Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1998 10:26:36 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Kathleen M. Friello" Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Rusch, additional readings To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Alien Influences additional writings Part I: internet publications ONLINE REVIEWS: SF Site review by Lisa Dumond http://www.sfsite.com/dec97a/ali22.htm Science Fiction Weekly review by Susan Dunman http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue59/books.html#ai 1 review by a reader on the Amazon site MISC: Rusch home page http://www.horrornet.com/rusch.htm synopsis of paper written for a conference on The Fantastic (sponsored, it seems, by the AFFN, the Academic Fantastic Fiction Network) organized by Andy Butler and Samantha Barber at Hull University November 25th-26th 1995. "Is Kristine Kathryn too Rusched?" by Chris Fowler, University of Westminster http://www.hull.ac.uk/english/fanconf.htm Alien Influences published as novella in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction [v83 #1, No. 494, July 1992] If anyone has any additional references, please forward them to me or post them directly to the list. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 09:39:48 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG: ALIEN INFLUENCES To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU What, no discussion on ALIEN INFLUENCES yet? Does that mean everyone is as behind in reading it as I am? :) Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 09:21:58 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I think I can safely say that this month's discussion book, Kristine Kathyrn Rusch's Alien Influences, is just about as different from Mists of Avalon as you're likely to find on our reading list. While I enjoyed reading Alien Influences, I felt vaguely dissatisfied with it, and I'm looking forward to the more articulate opinions on this list to help me understand why. Here are some questions to get us started: 1. One of the reviews, listed on the bibliography that Kathleen put together, stated the main theme of this book was the search for freedom. It seemed to me more to be about the boundary between "us" and "other". Do you agree or disagree? What do you think that Rusch was trying to tell us about the "other" in this book? 2. Was this a feminist work? Why or why not? (that ought to keep us going for awhile.) I certainly couldn't tell. 3. Did you believe in the end that it would be possible for John to find happiness or a normal life? Did you believe in the characters overall? Don't feel limited to these questions -- I'm sure you will come up with other observations about the characters, the plot twists, the themes, comparisons with other books by this author or others. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 09:51:36 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG: another question about Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU This one from Kathleen Friello, who won't be able to participate much this month: What is the author's aim in portraying all things human (particularly human agencies and institutions) not "influenced by aliens" so negatively? Is it an intentional commentary on humanity in reality or this constructed future, or just an aggregate of plot-movers? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 13:17:21 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Demetria M. Shew" Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: ALIEN INFLUENCES To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I just finished Beyond the Pale, which I think I got from this list. Just thought I'd pass on a piece of historical trivia: The building where the Triangle Shirtwaist fire occured burned a second time, fifty years later. One person who escaped the first fire as a girl escaped the second as an old woman. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Aug 1998 12:53:51 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Daniel Byrne Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: another question about Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Kathleen Friello's question: >What is the author's aim in portraying all things human (particularly >human agencies and institutions) not "influenced by aliens" so negatively? >Is it an intentional commentary on humanity in reality or this constructed >future, or just an aggregate of plot-movers? I think these are a couple of interesting questions. I'll begin with my overall impression of the book, which addresses the second question. I read this book just having finished off four books by Tepper. I know it's unfair to compare anyone to Tepper and, God knows, I have never written a sf novel myself.   It is easy to criticize from such a position. I enjoyed *Alien Influences*, and I couldn't put it down once I started, but it didn't have enough plot unity for my taste. Problems result from the fact (her admission) that the first section of the book was written separately from consequent sections. It is a novella that grew up. Thus, we have the wind spirit appearing in a later part of the book -- a figure of great consequence to the outcome of the story -- without having had any clue to its existence in the first part. I was reminded of something I read in Peter Ackroyd's wonderful biography of Charles Dickens. Many Dickens "novels" were originally written serially, often over a long time period. Dickens often didn't know in advance where the plot was going, and he spent a lot of time thinking about how he was going to pull things together for the next or final episode. (*Little Dorrit* is the example I remember best, and there is a long paragraph describing how her role and the plot changed over time which I will quote for anyone who's interested.) The genius of Dickens is that he was able to pull it off so well, with everything wrapped satisfactorily at the end. I'm sure Rusch is a much nicer person that Dickens (I was horrified by him as a human being), but Rusch does not pull it off so well. *Alien Influences* is a bit fragmented. Way seems to lead on to way. Parts do not add up sufficiently to make a whole. Another piece of evidence of serial writing is that information is repeated in different sections. Places or things Rusch described in an early part of the book are sometimes redescribed later in almost the same words. I remember thinking, "I already read this." After reading *Alien Influences* I glanced at an online critique that said something about Rusch "writing too fast." Perhaps the repetition is an example of writing too fast, not going back and cutting out extraneous stuff? The aliens: I was intrigued that the aliens were not absolutely good or absolutely evil. The dancers had cultural characteristics that I thought were admirable, and other cultural characteristics that clashed with what I believe is "proper" panhuman behavior. At the same time, several of the humans were sufficiently complicated and thoughtful to be realistic. I think we in the west are finally emerging from a period of naive and unquestioning admiration of indigenous or native peoples, e.g. the often unspoken (and incorrect) belief that all Native Americans are "natural conservationists." Non-western peoples are (of course) just as morally and ethnically complicated and various as western peoples (think about the Ibo in Achebe's *Things Fall Apart*). The "correctness" or morality of dancer cultural practices is ambiguous (especially in John's mind), and reflects a positive change in (real life) folks' awareness of cross-cultural and intracultural moral dilemmas. Dancers and wind spirits are not pure and wonderful Vulcans. Well, I didn't really answer the first part of Friello's question. But I think I should shut up now. I already feel guilty about writing so much and being so critical of a book I really did enjoy reading, despite its flaws. Candice Bradley Appleton WI ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 08:58:42 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Yvonne Rowse Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Hi I hadn't read any KKR before. I was sucked into the book and couldn't put it down, loved it, and yet... The boundary between us and other. Yes. But if someone had asked me for a quick precis I would have suggested the book was about injustice and powerlessness. All through the book I was filled with rage and fear for the children. It took me back to the emotions I felt as a child when no-one would *listen*. I thought this was handled excellently. I liked the multiple views so that we had some sort of idea of the characters' motivations and that no-one was unbelievably evil but having had the insight to move the plot along I would have liked to know how some of the characters evolved or at least how they were thinking at the end. I was impressed by the aliens and that John learned about them later in the book. As has been said, it is very easy for aliens to either be evil or absolutely good. I liked it that they made mistakes, that they were found to be less a refuge than the children thought. Why were there eight children? So that there'd be lots of places to go whilst searching? I can't remember their names other than John, Allan and Beth and I only finished the book day before yesterday. Sketched or blank. I felt that the last chapter was all very superficial. The book had been holding me tight, there was lots left to resolve then in a couple of pages it was all wrapped up and they all lived happily ever after. I felt like there should've been another couple of stairs there, jolted and unsatisfied. I know the wrapping up is always a difficult part, it's so easy to be twee and cliched but this was the fastest wrap I've come across in a good book. Altogether I thought this was a very good book. It felt very much like she was skating across the surface of a lot of real lives ( like someone who glides fast and gracefully, not like me clinging to the side of the rink and tottering ;-)) and inevitably missing such a lot. It was frustrating because her characters were so facinating. Oh well. Better go feed the kids. Yvonne To subscibe to the Taking Children Seriously list, send an e-mail to listserv@listserv.aol.com containing; SUBSCRIBE TCS-DIGEST your-first-name your-last-name. TCS information; http://www.eeng.dcu.ie/~tcs/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 02:05:00 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU This was the first of our group discussion books that I haven't cared much for over all. Unlike the others, I have no trouble putting it down. In fact I have about 30 pages left which I will force myself to read tonight. There are some great individual ideas, but as others have noted, it doesn't pull together. The idea of inter species prostitution was pretty unique. Having just watched PBS's POV documentary Sacrifice about Burmese girls forced into prostitution in Thailand I liked the alternate idea the book presented, that Beth was good at her job because she hungered so for touch. The whole book could have focused on her and would have been much better, I think. Having women casually in positions of power was good. Having a man as the main character didn't make the book any less feminist, it just added to my difficulty in relating to the story. I liked that the characters, human and alien alike, were so well rounded---no black or whites, lots of reasons for their actions. And the variety of aliens was like fleshing out the Star Wars bar scene. I liked that the references to child abuse weren't too graphic but still effective in showing the lasting damage on children. How good it would be if Salt Juice were always the cause of such egocentric behavior on the part of adults, no salt juice, no abuse. I guess it was supposed to be kind of like cocaine. I did rather enjoy the adults singing themselves off to work like happy little dwarfs. Oh, and I liked the smells, a scent painting--I believe I'd like to have one of those. I hated the idea that everyone involved with the prison system was so stupid. They had everything to learn from letting the kids interact. I can't believe a system capable of intergalactic diplomacy could just throw away the opportunity. Even if fear or scapegoating were the cause, which I couldn't buy, keeping Latona Etanl locked up all those years seemed to me unlikely ( I know don't give me Russian Gulags and the Black Panthers. Again intergalactic diplomacy just doesn't jibe with such incompetence.) Forbidding her from any work on the Dancers, come on, surly some higher ups would have wanted to know what she could figure out, if only for self protection. For a while I thought it was going to be a rip off of my favorite Orson Scott Card book, Speaker For the Dead; but alas, even though that book was written by a man it was one I couldn't put down. It grabbed the reader and kept her through the whole story. Why was it again we picked this as our monthly book? OK, no more complaining. I'm going to go finish it now so I can get to one of the Tepper books I bought over the weekend. If I don't ever get a copy of Shadow Man, I'll just find something else and enjoy the chat. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 03:53:31 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sharon Anderson Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU O....kay! I've been chomping at the bit, waiting for the date for this one. Is it feminist? Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a person of color. A white male. The minor protagonist is male. The villain is female. The other major females in the story: one of the eight, who is a victim; the lawyer, who is a dupe; security head, who is another villain; anthropologist, who is another victim.... Do I need to go on? Is there any question whether this is feminist? Or, has the definition of feminist been changed while my back was turned? Sharon L. Anderson ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 09:26:39 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU At 03:53 AM 08/04/98 -0800, Sharon L. Anderson wrote: > Is it feminist? > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a >person of color. A white male. > The minor protagonist is male. > The villain is female. > The other major females in the story: one of the eight, who is a >victim; the lawyer, who is a dupe; security head, who is another villain; >anthropologist, who is another victim.... > Do I need to go on? > Is there any question whether this is feminist? > Or, has the definition of feminist been changed while my back was >turned? > >Sharon L. Anderson Ah, yes, I had these same reactions. Although it was less clear to me that they were white - although the general culture sure seemed like today's mainstream white culture. But then I played the little game of "what if" I switched the characters' genders... and it really didn't seem to matter for any of them. So why make all the main characters male? And what is the definition of feminist? Jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 13:19:45 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Mark Schebel Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Jennifer Krauel wrote: > At 03:53 AM 08/04/98 -0800, Sharon L. Anderson wrote: > > Is it feminist? > > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a > >person of color. A white male. > > The minor protagonist is male. > > The villain is female. > > The other major females in the story: one of the eight, who is a > >victim; the lawyer, who is a dupe; security head, who is another villain; > >anthropologist, who is another victim.... > > Do I need to go on? > > Is there any question whether this is feminist? > > Or, has the definition of feminist been changed while my back was > >turned? > > > >Sharon L. Anderson > > Ah, yes, I had these same reactions. Although it was less clear to me > that they were white - although the general culture sure seemed like > today's mainstream white culture. > > But then I played the little game of "what if" I switched the characters' > genders... and it really didn't seem to matter for any of them. So why > make all the main characters male? > > And what is the definition of feminist? > > Jennifer > jkrauel@actioneer.com Furthermore, what is the definition of "a person of color." I don't mean this in an atagonistic sense, but I have never been able to get a precise definition of "black" or "white"; nor should I expect to. So when people talk of protaginist characters and their "race", my first reaction is "so what". I have always like octavia butler for this reason; in the works I've read by her, she does not label her character as "black", but rather describes the look of the person. Personally, that is all I care about as I have some difficulties with pigeonholing people into races. And from saying that I don't mean to sound "utopian", rather I mean to sound realistic. In a day in age where many popel have a concoction of "races" in their blood, I find these kinds of categorisations pretty useless. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if an author comes out and distintcly says "this character is white/black/hispanic, whatever", I lose a little bit of interest. I would rather the author describe the look of the character, or not at all--let the reader decide. As for culture, why connect it with a specific look of people; I had an acquaintance a few years back that was born and raised (until about age 12) in africa. He was quite connected to the culture of his country, etc... But when he applied for a scholarship for african-americans, he was denied...why? HJe was "white". I believe in changing language to suit our needs and to get rid of prejudices (language drives much of our thought), but I have little tolerance for inaccurate changes in language. someone stop me before I go on. ; ) -mark --------------------------- http://scratch.hellyeah.com wage@hellyeah.com put your soul in ascii ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 11:24:32 -0700 Reply-To: Karen Brighton Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Karen Brighton Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Hi all, this may be my first post to the list. I've been lurking for a few weeks, I've been enjoying (and learning from) the posts and am so grateful to have all these recommendations for reading. 