Ay Literar Quarterly January 2016 X Vol. 6. No. 1

Essays The Tiptree Symposium by L. Timmel Duchamp Sighting of an Aqueductista by Josh Lukin

Flash Fiction A Troubling Reflection by Wilma Bernard

Wasteland Poems by in this issue Mary Agner Anne Sheldon & Sonya Taaffe X

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E Thirteen Ways of rin Looking at a Monster H ar by Eleanor Arnason

Book Reviews Ghost Summer and Other Stories by Tananarive Due Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman The SEA Is Ours edited by Jaymee Goh & Joyce Chng Flesh & Wires by Jackie Hatton A Small Key Can Open a Large Door “Since its launch in 2011 The Cascadia Subduction Zone has emerged as one edited by Strangers in a of the best critical journals the field has to offer.” Tangled Wilderness h Jonathan McCalmont, February 18, 2013, Hugo Ballot Nomination eatured rtist $5.00 F A E rin Harrop Kath Arts L. Features Nisi Reviews Ann Managing

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Away y The Tiptree Symposium (Eugene, OR, Dec 4-5, 2015): A Few Reflections by L. Timmel Duchamp

The University of Oregon Libraries The panel of authors who had corre- hosted a symposium on December 4-5 sponded with Tiptree was particularly in honor of Alice Sheldon’s centennial. rich in observations linking the experi- The event remembered and celebrated ence of 1970s feminist sf with that of not only the life and work of Alli Shel- today’s feminist sf. After asking the pan- don/James Tiptree Jr., but also her par- elists to talk about what they had been ticipation in the creation of what Suzy publishing and reading in the 1970s, giv- McKee Charnas at one point called “the ing the audience a sense of those times, world of feminist sf.” I’ve written else- moderator Karen Joy Fowler opened where about how frequently women with the statement that “It is genuinely It was exciting and scary, but possible to relate to feminist sf as a collectively con- true that I imagined science fiction as a place dominated by women” when she do because they were structed, organic world-in-process that conscious of themselves first started reading science fiction in they feel themselves to be part of, even as a community… before they discover feminist sf fandom. the late 1970s, which by then boasted Of the many thrilling moments of the a wealth of feminist fiction by Joanna symposium, I want to especially note Russ, Suzy McKee Charnas, Ursula K. those that revealed, through the discus- Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, Octavia sion of and reading of letters by Tiptree, E. Butler, James Tiptree Jr, and others. Ursula then said that communities of Le Guin, and Russ, that Russ and Tip- writers “were practically nonexistent” in tree spoke of that world, too. I doubt I’ve mainstream fiction, while science fiction ever felt as intimately connected with provided a rich such community. Suzy these writers as when in her keynote talk Charnas recalled her first sf convention, i Julie Phillips, quoting from their corre- a WorldCon held in Kansas City — yes, spondence, revealed their sense of shar- that historic event at which attending 1 ing that world and being sustained by it. women, led by Susan Wood, rebelled, de- And Julie’s mention of Tiptree’s post- manding a space of their own in which to disclosure fear that she might no longer talk about the sf that the men disdained be welcome in that world made me des- and would not discuss. Suzy mentions olate. What they knew in the 1970s (and that after her exposure to the Manhat- all of us should know now) was that be- tan literary scene, where writers talked to ing a woman writing science fiction was one another only at cocktail parties or at nothing new. What was new for them academic meetings, she was “incredibly in the 1970s was their sense of and need …a WorldCon held in excited” to find at that con a community Kansas City — yes, that for an explicitly feminist community of of women writers and readers, coalesc- historic event at which writers determined to explore what had ing and beginning to create “the world attending women, led by been previously dismissed as trivial; yet, of feminist sf ” — a world inside a world. Susan Wood, rebelled, as each of them knew, this exploration It was unlike anything she had known. demanding a space of was in every way risky and dangerous. It This “world inside a world” may sound their own… was exciting and scary, but possible to do utopian to many of us today in com- because they were conscious of them- parison with our constant, often pain- selves as a community, conscious that ful need to re-think how we negotiate that community had their backs. our differences, but the symposium of-

Tom Foster served as The Cascadia Subduction Zone's guest features editor for our most recent issue: Volume 5, Number 4 (October 2015). This was one of our themed issues, with a special focus on comics and graphic novels. We regret that we neglected to credit him in our print edition.

Cont. on p. 2 Tiptree Symposium fered abundant reminders that painful for trans today been the same back then, (cont. from p. 1) lessons and negotiations have always would Alli have chosen to transition. been with us. Alli Sheldon, like many That question, for me, serves as an index women of her generation, was ambiva- of just how different our world is from lent about feminism and saw its gains that of the 1970s. Yes, a few people did as subject to arbitrary male permission, have “sex-change operations” back then. as Tiptree exulted in being part of that But in a world of locked essentialist sex community (one of its only “male femi- and gender categories and rigid concep- …after the disclosure, Alli tual limitations, the possible forms that could “no longer hear” nists”) and despaired that she wouldn’t be welcome there when her non-writing being trans now takes and how they are Tiptree’s voice. understood was unimaginable. It is par- identity was revealed. During that same ticularly poignant to think of how that panel discussion, Ursula said that when began to change in, say, the last ten years she began writing, she had seen litera- of Alli’s life. ture as written by men about men for I’ve written an account of the sym- men and hadn’t thought about it. And posium for Aqueduct’s blog, which you so she wrote “as a man, until­ I started to can find at http://aqueductpress.blogspot. feel it wasn’t right. Vonda kept pinging com/2015/12/report-on-tiptree-sympo- me gently on the head.” She had to learn sium.html. We will be publishing Julie to write “as a woman.” And that was Phillips’ keynote talk in the next issue of “hard work,” Ursula said with emphasis. the CSZ. And finally, I want to share the She also said that many 1970s feminists announcement Carol Stabile made at disapproved of stay-at-home mothers, the end of the symposium: the Univer- which made her feel at odds with some sity of Oregon will be hosting a feminist feminists. “I like doing housework,” she sf symposium focused on Joanna Russ The feminist sf community said, conjuring up the ghost of her for- next year and another focused on Suzy H in general, and her mer defensiveness. McKee Charnas the following year. correspondence with Ursula The feminist sf community in gener- Forty years later, the “world within a and Joanna in particular, 2 al, and her correspondence with Ursula world” is still going strong. was a lifeline for Alli, and Joanna in particular, was a lifeline though in the end it for Alli, though in the end it wasn’t, of wasn’t, of course, enough. course, enough. Julie characterized Alli’s last ten years, the decade following the disclosure, as a desperate search for a new sense of identity. Alli often felt that she had no sense of self at all, caught up in “an animated puppet show.” During the Q&A panel during which the stu- dents in Carol Stabile’s graduate-level feminist sf class asked Jeff Smith, Alli’s close friend and literary executor, ques- L. Timmel Duchamp is tions about Tiptree, he said that after the the author of the Marq’ssan Cycle as well as Love’s disclosure, Alli could “no longer hear” Body, Dancing in Time, and Tiptree’s voice. Someone from the au- Never at Home. She is the Forty years later, the dience then asked, “So being outed, he founder and publisher of “world within a world” died?” And Jeff replied, “Yeah. She tried Aqueduct Press. is still going strong. to burn her notebooks.” Jeff was invited to speculate on a number of fronts and mostly declined to do so. “It was com- plicated,” he said at one point. (Which is why, of course, historical speculation about very particular situations tells us less about the possibilities of a specific situation than it does about our assump- tions.) One particularly poignant ques- tion was whether, had the conditions A Troubling Reflection by Wilma Bernard

