, three gay men on Bob's first flight; Norio Ituno, prospector on Gateway II; Hester Bergowitz, pilot; Susie Hereira; other male and female characters.

Representation of women: Female characters are relatively numerous both among the prospectors and the Corporation staff running the Gateways, competent, courageous, or with foibles and weaknesses no different than the men's. Overall this is among the best, most fair treatments of women I've seen so far, but there is one sour note, struck by the end, when Bob goes berserker on Klara and beats her up, even knocking a tooth out. Bob has had some mental problems in the past (and even more after this and subsequent events) and it would have been possible to explain, if not dismiss, what he does as a relapse, but unfortunately we get a "philosophical", "boys will be boys" justification.

Bob and Klara are having a tiff, he accusing her of having slept with Dane, she remarking that he (Bob) had just had sex with someone else himself. It's a bit odd that they are quarrelling over this as sexual promiscuity is shown as socially acceptable and even expected, and both have slept with other people even as their own relationship deepened. Klara starts to leave.

"Ah", she said in inarticulate disgust, and turned around to go. I reached out to touch her, and she sobbed and hit me, as hard as she could. The blow caught me on the shoulder.
That was a mistake.
That's always a mistake. It isn't a matter of what's rational or justified, it is a matter of signals. It was the wrong signal to give me. The reason wolves don't kill each other off is that the smaller and weaker wolf always surrenders. It rolls over, bares its throat and puts its paws in the air to signal that it is beaten. When that happens the winner is physically unable to attack anymore. If it were not that way, there wouldn't be any wolves left. For the same reason men usually don't kill women, or not by beating them to death. They can't. However much he wants to hit her, the internal machinery vetoes it. But if the woman makes the mistake of giving him a different signal by hitting him first--
I punched her four or five times, as hard as I could, on the breast, in the face, in the belly. She fell to the ground, sobbing. I knelt beside her, lifted her up with one hand and, in absolutely cold blood, slapped her twice more.

A four year old little girl present while this is going on, Klara's charge, is deeply traumatised by the scene. Klara, minus one tooth, leaves Gateway, and Bob signs up dramatically for the first single-pilot mission he can find but, sadly, he doesn't die. Not only that, on return to Gateway he discovers Klara is back and they reconnect as if nothing happened, she grinning at him, minus one tooth, and he immediately proposing.

Never mind that ridiculous "happy end", I feel obliged to a word of caution to any hapless idiot inclined to take the message in the "wolves be wolves" paragraph to heart: don't. Don't believe a word of it. Don't believe you have no choice but to beat anyone you think is "weaker" than you until/unless they roll over and beg for mercy, be they man woman child or animal. Don't believe all women ARE weaker than you, just by virtue of being women. And don't believe that all women who are--according to SOME parameters--weaker than you, are therefore going to capitulate... or do so for good.

Representation of race and ethnicity: Most major characters seem to be white/Anglo-Saxonish, but it's a diverse world in the background.

Representation of any kind of minority: This was nice--five gay men present, getting along with everyone as well as can be in cramped conditions, and even a bisexual man, probably the rarest of rare birds (in fiction). Other small details further paint a picture of diverse sexualities co-existing in harmony and mutual respect--an ad by two lesbians looking for a third for a formal "trimarriage", a guy trying to pick up Bob in the bar and being simply politely refused etc.

However, I'm not sure how to assess the clunky Freudian paradigm that governs Bob's therapy and understanding of himself and his problems. Just the fact that Bob apparently renamed himself "Robinette" as a gesture of self-recrimination for his (suppressed) homosexual leanings, that he might have attacked Klara so brutally because she slept with the man he perhaps wanted himself, and that he seems to blame those leanings on his standoffish mother being kindest to him when he was sick and she took his temperature... anally... OK, no, I can't discuss this Freudian bull seriously, let's leave it at that.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: at first I thought yes, but discussing that freaking "wolf" paragraph really made me mad. Way to ruin a good experience. Eh, it's a Hugo or whatever winner, let the little bastards find it on their own.