2 years ago I had a baby and my time for reading became greatly reduced, for the first year all I could manage was a short story here or there. Now that he's older, and i feel like an "old hand" at mothering, I'm able to read novels again. While reading Alien Influences I kept asking myself, what makes this a feminist novel? The lead character was not a woman (I kept waiting for a strong woman to appear). The plot didn't deal with gender issues. What was it? It seems to me that the piece that made this a feminist novel was that the Dancer 8 were all victims of child abuse and neglect, and no authority was questioning the underlying reasons for their actions. No one asked *why* they were so desperate to grow up. Karen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 12:57:40 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > Is it feminist? > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a >person of color. A white male. > The minor protagonist is male. > The villain is female. > The other major females in the story: one of the eight, who is a >victim; the lawyer, who is a dupe; security head, who is another villain; >anthropologist, who is another victim.... Also, pretty much everyone who survives is male. Beth is a prostitute who kills herself; the art gallery owner goes crazy; the hotel manager (?) gets fired; Latona Etanl is silenced for ten years and when released is bitter and broken... I did like the casual usage of women in positions of power (the governor, for instance, whose secretary was male) but frankly, at this point I don't think that's very revolutionary. I tend to describe feminist novels as those which explore feminist issues, such as gender roles, sexuality, subversion of traditional sex stereotypes, alternate family structures, etc etc etc. In these sad times just making all the important characters in any given book female is probably enough to be included, since it really is a subversion of traditional stereotypes; but I didn't think that Alien Influences really managed it. I assume someone thought this book was feminist, since it was nominated, and I'd like to hear why. (I'd also note that I thought it was an interesting book in and of itself, although I had a lot of trouble with the sectioning: it was clear to me that the book was written in parts, and that really threw me off.) >when people >talk of protaginist characters and their "race", my first reaction is "so >what". In the US (I don't know about other countries) if race isn't spoken, it's assumed to be white. Similarly if gender isn't announced it's assumed to be male (barring traditionally female occupations like secretaries and nuns and nurses), and if religion -- or lack thereof -- isn't described it's assumed to be Christian. So to not say anything is to reinforce whatever people already assume. Of course it's true that sometimes a person of one race is a member of a different culture. But that doesn't mean there's no connection between races and culture. I know about styles of dancing that my non-Jewish friends don't know about. My black friends still usually have to go to different stores to buy hair products. An Indian woman who lived in a group house with me in college brought cooking implements I'd never seen in my life. These are all very trivial examples. My point is that it is very tempting for any member of the dominant culture to say, "This fictional culture is neutral." But when you're outside of that dominant culture it's easy to see that all the food described is European, or all the clothing is British, or all the music is American. For instance, having been to Jewish, Christian, Pagan, and non-religious wedding ceremonies, I can recognize the traditional monotheistic wedding from a mile away, even when the author clearly thought it was a neutral, "non-denominational" ceremony. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 14:05:46 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Since other people commented on the issue of race and cultural depictions, I thought this discussion was still appropriate for the list (Mark agreed that I could forward this mail). Jessie ------- Forwarded Message Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 16:33:55 -0500 (EST) From: Mark Schebel To: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism > these sad times just making all the important characters in any given book > female is probably enough to be included, since it really is a subversion of > traditional stereotypes; but I didn't think that Alien Influences really > managed it. > > I assume someone thought this book was feminist, since it was nominated, and > I'd like to hear why. (I'd also note that I thought it was an interesting book > in and of itself, although I had a lot of trouble with the sectioning: it was > clear to me that the book was written in parts, and that really threw me off.) > > >when people > >talk of protaginist characters and their "race", my first reaction is "so > >what". > > In the US (I don't know about other countries) if race isn't spoken, it's > assumed to be white. Similarly if gender isn't announced it's assumed to be > male (barring traditionally female occupations like secretaries and nuns and > nurses), and if religion -- or lack thereof -- isn't described it's assumed to > be Christian. So to not say anything is to reinforce whatever people already > assume. > > Of course it's true that sometimes a person of one race is a member of a > different culture. But that doesn't mean there's no connection between races > and culture. I know about styles of dancing that my non-Jewish friends don't > know about. My black friends still usually have to go to different stores to > buy hair products. An Indian woman who lived in a group house with me in > college brought cooking implements I'd never seen in my life. These are all > very trivial examples. My point is that it is very tempting for any member of > the dominant culture to say, "This fictional culture is neutral." But when > you're outside of that dominant culture it's easy to see that all the food > described is European, or all the clothing is British, or all the music is > American. For instance, having been to Jewish, Christian, Pagan, and > non-religious wedding ceremonies, I can recognize the traditional monotheistic > wedding from a mile away, even when the author clearly thought it was a > neutral, "non-denominational" ceremony. > > jessie Your points are very well taken, but what I was (kind of) trying to say had to do with Race. Saying that food is described as European or British is talking about nationality rather than race. But that's really not the issue I meant to bring up. I guess what I was trying to say had to do with writers and how they deal with "race" issues. Honestly, I am turned off from a book when someone simplifies such an issue into a character...that is why I love octavia butler...she is able to introduce non-traditional characters without directly describing the race of her characters. She even does the same thing with gender (e.g. in BloodChild, she lets the reader make many of the connections about gender). In a larger issue, I'm questioning what one means when they say "black". Take two people--both have one "black" parent and one "white" parent. ONe of these people is quite light...the other is quite dark. So, we call one "white" and one "black". This is the kind of thing that makes me raise my eyebrows. I personally have some cherokee in my blood (from quite a while ago)...so what would I be. Well, I'm probably called "white" because of the way I look. Not to say that the connection between the way someone looks and how they are treated does not exist---it exists to a disgustingly large extent. But for me, I think that realising a person has dark skin rather than saying they are black is part of the solution to some problems between people. So, it all comes down to basic discrimination on looks--which is pretty damned uncool. : ) - -mark (who likes to ramble on and on) schebel - --------------------------- http://scratch.hellyeah.com wage@hellyeah.com put your soul in ascii ------- End of Forwarded Message ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 18:30:23 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: ME Hunter Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Mark Schebel wrote: >But for me, I think that realising a person has dark skin rather than >saying they are black is part of the solution to some problems between >people. So, it all comes down to basic discrimination on looks--which is >pretty damned uncool. : ) Actually, I think that it's cultural identity, more than appearance. There's a Chicano comic who does a hysterical routine about how his uncle hides from Immigration by pretending to be Indian...the guy imitates him, changing his posture slightly and taking on an Indian accent and y'know, he would conveince me, if I cared. I call this the "Lena Horne Effect." When I was a youngster, my parents took me to see the movie version of The Wiz. Afterwards they asked what I thought and I said I thought it was kind of weird that the Good Witch was played by a white woman, when all the other characters are black. My parents were much amused and explained to me that Lena Horne is black. I was dubious. I was startled to find out the Mariah Carey is considered black, for another example. So it's not just looks, although I agree with your other points, Mark. E. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 09:31:41 +1000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >At 11:24 AM 8/4/98 -0700, Karen wrote: > >>While reading Alien Influences I kept asking myself, what makes this a >>feminist novel? The lead character was not a woman (I kept waiting for a >>strong woman to appear). The plot didn't deal with gender issues. What was >>it? It seems to me that the piece that made this a feminist novel was >>that the Dancer 8 were all victims of child abuse and neglect, and no >>authority was questioning the underlying reasons for their actions. No one >>asked *why* they were so desperate to grow up. > >I have to agree with you Karen, instead of male value systems vs female >value systems - we have child vs adult in _Alien Influences_. Right from >the first pages, we are told that Justin was told by an ex-patriot of >Bountiful that he 'couldn't wait to get his adult status, so he could leave >Bountiful'. All the way through, I also kept thinking nobody ever asked why the >children were so desperate to "grow up" - same as nobody ever asks why >women want 'equality' with men in today's workplaces and institutions. > >I have also read many of KKR's books, and _Alien Influences_ is probably >not her best, but her writing is always *subtle* - asking the reader to ask >questions, but never proposes solutions. I also like the way she presents, >what is an essentially 'masculine value system' society, with women as more >or less 'equals' - To me, that asks the question - if women were just 'equal' >to men, would we end up with an essentially 'male' society - with some of >the people of that society, having female bodies? > >Instead of women being the powerless "Other" in such a society, would >children then take over that role? > > >Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 20:38:09 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Tanya M. Bouwman-Wozencraft" Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences discussion begins To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU In a message dated 98-08-04 19:39:14 EDT, Jullieanne writes: << Instead of women being the powerless "Other" in such a society, would children then take over that role? > >> In my opinion, children are already in that role. Here in MA, a judge recently ruled that children's testimony in a well-known daycare abuse trial was so "tainted" that not one of the children could testify in a retrial today--several years after the incident-- not just excluding those whose "testimony" was obtained by what is now considered to be "questionable" practices. In the courts in Oklahoma, they have sent children back to into abusive homes to die so many times that they now have a law named after one of the children (Ryan Luke) which is supposed to keep that from happening again; however, my best friend, who is a family counselor, a few months ago told me two horrifying stories of children who are in extreme physical danger in their homes whom she had reported to DHS and ended by saying, "They won't do a damn thing." She was right, as of my last conversation with her, those kids were still in their dangerous situations getting beaten up by the people who are supposed to be their protectors. My personal hopes are that as feminism grows awareness of how we, as a society, mistreat our children will grow. I find it frightening to think that we could raise up ourselves (as women) to equality and not see the abuse and neglect being given to our children. I haven't read this book, by the way, but am getting very interested in it by the discussions. Tanya ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 23:28:28 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Furthermore, what is the definition of "a person of color." A person of color...... > In a day in age where many popel have a concoction of "races" >in their blood, I find these kinds of categorisations pretty useless. would probably never say something like this. >I guess what I'm trying to say is that if an author comes out and >distintcly says "this character is white/black/hispanic, whatever", I lose >a little bit of interest. I would rather the author describe the look of >the character, or not at all--let the reader decide.> This is about your personal assessment of bad writing. It is distinctly different from racism. Though racism probably precipitates a considerable amount of bad writing. > As for culture, why connect it with a specific look of people;> Because most times it rightfully is. The concepts are interwoven. Separable and inseparable both. >I believe in changing language to suit our needs and to get rid of prejudices >(language drives much of our thought), but I have little tolerance for inaccurate >changes in language. > Oh, that it were so simple. >someone stop me before I go on. ; )>>-mark *shrug* donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Aug 1998 23:41:11 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Mark said: >In a larger issue, I'm questioning what one means when they say "black". >Take two people--both have one "black" parent and one "white" parent. ONe >of these people is quite light...the other is quite dark. So, we call one >"white" and one "black". This is the kind of thing that makes me raise my >eyebrows. I personally have some cherokee in my blood (from quite a while >ago)...so what would I be. Well, I'm probably called "white" because of >the way I look.> Why a raised eyebrow? There are two issues: what one calls one self and what one gets called by others. They can be different. If you identify as Native American because of your ancestry then you are. What other people identify you as may at times differ. We all live with the consequences of these differences every day. >Not to say that the connection between the way someone >looks and how they are treated does not exist---it exists to a >disgustingly large extent. But for me, I think that realising a person >has dark skin rather than saying they are black is part of the solution to >some problems between people. > You done this in your own life? How has it impacted your social circumstances? >So, it all comes down to basic >discrimination on looks--which is pretty damned uncool. : )> Yep'er. donna ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 13:56:37 +1000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU At 12:57 PM 8/4/98 -0700, Jessie wrote: >I assume someone thought this book was feminist, since it was nominated, and >I'd like to hear why. (I'd also note that I thought it was an interesting book >in and of itself, although I had a lot of trouble with the sectioning: it was >clear to me that the book was written in parts, and that really threw me off.) Since I nominated the book (and didnt expect it to be supported, actually:) I suppose I should answer. For me, the book's power and its "feminism" lies not in what is "Present" - but in what is "Absent". This I find in nearly all of Rusch's work - I often use the word *bizarre* or *disturbing* in describing her works, because there is often an 'Absence' of any discussion, or characters, or conflict situations or events, which deal with an issue, but the issue is presented, and often strongly - as sub-text, or "off-stage" from the narrative, so to speak. The abuse of the children in _Alien Influences_ is presented 'off-stage', and is peripheral, hidden, almost *invisible* - as much of women's lives and experiences are 'invisible'. As much of the lives of people of non-white races and cultures are also 'invisible'. And presenting children, as a group, in this 'invisible' part of the culture, highlights this - children should be "seen and not heard". But as readers we do hear them, as sub-text, like a distant cry in the background - not loudly, nor slamming us from every page of the book - but just enough to make some readers ask "Why did no-one ask why the children wanted to grow up so desperately?" Many readers, like many adults, do not "hear" these invisible cries of the children, or examine them. In the book, as in life - they fly by briefly on the pages and we do not "hear" them. Those characters who do try, are also 'silenced' one way or another in the book, or try to do the 'right thing' the 'wrong way'. The care and nurture of the young, often seen as part of the feminine sphere of *influence*, is "Absent" - it is also Absent in many *feminist* novels - it is 'off-stage', if present at all. Even the title of the book, holds a hidden clue to this theme - the children's aberrant behaviour was often considered by the adults to be a result of the "Alien Influence" - not a result of the lack of "influence" their human parents and other adults in positions of power, showed not just before the murders, but afterwards as well. The children were *punished* for most of their lives, by being separated from each other, by being 'shunned' *for their own good*.... and for the "good of the community" lest they be a 'bad influence' on the community. In other words, they were given 'life-sentences' by being treated as children for the rest of their lives. Much as women make up the majority of patients in psychiatric hospitals, and are effectively silenced and forced into a child-like dependency on an "adult community". Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 14:25:37 +1000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU At 11:41 PM 8/4/98 -0400, you wrote: >Mark said: >>In a larger issue, I'm questioning what one means when they say "black". >>Take two people--both have one "black" parent and one "white" parent. ONe >>of these people is quite light...the other is quite dark. So, we call one >>"white" and one "black". This is the kind of thing that makes me raise my >>eyebrows. I personally have some cherokee in my blood (from quite a while >>ago)...so what would I be. Well, I'm probably called "white" because of >>the way I look.> > >Why a raised eyebrow? There are two issues: what one calls one self and >what one gets called by others. They can be different. One example of this occurred in Australia during the 1960's - 1980's. The native Australian Aboriginal population were not counted in national population censuses until after they were granted "citizenship" in 1967. However - the national census statistics always showed a very small number of Aboriginal peoples until the 1981 and 1986 censuses when the population numbers appeared to quadruple. When this huge change in numbers was investigated, it was found that for many years Aboriginal people had been identifying themselves on censuses as Indian, Pakistani, Fijian, Pacific Islander, white, anything other than Aboriginal. With the rise in Aboriginal pride throughout the 1970's - many more Aboriginal people took pride in their ancestry. In other words, they "came out of the closet". I myself am from an incredibly mixed ancestry - my father was French-Canadian, his mother was southern-Italian, and his grandmother was full-blood Amerindian.