speculative fiction

When Women Were Warriors Book I: The Warrior's Path

admin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:55:00 +0000

I usually do not read fantasy books, but The Warrior's Path changed my mind. Catherine M. Wilson writes a beautifully well-crafted story that incorporates the elements of fantasy without entering any stereotypes. The first of three books in the When Women Were Warriors series follow Tamras, who trains to become a warrior like the other women in her family. However, when Tamras enters the House of Merin, she cannot become an apprentice like she'd hoped to be. Instead, she is assigned as a companion for Maara, one of the warriors who isolates herself. The other warriors are suspicious of Maara since she is not from their clan.

At first, Maara shuns Tamras, and does not want a companion. But when Maara is injured in a battle and Tamras stays by her side, the bond between companion and warrior is strengthen. As the story continues, the alliance between Tamras and Maara grow so strong that Tamras pledges her life for Maara's. In addition, Tamras risks valuable alliances that would benefit her clan to follow her heart, which also leads her along the path of becoming a warrior.

The Warrior's Path also contains a love story between Tamras and another companion that artistically describes the exploration of love and passion. Each of the characters are highly developed and realistic. It is one of those rare gems that is also incredibly empowering to women, and as the title suggests, most of the warriors are women. Wilson creates a fantastic world where women are a powerful force that governs the lands and fights the battles. I hope that the next two books are just as interesting and well-written.

Written by: Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, October 25th 2009

The New Weird

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Edited by Ann Vandermeer, Jeff Vandermeer

Tachyon Publications

The New Weird takes its name from the literary movement of the same name that includes speculative fiction and horror stories popularized in pulp magazines by authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. The New Weird movement can best be described as, well, weird, and the stories in Ann and Jeff Vandermeer's anthology tend to focus on the images created, as opposed to the plot or the characters. As a result, some of the stories feel a bit disjointed, like you are reading someone else’s fever dreams. This allows for some of the images to be truly horrible and lack easy explanations. The New Weird also includes some scholarly essays about the movement, if you would like explanations.

Michael Moorcock, famous for his Elric of Melnibone stories, contributes a fairly straightforward World War III story with a deeply disturbing rape description buried within the story. Clive Barker, writer of the game changing Books of Blood and director of Hellraiser, contributes a story called “In the Hills, the Cities,” where people tie themselves together to fight a battle for long forgotten reasons. In one of my favorite stories, “Watson’s Boy” by Brian Evenson, a boy learns to assert himself by collecting keys despite his father’s disapproval. The entire story takes place in a building that may or may not be a prison or perhaps a mental hospital. The refusal to explain the context is part of the charm of the story.

One of the interesting aspects of this anthology are the images of the female. A good number of the stories are written by women. Some portrayals, like the women so easily disposed of in Moorcock story, are traditional portrayals of women in horror stories—but they were in the minority. I was very surprised by two stories. The first, "The Neglected Garden" by Kathe Koja, tells the story of a wronged woman who, for want of a better description, cruxifies herself on a garden fence. Her boyfriend refuses to get her help, and Mother Nature helps her take revenge in a truly original and very gratifying way. I wondered while reading it, with the horror focused at the beginning and the triumphant ending, if a man reading it would see the exact opposite, with my triumphant ending as the true horror.

These stories will burn themselves into your brain in ways that are uncomfortable and thought-provoking. You can’t find anything better than this anthology.

Written by: Taylor Rhodes, September 16th 2009

On Joanna Russ

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:13:00 +0000

Edited by Farrah Mendlesohn

Wesleyan University Press

Last summer, in an effort to learn more about female writers of speculative fiction (SF), I read Charlotte Spivack’s Merlin’s Daughters. While the majority of the book was a rather boring summary of what the aforementioned "daughters" had written, the introduction posited that all speculative fiction has subversive possibilities. After all, the author is imagining a new world and probably one structured by a new social order, right? Not necessarily.

In Farrah Mendlesohn’s On Joanna Russ, the reader finds that in mid-century American SF, only some ideas are subject to question, and that pioneers like Russ were marginalized, or ignored. In the first part of the book, “Criticism and Community,” contributors discuss the relationship between Russ and the SF community, including readers, prominent editors and other writers, as well as her place as an academic. For example, as Russ moves toward a more feminist perspective, she writes to a popular publication about the lack of female characters in most SF novels.

The responses were many and varied, but a prominent colleague took it on himself to 'set her straight'. It was not sexism that kept female characters out of SF, he said; it was the “cerebral plots” that did not necessitate a “love interest.” On Joanna Russ paints the picture of a female writer forced by workplace bottom-pinching and literary marginalization to explain feminism over and over again to both men and women. Responding to Kate Wilhelm, who said she champions equal rights but is not a feminist, Russ noted, “It’s funny, really; having disclaimed feminism, you go on to define it.”

The second part of the book focuses on Russ’ fiction. Contributors here discuss how Russ’ work shows a synthesis of second and third wave feminisms, the necessity of violence for Russ’ protagonists, and the recurrent themes of lesbianism and homosocial bonds. This discussion is interwoven with the relationship of her writing to the work of Hélène Cixous, Mina Loy, Mikhail Bakhtin, and others. In her fiction, Russ defines, expands, and subverts the “feminine utopia” and visions of women as “good”, i.e., not violent or sexual.

I came away from On Joanna Russ with a huge to-read list, including titles by Russ and important works by feminist writers. This book is a must-read for a student of SF, female writers and academics, or any feminist who has forgotten how close the isolation of the twentieth century is at our heels. I was struck by how far we have come from bottom-pinching in the academy, but also how much still has to be done to create a culture where writing by and about women flourishes. Russ herself says in "How to Suppress Women’s Writing":

When the memory of one’s predecessors is buried, the assumption persists that there were none, and each generation of women believes itself to be faced with the burden of doing everything for the first time… without models, it’s hard to work; without a context, difficult to evaluate; without peers, nearly impossible to speak.

Sadly, according to contributor Graham Sleight, as of 2008, says many of her books are out of print, forcing contemporary readers to track her down in used books stores and libraries. It’s well worth the hunt: her work was crucial to the shape of contemporary SF.

Written by: H. V. Cramond, July 7th 2009