While Francesca waited on the line, a woman’s ward on her toes when she came to a standstill. No voice cut in faintly. “Well, I see your point. But sense ruining good shoes in a late-onset bout of still,” said the voice, and cut out again in a thin mourning. burst of static. She stared at the trim gray tombstone. “Well?” “David,” Francesca said, when he picked up. She glanced around anxiously at the sound of her “While I was waiting, someone else started to talk. own voice, but no one appeared nearby to observe Did someone in your office pick up at another her unorthodox behavior. The time for talking to phone, do you think? Accidentally?” the dead was surely when grave-dirt was fresh and She could hear the shrug in his voice. “Doubt it. loose, the tone surely one of reverence and loss. But The lines must have got crossed, or whatever they here she stood, too late, too peevish, tired of the do now. What’re you calling about, babe?” whole thing. “You’re gone,” she snapped. “So be “I just wondered what time you’d be home for gone, then. I release you, I forgive you, whatever dinner.” She kept her head down, feeling red prick you need. Just go away.” in her cheeks, while she searched for a pencil and She thought, but did not say, You’re driving me pad, and wrote down his answer. “Thank you.” insane. Instead she shut her lips firmly, shut her “Yup. That it?” teeth firmly behind them. I will bring flowers tomor- “Yes, thanks. Bye.” row, she thought. And that will make an end of it. She looked up into the mirror, casually, as if to ∞ give herself a quick looking-over and proceed. Her She bought a pot of purple hyacinth on the way eyes betrayed her. Scarcely taking in her stiff pink home. She went to the post office and the grocery face and half-done hair, they fled up to that corner store. The checkout girl sounded nothing like her by the bed where the black figure stooped. Ridicu- mother, she noted with triumph. The man who sold lous, she told them. You’re always playing tricks. You her the hyacinth used none of her mother’s favorite i scoundrels. She forced a little mental laugh. Anyway, phrases. The neighbor who waved to her as she went ghosts are supposed to disappear in mirrors. So there. into the house bore her mother no resemblance. 3 She put the phone slowly down and finished styl- She unloaded the groceries, left the hyacinth and ing her hair, watching the figure. She tore her eyes the mail on the counter, and went upstairs to mend away to help her apply her makeup, although they the offending leather coat. kept sneaking back toward the visitor. She thought As she picked it up she caught a glimpse in the it nodded, the slightest shift of acknowledgment. mirror of her mother’s face above her own starched At last she stood and turned to face it. crimson collar. Ah, no. She let her breath out in a long, shaking, laugh- She put the coat down again, and went to sit ing sigh. There it was, the terrifying apparition: her in front of the mirror. Looking at her own face, son’s long leather coat, which she had agreed to her mother’s nose, the eyebrows carefully tamed, mend and subsequently forgotten. She gathered it the too-familiar eyes, she sat for a long time. She up to leave her bedside chair pale, ordinary, inani- heard her son come in downstairs, call a greeting, mate once again, and felt her throat tighten against open the refrigerator. the possibility of tears. She folded the coat, left it “Well,” she murmured. “I see your point, I sup- on the edge of the bed, and went out. pose, as well.” ∞ Driving past the row of shops downtown she saw a woman wearing her mother’s favorite jacket in one window, her mother’s profile speaking to the cashier in the next. I don’t believe it for a moment, she told herself, craning her neck around to keep these glimpses in sight. By the time she found the car turning in at the Wilma Bernard has cemetery, she realized she’d forgotten where she previously had work meant to go in the first place. published by Every Day The heels of her shoes sank a little into the damp Fiction, Every Day Poets, and Youth Imagination. grass as she went to the grave, and she leaned for- Poems by Anne Sheldon Star Babe Takes No Prisoners