(Algonquin tribe if anyone is interested) My mother was English-born, but her father was a Spanish sailor. This has left me with a skin-colour which tans very darkly in summer. I also grew up in an isolated rural area around Aboriginal Reserves, (like Amerindian Reservations) - my colouring and accent, and playing with the Aboriginal children, often led me to be mistaken for Aboriginal. My father's accent however, would often have him mistaken for being American, rather than Canadian - and yet when I moved to the city to live, I lived in an urban area mostly populated by Greeks and was often mistaken for a Greek, by other Greeks:)). I gave my first child a popular Jewish name, and often at children's playgroups and parties, Jewish mothers would assume I was Jewish as well and start chatting away to me in Hebrew:) I've never been sure what to identify myself as - Any suggestions? probably why I like science-fiction and all that identification as being 'Terran'.. Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 08:45:23 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Sharon Anderson wrote: > O....kay! I've been chomping at the bit, waiting for the date for this one. > > Is it feminist? > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a > person of color. A white male. > The minor protagonist is male. > The villain is female. The burden of this arguemnt is that for a book to be feminist there has to be a female protagonist and a male villain. Is this _really_ what people think on this list? Isn't this _incredibly_ limiting for an author? Edward James ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 08:50:28 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: [*FSFFU*] ALIEN INFLUENCES To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I loved this book. I just got it yesterday and I read it all by midnight. It is not particularly feminist, but IMHO it makes a step in that direction. It has quite a few well-defined female characters, even though they all turn out to be either weak or evil. But I enjoyed the book nevertheless. At the beginning, it reminded me of Ross MacDonald's detective novels, which I liked a lot when I was a teenager. Plus, the storyline itself was absolutely fascinating. To tell the truth, I kind of expected those originally dead kids turn out to be forgotten in the freezer of the morgue and came back to life by the end. That would probably be too Hollywood, but I thought that would be nice, after all they went through. I liked the book because it was so sober, and realistic, and life-like. The children desperately trying to save their lives. Adults freaking out and acting like complete morons about it. The good old fairy tale that "people should accept you for what you are" exposed as the idealistic crap it has always been. One of the best parts, IMHO, was that those aliens turned out to be just as selfish and manipulative as humans, instead of the innocent creatures "living in peace with nature" present in most sf books. A lot of sf writers seem to think that if people never bothered to invent a wheel, it somehow makes them kinder, wiser, and morally superior to the cultures with technology. I was glad Rusch did not fall for that. I found the structure of the plot interesting, too. It seems to be made out of a number of short stories, each of which could exist by itself and be quite ordinary. But combined together, they form a complex storyline that takes a surprising turn every time you start thinking it's all over and trying to figure out what could be in the remaining dozens of pages. This book could definitely use at least one strong positive female character. However, the author at least avoided the traditional model where all women are either mothers or sex objects. I'd rather have them be evil or victims, but holding offices and making decisions. Besides, the male characters except John were not any better, so the book, IMHO, was fair to both genders. And John seems easy to identify with (at least to me), even though he's a guy. My favorite character of all was bodeangenie. I think it was the only one with a bit of sense in its head. In general, the main reason I liked the Alien Influences, I think that it was very honest and realistic in depicting the human nature, or to be more exact, the nature of sentient species. For what it is. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 09:32:08 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: another question about Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > What is the author's aim in portraying all things human (particularly human > agencies and institutions) not "influenced by aliens" so negatively? Is it an > intentional commentary on humanity in reality or this constructed future, or > just an aggregate of plot-movers? I don't think it was negative. It was just like in real life. It was actually a lot nicer than in real life, at least in my experience. If she meant it as a commentary on humanity, it was a pretty damn truthful one. IMHO, Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 10:32:44 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: [*FSFFU*] Let's stay on-topic please (more or less BDG related) To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I'm going to play list police here, before this goes too far. By all means let's discuss things like race and culture, but keep them tied to the book under discussion (Alien Influences) or some other aspect of SF or fantasy. That shouldn't be *too* hard to do. As a self-identified "white" person, I believe I bear responsibility for educating myself and promoting awareness of issues of social injustice, such as race etc. I'm always look for constructive ways to do this. Let's talk about the culture(s) portrayed in Alien Influences and how they might be used to foster this discussion. How would you compare the "dominant" culture in AI to the "dominant" e.g. western or US-based culture today? What specific examples can you cite from the book to support this? How might some of the "alien" cultures, or the colonial cultures such as Bountiful, be used to illustrate other race or class-based cultures today? Again, use examples from the book. Jennifer jkrauel@actioneer.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 17:51:19 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Sharon Anderson wrote: > O....kay! I've been chomping at the bit, waiting for the date for this one. > > Is it feminist? > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a > person of color. A white male. > The minor protagonist is male. > The villain is female. and Edward James responded >The burden of this arguemnt is that for a book to be feminist there has to >be a female protagonist and a male villain. Is this _really_ what people >think on this list? Isn't this _incredibly_ limiting for an author? No more limiting, when you think about it, than buying in to an old old set of stereotypes, such as male hero vs evil female villain. It's a while since I read AI (I think I lent my copy to someone) and can't really recall much about it, except that I didn't much like it. But I certainly wouldn't have thought of it as a particularly 'feminist' work, possibly because it didn't really think through (as I think someone already pointed out) the way certain narrative positions of hero/victim/villain etc were gendered. It's not enough to have 'strong women' as characters (which is, of course, something different from 'strong women characters), or women in positions of power normally gendered male: it's what you do with them. As I may have mentioned before, writing women characters as dominatrix amazons/machiavellian manipulators instead of insipid/persecuted virgins is still buying into the old binary distinctions. Lesley Lesley_Hall@classic.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 17:09:29 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Tue, 4 Aug 1998, Joyce Jones wrote: > I hated the idea that everyone involved with the prison system was so > stupid. They had everything to learn from letting the kids interact. I > can't believe a system capable of intergalactic diplomacy could just throw > away the opportunity. IMHO, they were not stupid. They were just scared out of their wits. Which seems to be a common thing with authorities, and not only them. For example, the real-life reaction of adults towards the children who went on a shooting spree in US during the past year has not been much different. With all the present-day enlightenment about the child psychology, the main response to those events seems to be the increased severity of legal actions against weapons in high schools, and the demands to try the children as adults (which in best case will put them away for life). As a result of the policy of "zero tolerance", kids get kicked out of schools for having an inch-long knife in their lockers. No one seems to wonder where those expelled teenagers will go. And why they felt like arming themselves when going to school at the first place. Apparently, most people seem to see children with any potential to violence as some evil, dangerous animals, and would try to put them away at any cost, rather than try to understand them. Just like in the book. To protect the society. Just imagine what would have happened if those elementary school shooters -- or some other kids -- would have been cutting out their friends' hearts and lungs instead. After hanging out, say, with immirgrants (for the lack of other kind of aliens around) for a while. In a place with some shady big-bucks chemical plant around... Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 23:08:10 -0800 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sharon Anderson Subject: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Edward James quoted the first part of what I had said: > Is it feminist? > Well, the protagonist is male. Not even, as far as I can tell, a > person of color. A white male. > The minor protagonist is male. > The villain is female. Then he asked: The burden of this arguemnt is that for a book to be feminist there has to be a female protagonist and a male villain. Is this _really_ what people think on this list? Isn't this _incredibly_ limiting for an author? My dear boy, if you are going to make this argument, don't forget the rest of what I said. You can't just arbitrarily use half of it. I also pointed out that: 1) the main female character is a victim, who is cruelly used, and commits one heroic act, then immediately commits suicide, because she sees no way out (what I failed to point out, but somebody else did it for me, is that this "heroic" act would result in someone losing a job/career. The person who commits the act knows this, and makes certain that another woman -- not a man, but a woman --gets the blame and loses the career) 2) of the minor female characters in the book: the security chief is a villain the lawyer is stupid, a dupe, and a villain because of this the anthropologist is blamed, goes to prison, loses her career, and is silenced Now. Where, O where is there one -- just ONE -- positive role model who is female? Someone those of us with XX chromosomes can aspire to? Someone we can say "I wanna be HER!" I am not talking about the spear carriers here. They were pretty evenly divided according to gender. So what? I am saying that once again, we have an action story where the boy gets all the glory, saves the genie, defeats the villain, and proves himself a man. The secondary male gets to work through his angst, prove himself virtuous in the end, and also, therefore a man. And the girl gets to kill herself in despair of ever being rescued. THIS is feminist? Ah-nold, your public awaits. Sharon L. Anderson ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:28:38 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Wed, 5 Aug 1998, Sharon Anderson wrote: > My dear boy, if you are going to make this argument, don't forget the rest > of what I said. My dear girl, I wasn't arguing about that particular book: which is a book that I did not much enjoy when I first read it, several years ago, and which I have not re-read. I was just asking a general question about what makes a book feminist or anti-feminist. DOES it require a female hero and a male villain, which was the implication of your original opening statement? And you haven't answered that question yet...! But your latest remarks imply that a feminist book HAS to have female characters that can serve as role models. Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy without describing any female role models? Edward James .............................................................................. Professor Edward James, Dept of History, Faculty of Letters and Social Sciences, University of Reading, Whiteknights, READING RG6 6AA, UK http://www.rdg.ac.uk/~lhsjamse/home.htm Editor, FOUNDATION: THE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW OF SCIENCE FICTION Director of Studies, MA in Science Fiction: Histories, Texts, Media .............................................................................. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 09:57:36 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU This topic keeps coming up, so perhaps there isn't a fast and hard definition. But it would seem a book ought to involve: women as persons, defined by their beings and actions, important to the plot and the resolution of the book; and some examination of the perceived historical imbalance of role/achievement/value between men and women societies have perpetuated. This does not have to be the plot, just a part of what happens. That's a bit fast and dirty. But I think we are sinking into a quicksand of semantics. best phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 09:52:19 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Edward James wrote: > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > without describing any female role models? I personally think it can, even though female role models could help. As I mentioned before, John was easy to identify with. He was more of a person than simply a guy. I guess one's perception of the book would depend a on how much one gets irritated with the abundance of female villains. If you see it as a mysogenistic pattern (as Sharon maybe does), you won't be able to enjoy the book. It's just a question of sensitivity to a certain issue, in my opinion. Which can be understandable. As for me, female villains in AI did not bother me remotely as much as the female "heroes" in Mists of Avalon did. In Alien Influences, they are simply humans, who are never perfect, and none of their imperfections has anything to do with their gender. What I mean is this: 1) The woman attorney lost the case because of the personal trauma. The same as the male psychologist messed up his mission at the colony because he had never gotten over his past mistakes. His and her cases were similar and there were little indication that her failure was caused by her gender. Therefore, I did not see it as directed against women in general, as it would be in a truly mysogenistic book. Besides, the second male psychologist who was supposed to defend the children together with Dania, failed just as miserably. Her weakness is shown as part of general human nature -- women professionals are not any worse than men, but not any better, either. Which is true. 2) The governor who's trying to capture John in the second half of the book is acting as a typical authority figure. Once again, nothing in her "evil" behavior shows its roots in her gender. She's a beaurocrat trying hard to catch a criminal to protect her position in the office, covering it up with the words of "protecting the community". That's what public officials do, regardless of gender. She even seems more professional than the first governor, twenty years earlier, who freaks out about the kids just because the scene of their meeting reminded him of his first kill on the job. 3) The trader, or whoever she was, that hired John to find the genie was a disturbed person who spend her life trying to prove that she could not be captured and used -- by capturing and using others. In a way, she was a strong person, even though a seriously messed up one. She was evil, but for a reason, which for a change, was not her unhappy personal life as it usually happens with female villains. Plus, she was not even presented to be a "slut" as Margause was in the Mists of Avalon, in order to prove her "evilness". I think that all the "negative" female characters in Alien Influences promote the idea of gender equality a lot more than the "positive" characters in books like the Mists. In the former case they are humans in imperfect world, just like men are. In the latter, they are some weird irrational creatures, ambivalent about everything from their sexuality to what is good and bad, with a nagging inferiority complex mixed with patronizing. There were some things in AI that I did not particularly like. For instance, there have been four girls among the eight children. The only one whose fate was traced directly was Beth -- the one who became a prostitute. It was not really clear to me why John did so well in prison and had such a good job after, while everyone else was in such misery. Especially Beth, who seemed to be the smartest and most responsible one. After all, it would not hurt to show the lives of others, including the one who at least owned a business, be it just a city landfill. Besides, I wonder why Beth had to become an interspecies hooker in the first place -- to tittilate male readers? I bet she could have made just as a good bounty hunter as John. However, I suspect that in that case, the book would become something very different. In my understanding, KKR followed certain conventions (including the irritating ones) on purpose, to express her main point without spreading out on other issues. The way I feel, it's an adult-bashing book rather than anything else (and I wish there were more of those!). The whole point is the society's general indiffirence towards and the fear of the children and their "mysterious" behaivior. The society consisting of both men and women, having equal status and being equally responsible for the state of things. Which in my opinion makes Alien Influences -- with all its negative female chartacters -- a lot more feminist that the Mists of Avalon was. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 10:57:52 -0400 Reply-To: ligeia@concentric.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Organization: Sanity Assassins, Inc. Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Edward James said: > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > without describing any female role models? > > Edward James In all due respect, I don't see how. Lilith -- I dare you -- to be real; To touch -- to touch the flickering flame.... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 09:59:52 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences/Definition of a feminist book To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Phoebe Wray wrote: > This topic keeps coming up, so perhaps there isn't a fast and hard definition. > But it would seem a book ought to involve: women as persons, defined by their > beings and actions, important to the plot and the resolution of the book; and > some examination of the perceived historical imbalance of > role/achievement/value between men and women societies have perpetuated. This > does not have to be the plot, just a part of what happens. IMHO, presentation of an environment where goodness/badness of the person is not tied to gender differences can be added to this definition. After all, feminism means different things for different people. And for each one, there would be several different kinds of books seen as feminist. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 08:16:59 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joyce Jones Subject: [*FSFFU*] Treatment of child cirminals To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Marina writes: "Just imagine what would have happened if those elementary school shooters -- or some other kids -- would have been cutting out their friends' hearts and lungs instead. After hanging out, say, with immirgrants (for the lack of other kind of aliens around) for a while. In a place with some shady big-bucks chemical plant around..." We would have them in such intensive psychotherapy an entire new methodology of treatment could develop just from their case. They would never be left alone, they'd have the most famous lawyers jockeying to defend them, they'd be giving TV interviews and writing books and probably their lawyers would find a way for them to make millions. There'd be an instant movie of the week on TV then a bigger budget theatrical release, Johnny Depp would be involved somehow. Or at least that's how I see it. Joyce ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 09:23:38 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jo Ann Rangel Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the >abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy >without describing any female role models? This thought intrigued me yes. If we go with this thought, and take it to its natural conclusion, then I would have to see that this possibility would lean toward a Utopian view of the universe yes? Where (am speaking abstractly here so if it totally does not make sense it isnt you it is my writing this down as I think that is the trouble hehe) just as say a world created in a novel shows a universe where several varieties of one sex are existing in their immediate universe, so a philosophical view demonstrated in an untraditional way, ie having feminism without females involved, is indeed possible...now to the other side of this thought. The philosophy was in place to be a part of a certain group of people in taking such steps within their own world to make their world more Utopian, as in the group called women. Take away the group the philosophy was created for/from, and is it still a feminist POV? The problem may get into definitions and semantics, one person seeing a philosophy as feminist may be another view as utopian... And I was unable to get a copy of this book we are discussing now in time to jump in, so my question is was it chosen for nomination on its feminist nature or its utopian nature? The two categories seem to cross paths at various intervals, not to mention that the name of Laura Q's bibliography list website has feminist and utopia in the same title... And now am going to melt back into the shadow and observe the discussion from my perch 8) Jo Ann ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 11:54:30 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Michael Marc Levy Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Treatment of child cirminals To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Joyce Jones wrote: > Marina writes: > > "Just imagine what would have happened if those elementary school > shooters -- or some other kids -- would have been cutting out their friends' > hearts and lungs instead. After hanging out, say, with immirgrants (for > the lack of other kind of aliens around) for a while. In a place with > some shady big-bucks chemical plant around..." > > We would have them in such intensive psychotherapy an entire new methodology > of treatment could develop just from their case. They would never be left > alone, they'd have the most famous lawyers jockeying to defend them, they'd > be giving TV interviews and writing books and probably their lawyers would > find a way for them to make millions. There'd be an instant movie of the > week on TV then a bigger budget theatrical release, Johnny Depp would be > involved somehow. Or at least that's how I see it. > Joyce Actually such children and adults do exist in small numbers and, after high publicity trials and headline news stories that satiate the public lust for the gross and disgusting, we tend to stick them in institutions where they're warehoused on a permanent basis. Nothing much is done in the way of therapy because we don't have any form of therapy that works on such people to any real extent and, even if we did, no one could afford to pay for it. Sad but true, they're just too badly damaged to fix at a price society is willing to pay (or often at any price). This is the current situation for, say, the kids convicted of vampirism who were all over the TV networks last year, as it was for Jeffrey Dahmer or Ed Geen, to cite Wisconsin's own home grown monsters. My wife is employed at an intitution which deals with the more mild cases of this sort. Children who have been abused, kept in closets, etc. Most have criminal records involving rape, prostitution, etc. Many are schizophrenic or have fetal alcohol syndrome. There are a few junior league murderers. Her institution has one of the best "recovery" rates in the country and yet most of the kids she deals with will be back in institutions within a few years, and a significant number will never get out of institutions. Basically we as a society are just a lot better at damaging children than at fixing them. Mike Levy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 18:06:49 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Edward James Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences Comments: To: Lilith To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Lilith wrote: > Edward James said: > > > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > > without describing any female role models? > > > In all due respect, I don't see how. > > Lilith I am reminded somewhat of Brian Aldiss, who once said that it was impossible to write a science fiction book that didn't involve human beings. "Who would want to read a book about intelligent molluscs?" he said. And, of course, John Brunner went off and wrote _The Crucible of Time_, a very fine sf novel, about intelligent molluscs. My point: in science fiction _everything_ _ought_ to be possible... Edward J. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 10:10:29 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >The burden of this arguemnt is that for a book to be feminist there has to >be a female protagonist and a male villain. Is this _really_ what people >think on this list? Isn't this _incredibly_ limiting for an author? I would say that *in the absence of anything specifically addressing feminist issues* a book must at least break away from traditional male/female roles enough to make the reader think a little bit. Otherwise, what is feminist about the book? As others have noted (don't have the names offhand) one can read Alien Influences from a feminist perspective, make analogies between the invisible lives of the children and the invisible lives of women; but I would say that unless the book makes some of those analogies for you, it wouldn't be feminist. I know that many people would draw the line elsewhere, so this is just my take on it. (I know feminists who would say that child abuse *is* a feminist issue and so nothing else is needed, for instance. From that perspective, this is a feminist book.) So although there are women in power in AI, they seemed to me to occupy exactly the roles of men. What I mean by this is that I believe that feminism's total success would entail many, many changes to current power structures and hierarchies, in the legal system, in the ways in which business entities relate to each other, etc etc etc, and I didn't see any of those changes. No one seemed to have children or families; academia was just as cut-throat and isolating as many people find it now; one-upmanship was the order of the day; and so on. This is also in part what I meant when I talked about "neutral" cultures -- it wasn't hard to read this culture as neutral, but when I thought about it, it seemed to be very American. I forgot to bring the book with me today, but consider for instance the scene in the first section where Justin is looking at the houses, square blocks in neat years with white picket fences and roses and tulips or something -- he thinks that the colonials are trying very hard to make it look like Earth, but in fact this is traditional American suburban tract housing. That really jumped out at me when I read it. Also almost everyone seemed to have traditional American names; the people who don't are all outsiders in some way (I'm thinking of Latona Etanl). jessie ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 18:10:01 UT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lesley Hall Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the abstract, with no >particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy without describing >any female role models? Dear Edward Yes, of course (this is a kind of question for which there was that special preposition in Latin which I have forgotten, for questions expecting the answer yes, isn't it?). It's possible to write about men/furry androgynous aliens/whatever in such a way as to critique existing conventions of gender (someone I think already cited the first 3 (??) sections of Suzy McKee Charnas's 'A Walk to the End of the World'). In my own field of history, several feminist scholars (me included) have moved from focussing simply on the history of women to looking at the construction of masculinity and how gender is enacted within social institutions. Further to my earlier comments on the gendering of narrative positions: there is a long literary tradition of women in fictional texts who have power and agency being positioned as villains (or at least, not the heroine) - unless they're deploying their agency on behalf of others. It makes me uncomfortable when this tradition continues to be unthinkingly used by 1990s women writers. Lesley ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:14:07 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Barbara R. Hume" Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: another question about Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU In a message dated 98-08-03 14:15:44 EDT, you write: << After reading Alien Influences I glanced at an online critique that said something about Rusch "writing too fast." Perhaps the repetition is an example of writing too fast, not going back and cutting out extraneous stuff? >> Kris said that the reason Pocket Books hires to her write Star Trek novels is that they need someone who can "crank out a book in six weeks" and that if the book comes up short she can just "stick in another try-fail cycle." To me, that's just creating a product for the purpose of cash flow, not writing a story from the heart. But the fact is that publishers know that some names, such as hers, sell books, and with that as a given, they see no need for editing a book or working with the writer to create a quality book. It will make money for the publisher, so who cares if it's any good? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 15:36:34 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Hmmmmm, >> Edward James said: >> > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the >> > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy >> > without describing any female role models? Lilith said: >> In all due respect, I don't see how.>> Edward replied: >I am reminded somewhat of Brian Aldiss, who once said that it was >impossible to write a science fiction book that didn't involve human >beings. "Who would want to read a book about intelligent molluscs?" he >said. And, of course, John Brunner went off and wrote _The Crucible of >Time_, a very fine sf novel, about intelligent molluscs. My point: in >science fiction _everything_ _ought_ to be possible... No one here would disagree Edward, however, on a list given to discussion of feminist SF/F, it is valid to ask "Where is the meat?" Constructed paradigm though it may be, that is the one this audience/list has chosen to exercise. Besides, aren't you really saying, "Okay, fine. The writers will write feminist world's, but doggone do they still have to have women in the stories?" Unless or until you provide examples of feminist SF books with no female characters of note, then it is also valid for Lilith to suggest that it does not appear to be possible. I would also suggest that someone stating that this question is limiting is analogous to the strategies of 'how to suppress women's writing'. It is saying that asking for what we want to see as female readers is "limiting"? Much like writing about female experience has always been seen as marginal writing. (the other) donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 15:06:19 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Jessie Stickgold-Sarah wrote: > So although there are women in power in AI, they seemed to me to occupy > exactly the roles of men. What I mean by this is that I believe that > feminism's total success would entail many, many changes to current power > structures and hierarchies, in the legal system, in the ways in which business > entities relate to each other, etc etc etc, and I didn't see any of those > changes. No one seemed to have children or families; academia was just as > cut-throat and isolating as many people find it now; one-upmanship was the > order of the day; and so on. To me, it seems like the Marxist idea that once poor people get in power, they won't be greedy or oppressive. Reality of Soviet Union showed that human nature always stays the same, despite reversal of gender or class relationship. I don't see any reason why in feminist world, women will act differently from men. Honestly, I don't see why they should. The fact that AI shows the world the way it is, is in my opinion one of the book's strongest features. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 17:08:36 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joel VanLaven Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences Comments: To: Lilith To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Lilith wrote: > Edward James said: > > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > > without describing any female role models? > > > > Edward James > > In all due respect, I don't see how. I can certainly see how. A) A book about how to be a feminist man might not have any "close" female role models, only figures at a distance, perhaps something like in "Four ways to Forgiveness". B) A book with a different gender set-up might be feminist despite not having any women (or men?) In fact, is "Enemy Mine" feminist? It does not have any major female characters (right?) How about "Halfway Human" (with Tedla). If Tedla's story had been written without having a strong woman listening to it (perhaps a man?) would it have been feminist? C) How about a book that warns about the dangers of certain male things? Perhaps a dystopian book based on China with no Women at all and only Men with artifical reproduction. It seems like such a thing has been done. Similarly, "Frankenstien" comes to mind as possibly being a feminist warning about our trying to control reproduction. D) Obviously all sorts of transferrals are possible, even siwtching the positions of men and women. (as was attempted in one star Trek episode) E) I'm not sure where this falls but how about "... at the Goose and Hound ..." (I forget the title) by Karen Joy Fowler? There is a female main character but I don't exactly see her as a role model. How about (also by Karen Joy Fowler) "The view from Venus, a Case Study" (or something like that) I dodn't see any of the women in that story as particularly role-models. I'm sure that there are a number of other possibilities but these came to mind so I figured I'd put them out there. I suppose some of these stories might be arguably unable to exist in book length but they do point the way. -- Joel VanLaven ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 18:19:16 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I say again.... >> In all due respect, I don't see how.>> >I can certainly see how.> > >A) ,>B) >C) >D) >E) ..... >-- Joel VanLaven Feminist male SF "theorist" to feminist female readers/writers: "We love your ideas, but we still dont want _you_." I have seen this maneuver before time and again and frankly it s***ks. And no, I wont play nice on this one. donna again. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 18:35:47 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Allen Briggs Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > >> In all due respect, I don't see how.>> > >I can certainly see how.> > >A) ,>B) >C) >D) >E) ..... > >-- Joel VanLaven > Feminist male SF "theorist" to feminist female readers/writers: "We > love your ideas, but we still dont want _you_." I think I missed a step. Someone asked if it was possible to have a feminist text without X (I think X transmutated a couple of times, but basically without "woman" in some aspect). Joel (and others) answered affirmatively in what I thought was relatively objective terms. I didn't see any desire for it to be that way. Implied or otherwise. Perhaps my viewpoint is questionable because of my anatomy, but I thought that's what "we" were trying to escape. I didn't read AI, but I did get jumped a week or two ago for implying that there wasn't anything feminist about Gattaca because of the dearth (sp?) of female characterization (and presence) in the movie. Your statement that I quoted above is definitely offensive. I don't question that. I question whether or not that's really what we're seeing here. Pax, -allen -- Allen Briggs - briggs@ninthwonder.