Up next: Catseye by Andre Norton

I feel sorry for any woman who was married to Fred Pohl. It sounds like he wouldn't have any problem with slapping a woman around.

>223 LolaWalser:

Even if that passage weren't so desperately wrong in all the ways you've enumerated, what's with the didactic tone? Does the book have a lot of Bob addressing the reader this way?

I note that the justification is in Bob's voice, and thus a wise reader could take it as the preaching of an "unreliable narrator"--but it could still fail the keystone question of your thread despite that.

>225 SFF1928-1973:

Well I wouldn't jump to that conclusion, I think it's more likely just some unfortunate characterisation. At least, hope so! (Pohl, or rather the Pohl/Kornbluth team was responsible for one of my few fondly remembered classics, The Space Merchants.)

>226 paradoxosalpha:

No, that's what's so annoying, that's the only bit where Pohl/Bob goes "theoretical". And if at least it had been kept personal--she shouldn't have done it because *I* go apeshit-crazy... but as this "lesson for everyone" it's really uncomfortable, ESPECIALLY since, as I said, Klara then goes back to him with nary a word, all smiles! (toothless-gapped, it's actually pointed out).

Bob is definitely "unreliable" and moreover, not a positive character (in the end he sacrifices everyone including Klara in order to save himself) and I suppose it could be argued no one in their right mind would take him as a hero... except, well, he IS the "hero", the main character we, like him or hate him, live the narrative through and root for in various ways.

Incidentally, as always with my "question", the answer is meaningless in any individual case--I don't believe any single book will fry your mind and eat your soul. But it is a wonder to consider them cumulatively, when you see types and patterns repeating. This "casually sadistic", greyish or outright anti-heroic hero seems to me to dominate the genre.

>227 LolaWalser: I like The Space Merchants too, and the violence against women in that book is less pronounced, but it is there.

Is it? I just remember it was funny. But, it has been decades...

Found my copy! I wasn't going to include anything I've read before, but seeing how little I remember--there is yeast though, isn't there, just as in Gateway--in the future EVERYONE loves Marmite!--I'll stick it at random in the pile.

>225 SFF1928-1973: Judith Merril was married to Fred Pohl at one point. The only thing about him I can remember from her autobiography Better To Have Loved is that when Pohl was editing sf mags he'd buy his friends' stories and pocket half the fee.

Wow! That's high-grade asshattery.

>229 LolaWalser: The only "incriminating" material in The Space Merchants is at the start of Chapter 13. It wouldn't even be worth mentioning if it wasn't part of the bigger picture. Who knows, maybe Pohl was a henpecked husband whose fantasies just came out in print?

Just to be clear, I loved and admired Judith Merril, and always will. She was married to Pohl for about four years. She was previously married for about that length of time to Zissman (about whom I know nothing), and, according to a tantalizing and odd comment on her Wikipedia page: Her third marriage came in 1960, devolved into separation in 1963, but never reached a final divorce. News to me; I always thought she'd not married anyone after Pohl.

Pohl remarried twice more, and both those marriages lasted much longer than his first two. He was married to Carol for about 30 years, and then to his last wife, Elizabeth Anne Hull, until his death (married in 1984, and Pohl died in 2013).

Here's a brief listing of the works where he shared title with Carol.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?8185

Now, here it is. Carol had a vastly different view of Pohl than Judy Merril did. His last wife (her second marriage, and his fifth) was and is a staunch defender. His children speak well of him. He was certainly a product of his times. I'm not positive that I would give full credence to the anecdote from Merril's biography, and (for the most part) there's no one around to ask.

After Pohl's death, Betty kept up the blog (although there've been no entries since last year), and if you scan through them, you may see various things that point out that she is an advocate for women's (and people's) rights.

http://www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/

Bleagh. I'm going to quit while I'm ahead (sort of). All this talk of long ago times has reminded me of how old I am, and how much water's gone under the bridge.