Poem for Kivrin Why do so many aliens speak English? puzzles Star Babe, lacing up her Teflon Time-traveling graduate student in bustier. And the fair-haired Captain, The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis quick to quote the Prime Directive, quick You learned too much in 1348. to break it boldly: where will his hubris end? You poured wine in their wounds, Her fingers fly across the gleaming wafers lanced their ghastly tumors, taught them to boil willow branches of the shuttle dash, the scarlet nails for something like aspirin, cut neatly square but not too short. He lurks — and still they died: but where? — second red dwarf to the right? — the quiet constant ugly priest, within the crook of this galactic arm. the slender twelve-year old And from between the vast and sleek nacelles, mourning her betrothal her shuttlecraft slides loose. Arrays expand. to a middle-aged jerk, Star Babe scans surrounding space and finds the demanding little preschooler, the signature: his vapor trail of pride. the heart-broken wife kept alive And then sets course. The nearest world, Class M, for a week or two in the waters of Duh Nile. is threatened now with fast food, bloodsport, cable, You saved them for a time global warming, and “democracy.” As if. with work and love You may be clever, Captain, may be quick and the gifts of the future, in a crisis and shimmer in and out of trouble but it would never be enough. at light speed; may even be a natural blond; Brought back to your own present, how will you survive? but you’re no match for Star Babe. How many months, years, For Peg She strokes the emerald key — ENGAGE WARP — H before the “now” feels normal? 1921 – 2010 and fires the dark with outrage and with joy. Who do you know in the future present 4 that can fill the void? We come to free And who knew this was the price the houses of the dead of a degree in history? after they are buried. No collections of Trollope, no antique doll chairs, no old English blue and white go into the modest coffin, or the more modest urn. If this, our aging friend, were an ancient Egyptian we would be choosing what to leave in her last bedroom — not the mansion promised by Jesus but much more spacious than a pine box — and we would walk away with less but like ourselves a little more. Anne Sheldon lives in Silver Spring, MD, with her black cat. Think, if she stood there by the hearth, Her work has appeared in Lady wide-eyed, furious, but unable to speak — Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, The Dark my handsome porcelain platter? Horse, Talebones, and other small my crystal sherry glasses? magazines. Her latest book, The Bone that lovely old lamp? It was a wedding present! Spindle (Aqueduct Press), celebrates What’s the meaning of this? the mythic heroes and villains of the But then, we hope, she’d remember — fiber arts. Ah, that gorgeous landscape — how strange I felt when I hauled it out of my mother’s empty apartment forty years ago. Maidservant From Away y Sighting of an Aqueductista The fire’s low. Her fingers are so cold. by Josh Lukin The keeper naps. She’s served him tea and more. Of all the powerful writing that fills This is how it is, since she was sold. His waistcoat swells with every tenor snore Twelfth Planet Press’s new volume, Let- ters to Tiptree, some of the most moving as if he were the velvet wine-red chair is in the section comprising correspon- squatting on four thickened shiny paws. Beside his hand, a bowl of winter pears dence between Tiptree — or rather, Alli is not for her. These are the winter laws Sheldon after she’d been unmasked — and Joanna Russ. Sheldon talks frankly about of this barbaric winter land. She knows another land and law, where skies her depression and her fear that she will are bottle-blue, the air is sweet, the sand lose all of “Tip”’s talents and friends; Russ is smooth and hard and warm. She shuts her eyes offers support and criticism and detailed accounts of her own developing radical and browses summer memories of home and murmurs soft instinctive chants from where feminist consciousness. And then sudden- her watchful gods of earth are more than stone. ly there’s this: “Do you remember seeing They rear and speak and work their will. Bear anywhere a Mack Reynolds story (I think witness: how at night she is reborn it was) in which women were divided into for just the necessary time, within two kinds: the ‘sexless’ office workers who a cave alive with portraits of Before. dressed in gray and were considered by Coiled and finely-marked, she’s shed the skin men to be genuinely physically sexless, of shame and slides across an underground and the ‘others’ who had breasts and de- as sleek as marble. Seeking warmth of prey, sire, and in general looked like Dolly Par- i her tongue’s a narrow scarlet ribbon....no sound ton, wig and all — they had sort of night 5 when she succeeds…. The street lamps wait for day, clubs where they belly-danced (one to but for the keeper, dawn will never come. each woman) and men came to watch A woman bites into a pear and parts them…. I don’t know if it’s ever been dead fingers from a wound on a pale thumb. published. Somebody showed it to me in She feeds the fire, and curls upon the hearth. manuscript (I don’t remember how that happened or why) some years ago, say five or six, and it was quite good. I think it was Mack Reynolds and I think he’d never had it published, fearing to, I suppose.” Russ, of course, had got the wrong Marx- ist — the story described was Chan Davis’s “It Walks in Beauty,” a corrupted version of which was published by Frederik Pohl Josh Lukin teaches at Temple in 1958, and a restored version of which University and belongs to that appears in It Walks in Beauty: Selected Prose institution’s Interdisciplinary of Chandler Davis, published by Aque- Faculty Committee on duct in 2010. Possibly Judith Merril had Disability. He is the editor of shown Russ a copy of the uncorrupted It Walks in Beauty: Selected ms. I wonder whether Russ knew Chan Prose of Chandler Davis, ­Davis’s work and activism; that of his and has published articles on wife, the historian Natalie Zemon Davis,­ disability studies, noir fiction, is legendary in the feminist canon. and other exciting fields. y Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Monster Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus by Eleanor Arnason

There’s a famous Wallace Stevens poem and a slave, doomed to waste his titled “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a powers for the profits of the cho- Blackbird.” It’s wonderful, and you can sen few! And what was I? Of my It’s a heck of an find it online by Googling. This essay is creation and creator I was abso- achievement for a young not about that poem. I mention it be- lutely ignorant; but I knew that I woman — or anyone. cause there have to be at least thirteen possessed no money, no friends, ways of looking at Mary Shelley’s novel no kind of property. I was, besides, Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus. endued with a figure hideously de- Shelley began the novel when she was formed and loathsome. I was not 18, as part of a writing contest. The other even of the same nature as man. contestants were Shelley’s lover, and lat- I was more agile than they, and er husband, the great poet Percy ­Bysshe could subsist upon a coarser diet; I Shelley; their friend Lord Byron, who bore the extremes of heat and cold was another great poet; and Byron’s per- with less injury to my frame; my sonal physician Dr. Polidori. The novel stature far exceeded theirs. Was I was published in 1818, when Shelley then a monster, a blot upon the was 20. It’s a heck of an achievement for earth, from which all men fled, and a young woman — or anyone. whom all men disowned?” Frankenstein is convoluted, with a Frustrated by his attempts to live number of subsidiary tales. (One could among humans and angry at Victor for say it wanders.) Most are sentimental H abandoning him, the Monster begins stories of love, familial love, and friend- to haunt Victor and Victor’s family. His 6 ship. They contrast strongly with the core tale: a young scientist named Victor first crime is to murder Victor’s young, Frankenstein creates a human being out innocent brother, because the boy has of the parts of dead humans and man- what he cannot have: human affection. ages to animate the body. The creature is Now, in their meeting on the glacier, he large — eight feet tall — and unfortunate- demands that Victor make him a mate, ly very ugly. When it — he — comes to so he will not be entirely alone, and he life, Victor is horrified and flees, leaving promises to go with this new creature the creature — an eight-foot-tall baby — to the Americas and live apart from to find his own way in the world. humanity. The Monster manages to educate Victor begins to create the new crea- himself. He is timid and affectionate, ture in Scotland. (Mary Shelley had lived desiring only the best for humanity, in Switzerland and Scotland, and she set wanting — above all — to be loved. But the novel in countries she knew, which he learns that he has no place among have spectacular landscapes. There is a humanity. His size and ugliness always lot of nature in Frankenstein.) But Vic- produce a reaction of horror and violent tor decides that it’s dangerous to make rejection. When he finally meets Victor a breeding pair of monsters and destroys high in the Swiss mountains, he says: the not-yet-living woman. “I learned that the possessions The rest of the novel is the Monster’s most esteemed by your fellow- revenge. He kills Victor’s friend and creatures were high and unsullied Victor’s bride. Bit by bit, he destroys descent united with riches. A man Victor’s entire life. Finally, with nothing left to lose, Victor turns and pursues the

Grandmother Magma might be respected with only one of these advantages; but, without Monster, determined to destroy him. The either, he was considered, except in novel ends on the Arctic ice sheet, where very rare instances, as a vagabond Victor meets up with an expedition, tells Pullout

