Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 16:41:06 -0400 From: Pamela Bedore Subject: [*FSF-L*] Constance Ash Collection To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU Hello Folks, I'm not sure what our reading group schedule is, but I've recently purchased the anthology *Not of Woman Born*, which I believe is a BDG reading. It includes some fabulous stories. Anyone interested in discussing? So far I really like "Judith's Flowers" by Susan Palwick. Please let me know if this is the wrong time to discuss. Hope everyone's having a great summer! pam pamela bedore department of english university of rochester ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 22:23:47 -0400 From: "Janice E. Dawley" Subject: [*FSF-L*] BDG: Not of Woman Born To: FEMINISTSF-LIT@LISTSERV.UIC.EDU In answer to Pamela's question, this month is indeed the right one to discuss Constance Ash's *Not of Woman Born*. I've been forging through this collection in the last week and have to say that overall I am not happy with it. Many stories hinge on simplistic either/or decisions, characters are in general unconvincing, and there is nary an original idea about reproduction to be found. I haven't found anything feminist about the collection, either. Silverberg's story about the clones who unanimously decide to poison their mother made me feel ill. I have mildly liked a couple of stories so far: Nina Kiriki Hoffman's "One Day at Central Convenience Mall" was freshly conceived, though the ending was a little weak; and Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald's "Remailer" was interesting in its clipped, invented slang (though I have encountered its central plot device, the stabilizing third sex, in about four places by now). I have just gotten to "Of Bitches Born", though, so there is still a way to go. What did you like about "Judith's Flowers", Pamela? How did the rest of the collection strike you? What do other people think? ----- Janice E. Dawley.....Burlington, VT http://homepages.together.net/~jdawley/ Listening To: Massive Attack -- Blue Lines "...the public and the private worlds are inseparably connected; the tyrannies and servilities of the one are the tyrannies and servilities of the other." Virginia Woolf, Three Guineas