The New York Review of Science Fiction)
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Readercon 14 Contents Octavia Butler Personal Apppreciations 3 The Monophobic Response 11 Bibliography 16 Aliens and Others in the Work of Octavia Butler and Gwyneth Jones 19 Gwyneth Jones Personal Appreciations 22 The Near Future: Prediction and Magic (Are We There Yet?) 24 Total Internal Reflection 31 Bibliography 34 James Tiptree, Jr. Award The Tiptree Award: A Personal History 41 2001 James Tiptree, Jr. Award: Short List 42 John Brunner Personal Appreciations 47 An Interview with John Brunner 50 Bibliography 58 The Readercon Committee 69 Editor: Michael Matthew Design and Production: David G. Shaw, Belm Design Bibliographies: Bob Ingria Copyediting/Proofreading: Anita Roy Dobbs, George Flynn, Shoshanna Green, Diane M. Kurilecz, Amy West Advertising: Lois Powers Details: Body text set in ITC Slimbach, Titles set in In signia. Pages produced in Adobe InDesign 2.0 on a Macintosh G4. Printing by Northstar Reprographics. Cover: Martha Chatelain, “Watchful” (detail). Handmade paper, twigs; 50” x 28” x 4” copyright ® 1990 Tiptree Award Illustration: Freddie Baer, copyright ® 2002 Readercon 14 Souvenir Book, copyright ® 2002 Reader- con, Inc. All rights revert to authors on publication. Souvenir Book 1 Noreascon 4 FACILITIES Hynes Convention Center Sheraton Boston Hotel Boston Marriott Copley Place MEMBERSHIP RATES (Through Aug. 1, 2002) Attending membership: $ 120 Supporting membership: $ 35 Upgrade existing supporting September 2-6, 2004 membership to attending: $ 85 Child's admission: $ 85 (12 & under as of Sept. 6, 2004; Boston, Massachusetts, USA Child's admission does not include publications or voting rights.) Installment plan available; write [email protected] QU ESTIONS To volunteer, write to [email protected] For information about registration, contact [email protected] To advertise in progress reports, email [email protected] For general questions, ask [email protected] ADDRESSES Noreascon Four/MCFI Pro Guests of Honor: Fan Guests of Honor: P.O. Box 1010 Framingham, MA 01701-1010 United States of America Terry Jack Fax: +1 617.776.3243 Pratchett Speer Web page: http ://www. noreascon.org "World Science Fiction Convention” is a service mark of the World Science Fiction Society, an unincorporated literary society. William Peter "Noreascon" is a service mark of Massachusetts Convention Fandom, Inc. The Noreascon 4 logo uses a picture taken by the Hubble Space Tenn Weston Telescope, made available by NASA and STScL An Introduction: Octavio E. Butler by Sandra Y. Govan rity, her interest in science fiction as the genre “without walls” continued to develop. It is as a science fiction or those unfamiliar with the life and work of Oc writer that an international community of readers knows tavia Butler, we provide this capsule sketch of her and celebrates her work. history. Born in California, Octavia E. Butler was As noted by the MacArthur Foundation, Octavia Fthe daughter of Laurice and Octavia M. (Guy) Butler. SheE. Butler is a writer of unusual merit and exceptional has one published short story collection and eleven nov creative ability. She is an African-American writer who els to her credit since her first publication in 1971. Addi chose the “exceptional” path of taking on a genre few tionally, she has earned several major awards including people typically associate with black Americans, sci multiple Hugo and Nebula awards plus a 1995 five-year ence fiction. Since 1971 Butler has published just five MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, or “genius,” award for short stories, all collected in the 1995 volume Bloodchild. her exceptional contributions to the humanities through Three of the five stories in this collection were recognized literature. As an individual, Ms. Butler is thoughtful, as major achievements by the science fiction readership observant, personable, generous, honest, plain spoken and the science fiction writers’ community. “Speech and direct. A news addict, she listens to National Public Sounds,” a resonant story which first appeared in the Radio and still reads voraciously — from newspapers and December 1983 issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction reports on various scientific discoveries to new science Magazine won a Hugo Award in 1984; in 1985, she won fiction. A dedicated, powerful, hard-working writer, she both a Hugo and the Nebula Award for “Bloodchild.” She does not drive a vehicle; while tolerant, she does not has twice been anthologized in the annual The Year’s suffer fools easily, She Best Science Fiction col & currently resides in Se A. lection. Her infamous attle, Washington. “Bloodchild,” appeared Because of in the second volume, achievements, including and “The Evening and the 1999 Nebula Award the Morning and the for the sweeping epic, * 4 Night,” appeared in the Parable of the Talents, r fifth annual collection Octavia E. Butler requires (1988). a fuller introduction. The However, Butler’s thumbnail sketch above major emphasis is the cannot do her justice. Al elaborate longer