Part of the reason it has been quiet here at Alexandria this month is that I've been a guest poster over at - whisper it - another blog.
Over at the Vector editorial blog, Torque Control, I've been making my contribution to the Future Classics series with a four-part discussion about Life (2004) by Gwyneth Jones.
The Future Classics project grew out of a lively online debate last year - itself prompted by comments made by Tricia Sullivan in an interview at Geek Syndicate - regarding science fiction written by women: why the number of women sf writers published in the UK are in decline, why those books that are published get less attention than those by men, and how and why women writers of the past have been excluded from the canon. Niall of Torque Control ran a poll to determine the ten best sf books by women published during the past ten years, and the Future Classics (eleven, due to a tie) were born. Subsequently, Vector's new editor Shana Worthen invited various guest bloggers to write about each of the eleven books in turn.
I was delighted to get the chance to go back to Life, which I first read back three years ago but was never able to write about, on account of being involved in the death-match that was wrestling my PhD thesis into submissible form. The story centres on Anna Senoz, a brilliant and dedicated young biologist, and the devastating impact that her research into the Y-chromosome has upon her career and her family. My four posts are here:
- part one, on the practice and politics of science in the novel
- part two, on the major characters' relationship with feminism
- part three, on relationships and gender roles
- part four, on sex, gender, and how the central sfnal conceit may (or may not) change the world
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While I'm here: the excellent online magazine Strange Horizons is holding its usual annual fund drive this month, so why not go there and chuck in a few dollars? Help fund another year of great fictional and non-fictional writing by people like, er, me - and you'll be entered into a prize draw at the same time! (Seriously, I want so many of those prizes...)
My most recent review for SH, on the HBO TV adaptation of George RR Martin's novel Game of Thrones, was published earlier this month. I seem to have ended up talking about sex quite a lot:
This being HBO, however, the writers much prefer the idea of combining explanation with nudity. While the sexposition, as fan circles have dubbed it, is both labored and ripe for parody, it does nonetheless show us much about how gender and power, and gendered power, work in this world. There is no such thing as simple sex; power differentials shape every aspect of life in Game of Thrones, and intimacy is ineluctably shaped and distorted by them.
Go read the rest. And comment. And donate. You know it makes sense.
~~Nic