>235 Lyndatrue: The impression I got from Merril's autobiography was that it was more or less standard practice in the pulp magazines of the time. Or at the very least was not uncommon. And given how people jumped from the editorship of one magazine to another, I don't find it especially surprising that they'd give preference to their friends' submissions (for a consideration or not). I don't think it's ethical, but on the other hand, the Futurians didn't strike me as all that ethical a bunch of people - they deliberately disbanded and reformed, for instance, just so they could exclude someone they didn't like.

No. 96

 

Catseye by Andre Norton

Publication date: 1961 ; Story date: unspecified future

Main character: Troy Horan, male

Secondary characters, all male: Kossi Kyger, animal trader; Zul, Kyger's worker; Rerne, ranger; Dragur. Other named and unnamed minor characters.

Non-human characters: foxes Sheba and Sargon, cats Simba and Sahiba, kinkajou Sheng.

Representation of women: There are no women among characters carrying the plot. One female customer of Kyger's briefly appears and has a "line" or two related to her order. She is given the title "Great Leader One" and described as the ruler of a matriarchal but declining planet system. There is a mention of another important female customer, the wife of a powerful man, and a reference is made to women's presence in an inn. Two of the animals are female; Troy however mostly communicates with the male black cat Simba.

I do want to note that the mention of a matriarchal society somewhere (even if it is going to the dogs--for reasons unspecified) at least gives a notion that women's oppression isn't a general rule in the universe.

Representation of race and ethnicity: Nothing concrete. Zul is decribed as a "yellow" man, whatever that means, and Troy and Rerne are tanned due to working outdoors.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: yes.

Up next: The weirwoods by Thomas Burnett Swann

No. 97

 

The weirwoods by Thomas Burnett Swann

Publication date: 1967 ; Story date: B.C.E.

Sprites, nymphs and humans mingle in ancient Etruria.

Main character: Arnth, travelling actor

Secondary characters: Tanaquil, female; Vel, male, water sprite; Vegoia, female, nymph.

Minor characters: Lars Velcha, Tanaquil's father; Arnza, corn sprite; other male and female characters.

Representation of women: Tanaquil and Vegoia, the latter especially, have important parts in the narrative, albeit wholly sexualised. The story is essentially about sexual awakening (Tanaquil's and Arnth's), and secondarily about the power of love redeeming the literally heartless nymph, so I suppose that's inevitable.

There are quite a few clichés about women, but also some refreshing touches, for example Tanaquil demanding that Vel respect her as he does Arnth, and Vegoia and Tanaquil becoming friends despite interest in the same man.

Representation of race and ethnicity: Nothing salient. Etruscan mores, especially their treatment of women, are compared favourably to puritanical misogynistic Greeks.

Representation of any kind of minority: It's debatable, but I'd say Vel's attraction to Arnth and vice versa is totally sexual (ergo homosexual). When Arnth tells Vegoia that Tanaquil didn't sleep with Vel, Vegoia asks why, is Tanaquil "a Sapphist"?

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): I'm not quite sure, but I'd say that despite several conversations between Tanaquil and Vegoia in which they talk about something "other than men", it's a BT fail because each of these conversations is mostly about men. r-BT passes a couple times.

Would I give this book to a kid: to an older one, yes.

Up next: Conehead by Gardner E. Fox

No. 98

 

Conehead by Gardner F. Fox

Publication date: 1973 ; Story date: unspecified future

Righteous outsider brings justice to a colonised planet.

Main character: Alden Slater, male, space commander-slash-lawyer

Secondary characters: Aldatha Te, female, "conehead" colonial; Sylvian Porter, male, villain of the piece; Elvia Hath, female, aboriginal native of the colony planet.

Minor characters: Judge Rasmussen, male; Tann, male, blacksmith; Mark Reynolds, Slater's buddy; Jovin Thok, male,
aboriginal native; Kandat, female, Aldatha's friend; unnamed librarian, female; other mostly male named and unnamed characters.