text; though her family’s roots as she declared in the are in the South, specifi preface to Bloodchild, “I cally Louisiana, she was am essentially a novel born in 1947 and raised in ist.” The evidence for small town Pasadena. An that claim clearly shows only child, she was raised in the five novels com by her very Baptist moth prising the Patternist er and grandmother; her cycle, Wild Seed (1980), father died young. She Mind of My Mind (1977), was also a shy, introvert Clay’s Ark (1984), Pat- ed, introspective, solitary temmaster (1976), and child, the perfect person Survivor (1978); the ality mix to develop into three books of the Xe- an avid, indiscriminate, nogenesis trilogy, Dawn inveterate reader. (1987), Adulthood Rites During her childhood Butler consumed a variety of (1988), and Imago (1989); and the two novels, thus far, stories and books, including fairy tales, westerns, the in shaping the Parable cycle — Parable of the Sower (1993) evitable romances, Mad magazine, and comics, yet sci and Parable of the Talents (1998). In 1999, the Science Butler ence fiction attracted her attention early and she retained Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America awarded Butler an abiding interest in the form. She read the stories in her first Nebula in the “best novel” category for her Octavia such science fiction journals as Fantasy and Science monumental Parable Talents. Butler’ of s Kindred (1979), by Fiction, Amazing, and Galaxy. As importantly, Butler is a stand alone “grim fantasy.” A quasi-historical novel, began to write. Although the fantasies and romances she Kindred pulls Dana Franklin, a black woman, and Kevin, Photo penned at ages ten through twelve never reached matu her white husband, from 1975 California across time Octavia Butler 3 and geography to arrive in Maryland, landing them on a show how much power her storytelling has gained in the southern plantation in an era where chattel slavery was years of her career, the fact remains that [the novels of the norm. the Patternist saga] are wonderful, inventive novels that Like all of Butler’s fiction Kindred, asks the most deserve to be read. They are worth hunting down....” basic question of all good speculative or science The same is equally true of her Parable books. fiction — “what if?” What if an interracial couple was As her reputation for outstanding work has grown, pulled back to the antebellum south? How would they Butler has reached two additional audiences. There is survive? In the Patternist books the question becomes, now a more general African American readership which ‘what if” biology is destiny and survival of the fittest be searches out and devours her books. She has been pro comes a matter of genetic manipulation? What if those filed in Oprah’s O, in Essence, in The Black Scholar; the with special heightened telekinetic powers, became the 1999 premiere issue of Black Issues Book Review Digest ‘haves” of society and those barren of such selectively featured Butler on its front cover. Further, since the mid- mutated genes became the “have nots?” The premise of 1980’s Butler has also attracted the attention of both stu the Xenogenesis trilogy asks “what if” the world suffered dents and literary scholars. She has been profiled in such a third World War, a nuclear war? How would survivors academic journals as Black American Literature Forum, be impacted by the catastrophic changes, not only to Callaloo, Extrapolation, Science Fiction Studies, Founda human life but also to the world’s ecological systems, tion: The Review of Science Fiction, and MELUS. She is wrought by a global nuclear holocaust? Further, what now included in major library reference texts includ if wayfaring aliens, passing through our solar system, ing The Dictionary' of Literary' Biography, Notable Black saw the wreckage of the planet and stopped to “salvage” American Women; The Oxford Companion to Women’s what remains of humanity? How would we respond? Writing, and The Oxford Companion to African American These are some of the questions Butler’s fiction Writers. probes. She constantly examines issues of community, Signs of Octavia E. Butler’s “arrival” as a writer no power, social structure, change, and adaptation in forms longer “marginalized” by race, gender, or genre are ev accessible to readers. But as she noted in a May 2000 erywhere apparent. Because she writes nuanced “literary” Essence article, “The one thing that I and my characters science fiction with an emphasis on character, theme, never do when contemplating the future is give up hope.” and narrative technique rather than “action” alone, the Butler generates new thinking about important issues teaching of her work in colleges and universities across from the perspectives of anthropology, biology, environ the nation has become commonplace. Additionally, not mentalism, and sociology in order to study the human only has Butler become the subject of undergraduate condition. The Parable novels, her latest series, raises research projects, journal articles, Masters’ theses, and questions about environment, technology, theology and Ph.D.