his story and dies. The Monster makes and angst and a strong sense of justice. one final appearance, saying: Nothing could be more different from It seems to pour out “Once I falsely hoped to meet be- Jane Austen’s carefully polished books. of her, full of anger and ings who, pardoning my outward Why do I say there are thirteen ways angst and a strong sense form, would love me for the excel- of seeing it? of justice. Nothing could lent qualities which I was capable One can talk about Mary Shelley’s be more different from of unfolding. I was nourished with famous parents: the early feminist Mary Jane Austen’s carefully high thoughts of honour and devo- Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication polished books. tion. But now crime has degraded of the Rights of Women, and the radical me beneath the meanest animals. philosopher William Godwin, author When I run over the frightful of (among other things) the novel Caleb i catalogue of my sins, I cannot be- Williams. Frankenstein is dedicated to lieve that I am the same creature “William Godwin, Author of ‘Political 7 whose thoughts were once filled Justice,’ ‘Caleb Williams,’ etc.” with sublime and transcendent vi- According to Wikipedia, Caleb Wil- sions of beauty and the majesty of liams describes a decent, hardworking, goodness… While I destroyed his able man from a poor background, who hopes, I did not satisfy my own strives to overcome his background and desires. They were for ever ardent is destroyed by an unjust society. The and craving; still I desired love and Monster can be seen as a similar being. friendship, and I was still spurned. One can talk about Mary Shelley’s Was there no injustice in this? Am difficult personal life. Her mother died I to be thought the only crimi- as a result of Mary’s birth, and Mary was In a sense we all still nal when all human kind sinned raised by her father and a stepmother live in the shadow against me?” she did not like. She lost her own first of Romanticism: its The Monster then promises to die child and had a dream about bringing transgressiveness, energy, anger, and hope. alone on the ice. The ending words of the baby back to life. (Did this dream the novel are: lead to the novel?) Her father was usu- He sprung from the cabin window, ally in financial trouble, as was her hus- as he said this, upon the ice-craft band Percy. Mary experienced poverty, which lay close to the vessel. He personal tragedy, and relationships with was soon borne away by the waves men who were brilliant, inspiring, and and lost in darkness and distance. not especially good at ordinary respon- It’s one heck of a story, and yet flawed sibility. She adored both her father and in many ways. As mentioned before, Percy, but did she sometimes long for Mary Shelley was 18 when she began another life — quieter and safer? it; she was 20 when it was published. It One can talk about gothic novels, often seems to pour out of her, full of anger written by women and hugely popular in Cont. on p. 8 Looking at a England at the end of the 18th century. Spree Brian Aldiss points out that Vic- Monster (In fairness to men, the first gothic novel tor Frankenstein learns to reject “ancient was written by a man — Horace Wal- wisdom” — the medieval and Renaissance (cont. from p. 7) pole — and the novel that put the genre alchemists — at the University of Ingol- over the top and shocked everyone — The stadt and devotes himself thereafter to Monk — was also by a man, Matthew modern science, the microscope, and the “Monk” Lewis.) They combine mystery, crucible. Aldiss argues that this focus on danger, horror, and strange, possibly contemporary science makes Franken- supernatural events. In some cases, the stein the first SF novel. The Monster is supernatural events are explained away not animated by magic, but by science. when the mystery is solved. In the case What else stands out about the nov- of Frankenstein, the explanation is given el? The miserable, wet summer that the beforehand: the Monster is a product of Shelleys spent in Switzerland next door In a sense we all still modern science. to Lord Byron and Dr. Polidori. Af- live in the shadow One can talk about the Romantic ter reading gothic fiction, the foursome of Romanticism: its Movement in Europe and England. decided on the aforementioned story- transgressiveness, energy, Mary ran off (at the age of 16!) with the writing contest. Mary Shelley is the only anger, and hope. Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and one who finished, and her story became married him after his first wife commit- Frankenstein. ted suicide. (The personal lives of radicals My own feeling is there are at least and Romantics in the late 18th and early two other influences on the novel: the 19th centuries make my generation of rise of industrialism and the progression the 1960s look conventional.) Her rela- of the French Revolution, which began tionship with Percy put her at the center with hope, then moved through the of the English Romantic Movement. In Terror to Napoleon. “Bliss was it in that H a sense we all still live in the shadow of time to be alive, but to be young was Romanticism: its transgressiveness, en- very heaven,” the English poet William 8 ergy, anger, and hope. Its products were Wordsworth wrote about the Revolu- spectacular. Think of Shelley’s “Pro- tion at its beginning. Frankenstein was metheus Unbound,” Byron’s “Don Juan,” written later, after the Terror and Na- and “Liberty Leading the People to the poleon’s wars, when darkness had crept Barricades” by Delacroix. Romanticism in. The Revolution sought to create a continues to shape us, I think, emerging new society and new people. Its result again and again in art and in revolution, was ambiguous, though the French did actual or dreamed of. manage to transform their society. It I think it can be argued that science took three more revolutions and most of fiction and fantasy especially are heirs to the 19th century. gothic and Romantic literature. Like the I see the Monster as a French sans SFF is fantastic, grotesque, earlier movements, SFF is fantastic, gro- culottes or an English proletarian, cre- transgressive, and often tesque, transgressive, and often radical. ated by — and deformed by — science and radical. We can trace the gothic and Romantic technology. He is a hulking, ugly, dan- strains through 19th century European gerous being, deprived of a decent life and American literature and art. As and full of anger. That’s how workers can bourgeois realism rose to prominence, be seen by “refined” people. Romantic and gothic fiction took refuge At this point, I am up to eight ways in genre and ended finally by becoming of seeing the novel. What else is there? SF, fantasy, horror, and mystery. The history of the Monster in popular One can talk of Frankenstein in rela- culture. The book has never been out tion to the rise of modern science. Edu- of print. Mary Shelley came back from cated people of the time were strongly Italy to discover her novel was on the interested in science. Mary knew about stage. There were many more stage pro- the galvanic experiments, which made ductions, the most recent (that I know dead animals move and apparently live. of ) being in 2011 at the Royal National In his critical treatise The Trillion Year Theater. Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller played the two leads, I also wonder if the Monster is — in swapping back and forth. Wikipedia some way — female. I certainly identify lists 75 movies based (in one way or an- with him: the being with no place in other) on the novel. At least three are the world of men. I’ve always thought of Is the novel feminist? famous: Frankenstein (1931), Bride of myself as too large, too smart, too elo- I’m not sure, though as a quent, and not the least bit pretty. Like Frankenstein (1935), and Young Franken- feminist I find its narrative stein (1974). Like Dracula, the Monster the Monster, I disturb people. They want riveting. is always with us. me to go away. Rather than hunting around for four One of science fiction’s great themes or five more ways to see the novel, I am is the Other: aliens, robots, women, hu- going to talk now about my personal re- mans from different cultures, humans action to it. who are physically or mentally different. I dislike Victor Frankenstein. I find all Who is more Other than the Monster: his brooding and self-doubt and excuses huge, with a yellow skin and dull, wa- and guilt almost impossible to bear. He tery eyes? created a living human being and aban- The novel works so well because it has doned it. Talk about a bad parent. so many layers, so many aspects. I think In spite of all his sentimentality about Brian Aldiss is right. It combines the family and friends, Victor is self-obsessed,­ main themes of science fiction: how we talking endlessly about his feelings, his are shaped by science and society, how we struggle to be human in an inhuman suffering. His only strong emotional world; and it may well have another connection — the only one that convinc- message. The people we create through es me — is with the Monster. The two technology and capitalism — factory of them chase and torment and destroy workers, child laborers, the inhabitants each other. It combines the main of the world’s giant slums — do not go The Monster is wonderful: imposing, themes of science fiction: i away, though we try to escape them. frightening, intelligent, eloquent. He how we are shaped by Like the monster, they will haunt us, races down glaciers with the rapidity of science and society, how 9 and our dreams of middle-class happi- we struggle to be human an eagle in flight, springs out windows, ness will fail. in an inhuman world… kills with ease. Like a Byronic hero, he My count says I have made it to twelve broods dangerously. I find his version of or thirteen ways of looking at the Mon- the struggle with Victor convincing. He ster. I’m satisfied with that ambiguity (or was created, abandoned, cast out from complexity), and I hope you are, too. humanity. He realizes he has become a moral monster, though — like Victor — he does not ever accept full responsibility for his actions. Is the novel feminist? I’m not sure, though as a feminist I find its narra- tive riveting. The women characters are all secondary and sentimentalized, so on the score of creating strong female protagonists it fails. However, the novel Eleanor Arnason was born in can been seen as a critique of the indi- Manhattan and lives in Minnesota. Her novel A Woman of the Iron vidualism and egotism of the Romantic People won the James Tiptree, Jr. Movement. On one side we have the Award for gender-bending science compelling figures of Victor and the fiction. In spite of all setbacks and Monster, both of them male and ob- adversity, she remains a lifelong fan sessed. On the other side, in the novel’s of ordinary human decency and the minor narratives, we have people who international working class. care for other people and manage, in some cases, to be happy. Is that a wom- an’s view of Romanticism? y How Are the Ghosts of Gracetown Doing? Ghost Summer Stories, by Tananarive Due, Prime Books, September 2015, 256 pp., $15.95. reviewed by Tanya DePass