Representation of women: Standard sexist/stereotypical, but at least it's not mean, you can tell the author had good intentions. Among Terrans, all the important roles go to men, the only women mentioned being a hotel librarian and a couple salesladies. Noticeably, even men in very minor roles are likely to be named, whereas women in comparatively more important ones are not (e. g. blacksmith Tann and his unnamed wife). Elvia Hath, the only important woman besides Aldatha, gets named at the very end, for pages being referred to only as "the Lulian woman" and "the woman". The other Lulian, Jovin Thok, is introduced by name immediately, although he barely acts and speaks in comparison to Elvia.

Conehead elder council is composed of six men and only one woman. While she seems to be the leader, given that their council is selected based on attained "wisdom", one can only conclude that that quality is a male preserve.

Representation of race and ethnicity: The status and treatment of the colonials by Terrans clearly has parallels in human history of racism and imperialism. There are even derogatory terms--"conny" and "colly"--that echo some historical terms. The point where the parallels diverge is actual skin and hair colour of the "inferior" colonials--which is golden. I don't have the capacity for a proper discussion of colourism, so I'll just note that this is yet another tale about the racially oppressed that stops short of being about people who are actually dark skinned.

Representation of any kind of minority: None.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, lots of r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: yes, but I'd want to talk about the whole "white saviour" and "damsel in distress" thing.

Up next: The silver metal lover by Tanith Lee

The following contains spoilers.

No. 99

 

The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee

Publication date: 1981 ; Story date: unspecified future

Teenage girl finds true love with a robot.

Main character: Jane, 16 year old

Secondary characters: Silver, male-coded robot; Clovis, male, gay; Egyptia, female; Demeta, Jane's mother; Jason and Medea, twins.

Minor characters: Swohnson, male, employee of Electric Metals; Geraldine, rep for a second-hand shop; Lord; Paul; Corinth, male, Egyptia's actor colleagues; Austin; Leo, Clovis' (ex)boyfriends; other unnamed female and male characters.

Representation of women: Jane, our heroine, is presumably a sympathetic character--I say presumably, because although she's the only one who doesn't do something actually evil, she's a humongous twit. Maybe the author went overboard on "teenage" characterisation?

Be that as it may... Jane is a single mother's sperm-bought baby, optimally grown to specifics including her body type, hair colour and temperament. The mother, Demeta, a brilliant overachiever, manages to be both distant and overpowering. Jane doesn't know whether she loves or hates her mother, only she cries a lot. I dimly recall an extraordinary penchant for tears from another book of Lee's, but this one definitely sets a record--Jane cries twenty-one (21) times (that I noticed)--and that's not counting the instances when she bravely fights off tears, chokes sobs and only thinks about crying. Well, OK, who can blame a messed-up kid.

Rich and sheltered, Jane passively stumbles through life until she falls in love, at first sight, with a mechanical guitar player. And then everything is laid out for her, for now she finally knows why she lives and for whom--for him, for his love.

Other named female characters are all even worse--Egyptia, Chloe, Medea are variously dumb, monstrously self-absorbed, traitorous, evil; Geraldine is a pathetic middle-aged woman, grasping and envious. Only the unnamed stall holder who gives Jane a break on a jacket seems pleasant and does something generous, but even that is probably because she's charmed by Silver--which makes Jane jealous.

Representation of race and ethnicity: None.

Representation of any kind of minority: We are given to understand that variation in sexual orientation is taken for granted, as part of a general calm and enlightened approach to sexuality. In that context it's a little difficult to see why Clovis is such a classic vicious queen, horrible to friends and foes alike, but saving real hatred for his lovers. Despite his malevolent behaviour, Jane reckons he's the only friend she has in her circle. And, well, compared to what the others do, that doesn't seem wrong. Austin and a couple of gay actors in Egyptia's stage group seem to be of that same type; Leo may be nicer, for the brief time he appears. What can I say? If you rate mere presence of gay characters, there are certainly gay characters here, one quite important; but if the kind of representation matters, then it must be said this doesn't rise much above the dated stereotype. Clovis does have some amusing lines--the best in fact. I'd certainly have preferred his zingers in the place of, oh, three quarters of Jane's crying scenes...