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 17:19:28 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jennifer Krauel Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Thank you, Jessie, for illustrating how to tie in discussions of such potentially inflammatory and tangent-generating subjects (e.g. what is feminism, race, culture) with the book discussion in a clear way. This is what I was requesting with my "stick to the topic" email. Great job! I can't believe the white picket fence image slipped by me, but you're absolutely right about that one. It's as if Rusch, generally rather subtle as someone else pointed out, meant to bludgeon us with this analogy. At 10:10 AM 08/06/98 -0700, you wrote: ... many lines gratuitously excised >>So although there are women in power in AI, they seemed to me to occupy >exactly the roles of men. What I mean by this is that I believe that >feminism's total success would entail many, many changes to current power >structures and hierarchies, in the legal system, in the ways in which business >entities relate to each other, etc etc etc, and I didn't see any of those >changes. No one seemed to have children or families; academia was just as >cut-throat and isolating as many people find it now; one-upmanship was the >order of the day; and so on. > >This is also in part what I meant when I talked about "neutral" cultures -- it >wasn't hard to read this culture as neutral, but when I thought about it, it >seemed to be very American. I forgot to bring the book with me today, but >consider for instance the scene in the first section where Justin is looking >at the houses, square blocks in neat years with white picket fences and roses >and tulips or something -- he thinks that the colonials are trying very hard >to make it look like Earth, but in fact this is traditional American suburban >tract housing. That really jumped out at me when I read it. Also almost >everyone seemed to have traditional American names; the people who don't are >all outsiders in some way (I'm thinking of Latona Etanl). > >jessie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 11:06:01 +1000 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Julieanne Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU At 03:06 PM 8/6/98 -0500, Marina wrote: Amongst other things - >The fact that AI shows the world the way it is, is in my opinion one of >the book's strongest features. I agree Marina - it is not a utopian feminist 'vision' - but a painting of reality. Just because most of the characters cannot or will not 'rise' above their oppression and become 'positive role-models' does not mean it is not feminist. The reality for women, (and people of colour, lower social-class etc) is that most of them cannot or will not be able to. I thought the idea, that only one of the eight children achieved anything, was also painting reality. Only three had their stories drawn in the novel - the rest fell off back-stage. That is reality for most people on this planet. Despite preferring utopian visions, and fantasies of strong, powerful women characters overcoming the odds etc, there are many depressing and tragic feminist dystopias as well in sci-fi/fantasy fiction - eg: Atwood's _Handmaid's Tale_ - which can be enjoyed as 'feminist' works. I think that Rusch has painted yet a different style - a vision of today's reality extrapolated into the future - where women do gain 'equality' eventually - but on men's terms, and in accordance with patriarchal and capitalist value-systems of seeing children as 'property' and 'dispensable'. Instead of women as a class being the victims, it is the children who are the victims in such a vision. As a reader, I like fantasies and fun too, I like to read about women characters who are strong and powerful - but I acknowledge, that this is not possible in real-life. I have known a number of mainstream women readers who have told me, they don't like 'feminist' fiction because it reminds them too much of their own failures, by presenting impossibly strong, powerful female characters. I believe it was Joanna Russ in the _Female Man_ (correct me, if I'm wrong?) who describes in one section that has always amused me - something along the lines of "Somewhere on this planet, is a woman with 5 wonderful kids, a brilliant medical career, a gorgeous husband or lovers or something, and she drives a Porsche (or something like that). And I want to shoot the bitch!" :))) This also may explain, at least in part, why many women prefer writers such as MZB or Anne McCaffrey. Also, several who were mothers indicated that too many feminist visions exclude children altogether, and/or paint mothers caring for infants and children, as somehow less worthy an occupation to be focussed on, sometimes it's a *duty*, sometimes shared with men, or even left to men while women run the world - but it is rarely presented as a delightful/fun/powerful/joyous/positive way for women to spend a large chunk of their lives. For mothers who do see children as a huge positive influence in their own lives, What is there for them to identify with, in feminist visions of worlds without children? Thus, the Super-Woman Amazon Images presented in feminist fiction also have a down-side for many women. Julieanne ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 23:23:27 -0400 Reply-To: ligeia@concentric.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Lilith Organization: Sanity Assassins, Inc. Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Hmm. When I sent off my post, it was very late, so I couldn't come up with the reasons I was vaguely dissatisfied with the statement: > > Edward James said: > > > > Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > > > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > > > without describing any female role models? All I could think of at the time was to say: > > In all due respect, I don't see how. I'll get more in depth in a moment but first:Joel VanLaven wrote: > I can certainly see how. > > A) A book about how to be a feminist man might not have any "close" female > role models, only figures at a distance, perhaps something like in > "Four ways to Forgiveness". Actually, didn't at least one of the stories in "Four Ways" have a female protagonist, who rose from a lifetime of servitude as a slave to that of a revolutionary, and then to (I believe -- it has been a long time since I have read it) a life of either a worker or an intellectual or something....whatever, I remember that was not exactly a "figure at a distance." > B) A book with a different gender set-up might be feminist despite not > having any women (or men?) In fact, is "Enemy Mine" feminist? It does > not have any major female characters (right?) > How about "Halfway Human" (with Tedla). If Tedla's story had been > written without having a strong woman listening to it (perhaps a man?) > would it have been feminist? All I know of "Enemy mine" is the movie -- I haven't read the book, so I can't say. But if it has no major female characters, then I don't see how it could be described as "feminist" -- maybe "humanist", or something like that. I still haven't read "Halfway Human" so I can't really comment on it. > C) How about a book that warns about the dangers of certain male things? > Perhaps a dystopian book based on China with no Women at all and only > Men with artifical reproduction. It seems like such a thing has been > done. What "male things" would these be? Wouldn't the missing women still be there, as subtext? (What they have "lost." Or got "rid of.") This would not exactly be having female role models, but it seems to me that such a work would be more for the "men's movement" crowd -- there wouldn't seem to be anything there for any woman looking for feminist fiction, but maybe for someone looking for anti-man fiction. (To be "anti-man" is not necessarily to be "feminist.") > Similarly, "Frankenstien" comes to mind as possibly being a > feminist warning about our trying to control reproduction. I think that we characterise this work as "feminist" because a woman wrote it, even though there aren't any strong female roles in the book -- I don't think of it as a feminist work in itself, but I do consider it an example of how women could write strong _stories_ with serious themes, not the insipid pablum they were always accused of penning right up into this century. (Norman Mailer's ideas on the subject, such as I was not able to avoid, come to mind, as well as more recent articles in some magazine, but I forget which one.) > D) Obviously all sorts of transferrals are possible, even siwtching the > positions of men and women. (as was attempted in one star Trek episode) "Star Trek" did occasionally try, in its own feeble way, to make a stab at lauding feminist thought. But I also remember for every episode showing a woman lawyer or officer other person of prominence, there were three showing women as scantily-clad sex objects, frail victims of alien monsters, or playboy-bunny types lusting after the Captain -- and the episode involving gender-switching was based around a character who could not accept her "femine limits" (her gender barred her from attaining the position of captain -- which shows just how impossible people in 1968-69 thought it that women could be qualified to be in positions of authority! They couldn't even make captain's rank 300 years in the future!) I haven't read any of the stories by Karen Joy Fowler, so I can't comment on them. But to get to the idea that feminist books could lack "female role models" -- I think the problem with this is the whole idea of "role models" themselves. To some people it is enough that a woman be shown in a position that was formerly occupied by males to be thought of as a feminist role model. One question: was Margaret Thatcher a feminist role model? (Okay, no fair -- she was real, not fiction.) But if all the female characters in a book are unsympathetic or peripheral or victims, and _most_ but _not_ all the male characters are unsympathetic or peripheral (or victims), and most importantly the hero of the book is one of the symapthetic males....well, I am not sure where the "feminism" comes into it. (I don't mean this to say that the work in question is necessarily bad, or patriarchal.) Lilith -- I dare you -- to be real; To touch -- to touch the flickering flame.... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 02:03:09 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Demetria M. Shew" Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU In a message dated 8/6/98 10:38:30 AM Pacific Daylight Time, E.F.James@READING.AC.UK writes: << Can't a book (and here I am speaking totally in the > > abstract, with no particular books in mind) espouse a feminist philosophy > > without describing any female role models? > > >> I guess the problem I have with this is that I am old enough to remember when all the pronouns in novels were he/him. I was in my twenties before I found a story with a lot of she/her pronouns and an intelligent active female character. For me, part of feminist philosophy must be inclusion and I cannot see how I could feel included in a book with no female 'role models'. I don't know how to express how confining and bruising it was to have only strong male characters in stories. You could certainly have non-females espousing feminist philosophy to a degree, but I would not feel engaged in it anymore than I feel engaged when humanity is referred to as Man. Anymore, I think, than any man would feel wholly engaged if humanity was referred to as Woman. My 2 cents. Madrone ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 07:36:51 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Maryelizabeth Hart Subject: [*FSFFU*] Kris Rusch's writing speed To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 14:14:07 EDT >From: "Barbara R. Hume" >Subject: Re: BDG: another question about Alien Influences > >In a message dated 98-08-03 14:15:44 EDT, you write: > ><< After reading Alien Influences I glanced at > an online critique that said something about Rusch "writing too fast." >Perhaps the repetition is an example of writing too fast, not going back >and cutting out extraneous stuff? > >> > >Kris said that the reason Pocket Books hires to her write Star Trek novels is >that they need someone who can "crank out a book in six weeks" and that if the >book comes up short she can just "stick in another try-fail cycle." To me, >that's just creating a product for the purpose of cash flow, not writing a >story from the heart. But the fact is that publishers know that some names, >such as hers, sell books, and with that as a given, they see no need for >editing a book or working with the writer to create a quality book. It will >make money for the publisher, so who cares if it's any good? This seems to me to be an unfair generalization whereby the underlying idea seems to be that quantity cannot by its nature equal quality. Perhaps I am misreading this. But in my experience, the logic is flawed for two reasons. First, just because Kris (and husband Dean) have a pragmatic approach to writing which allows them to go through the mechanics quickly doesn't mean that they are any less artists than someone who takes years and years to produce a work. And she still wants to take pride in work which appears with her name on it. And Star Trek books, by their very nature, are not likely to sell more copies just because a certain writer's name is on them, with the possible exception of Peter David or Judy and Gar Reeves-Stevens. My $.02. Maryelizabeth Mysterious Galaxy 619-268-4747 3904 Convoy St, #107 800-811-4747 San Diego, CA 92111 619-268-4775 FAX http://www.mystgalaxy.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 11:19:47 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joel VanLaven Subject: [*FSFFU*] [*FSFFSU*] BDG: Alien Influences (non-female feminist books) Comments: To: Lilith To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU A) I love books with female main characters (most feministst sf falls in this category). Even non-feminist books. I find that I can and do identify with the main character even when female. I go out of my way to read such books. I want these books, much as Donna and whatever group of women she refers to want them. B) It is easy to say "I am feminist so the books I like and want to read are feminist books. All others are not." However, there are more kinds of feminists than just me and my kind. Even among female feminists there is a lot of variation in philosophy and even more so (I assume) in taste in books. Taking all those people into consideration will definitely include books that I don't like, that don't meet the needs feminism meets for me. For instance, "The Fifth Sacred Thing" was so alien to me in its new-age mystism that I was unable to read much of it. It in no ways meets my needs in a book of logical coherence, pragmatism, and clarity. So I got nothing out of it, nothing at all. Does that mean it is not feminist? No. Similarly I posit (based on posts here :) the existence of people who need a female role model in the books they read. These people might not get anything out of a feminist book without female role models (or may simply assign the female gender to non-gendered role-models). (I define role-model here as someone with which to identify) C) The reality of books and the human experience is so vast that practically anything is possible. I am a logican, I have a mathematical bent for precision where possible. I am also acutely interested in the possibilities. So, I naturally point toward definitions and constraints that are as acurately inclusive as possible. Just about all fire-fighters are still men. I have never met a female fire-fighter. Shall we define Fire-fighter as Fire-Man again? I think not. Fire-Fighter is a much more acurate description of the concept and possibilities. D) It is fine to define a hueristic non-definition that describes how to spot a feminist book on the order of "If it has non-traditional strong female role-models it is most likely feminist, and if it doesn't it probably isn't" In fact, I agree with that statement. However, "almost all" is NOT all. E) I have a feeling that many people on this list feel that I am not a feminist, that I cannot be a feminist. However eloquently, forcefully, persistently, and so on I argue for my inclusion I am male. In fact, the more I agrue the more I am being male and patriarchical, monopolizing the discussion at the expense of the women here and the more offensive I am. Primarily for this reason I have been silent. I understand and agree with many of these agruments. And yet, feminism is one of my most fundamental beliefs. I am in many ways feminist before anything else. I cannot help but feeling pained at the my exlucsion and dismissal by the group I most identify with, respect, and desire to be part of. I have been feminist for nearly as long as I can remember. I feel to a large extent that I am an outsider, an other among feminists and non-feminists alike. My male and female friends and my colleagues alike all have to handle a feminist man. I have been excluded from groups for my male-ness and for my feminism. I have had run-ins with my boss over feminist issues. I don't claim to know what it is like to be a woman in out patriarchal society. I am sure that I have had my share of male priveledge. However, I do feel that I have some idea, some notion of what it is to be an outsider, even what it is to be an outsider solely based on something as silly as what kind of genitalia I have. Now, on to better explain myself (Sorry about the bullets but I have a hard time with traditional written structure and have found that I can use bullets as an organizational crutch to pare down my inter-connected thoughts down to a manageable sizes.) On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Lilith wrote: (by the way, thank you for honestly engaging my comments. I should have pointed out in my first post that I assumed no ill feeling on your part and was (and am) not responding in anger but in an assumption, anticipation, and appreciation of honest, meaningful discourse) > Actually, didn't at least one of the stories in "Four Ways" have a female > protagonist, who rose from a lifetime of servitude as a slave to that of a > revolutionary, and then to (I believe -- it has been a long time since I > have read it) a life of either a worker or an intellectual or > something....whatever, I remember that was not exactly a "figure at a > distance." Yes, one did. (and I remember two others as having strong female characters as well) In fact, I am only talking about the last? story in the book that focuses on the the male feminist. Sorry for the confusion. > All I know of "Enemy mine" is the movie -- I haven't read the book, so I can't > say. But if it has no major female characters, then I don't see how it could be > described as "feminist" -- maybe "humanist", or something like that. > > I still haven't read "Halfway Human" so I can't really comment on it. What about "Left hand of Darkness"? There were no female role-models in that book right? I thought it was generally considered to be feminist (though I know of the debate there) Anyway, it deals with non-gendered characters. > What "male things" would these be? Wouldn't the missing women still be > there, as subtext? (What they have "lost." Or got "rid of.") This would > not exactly be having female role models, but it seems to me that such a > work would be more for the "men's movement" crowd -- there wouldn't seem > to be anything there for any woman looking for feminist fiction, but > maybe for someone looking for anti-man fiction. (To be "anti-man" is not > necessarily to be "feminist.") Of course there would be a subtext about women. That is the point. It is possible to have a subtext without any actual female role-models. > > Similarly, "Frankenstien" comes to mind as possibly being a > > feminist warning about our trying to control reproduction. > > I think that we characterise this work as "feminist" because a woman wrote > it, even though there aren't any strong female roles in the book -- I > don't think of it as a feminist work in itself, but I do consider it an > example of how women could write strong _stories_ with serious themes, > not the insipid pablum they were always accused of penning right up into > this century. (Norman Mailer's ideas on the subject, such as I was not > able to avoid, come to mind, as well as more recent articles in some > magazine, but I forget which one.) Fair enough, though I have heard this feminist interpretation of Frankenstien so often that I assume it has some truth and general acceptance (i.e. the men shouldn't take over reproduction) > > D) Obviously all sorts of transferrals are possible, even siwtching the > > positions of men and women. (as was attempted in one star Trek episode) > > "Star Trek" did occasionally try, in its own feeble way, to make a stab at > lauding feminist thought. But I also remember for every episode showing a > woman lawyer or officer other person of prominence, there were three > showing women as scantily-clad sex objects, frail victims of alien > monsters, or playboy-bunny types lusting after the Captain -- and the > episode involving gender-switching was based around a character who > could not accept her "femine limits" (her gender barred her from > attaining the position of captain -- which shows just how impossible > people in 1968-69 thought it that women could be qualified to be in > positions of authority! They couldn't even make captain's rank 300 years > in the future!) Of course. I am referring to an attempt in STNG (one of the early episodes) In which the crew goes to a planet with larger, stronger, master women and smaller, servile, secondary men. The idea was to make the whole thing seem ridiculous and arbitary (and the women weren't portrayed as role-models in my mind) Sort of like that recent movie that switched "black" and "white". > But to get to the idea that feminist books could lack "female role models" > -- I think the problem with this is the whole idea of "role models" > themselves. To some people it is enough that a woman be shown in a > position that was formerly occupied by males to be thought of as a > feminist role model. One question: was Margaret Thatcher a feminist role > model? (Okay, no fair -- she was real, not fiction.) But if all the > female characters in a book are unsympathetic or peripheral or victims, > and _most_ but _not_ all the male characters are unsympathetic or > peripheral (or victims), and most importantly the hero of the book is > one of the symapthetic males....well, I am not sure where the "feminism" > comes into it. (I don't mean this to say that the work in question is > necessarily bad, or patriarchal.) Certainly. Negative portrayals of women and positive portrayals of men very well might disqualify a book from being feminist. I am not arguing for the feminism of this or that particular book, only trying to keep us (and you) from limiting ourselves. -- Joel VanLaven ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 12:15:59 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Joel VanLaven Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences (no female feminism) To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, donna simone wrote: > I say again.... > > >> In all due respect, I don't see how.