Queer Universes; Sexualities in Science Fiction

Home , Gwyneth Jones (novelist), Nalo Hopkinson

Queer Universes: Sexualities in Science Fiction Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies Editor David Seed, University of Liverpool Editorial Board Mark Bould, University of the West of England Veronica Hollinger, Trent University Rob Latham, University of Iowa Roger Luckhurst, Birkbeck College, University of London Patrick Parrinder, University of Reading Andy Sawyer, University of Liverpool

1. Robert Crossley Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future 2. David Seed (ed.) Anticipations: Essays on Early Science Fiction and its Precursors 3. Jane L. Donawerth and Carol A. Kolmerten (eds) Utopian and Science Fiction by Women: Worlds of Difference 4. Brian W. Aldiss The Detached Retina: Aspects of SF and Fantasy 5. Carol Farley Kessler Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Her Progress Toward Utopia, with Selected Writings 6. Patrick Parrinder Shadows of the Future: H. G. Wells, Science Fiction and Prophecy 7. I. F. Clarke (ed.) The Tale of the Next Great War, 1871–1914: Fictions of Future Warfare and of Battles Still-to-come 8. Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford The Inheritors 9. Qingyun Wu Female Rule in Chinese and English Literary Utopias 10. John Clute Look at the Evidence: Essays and Reviews 11. Roger Luckhurst ‘The Angle Between Two Walls’: The Fiction of J. G. Ballard 12. I. F. Clarke (ed.) The Great War with Germany, 1980–1914: Fiction and Fantasies of the War-to-come 13. Franz Rottensteiner (ed.) View from Another Shore: European Science Fiction 14. Val Gough and Jill Rudd (eds) A Very Different Story: Studies in the Fiction of Charlotte Perkins Gilman 15. Gary Westfahl The Mechanics of Wonder: The Creation of the Idea of Science Fiction 16. Gwyneth Jones Deconstructing the Starships: Science, Fiction and Reality 17. Patrick Parrinder (ed.) Learning from Other Worlds: Estrangement, Cognition and the Politics of Science Fiction and Utopia 18. Jeanne Cortiel Demand My Writing: Joanna Russ/Feminism/Science Fiction 19. Chris Ferns Narrating Utopia: Ideology, Gender, Form in Utopian Literature 20. E. J. Smith (ed.) Jules Verne: New Directions 21. Andy Sawyer and David Seed (eds) Speaking Science Fiction: Dialogues and Interpretations 22. Inez van der Spek Alien Plots: Female Subjectivity and the Divine 23. S. T. Joshi Ramsey Campbell and Modern Horror Fiction 24. Mike Ashley The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950 25. Warren G. Rochelle Communities of the Heart: The Rhetoric of Myth in the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin 26. S. T. Joshi A Dreamer and a Visionary: H. P. Lovecraft in his Time 27. Christopher Palmer Philip K. Dick: Exhilaration and Terror of the Postmodern 28. Charles E. Gannon Rumors of War and Infernal Machines: Technomilitary Agenda-Setting in American and British Speculative Fiction 29. Peter Wright Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artiﬁce and the Reader 30. Mike Ashley Transformations: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazine from 1950–1970 31. Joanna Russ The Country You Have Never Seen: Essays and Reviews 32. Robert Philmus Visions and Revisions: (Re)constructing Science Fiction 33. Gene Wolfe (edited and introduced by Peter Wright) Shadows of the New Sun: Wolfe on Writing/Writers on Wolfe 34. Mike Ashley Gateways to Forever: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazine from 1970–1980 Queer Universes Sexualities in Science Fiction

Edited by WENDY GAY PEARSON, VERONICA HOLLINGER, AND JOAN GORDON

LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS First published 2008 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU

The right of Wendy Gay Pearson, Veronica Hollinger and Joan Gordon to be identi- ﬁed as the editors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available

ISBN 978-1-84631-135-2 hardback

Typeset by Koinonia, Manchester Printed in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn For Joanna Russ and Samuel R. Delany and for Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo with gratitude and admiration

Contents

Acknowledgements ix Notes on Contributors x

Introduction: Queer Universes 1 Wendy Gay Pearson, Veronica Hollinger, and Joan Gordon

Part I: Queering the Scene Alien Cryptographies: The View from Queer 14 Wendy Gay Pearson War Machine, Time Machine 39 Nicola Grifﬁth and Kelley Eskridge

Part II: Un/Doing History Sextrapolation in New Wave Science Fiction 52 Rob Latham Towards a Queer Genealogy of SF 72 Wendy Gay Pearson Sexuality and the Statistical Imaginary in Samuel R. Delany’s Trouble on Triton 101 Guy Davidson Stray Penetration and Heteronormative Systems Crash: 121 Queering Gibson Graham J. Murphy viii CONTENTS

Part III: Disordering Desires ‘Something Like a Fiction’: Speculative Intersections of Sexuality and Technology 140 Veronica Hollinger ‘And How Many Souls Do You Have?’: Technologies of Perverse Desire and Queer Sex in Science Fiction Erotica 161 Patricia Melzer BDSMSF(QF): Sadomasochistic Readings of Québécois Women’s Science Fiction 180 Sylvie Bérard

Part IV: Embodying New Worlds ‘Happy That It’s Here’: An Interview with Nalo Hopkinson 200 Nancy Johnston Queering Nature: Close Encounters with the Alien in Ecofeminist Science Fiction 216 Helen Merrick Queering the Coming Race? A Utopian Historical Imperative 233 De Witt Douglas Kilgore

Works Cited 252 Index 272 Acknowledgements

The editors would like to thank Science Fiction Studies for permission to reprint Wendy Gay Pearson’s ‘Alien Cryptographies: The View from Queer’ (SFS 26.1 [Mar. 1999]: 1–22) and Rob Latham’s ‘Sextrapolation in New Wave Science Fiction’ (SFS 33.2 [July 2006]: 251–74). We are very grateful for SFS’s support of the Queer Universes project. Thanks also to John Greyson, for permission to use stills from his ﬁlm Zero Patience, and to Anthony Cond, our editor at Liverpool University Press, for his unfailing interest and enthusiasm.