ETA: Forgot to mention, homosexual characters are designated M-B, short for "Mirror-Biased", referring to the theory that homosexuality is based on narcissism--as far as I know, not a well-supported and now thoroughly discredited notion.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): Several BT and r-BT passes.

Would I give this book to a kid: In the context of the thread, it's hard to justify not at least "tolerating" it, as I usually say for so much of this stuff. In real life... hell, no, I've been weighing what to say, but I freaking HATE the genre of romance, I hate the useless soppy heroines who only find a reason to live in love, I hate the magical makeovers from plain janes to glamour stars (thanks to love!), I hate the message that there are "soulmates" and that you might get stuck with one at sixteen--and even if he disappears he'll watch you from a higher plane and expect you to love him forever!

Ugh. Sorry, Tanith Lee, you and I just don't agree.

Up next: The Rakehells of Heaven by John Boyd

>243 LolaWalser: I hate the message that there are "soulmates" and that you might get stuck with one at sixteen--and even if he disappears he'll watch you from a higher plane and expect you to love him forever!

I recently read Lee's Volkhavaar, which while initially courting the pattern you describe, ultimately supplies a strong narrative rebuke to it. I guess she was a big enough author to write both within that convention and against it.

>245 paradoxosalpha:

I see it less as a question of following conventions, than how one conceptualises love. From what I read of hers so far beside this--Sabella, Drinking Sapphire Wine, Dark Dance, and let's count the two episodes she wrote for Blake's 7--I'd class her as a typical romance writer, not, I hasten to add, as any kind of reflection on literary quality (which I think Lee has), but strictly based on that total primacy of sexual-romantic love in general and in the lives of individuals in her books.

I get that that's what romance IS--the genre I mean--and that obsessional quality, that fantasy of singularly exclusive passion, is exactly why it's read, what people want. From the point of view of representation, though, it tends to empty the characters of, well, character, and their lives of all other motivation, function, sense, interest. Everything is suborned to mating. Crucially, women, more or less passive or active as they may be shown to be, are still defined wholly within the traditional female stereotype: beings who fully exist only through and for love of a man.

Anyway, more of her books are coming up and I am curious to see whether any of her female characters leave the (so far, imo) rather narrow boundaries.

Well, the sets of works you and I have read from this author are entirely disjunct (including the Blake's 7), and I don't have that impression of her novels at all, reading through the Birthgrave series and the Wars of Vis. I too am curious to see what you think of the others in your queue.

>247 paradoxosalpha:

Hmm, none of the titles therein ring a bell, but it has been YEARS now since I gathered the Pile.

I happen to like Lee's B7 episodes a lot, I think they are well written, layered and poetic in a way that is pleasingly "different" to the rest of the series, which had quite a few boilerplate sci-fi plots. It seems they were divisive in the fandom (I only saw B7 a few years ago).

Both are, briefly, about the power of love--that romantic, heady, once-in-a-lifetime, across-space-and-time brand of it. Boys, it seems, are kinda shy to like that sort of thing. ;)

It's interesting to see Lee do her romantic thing using a pre-existing set of characters who have no declared feelings for anyone and display no sexual tension whatsoever and how she nevertheless manages to construct her trademark (well I think it's trademark) odes to love.

>248 LolaWalser: Hmm, I don't recall those 2 B7 episodes at all, but both were 3rd and 4th season episodes and I never liked them as much as 1st and 2nd season (I found Tarrant to be an annoying prat). (At some point I must get the boxed sets...)