various reasons, or in some cases flee as far as they can. The ways in which each I won’t get into each one, or this review story is linked to another would stretch out as long as one of the made me feel as if I delicious stories in this collection. Each was diving deeper and story could be its own book, or perhaps deeper into the history an episode of a beloved television series of Gracetown… about this weird place…. The stories not tied to Gracetown are just as compelling to read. ”Other Moth- er” seemed to be on a straightforward path, yet the end wasn’t what I expect- ed at all, once again proving the author This book is terrifying, amazing, knows how to present readers with alter- creepy, and riveting. From the introduc- natives they never anticipated. This was tion by Nalo Hopkinson to the last page, one of many stories that got me to make it gripped me by the throat and didn’t let a sad, disappointed sound at it when it go. It was a hard read, mostly because the ended. I want to know how things turned characters charmed their way into my out afterwards, but maybe...maybe I ac- mind as I read through the stories; each tually don’t? After all, some things once H one got me comfortable and relaxed as I known can’t be unknown. read through their trials and tribulations Over and over, within just a few pages 10 then — then, friend, they snatched at my I was pulled into their stories by these heart and took it. characters — no, by these people whose The opening story, “The Lake,” sets the lives I got to peek in on for a while. It stage, and slyly introduces you to Grace­ felt almost like I was walking in on a town, where things are just not quite family dinner, or a family argument in right for the young teacher who’s moved some cases. Then the blinds would get there to start her career. Tananarive Due’s pulled down and the door locked, with writing is so smooth and easy to fall into me on the other side of it. I want to that you are lulled into thinking the story know what happened to the protagonist is going one way, but then it takes an un- in “Patient Zero.” Oddly enough, that expected turn for the odd. one rekindled my desire to go back and As you read you continue to learn play the Resident Evil series. That’s the more about Gracetown, especially the power in this collection for me, you see: longstanding feud between the McCor- To light that fire of wanting more, not macks and Timmonses that is a recur- just in the snatches of each person’s story ring thread tying the stories together. we get here but to remind me of some- It’s rare for me to get so into a collec- thing else I’ve enjoyed before in my own tion of short stories, because they are life, to relink that for me. usually too short on their own to make I feel like writing the folks in these me invested as I am in what else hap- stories letters and asking how they’re pened in Graceto­ wn and to each char- doing, as if they could answer: Is every- acter we meet. The ways in which each thing all right? Did you make it out OK? story is linked to another made me feel Did you survive the virus, or the pain you as if I was diving deeper and deeper into were enduring when we last met? Did

Reviews the history of Gracetown, learning its Neecy grow up or go back home? What ins-and-outs, living there alongside its happened in the J? So many questions I denizens who stay there, or go back for want answered, because I’m greedy for more of these folks’ lives. This collection made me fall for each person I got the privilege of meeting, and I wanted more. Tanya DePass is a How many different ways can I say longtime gamer, a fangirl, the spawn point of the that I loved this collection? Many, and I feel like writing the folks in these stories #INeedDiverseGames I have probably repeated them for you letters and asking how hashtag on Twitter, and a few times. They’re all true, though. It they’re doing, as if they Programming Co-Chair was a complete joy to read these stories. could answer… for WisCon 40. She’s also Some made me cringe and even recoil GOH Liaison for Nalo from the page for a moment, but I al- Hopkinson, returning ways went back. Do yourself a favor: get GOH for WC40. a drink, your favorite snack, and stop by Gracetown for a bit. But don’t swim, be careful of the water, and never, ever go in summer. y A Prismatic Display Dark Orbit, by Carolyn Ives Gilman, Tor, July 2015, 303 pp., $25.99 hardcover, $15.99 paperback. reviewed by Nisi Shawl