>> > >I can certainly see how.> > > > >A) ,>B) >C) >D) >E) ..... > >-- Joel VanLaven > > Feminist male SF "theorist" to feminist female readers/writers: "We love > your ideas, but we still dont want _you_." Actually I was feeling and thinking more on the order of: One feminist SF "theorist"/reader to another feminist SF "theorist"/reader: I disagree with your idea, but want _you_. In fact, I saw this as a challenge. I felt like I was being told it is fine and well to theorize, give me some examples, something to ponder so that I might reconsider. I felt like I was trying to answer a question, help another in their quest for expansion. (just as many here have helped me) > I have seen this maneuver before time and again and frankly it s***ks. I am sure you have seen THAT maneuver but rest assured no such manuever was attempted, intended, or even considered. Perhaps the manuever that happened was a flop, a communication failure, but it was not a dismissal in any way. I am truly sorry if it seemed that way. -- Joel VanLaven ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 13:22:31 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Jessie Stickgold-Sarah Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU >To me, it seems like the Marxist idea that once poor people get in power, >they won't be greedy or oppressive. Reality of Soviet Union showed that >human nature always stays the same, despite reversal of gender or class >relationship. I didn't say "if women were in power it would be like this" -- I said that to me, feminism involved challenging power structures and hierarchies. Doesn't have to be natural to be better, or to be effective. It's probably not "natural" for people to get exactly one vote on subjects which matter to them, and accept the results if they lose, but in the US that's the way we behave. Sure, there are flaws in the system and people try to go around it all the time, but in general the population believes that you just have to live that way. We aren't better people. We've just been effectively taught that that is the Right Thing. (Please, don't point out the failings of the American democratic system. All I mean is that although it might be "natural" for the losers to kill the winners or force them out of power, it doesn't happen.) Similarly, I think that (for instance) the traditional American family structure is very isolating. I feel that people do a lot better in large, extended families, where relationships are more fluid and also more variable. (And my mother will tell you that every teenager should be sent to live with an aunt/uncle or close family friend from the age of 13 to when they leave for college. I'm pretty sure this isn't only about me.) As I've been thinking about this in relationship to AI it occurs to me that perhaps the portrayal of the world as wholly isolating and mean-spirited may be intentional, in support of the themes of abandonment and isolation of the children. This doesn't necessarily shout out "feminist" to me, but it makes it more interesting. jessie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Aug 1998 16:29:27 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Phoebe Wray Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences (no female feminism) To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU In a message dated 8/7/98 4:25:55 PM, sundry people wrote: <<> >> In all due respect, I don't see how.>> > >I can certainly see how.>>> Reminds me of something Philip Slater, the ecophilosopher wrote one time...commenting on what he thought of people living underground if we foul up the planet too much to live ON it... he said. "Well, yes, and I could learn to fart 'Annie Laurie' through a keyhole. But why would I WANT to." in the spirit of a light heart makes good company and good thinking.... phoebe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Aug 1998 01:24:29 -0500 Reply-To: Stacey Holbrook Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stacey Holbrook Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Wed, 5 Aug 1998, Sharon Anderson wrote: (snip) > 1) the main female character is a victim, who is cruelly used, and > commits one heroic act, then immediately commits suicide, because she sees > no way out Only in the most technical sense did she commit suicide. She and the others chose to give up their bodies in order to attain a different state of being. They all took the chance that the horrible existence that they were stuck with would be exchanged for a better one. Eventually, their gamble paid off. They ended up living in "heaven" on the Bodleangenie's planet. > (what I failed to point out, but somebody else did it for me, is > that this "heroic" act would result in someone losing a job/career. The > person who commits the act knows this, and makes certain that another woman > -- not a man, but a woman --gets the blame and loses the career) And it was this woman who was culpable in allowing the baby Minaran to be housed in the hotel. Does it really make a difference whether or not it was a man or a woman? There were plenty of male characters who didn't come out smelling like a rose. > 2) of the minor female characters in the book: > the security chief is a villain > the lawyer is stupid, a dupe, and a villain because of this I don't consider any of the characters true villains. They were all victims or perhaps survivors of the terrible events of the past. Which security chief are you talking about? I only recall male security chiefs. The lawyer wasn't stupid. She was a dupe, though. The odds were stacked against her from the very beginning. She was overwhelmed with the responsibility of defending these children that the government had an interest in making sure that they couldn't be defended. I certainly don't consider the lawyer a villain because she was trapped in a no win situation that wasn't of her choosing. > the anthropologist is blamed, goes to prison, loses her career, and > is silenced Yet another victim of the governmental cover up. > Now. Where, O where is there one -- just ONE -- positive role > model who is female? Someone those of us with XX chromosomes can aspire > to? Someone we can say "I wanna be HER!" IMHO there isn't a single person in the entire book that I would say "I wanna be her/him". I didn't read the book to find role models. I had hoped to find an interesting story with interesting characters and that is what I got. All of the characters were well drawn. They were flawed, they made mistakes and they suffered. Some of them managed to overcome their past (like when the judge who had once been the lawyer for the the children finally lifted the gag order on the anthropologist). Some of them took responsibility for their mistakes and tried to rectify them (like Schafer the psychologist who finally managed to help John and reveal the truth about why the murders were committed). None of the characters was left unscathed. > I am not talking about the spear carriers here. They were pretty > evenly divided according to gender. So what? I am saying that once again, > we have an action story where the boy gets all the glory, saves the genie, > defeats the villain, and proves himself a man. The secondary male gets to > work through his angst, prove himself virtuous in the end, and also, > therefore a man. And the girl gets to kill herself in despair of ever > being rescued. > THIS is feminist? If the above is everything about this book then no, it isn't feminist. But the book is much more. It is about child abuse, alienation, government cover ups, fear of the "other" or anything that is different, maintaining the status quo even if it damages children, the helplessness of the disenfranchised. It is about how the system crushes those who are least able to recover from the damage. An entire colony was allowed to abuse children for -generations- because the government was making too much money from the sale of Salt Juice to look too closely at where it was coming from. Turning a blind eye to the goings on in the colony leads to horrendous results and many damaged lives. I think this is one of the few science fiction books that deals with the theme of child abuse especially with such sensitivity. That makes the book feminist. The female characters are individuals and are crucial to the plot and not just window dressing or "tokens" make it feminist. That no one questioned that women were in positions of power (it was perfectly normal to have a female governor) or doubted that the women could do their jobs because they were the "weaker sex" make it feminist. Just MHO. > Sharon L. Anderson Stacey (ausar@netdoor.com) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1998 21:14:13 -0400 Reply-To: asaro@sff.net Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Catherine Asaro Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Character gender/feminism To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Mark Schebel wrote: > I guess what I'm trying to say is that if an author comes out and > distintcly says "this character is white/black/hispanic, whatever", I lose > a little bit of interest. I would rather the author describe the look of > the character, or not at all--let the reader decide. I understand your point. However, as someone from an obviously ethnic background, I very much appreciate characterization that makes no bones about a successful, admirable character being other than the standard. It has the same reaffirming qualities for me as does reading about strong female characters I can admire. Best regards Catherine Asaro http://www.sff.net/people/asaro/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 07:31:55 -0400 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: donna simone Subject: [*FSFFU*] Dont go yet.....on AI To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Yikes, 10 August and we are done already.....I was still wrestling vigorously with KKR's story. Here is a sketch of where I am at. Offered so that I dont feel like I bruised my brain for nuthin'. I see this book as a dystopia without question. It seemed to me that all the worst ills of our current world were extended to the future and intensified or expanded. The blindness and indifference to the suffering of children; the cold brutality of social institutions originally designed to benefit ordinary people; the ferocious unquenchable appetite for profits by megapolitic corporations; the insatiable craving for anesthetizing chemicals to interrupt the unremitting horror of daily life; etc. etc. The above made this book extremely difficult reading for me. There was no place to get a breather. I cannot decide how I feel about Rusch's writing in general. Though I can circle around some items that did not sit well: - the children were "alien influenced"......okay.....and it seemed to me that she was taking it even further. The entire community was "alien influenced" in the way that it ignored their "useless" children as the Dancers ignored their "useless" young. The hitch for me is that the Dancers did not violently torture their young. So the analogy fell apart. But then how to explain why no one but, or until, these children tried to escape the horrors by going to the Dancers? Or anyone for that matter. And, if every child desperately ached to leave the planet, and presumably some did (Anita), hence escaping the horrendous abuse, why did no one ever, over the life of this colony, TELL SOMEONE what was going on until the murders? And how could the outsiders who came to study the Dancers not have seen what was going on in regard to the addiction to Juice and the abuse, etc ,etc? And why _didn't_ the investigation ask the obvious question? This was the most contrived piece of all. The world's horror at the crimes implied that there still existed a belief in the innocence of children, but no one asked what made them do it? That omission alone made the book implausible to me. Too many convenient silences and inexplicable responses. - Into this unrelenting dystopia, we see the few almost noble folks (nobleness measured only by the amount of time they _think_ about the children, not by any actions they take) conveniently and at the same time, decide to go against a lifetimes of resolve that the children were dangerous AI killers. I am speaking of Justin and Dania. This in the midst of evidence that there were more murders? Why ask why now? After all but one of the children is dead? We are shown no cause for the shift in thinking within the created world. What? One bodean genie is able to change the myopic minds of an entire society in one trial after 20 odd years? - And lets talk about God's angel......I mean the genie. The bodean genies are omniscient, able to exist in any form and able to explain the inexplicable. Hmmm sounds familiar to me. Okay, fine. Christian paradigm. No problem. The genie says at the end he could have made the jury believe whatever story was told and had John freed. What???????? A Deus ex machine? So this whole story is for what? ...Johns object lesson in the nature of humanity? Certainly this would explain the extreme abuse suffered upon the other children. This was only Johns story. The other children were expendable characters. - And the biggest implausibility of all......John choosing not to join the others in "heaven". I am to believe that a man who: spent his first 10-12 yrs suffering unmentionable abuses, spent 6-8 years under brutally hard labor and complete isolation, spent another dozen or so yrs being despised, disbelieved and hunted by an entire society, observes/discovers that the only beings he cares about throughout his entire life all die in the deepest anguish after their own lives of horror, abuse and terror (again on the part of said society) and is finally only "saved" by the statements of an alien creature that reveals it had this power all along.......this man decides to stay and "be fully human"?????????? WTFO? Based on _what_ example of humanity was he choosing to stay, when what he was presented as the alternative, by his own admission, would feel like heaven? AND moreso, he chose against joining with the 7 other children that he was supposedly so attached to that each could not live without the others. That was the biggest rip-off of all. The central premise gets completely put aside at the end for no apparent reason. We are shown over 340+ pages everything about this "alien" loving bond between the children, so potent, empowering and seductive that they committed horrific murders together, this 'alien' bond that was not available to them with any other person, or in any other way, anywhere in the world, this 'alien' bond that _was_ re-attainable in their brilliant light of "death". This bond is rejected by the 'head child', who spent the entire story overwhelmed with guilt for the sufferings of the other children, who was driven by the deepest anguish to be together again, who lived in total inhuman isolation for years in a desperate hope to bond again? He rejects all of _this_ to go be "fully human" in a world utterly devoid of any humanity? I don't buy it. donna donnaneely@earthlink.