I have a pretty good collection of Tanith Lee and found her writing somewhat patchy. I suspect it's to do with when they were written; the Birthgrave and Tales of Vis series were reminiscent of of Jane Gaskell's Atlan series, whereas the Tales From The Flat Earth series were more reminiscent of The Traveller in Black. Later works seemed to be more her own style.

>249 Maddz:

I'm in the middle of Gaskell's second Atlan book, and that comparison doesn't ring true to me. Given, I read the Lee earlier (around the impressionable age of 45 or so), but Gaskell seems to fall far short in terms of both style and content. Stylistically, I compared The Birthgrave to Gene Wolfe's fantasy in my review of the former, while the content reminded me of mid-period Moorcock.

>250 paradoxosalpha: I think I was thinking more in terms of a strong but somewhat passive female lead - things happen to her provoking a reaction, rather than her being proactive. Mind you, it's been a while since I read either series; my Gaskells got culled some years ago, whereas I still own the Lees.

>251 Maddz: a strong but somewhat passive female lead

If I wanted to draw a positive comparison between Cija and Uastis, I'd say they're similar for being precipitated "out of nowhere," with a fundamental ignorance of their origins. Uastis runs through quite a few roles in just the one book, and while "romantic partner" is among them, I don't think it dominates, nor do I see her as essentially passive.

The Wars of Vis have a number of protagonists, mostly male.

(Lola, sorry for the somewhat OT digression.)

>252 paradoxosalpha:

Not at all, it's good to have company.

No. 100

 

The Rakehells of Heaven by John Boyd

Publication date: 1969 ; Story date: 2228 (on Earth)

Two space sailors from Earth bring violence, religion and militarism, but also better sex, to a previously peaceful world.

Main character: Jack Adams

Secondary characters: Red O'Hara, Jack's comrade; Cara, Jack's Harlechian wife

Minor characters: Harlechians: Tamar; Kiki; Harla etc. female students; Jon; Nesser; Frick; Bardo; Fisk etc., male students who are given military, legal and administrative duties by Jack; Bubo, the Dean of the University, male. Other Earth-based characters, all male except for Thelma Pruitt, O'Hara's wife.

Representation of women: Simple: sex bunnies. On Earth, our two "space sailors" visit cathouses and O'Hara, the rakehell, goes so far as to marry a girl just to get her in bed. On Harlech, they find a sexually promiscuous society where gorgeous girls run around naked and always willing. The sheer availability of sex begins to bore O'Hara (Adams, who got some serious religion before the trip, abstains for a while) so he decides to introduce teaching on "feminine wiles and guile", as well as underwear, segregated toilets, shame etc.

Although it's the 23rd century, on Earth all the personnel, military, scientific and medical, is male and on Harlech too, the only mention of a woman who isn't a student is of an "elderly female pilot" who flies the hovercraft that greets the two Earthmen. The teachers and the administrators, as well as all the students to whom Adams and O'Hara assign any kind of professional function, are male.

Representation of race and ethnicity: Much is made of O'Hara's Irishness. ETA: Slur alert--in one place the Harlechians are addressed as "you gooks".

Representation of any kind of minority: None. One no-homo joke and there's also a brief casual mention of a young Harlechian with a hormone imbalance who went from Jan to Jon.

Bechdel test (BT) and reverse Bechdel test (r-BT): BT fail, r-BT pass.

Would I give this book to a kid: tolerate with older.

Aaaaand, time to turn the thread. But maybe not tonight.

Up next: They shall have stars by James Blish

Lola, you've reminded me that I read this quite a long time ago (possibly thirty-five years or more). I certainly never considered it to be a book worth retaining.

I read the three reviews on LT in conjunction with your analysis. I think you've been kind.

Ha, you spurred me to look at reviews, here and on That Other Place... Quoting this short one (from GR):

Cheesy 60's SF with free bad sex included. Might make a good selection for my friend's bad book club.

:)

Any takers better be warned that the bad sex is actually overwhelmed by bad stagings of pastiches of Shakespeare and a Nativity play!

I guess I should avoid the Rakehells review...at least until I've read the book!