“Tend-and-befriend” is the catch- travel as practiced by profit-driven or- phrase used to summarize one kind of ganizations — sipping a restorative drink reaction to the unfamiliar, an alterna- that tastes “vaguely” of mango, accept- …Gilman deftly provides tive to our notorious “fight-or-flight” ing a welcome she interprets correctly all the right clues to programming. This new hard science as an invitation to get out of the way of her strange yet totally i fiction novel set in Gilman’s Twenty the next inbound passenger — Gilman believable milieu. Planets universe looks at which of these deftly provides all the right clues to her 11 attitudes prevails in the confrontation of strange yet totally believable milieu. A two interstellar cultures. malachite door and a subliminal artificial Saraswati Callicot, a freelance knowl- breeze signal the luxuriousness to which edge-hunter for corporate educational the corporations’ upper ranks accustom institutions, accepts an assignment to themselves; as a child bride walks along secretly watch over a member of her cul- a window-pierced passage, sunlight and ture’s elite who has recently recovered shadow first gild, then tarnish her. from the sudden onset of mental illness. When the wind speaks, goes a proverb An exploratory team including Callicot of the sightless Torobes into whose black and the recuperating elite, Thora Las- realm Lassiter tumbles, its language is siter, gets sent via encoded light beams the world. Gilman’s language makes this to a planet years away from civilization’s world real. center, supposedly to gather details on Perhaps the most vividly rendered as- an uninhabited planet. The planet is pect of Dark Orbit’s gestalt is the thug- …Gilman is likely familiar called Iris for the beautiful crystal-like gishness of academic politics, which with the atmosphere of professional jealousy and growths covering its surface. But this at one point leads to a murder investi- desperate reputation- star system’s local geometry is rife with gation. Pairing the pursuit of knowl- building that can exist in anomalies, and while hiking on Iris Las- edge — one of few commodities it would academia. siter disappears inside one. She finds be economically feasible to trade across herself in total darkness — but not alone. the vastnesses of interstellar space — with Ostensibly uninhabited Iris has a hith- the rapacity of corporatism isn’t all that erto undetected population. farfetched an extrapolation from the ac- This book delights me. Starting with tuality of today’s research-focused, grant- its opening paragraphs, in which a new- hungry universities. Given her position ly reconstituted Callicot moves through as a museum curator and her career as a the manufactured banality of lightspeed historian, Gilman is likely familiar with Cont. on p. 12 Dark Orbit the atmosphere of professional jealousy his diagnosis that he could electrically (cont. from p. 11) and desperate reputation-building that stimulate her brain to reproduce what can exist in academia. she went through, she responds that she x could electrically stimulate his brain to The potential for non-Western tra- create the sensation of sight. “Yet you ditions to counter fundamentalist pho- think that’s real, and the other sensa- bias also makes a welcome appearance tion is not. That is simply illogical,” she in Dark Orbit. Gilman revisits Las- concludes. Because it’s a phenomenon siter’s sojourn on a world reminiscent rarely perceived within its daily domains, of today’s conflict-filled Middle East, Lassiter’s society dismisses the validity then through her account of the fic- of “wending,” as the Torobes call jour- tional populist cult of “the Shameless neying outside our universe. She, how- One” shows how an indigenous society ever, stubbornly refuses to accept the could challenge its own misogyny when assessment of her brain’s receptiveness to unrestrained by ignorant and arrogant wending as a disease. outsiders. Related to this perspective is This scientific attitude towards (dis) the sweetly illuminating moment when ability colors Gilman’s portrayal of the Callicot’s unconscious ethnic prejudice Torobe girl Moth’s training in filtering falls away to unveil a friend where she’d and interpreting visual data. Aboard imagined an enemy — and vice versa. It’s Callicot’s ship there’s much discussion especially impressive that the author was of the difference between receiving able to pull off such a great paradigm signals and interpreting them: looking switch using a viewpoint character’s fal- is a skill, like listening. Later, perception libility. Perhaps her success is due to the and expectation are revealed to be key The potential for non- objectivity required of good historians, to outcomes as an audience of skep- H Western traditions to who must frequently gaze through the tics interferes with Moth’s attempts to counter fundamentalist eyes of other periods and cultures. return to her home and save the other phobias also makes a Both physical disability — the blind- Torobes from a stormlike outbreak of 12 welcome appearance in ness of the Torobe — and mental dis- randomly destructive anomalies. Dark Orbit. ability — the atypical neurology of Thora Through exposure to wending in Lassiter — play important roles in Dark strange and familiar settings respective- Orbit. But in neither case does the au- ly, Lassiter and Callicot come to accept thor seem to have fallen into the easiest its reality. They also voice respect for of stereotypic traps associated with their the Torobes’ knowledge traditions built depiction. Her approach avoids roman- around its practice. But though Callicot ticizing blindness and mental illness worries that her employers will deem while at the same time pointing to the the technique too valuable to remain in possibility of accommodating oneself to the control of “pre-industrial natives,” them or reframing their contexts. When Lassiter worries that commercialized Callicot remarks on the auditory acuity and without cultural context it will pose of the Torobe girl visiting their space- a danger to those using it. ship, a colleague cautions that skill rath- Part of what concerns Lassiter is Her approach avoids er than ability could be the cause of what her growing realization that wending romanticizing blindness she notices, opining that the Torobes involves the participation, not just of and mental illness while may have more opportunities to focus on those traveling, but of those traveled to. at the same time pointing listening because they’re undistracted by In order to wend somewhere it helps to to the possibility of sight. Ability is innate and magical; skill, know that there’s someone at that new accommodating oneself in contrast, is learned, earned. Similarly, location who can “bemind” you. Age, to them or reframing after Lassiter has described how she tra- attractiveness, habits, desires, and more their contexts. versed the area’s interdimensional folds can be warped or reified by the faith- led by a Torobe man, she challenges the ful or faulty remembrance of the one to ship medic’s diagnosis of her experi- whom you journey. When Torobes ini- ence as a hallucination induced by epi- tially meet one another they introduce lepsy. When the medic states as proof of themselves with lengthy recitations of their lives —not neat, stylized narratives, In the end Callicot and Lassiter re- but blow-by-blow accounts of everything spond to the tend-and-befriend pro- Will the corporations they’ve done, detailed repetitions of their clivity of the Torobes with determined and governments…see dreams and vows and relationships and echoes of it: Lassiter arranges shelter how necessary proper choices and plans. Will the corporations for the refugees of the approaching “fold beminding is for accurate and governments of the Twenty Planets storm” on a relative’s estate. Callicot re- wending, how beminding, see how necessary proper beminding is turns to her employers wondering if the like befriending, is an eminently practical for accurate wending, how beminding, secret of wending will be disclosed — but technique? like befriending, is an eminently practi- knowing that disclosure won’t come cal technique? Or will they discount the from her. While asking and at least interdependence it mandates as born of partly answering the question of how superstition, a useless emotional append- its characters’ responses to new situa- age on what could become a speedier tions play out, Dark Orbit sheds light on Nisi Shawl’s story and more inexpensive method of travel a myriad of other issues. It’s a prismatic collection Filter House display I urge you not to miss. than outmoded light beams? co-won the James Tiptree, Jr. Award in 2009. She is coauthor of Writing the Other: A Practical Approach. Her Belgian Congo steampunk novel Everfair is due out from O(r)bit Tor in September 2016. by Mary Alexandra Agner Call me Claudia, Power Couple: Combustion Lover of laminar flow and plate tectonics, by Mary Alexandra Agner i African-American Undaunted, plasma physicist, planetary scientist. The curve of calf, eye-catching, 13 Discover what takes us to the next level, long line of black hose that beckons, I challenge everyone, fan service for Lavoisier’s long list As student, colleague, statistical outlier. of lovers, his look entreating, face upturned to view his wife, And when her comet comes round again, her eyes evaluating those of us who stare Lander Philae perhaps still chatty, still back at the double portrait, postponing Explaining comets are not Earth’s watering cans, what she might dictate and her husband scribe. X will mark a plot, headstone, series of dates, Real world revelations of barometers, And the remains of a Rosetta project scientist. bell jars, round-bottomed flasks, Not her bright mind, not her bright eyes. the very oxygen we breathe. Do more between disciplines, different cultures, bold Investigations done by candlelight. Why does fire burn? Explorers and ambassadors. Do as she did: What chokes its throat when it lacks air? Risk everything to “not follow the fold.” Real world revelation: Marie-Anne, scientific illustrator and collaborator. Obtuse angle of white dress, cerulean ribbon, the dark line of man and blood-red cloth Mary Alexandra Agner writes what separates her from science’s paraphernalia. of dead women, telescopes, and secrets in poetry, prose, and Ada. An inaccurate representation. Her latest book of poetry is The Staged and posed, what truths Scientific Method (Parallel Press); does Jacques-Louis David leave us with? her latest nonfiction appears Love, of a certainty. in TED Ideas. Each month her That the Lavoisiers gifted the world patrons receive science news in with the ideas of hydrogen and oxygen. verse at https://www.patreon.com/ That even trapped beneath a glass sciencenewsinverse. we glow — for a little while. y Southeast Asian Retrofuturism The SEA Is Ours: Tales from Steampunk Southeast Asia, edited by Jaymee Goh and Joyce Chng, Rosarium Press, November 2015, 270 pp., $21.95 hardcover, $15.95 paperback. reviewed by S. Qiouyi Lu