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 09:24:44 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Stacey Holbrook Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Dont go yet.....on AI To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Tue, 11 Aug 1998, donna simone wrote: (snip) > - the children were "alien influenced"......okay.....and it seemed to me > that she was taking it even further. The entire community was "alien > influenced" in the way that it ignored their "useless" children as the > Dancers ignored their "useless" young. The hitch for me is that the > Dancers did not violently torture their young. So the analogy fell > apart. The children were "alien influenced" but not in the way that everyone wanted to believe. The "alien influence" was merely an excuse to cover up what really happened. The children killed their friends because of the -human- horror that they were trying to escape. > But then how to explain why no one but, or until, these children > tried to escape the horrors by going to the Dancers? Or anyone for that > matter. And, if every child desperately ached to leave the planet, and > presumably some did (Anita), hence escaping the horrendous abuse, why > did no one ever, over the life of this colony, TELL SOMEONE what was > going on until the murders? When a society is in denial, "telling someone" is unthinkable. Even today, with so many resources to protect abused children, it still happens. And many people -still- doubt that it happens to "good" families. Also, most of the people who managed to escape from the colony, including Anita, did so as adults. It was mentioned several times that Salt Juice only effected adults and not children. Perhaps many of these adults suffered the same kind of self centered brain damage as those that stayed behind. Maybe it never occurred to them to help the children left behind. (snip) > And how could the outsiders who came to study the Dancers not have seen > what was going on in regard to the addiction to Juice and the abuse, etc > ,etc? And why _didn't_ the investigation ask the obvious question? This > was the most contrived piece of all. When I was in my teens, I lived down the street from a nice family. They lived in a nice house and were nice people. Occasionally, I would smell alcohol on the breath of the stepfather at noon but he wasn't drunk or even tipsy. He treated his stepchildren very well but something about the situation made me uneasy. One day the mother came home early from work and found her husband in bed with her children. He had been sexually abusing them for months. Did I even suspect what was going on? No. I didn't even have a clue. Everything, on the surface, looked fine. No one in the entire neighborhood even suspected that the nice man next door was abusing his stepchildren. It doesn't seem the least implausible to me that no one would even wonder if something was going on. As for the investigators, they never really had the chance to ask the right questions before the children were shipped off. There was too much at stake for the government to allow a full investigation. > The world's horror at the crimes implied that there still existed a > belief in the innocence of children, but no one asked what made them do > it? That omission alone made the book implausible to me. Too many > convenient silences and inexplicable responses. It was mentioned several times that there had been four studies on the effects of Salt Juice on users. All of these studies had been suppressed. Why? Money. Everyone was making too much money off of Salt Juice to even want to look to closely at what it would do to users. The murders were blamed on "alien influences" instead of the detrimental effects of Salt Juice on those who used it. The government had a stake in covering up the truth. (snip) > - And lets talk about God's angel......I mean the genie. The bodean > genies are omniscient, able to exist in any form and able to explain the > inexplicable. Hmmm sounds familiar to me. Okay, fine. Christian > paradigm. No problem. The genie says at the end he could have made the > jury believe whatever story was told and had John freed. What???????? A > Deus ex machine? So this whole story is for what? ...Johns object lesson > in the nature of humanity? Certainly this would explain the extreme > abuse suffered upon the other children. This was only Johns story. The > other children were expendable characters. The Bodeangenie was probably the least satisfactory part of the book. It really did skirt too close to being a deus ex machine for my taste. Too many loose ends were tied up my waving the magic Bodeangenie wand. > - And the biggest implausibility of all......John choosing not to join > the others in "heaven" (snip)...this man decides to stay and "be fully > human"?????????? WTFO? Based on _what_ example of humanity was he > choosing to stay, when what he was presented as the alternative, by his > own admission, would feel like heaven? (snip) This bond is rejected > by the 'head child', who spent the entire story overwhelmed with guilt > for the sufferings of the other children, who was driven by the deepest > anguish to be together again, who lived in total inhuman isolation for > years in a desperate hope to bond again? He rejects all of _this_ to go > be "fully human" in a world utterly devoid of any humanity? I found this a little hard to believe also. The book ends rather abruptly and too much of the plot is magically resolved by the genie. Maybe he chose to remain human because he had never despaired enough to take his own life or make the transition to a "ghost" like the others. He had also had a second exposure to the Dancers during his adulthood and realized what they were attempting to do with the human children. His trust in the Dancers had been broken. Maybe he wasn't ready to become a ghost. The door was left open for him to change his mind. > I don't buy it. > > donna > donnaneely@earthlink.net Stacey (ausar@netdoor.com) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 09:28:19 -0700 Reply-To: Sandy.Candioglos@intel.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sandy Candioglos Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Dont go yet.....on AI To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > -----Original Message----- > From: donna simone [mailto:donnaneely@EARTHLINK.NET] > Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 1998 4:32 AM > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > Subject: [*FSFFU*] Dont go yet.....on AI > > And, if every child > desperately ached to leave the planet, and presumably some > did (Anita), hence escaping the horrendous abuse, why did no one ever, > over the life of this colony, TELL SOMEONE what was going on > until the murders? And how could the outsiders who came to study the > Dancers not have seen what was going on in regard to the > addiction to Juice and the abuse, etc ,etc? And why _didn't_ the > investigation ask the obvious question? This was the most > contrived piece of all. The world's horror at the crimes implied that > there still existed a belief in the innocence of children, > but no one asked what made them do it? That omission alone > made the book > implausible to me. Too many convenient silences and > inexplicable responses. Another reason that nobody who escaped "told anybody", might be because this is the first group of kids that has been neglected to the point of not even having a school. It was worse for this group than it had been for any other group before. Maybe the situation wasn't so bad for the earlier groups of kids that they felt it necessary to "tell" anybody. After all, most of them stayed there (the colony's been around 100 years or so, right?). The only thing that bugged me about this book that you didn't bring up, Donna, is: what about the "souls" of the kids who died on Bountiful? Maybe I missed a reference or something, but the only ones who were "saved" were the 8 (well, minus John) who made it off the planet; wouldn't they want to go get Katie and Michael and the others with the little jars, too? -Sandy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 11:32:17 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Dont go yet.....on AI To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU hey Donna it's funny how the discussion about AI pretty much wound up so fast. What it seems to me, the views on the book turned out so opposite that there was little possibility for real discussion. Maybe because the difference in opinions came about mainly from the differences in people's views, and most people realize that they cannot make others change their mind about the world. However, since we are still in the time frame for discussing AI, I'd like to do it a little more. Besides, I think Donna kind of summarized the common problems people had with the book and did an excellent job at that. I want to point out right away that even though I loved the book, I recognize and respect the right of those who did not like it to do so. These are just my thoughts. On Tue, 11 Aug 1998, donna simone wrote: > - the children were "alien influenced"......okay.....and it seemed to me > that she was taking it even further. The entire community > was "alien influenced" in the way that it ignored their "useless" children > as the Dancers ignored their "useless" young. The hitch > for me is that the Dancers did not violently torture their young. So the > analogy fell apart. To me, the point Rusch was making was that the children were not "alien influenced" at all. It was just a convenient explanation made up by the society to "explain out" their actions of despair. It was a lot easier to say that the kids "under influence" than to deal with the fact that there could be something in their lives to drive them into these actions. It's always easier to blame aliens than to deal with the problems of the society, you know. > But then how to explain why no one > but, or until, these children tried to escape the horrors by going to the > Dancers? Or anyone for that matter. I think it was mentioned a few times that some people (including adults) in fact did exactly that. Remember the book mentioning that the local school ceased to exist after the last teacher they had went to live with Dancers (or something like that)? There are also references to other children who got engaged with Dancers and committed the same kind of "murders" at the very beginning of the colony's existance. If I remember well, back at the time of the salt mines (long before the Salt Juice was discovered) the miners' colony tried to slaughter the Dancers because they started finding "murdered" children who had been working at the mines. It was also mentioned that the planet's police chief (or whatever was his title) had killed a person for the first time when confronted with some of those "children" -- already very old -- having a "reunion" at the local bar. It seems to me that these incidents with human children mutilating each other had been happening since the beginning of this colony. It was simply ignored and possibly covered up, in order not to jeopardize the Salt Juice production. That could be part of the reason why (besides the effects of the Salt Juice itself) none of the parents except one expressed any grief or even surprise when faced with their children's murders. It was probably something they grew up seeing all the time. The book also mentions that there were human "ghosts" in the jars Dancers possessed. So it's quite possible that besides the adults -- like the last school teacher who joined the dancers voluntarily (damn it, I don't know how to spell this word!) -- and the children like Anita who had been lured into becoming a ghost, but unlike her did not manage to escape, there had been kids who transformed into their adult state through the mutilations and were assimilated by the Dancers. I know this is a lot of assumptions. However, to me this comes directly from the book's context. And at any rate, the point I am trying to make is that the Dancer Eight were not by any means the first ones who did what they did. The difference was that at the time they did it, the colonists had just discovered the way to grow the Salt Juice plants, and therefore needed to get rid of the Dancers. So the possibly routine "child murders" that had been ignored for the previous hundred years were this time used as an excuse to exterminate the Dancers. People at the colony were not shocked by the murders. For them, it seemed to be a part of life. It's possible that they knew the children were not really dead. But the colony authorities were aware that to the "outside world", these incidents would be seen as unspeakable atrocities. They could not just slaughter the Dancers without having to explain it to the planet's authorities. So they found the perfect excuse. The whole "investigation" by the psychologist was just a cover-up show. Had the colonists not discovered the way to grow the plants, the information about the dead children would have never left the colony. > And, if every child > desperately ached to leave the planet, and presumably some did (Anita), > hence escaping the horrendous abuse, why did no one ever, over the > life of this colony, TELL SOMEONE what was going on until the murders? I think the explanation could be very simple. Why people today, when escaping horrible conditions in certain countries almost never talk about it? There is something very close to legalized genocide of women going on in Tajikistan where I came from. Right now. (You can find out more about it from my web page -- address at the bottom). And you know what? Despite the fact that about 1 million people had escaped the country over the past 8 years, I seem to be the only one who even _tries_ to make it known to the outside world. I've been searching for months about any information on this matter -- in libraries, on the Net, everywhere. All I found so far I put on my website -- like, a couple of personal testimonies and one Voice of America interview of the Human Rights Watch member. Who later refused to make a personal statement about it for "diplomatic (read political) reasons". She still "feels bad" about the situation of women there, she just won't go on record with it. The way I see it -- people who had gone though horrors try to forget it like a nightmare. Those who are still going through it, try not to think about it. If the female half of one million of a country's refugees never open their mouth about what they had went through until they are specifically asked, I can very well believe that those from the book's colony, once grown up, would either accept their childhood experiences as a "part of life" or simply forget about it as thoroughly as they could. Cause this is how people avoid going insane. > And how could the outsiders who came to study the > Dancers not have seen what was going on in regard to the addiction > to Juice and the abuse, etc ,etc? I might be wrong, but I think no one really studied the Dancers. Except those people from Alien Aliance, or whatever it was called. And those had their political agenda on their hands. > And why _didn't_ the > investigation ask the obvious question? This was the most contrived piece > of all. The world's horror at the crimes implied that > there still existed a belief in the innocence of children, but no one asked > what made them do it? That omission alone made the book > implausible to me. Too many convenient silences and inexplicable responses. I thought these attitudes were quite natural. I don't want to repeat myself, but I have not seen anyone so far really questioning why so many US kids went on a shooting spree lately. Instead, what I've heard just yesterday on CNN, the prosecution swore to the public that they'll be tried as adults and "put away for good". To protect the society. I'm sorry, but how can anyone in the right state of mind can consider a 9-year-old a regular maniac killer? So honestly, I find it quite likely that people in the future would not have much more sense than they do now. > - Into this unrelenting dystopia, we see the few almost noble folks > (noble\ness measured only by the amount of time they _think_ > about the children, not by any actions they take) conveniently and at the > same time, decide to go against a lifetimes of resolve > that the children were dangerous AI killers. I am speaking of Justin and > Dania. This in the midst of evidence that there were more > murders? Why ask why now? After all but one of the children is dead? We are > shown no cause for the shift in thinking within the > created world. What? One bodean genie is able to change the myopic minds of > an entire society in one trial after 20 odd years? I think it could be explained by the fact that people usually think what "everyone thinks" until someone comes up with something different, and if they like it, it becomes a new "common knowledge". Humans are herdal animals, and very few of them bother to think for themselves. That's why this list is such a breath of fresh air :). > - And lets talk about God's angel......I mean the genie. The bodean genies > are omniscient, able to exist in any form and able to > explain the inexplicable. Hmmm sounds familiar to me. Okay, fine. Christian > paradigm. No problem. The genie says at the end he could > have made the jury believe whatever story was told and had John freed. > What???????? A Deus ex machine? So this whole story is for > what? ...Johns object lesson in the nature of humanity? Certainly this > would explain the extreme abuse suffered upon the other > children. This was only Johns story. The other children were expendable > characters. You might be right, even though it's not the way I saw it. It's interesting, but it seemed that in this book, the bodeangenie was the only one who was able to see things the way they were. The critical mind, you know. I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that it was -- well -- non-physical. It did not have a body, so it was able to have a free mind. I believe it's some kind of a heresy by the feminist standards, so I can see why a lot of people would dislike it. Concerning the genie's statement that it'd make the jury believe anything, I can see how it was possible. The genie was a telepath. You won't believe how many times I got myself out of trouble (and how many "A"'s I got in high school when called to the classboard, or the interviews that I passed OK) just because I knew precisely what the other person wanted me to say. And I'm not even a telepath, I just spent too much time trying to figure out why people around me acted the way they did... It's like playing chess with a person by reading your best possible next move from their mind. I cannot do that, but the genie probably could. It would have gotten John off at the trial in no time. > - And the biggest implausibility of all......John choosing not to join the > others in "heaven". It's funny, but it reminded me of the Fairy Island in the Mists of Avalon. It was pretty much the same scheme -- a place with no worries, no sickness or death, filled with esquisite (another word I don't know how to spell) wisdom and eternal partying. I was thinking that if I was Morgaine, I would have never left the place. With the bodeangenie planet, however, it seemed different to me. I don't know, I think it has something to do with the physical existance. The genie was basically a soul, so were the dead friends of John (I do think they were dead, at least they were definitely not alive in the human sense). John had a body, and I would not give up mine, either, for all the heavens of the universe, at least as long as I live. No matter how much I suffer emotionally (it could be different if I had cancer or some other physical pain). Our souls might exist forever, but our bodies are given for a short time, so you cannot throw it around just to "be with your friends". Most people are very attached to their bodies, even when they are dissatisfied with them. Yeah, it's nice to be able to float around and never need food or drink or sleep, never feel pain or cold. But unless you are dead and have no choice, it's still better to be able to feel things. Like the taste of wine, the warmth of of the sunshine, the touch of another human body... Even Jesus (for those who believe in the guy) did not particularly want to die on the cross. Even though He knew that after a few unpleasant hours, He'll live forever. And rule the Universe, instead of wondering through the desert, begging for food, and sufferring abuse from exactly the people He was trying to help. He still wanted to live. There is something about physical existance that even Gods do not want to give it up. Well, going back to John... > I am to believe that a man who: spent > his first 10-12 yrs suffering unmentionable abuses, spent 6-8 years under > brutally hard labor and complete isolation, spent another > dozen or so yrs being despised, disbelieved and hunted by an entire > society, observes/discovers that the only beings he cares about > throughout his entire life all die in the deepest anguish after their own > lives of horror, abuse and terror (again on the part of > said society) and is finally only "saved" by the statements of an alien > creature that reveals it had this power all along.......this > man decides to stay and "be fully human"?????????? WTFR? Well, his friends were dead, whatever was their new existance, he was not able to fully share it. After all, only Beth even bothered to say goodbye to him. They were no longer the children that desperately needed each other, they were not even humans anymore, so there was no reason, in my opinion, for him to throw away his own life in order to stay around them. John has done his job. He recovered his friends' souls and found them a nice place. He pretty much cleared up his name concerning the murders that were haunting him. He discovered that after all, he was not a killer or the monster people had considered him to be throughout his life. He has learned to live on his own without being constantly around his friends -- he had needed it as a child to compensate for the lack of love from his parents, but there is no reason for an adult to be so emotionally dependent. He found out the truth about the Dancers who turned out not to care about him and others any more than their parents had, but simply tried to lure them into death and use their souls for their own purposes. The guy has finally grown up and got rid of both his illusions and the guilt that had been haunting him for years. He finally got a chance to leave behind all the emotional baggage of the past and start a life of his own, for a change. Why would he throw it away for a prospect of living among the ghosts? He could always go there after he died. John had fulfilled his duty towards his friends, and now he deserved a life of his own. I would not give up a chance like that either, for all the heavens in the world... I loved this book, Alien Influences, for many reasons. One of them being the fact that it pictures the world the way it is -- not any better, not any worse. I don't believe that humans in general in the future are going to be any more wise, altruistic, ar even rational than they are now. IMHO, there will be intelligent people, open-minded people, generous people, and at the same time plenty of greedy, obnoxious idiots, just as there are now. The ratio between those might change, but as long as humans remain humans, they'll be imperfect. And IMHO, it's not the end of the world. It's kind of what makes it interesting. I don't consider this book a dystopia. It's just a realistic view of the world, without any illogical attempts to make it more "correct" by some magic of time. It gives me the hope that no matter how fucked up and full of shit are the people you have to deal with throughout your life, there is still a chance for you to survive and prevail. Despite everything. I found this book very positive and inspirational. Not irritatingly naive, as most sf -- and especially fantasy -- books are. It shows that one has a chance in the world the way it is. Which I find very important. I liked Alien Influences more than all the others I read for this book discussion group so far. Among all, because it's so beautifully written. Of course, all this is only my opinion. As I said, I respect all the others. What I do is trying to explain why I think this book is so great. Regards :), Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 11:52:43 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Dont go yet.....on AI Comments: To: Sandy Candioglos To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU On Tue, 11 Aug 1998, Sandy Candioglos wrote: > The only thing that bugged me about this book that you didn't bring up, > Donna, is: what about the "souls" of the kids who died on Bountiful? Maybe > I missed a reference or something, but the only ones who were "saved" were > the 8 (well, minus John) who made it off the planet; wouldn't they want to > go get Katie and Michael and the others with the little jars, too? I seems like it was possible only when the person went through a certain ritual (with their eyes turning into the silver light and everything). The person had to do it consciously, knowing that he/she was dying and wanting it. The children that had their body parts cut out did not try to die. They tried to grow up, which was prevented from happening by the other children's belief that nothing could grow in the cold of the morgue's freezer. After all, it was all powered by beliefs. Since those children did not go through the "silvering" stage, their souls did not "escape" to be put into a jar. I would think that those cut-up kids were still alive by the end of the story (and I bet no one had ever bothered to take them out of the morgue). Which is why I really expected them to be found by John -- alive -- by the end of the book. That was the only dissappointment I had with the plot. At the same time, face it -- how many children abused so terribly ever survive for a long time? In that context, the fact that at least one of 14 made it through and was able to get over it is pretty optimistic. Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 12:30:00 -0500 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Marina Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Dont go yet.....on AI To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU By the way, what did y'all think about the part about the kid that was two years younger than the others? He who was totally rejected not only by his family but also by the other children -- those who themselves were going through terrible abuse and should have known better? I really liked how that part dealt with the so-popular "consolation" that "people should accept you for who you are". For what it's worth. With all the horrors these children were going through, they at least had each other. That little kid was denied even that, just because he was two years younger. Can you imagine going through all that alone? With the only people who could give you support refusing even to talk to you, despite all their understanding and support of each other. And I don't remember any of them ever expressing a trace of remorse over the way they had treated him... I think it could be a pretty good explanation why no one who had gone through abuse as a child on that planet ever tried to do anything about it when grown up. Even these kids dissociated themselves with someone of "another generation" -- be it only two years younger. It's quite possible that if grown up into regular adult colonists, they'd have either left the planet without giving a thought to the children in their situation left behind, or stay and abuse their own kids without seeing any connection with their own past suffering. Especially with all that Salt Juice... Marina http://members.aol.com/Lotaryn/index.html "Femininity is code for femaleness plus whatever society is selling at the time." Naomi Wolf ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 13:49:21 -0700 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: schant Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Dont go yet.....on AI To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU donna simone wrote: > And, if every child > desperately ached to leave the planet, and presumably some did (Anita), > hence escaping the horrendous abuse, why did no one ever, > over the life of this colony, TELL SOMEONE what was going on until > the murders? And how could the outsiders who came to study the > Dancers not have seen what was going on in regard to the addiction to > Juice and the abuse, etc ,etc? And why _didn't_ the > investigation ask the obvious question? This was the most contrived > piece of all. The world's horror at the crimes implied that > there still existed a belief in the innocence of children, but no one asked > what made them do it? That omission alone made the book > implausible to me. Too many convenient silences and inexplicable responses. I've not read the book, but this bit just rang a bell with a program on UK TV last night (Monday 10th August). It was about the famous Kinsey report on male sexuality published in the 1940's and how a section of it supposedly illustrating childhood sexuality was taken from the detailed diaries provided to Kinsey by a child-abuser. Former colleagues and a current worker at the Kinsey Institute, when asked why the abuser - and others they had corresponded with - had not been reported to the police had a variety of responses along the lines of "We got this information by giving promises of confidentiality", "It's better to have this information than not to have it", "No-one encouraged people to do these things, we only took data from them". I'm not sure how true this story is, not being a great believer in the veracity of the Media, but perhaps this attitude is partly what is being shown by in AI? SC -- "Take what you want", said God. "Take it - and pay for it." Old Spanish proverb, quoted in "South Riding" by Winifred Holtby ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 16:49:39 +0100 Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Yvonne Rowse Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Dont go yet.....on AI To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU In my opinion Alien Influences is a flawed book but worthwhile for all that. To a large extent I agree with what Marina says about it. Whether it is feminist or not seems not to be the point to me. Whilst I agree that we are nowhere near a feminist utopia at least we women in the western world have some legal rights in law. We are no longer owned and we *can* own property/work for a living/make our own choices etc. I accept that it is an uphill struggle even for us priviledged few but it *is* a possibility. Kids, on the other hand, do not have even this range of options. Not even rich white kids. (Perhaps especially not them.) They are dependant on adults in the same way that our foremothers were dependant (by law) on men. I think any book that highlights the plight of kids when things go wrong is useful. I would agree that lots of kids are probably happy, at least for the first ten years of their lives, in standard families. Possibly many of our foremothers were happy to be supported by their fathers then husbands then even their sons. At present I am supported by my husband. One of the things that makes this acceptable for me is the fact that it is my choice. The knowledge that I can up and off is essential to my peace of mind. Kids can't up and off. If they run away from home they are caught and brought back or put into 'homes'. The most frightening thing about this oppression is the human tendancy to do to others what was done to us. I try very hard to bring up my kids in a liberal way but when I'm tired or at the end of my tether the default setting for child rearing is still my parent's methods. Generation after generation of oppressed children becoming adults who oppress their own children and the men, of course, oppress women as well. I really think a feminist world will come about when we stop oppressing our children. AI doesn't inspire me in the way, eg 'The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas' does. Reading it does not make me better able to cope on the bad days. It could have been much more, but in raising an often hidden issue it contributes something to the struggle for freedom. Yvonne ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 15:02:45 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Barbara R. Hume" Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU In a message dated 98-08-06 20:24:22 EDT, you write: << I can't believe the white picket fence image slipped by me, but you're absolutely right about that one. It's as if Rusch, generally rather subtle as someone else pointed out, meant to bludgeon us with this analogy. >> Of course, it's easy for us, steeped as we are in our own culture, to let such things happen without noticing. For example, Spock says in the Changeling episode of Star Trek, "This is not the device we launched from Earth." Spock wouldn't say "we" because he's a Vulcan, but the writer was an Earthling! barbara ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 15:25:43 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Barbara R. Hume" Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] Kris Rusch's writing speed To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU In a message dated 98-08-07 10:35:55 EDT, you write: << And Star Trek books, by their very nature, are not likely to sell more copies just because a certain writer's name is on them, with the possible exception of Peter David or Judy and Gar Reeves-Stevens. >> I accept your critique of my statements about speed and quality of writing. I do agree that a skilled, experienced writer can do good work quickly. I am concerned mainly about the quality of the Star Trek novels in general: I used to look forward to each new book, but for at least the last couple of years most of them have been a chore to read. Have I changed, or has the quality of the books changed? Not that they were ever great, but they used to be fun to read. Yes, I'll always pick up a Peter David book and love it. But I have not enjoyed the work the Reeves-Stevens have been doing with Shatner. What about you? barbara ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 14:31:34 -0700 Reply-To: Sandy.Candioglos@intel.com Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Sandy Candioglos Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Unless, maybe, he meant "we" as in "the federation" or "starfleet"? That would depend on what device that was launched from earth he was referring to... -Sandy > -----Original Message----- > From: Barbara R. Hume [mailto:Lurima@AOL.COM] > Sent: Thursday, August 13, 1998 12:03 PM > To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU > Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG Alien Influences > > In a message dated 98-08-06 20:24:22 EDT, you write: > > << > I can't believe the white picket fence image slipped by me, but you're > absolutely right about that one. It's as if Rusch, generally rather > subtle as someone else pointed out, meant to bludgeon us with this analogy. > >> > > Of course, it's easy for us, steeped as we are in our own culture, to let such > things happen without noticing. For example, Spock says in the Changeling > episode of Star Trek, "This is not the device we launched from Earth." Spock > wouldn't say "we" because he's a Vulcan, but the writer was an Earthling! > > barbara ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1998 07:28:01 -0600 (MDT) Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: Pat Subject: [*FSFFU*] Alien Influences To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU I found the book yesterday and spent the evening gulping it down. Some comments. Is it a feminist novel? Not particularly. As far as gender roles, personalities, etc go, it's a fairly typical novel of the '90s: any one of those characters could have been either male or female. Someone on the list noted that there were no female heroes; they ranged from damaged through villainous. But the same is true of the men. What I DID notice is that nobody, male or female, was doing any caretaking or any nurturing. The cloests anyone came was a feeble attempt at protection. It was also obvious to me, though Rusch never used the term, that the children had all been sexually abused by their addict parents; some, possibly, sadistically abused. It goes without saying they were totally neglected while their parents were getting high. And she shows a hysterically anti-child larger culture. Granted, the Dancer 8 are singled out for special treatment. Granted, it's due in large part to the Salt Juice Conspiracy. Still, everyone - media, public opinion, the criminal justice system - automatically assumes these young children are hardened, vicious career criminals who did what they did out of sheer nastiness and depravity. The guards treat them like serial killers with practiced ease, and nobody is upset at seeing people so young treated like this. And, the most telling point, it's a culture where children below the age of puberty are routinely sent to a penal colony labor camp - a *gulag*. IN some cultures, people would be upset. They'd think there must be a reason, and look for it. They'd automatically check for child abuse in the home. And seeing the Dancer's life cycle, they'd wonder if the children were acting on incomplete information. In Rusch's world, such voices are as rare as the voices in our world questioning the death sentence of a former Black Panther for supposedly killing a cop. And notice how feeble and uncertain they are. And Rusch's society is starting to unravel. You can see the signs everywhere. Patricia (Pat) Mathews mathews@unm.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 00:55:55 EDT Reply-To: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" Sender: "For discussion of feminist SF, fantastic & utopian literature" From: "Tanya M. Bouwman-Wozencraft" Subject: Re: [*FSFFU*] BDG: Alien Influences discussion To: FEMINISTSF@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Okay, I finally got the book from the library and spent all day reading it. (The dishes are still dirty and the laundry hasn't been done, but oh well!) Then I went back and re-read all the posts about AI. Most of what I would have said regarding the book was already said by someone else, so I will try not to repaet. However, this question that was posed at the beginning of the discussion is one that I did want to respond to because I didn't feel it was addressed. At least, not the way I would have. :) In a message dated 98-08-03 13:33:57 EDT, Jenifer wrote: << 1. One of the reviews, listed on the bibliography that Kathleen put together, stated the main theme of this book was the search for freedom. It seemed to me more to be about the boundary between "us" and "other". Do you agree or disagree? What do you think that Rusch was trying to tell us about the "other" in this book? >> I disagree that the book about "us" and "other". I think it is about the search for freedom. It is about the search for freedom from the bonds that abuse places on a person; particularly if that person is a child and the abuse is done during those early years that are so important to a child's psyche. When that abuse is reinforced by a societal abuse (ie. the children's treatment by the "legal" system) the child/person feels "trapped". All of the children had that feeling. Did you notice how many times John and others referred to feeling "trapped". I felt like that word was on every page, even when it wasn't. One of the passages about John even relates how he had a skewed sense of compassion due to the years in prison--how he had come to see the administrator's decision to have his arm treated so that he could do more work as an act of compassion. It reminded me a little of how women who are in abusive relationships will look for the smallest thing to show how "he really does love me". I think the book is primarily about John's search for his freedom from his past and the abuse he suffered both from his parents and from his society. At the end John is finally able to let go of the past and move on into his future. He doesn't feel "trapped" anymore, and because of that he doesn't have to join the other children. (In a side note--did anyone else notice that John, and to the extent we were allowed into their heads, the other children, all had a harder time remembering the abuse of their parents than they did remembering the abuse of the society? It was like there was a big balloon that was the abuse the society had given the children and they would push it aside and it would keep coming up to haunt them, but the underlying cause was harder to get at. There would only be glimpses of it that were quickly shut off. It made me think how powerful the role of a parent is as compared to society.) Thanks to all on this list. You got me really interested in this book, and I know that was one of the reasons I only put it down once. Tanya