“How do you make something steam­ worldbuilding and root “On the Con- punk? Just stick a gear on it.” You may sequence of Sound” in a larger conver- have heard a quip like this, but of the sation, one that understands the hybrid Goh and Chng reject the twelve stories in The SEA Is Ours, only nature of colonial and postcolonial sub- assumptions that steam- some make use of gears, and just a cou- jects. Kate Osias’s “The Unmaking of the punk must center on Victorian England and use ple of those use the classic image of brass Cuadro Amoroso” positions itself during colonial powers as its gears. Yet each story rings with the spirit the Spanish colonial period of the Phil- foundation. of steampunk, which editors Goh and ippines via its language use. One char- Chng define in their introduction as “an acter becomes “a deviant in the eyes of aesthetic that combines retrofuturism, the colonia” (emphasis added); other key alternate history, and technofantasy.…” terms and locations also use Spanish. Its The fact that this definition does not setting in the Spanish colonial period mention a specific locale is a strategic allows Osias to create an anti-imperial choice. Goh and Chng reject the as- narrative of rebellion. sumptions that steampunk must center Although each of the stories in The on Victorian England and use colonial SEA Is Ours stands alone, some images powers as its foundation. The title also and themes recur. Notable is the disrup- asserts this stance in its double mean- tion of the strict dichotomy between na- ing: it is not only a declaration of own- ture and machine, organic and inorganic, H ership over the ocean routes that have which often features in Western inter- been so vital to the various maritime pretations of steampunk. In “Between 14 cultures of Southeast Asia, but also a Severed Souls” by Paolo Chikiamco, declaration of ownership over the narra- Nur and the carver Domingo use not tives of the peoples of Southeast Asia, or metal, but wood to create a mechani- SEA. Through retrofutures and alternate cal body for an anito, or guardian, that histories, Southeast Asian narratives, emerges from a strange log. The world particularly those written by South- of Alessa Hinlo’s “The Last Aswang” pits east Asians themselves, can push back magic-fueled wooden snakes and floral against colonial and imperial powers. automata against the steam-powered It is not surprising, then, that many Spanish Empire. In “The Chamber of of the stories in The SEA Is Ours find Souls” by z.m. quỳnh, the guardian Ngọc creative ways to play around with es- provides another image of nature and tablished history and portrayals of the machine working together: “Underneath past. Marilang Angway’s “Chasing Vol- its skin…were several layers of rotating canoes” presents readers with a vision of gears that intertwined with leafy vines the Philippines where two governments and moss that made up the substance centered in New Manila and Cebu City of its body.” Meanwhile, Robert Liow’s Notable is the disruption are in conflict. Subtle details, such as “Spider Here” focuses on a character of the strict dichotomy between nature and Caliso’s nation being named Pina in- who engineers casings for spider fights machine, organic and stead of the Philippines, suggest a time- with unusual organic materials. inorganic, which often line that did not involve colonization. A With nine of twelve stories focused features in Western broader history and a personal narrative on women, The SEA Is Ours is delight- interpretations of create each other in Timothy Dimacali’s fully woman-centric. These are not sto- steampunk. “On the Consequence of Sound,” where ries of the lone woman in a group of extracts from academic texts punctuate men, either. Instead, The SEA Is Ours fo- a story of a young girl working with her cuses on relationships between women. father to become a Navigator. The aca- Nghi Vo’s “Life Under Glass” tells not demic snippets fill in the details of the only the story of two sisters discovering a startling creature, but also the story of ther. Whether we are in the lands of our Thi learning to put herself first after her heritage or in the diaspora, steampunk breakup with her girlfriend An. “Work- allows us to collaborate and to engage ing Woman” by Olivia Ho introduces us with our collective pasts and futures. to three women who start off in conflict, Stripped of its colonial tethers, steam- but quickly come to support each other punk becomes boundless: it is theirs, … at its best, steampunk in their pursuits of personal agency. Pear yours, and, most of all — ours. offers a space to create Nuallak packs a vast story into the small new narratives and reclaim space of “The Insects and Women Sing old ones. Together,” one that explores intergener- ational experiences between mother and S. Qiouyi Lu lives in Columbus, daughter, as well as Amphon’s appren- Ohio with a tiny black cat ticeship to two other women. Whether named Thin Mint. Their poetry romantic, platonic, antagonistic, diplo- has appeared in inkscrawl. matic, or something else entirely, the re- You can visit their website at lationships between women in The SEA s.qiouyi.lu or follow them on Is Ours are vast and many. Twitter at @sqiouyilu The wonderful illustrations for The SEA Is Ours do a fantastic job of com- plementing their respective stories. They span a range of styles: Kim Miranda’s loose brushwork contrasts with Shelley Low’s carefully rendered pencils; Trun- gles’ and Stephani Soejono’s character- Rachel Carson’s Prix Fixe driven inks are stark and stylized next by Mary Alexandra Agner to Borg Sinaban’s moody, atmospheric i pieces. Pear Nuallak’s pencils feature Honeysuckle. Heart of palm. Pali. Sand sucked from clean, tight lines that bring the fantastic under your feet as the surf goes out. Street light, sodium 15 worlds of three stories to life. Their work lamp. Constellations. Stories that turn overhead. Dying for “Ordained” by L.L. Hill is particu- suns still sparkling. Atmospheric interference, particle larly evocative and captures so much of scattering. Particle collider. Corridor of grass, green ring the story in just one image. “Ordained” is a human racetrack. Dirt, amended: soil. Aerated, worm- not as character- or event-focused as the wended, microbe monitored. Seeds sprout cotyledons, other stories in The SEA Is Ours; instead, roots, ions across permeable membranes. Axons, nerves, its strength is its lush imagery filled with electrical impulse, point and click, liquid crystals, photonic clockwork insects, which Nuallak brings crystals, colors of weevils created by the way light refracts, to life. Wina Oktavia’s stunning illus- wavelengths, arm lengths, tibia, fibula, calcium. Cancer. Not tration for Ivanna Mendels’s “Petrified” a sky story. Develops our taste for destruction. Our mouths is epic in scope, capturing the grand- so full, with watercress and physics, free-flowing lava on ness of Mendels’s retelling of the Malin Venus, holes in the bottom of the ocean that encourage Kundang folktale. Although some read- extremophiles, the wonder is we’ve any wonder left to ers may find the writing in “Petrified” spare for the fraying interface of man vs. nature. Look. somewhat unpolished, the tale itself is Tide pools. Dolphins. Stellar clusters. The flavor of those fascinating. photons aged like rare vintages. Why do we reach for the With so many excellent stories, The deep-fried green-house gases, the sugar-free individually SEA Is Ours is a necessary addition wrapped 100-calorie industrial pollution, the cotton to any speculative fiction collection. candy spun up clockwise into the Pacific Ocean’s gyre of More importantly, The SEA Is Ours is a anthropocene plastic? reminder to those of us in the margins “The more clearly we can focus our attention on the that steampunk is for everyone: at its wonders and the realities of the universe, the less taste best, steampunk offers a space to create we shall have for destruction.” new narratives and reclaim old ones. –Rachel Carson Finally, the fact that this anthology is a transnational one is no coincidence ei- y A Dystopia for Adults Flesh & Wires, by Jackie Hatton. Aqueduct Press, November 2015, 328 pages, $19.00 paperback. reviewed by Stevie Watson

What would today’s popular dysto- After the aliens are gone — explaining pian fiction look like if it were written where they go would put this review in What gives this story for adults instead of children? spoiler territory — their legacy remains: weight and keeps the We live in an age where fantasy technologically modified women who reader hooked is the worlds — bad fantasy worlds, where bad can move objects with their minds but way Hatton subverts things happen — hold people’s interest seem emotionally stunted and are un- most of the tropes of widely. It is as if our reality is so bleak that able to age like normal women. These dystopian novels. we need made-up stories about worlds women are physically strong, stronger that are even bleaker. The Hunger Games, than most men, but they lack emotional Maze Runner, Divergent, and others are lives. They use their collective strength prime examples. Children are made to to form communities, where they pro- kill each other. Children are forced to tect the aging, unmodified men and the be part of a sadistic experiment without tragically altered children; the Ruur- their consent. Children, who can feel dans have modified, enslaved, and aban- emotions adults have forgotten how to doned these children, just as they did the feel, are tasked with saving the world. women. The children become vital to the When not defending their lives or storyline, but they are not the focus, in plotting to overthrow their repressive keeping with Hatton’s adult portrayal of governments, these children do what her world. characters in the young adult genre have Lo, the leader of the community that always done. They fall in love. Usually, is the book’s main focus, is a character H the fate of the world hinges on how well who bends standard rules. She is tough these young couples can survive and and uncompromising, tending to shoot 16 get along. first and punish anyone who asks ques- Young Adult novels can be entertain- tions later. She defends her community ing, but they have one major flaw that from the Orbiters — unwelcome settlers sets them apart from novels aimed at from another planet. Many of the Or- adults: once the world is saved, the book biters are criminals and exiles, but they or series ends. With Flesh & Wires, Jack- also represent oppressed and margin- ie Hatton has given us a book that picks alized people in our own reality. Lo’s up decades after the climactic battle. typically brutal initial response to them What gives this story weight and keeps raises ethical issues, while also showing the reader hooked is the way Hatton she does not have a “heart of gold.” Lo subverts most of the tropes of dystopi- is a survivor, not a benevolent ruler. This an novels. This is a book for adults, and further sets her apart from standard sci- Hatton trusts her readers to keep up. ence fiction protagonists. One of the book’s central Often in dystopian YA all the adults As it turns out, the biggest threat themes is that we don’t are absent. One big difference between to Lo and her group’s survival is not get the leaders we want, Flesh & Wires and contemporary YA is a stranger or alien intruder. Her own or even the leaders we need; we get the leaders that the absence is weighted by gender brother, seemingly returned from the who are best equipped to rather than age. Most of the Earth’s men dead, shows up one day for what he take and keep command. die in the apocalyptic arrival of the Ru- thinks will be a short visit. Readers can urdans, an alien race. This takes place tell Lo’s brother is not what he says he 30 years before the events in the novel. is, but does he really deserve all the pain These aliens believe women are the ideal Lo inflicts on him throughout the novel? slaves. To force their obedience, the Ru- The reunion is not a joyous one. urdans violate the women with wires All Lo cares about is keeping her and other electronic parts (this is what people safe, even if that means hurting gives the book its title). or turning her back on someone she has known all her life. Lo does not trust eas- cerned with saving the world as much ily, does not do relationships well, and is as holding on to what is left of it. Love barely a mother to her teenage child. In and partnerships, in Lo’s world, are never order to go on living, she takes on some to be taken at face value, and while the Hatton’s work is a welcome of the qualities of her oppressors. alien colonizers were clear-cut villains, departure from authors The one quality that makes Lo likable they left behind weapon and aviation who seem intent on spoon feeding their readers. is her loyalty. She is on the side of the technologies that the women put to use. modified women, even if being on their Weapons are appropriate, and violence side means not giving in to their desires. is acceptable, as long as we use them to One of the book’s central themes is that protect the people we love and value. we don’t get the leaders we want, or even Aren’t they? the leaders we need; we get the leaders Hatton wisely leaves this and other who are best equipped to take and keep moral questions unanswered, for the Stevie Watson is a parent, command. most part. She leaves things up to the teacher, and freelance Bad things happen in Flesh & Wires, reader to decide. Again, this is a book writer living in Atlanta, and its outlook is often bleak. The chil- for adults, and an adult is someone who GA. She might or might dren in this book play an important role, thinks for herself. Hatton’s work is a wel- not be transgender; she but Lo and her core group of women come departure from authors who seem is definitely on the queer warriors are at the heart of the story. intent on spoon feeding their readers. spectrum, and loves every minute of it. To contact They carry the scars and memories of a Let’s hope there are many more stories Stevie and read more brutal colonization. They are not con- where Flesh & Wires came from. of her reviews, visit her website, http://www. steviescontentservices.net/.

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The Lost Aphrodite by Sonya Taaffe for Rose Lemberg Out of the lamplit galleries of Paros they cleaved me, in the sunlit dust of the sculptor’s workshop carved me rounded breasts and thighs and hair still dripping as gold with paint as pollen of the Pythia’s bees. Praxiteles, after you I was a goddess, but before your sand and chisels I was a mountain’s heart. Sonya Taaffe's short My fingers flush with cinnabar, my eyes fiction and award-winning stare past the harbor, blue into further blue. poetry has appeared in Headless, weather-eaten, unrecognizable, multiple venues. Her I will outlast the bright breath of you. latest collection is Ghost Signs. She is currently a senior poetry editor for Strange Horizons. y This Small Book Must Travel Far and Fast: A Kurdish Struggle for Autonomy A Small Key Can Open a Large Door: The Rojava Revolution, edited by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, 2015, 184 pp., $15.00. reviewed by Maria Velazquez

This is a deceptively tiny book. Only the Kurdish people, highlighting the role slightly bigger than one’s spread palm, ill-conceived military interventions over A Small Key Can Open a Large Door the past century have had in leading to This book begins by proves its own name right. From its first the ongoing oppression of Kurdish peo- mimicking the format pages, A Small Key positions itself as the ple and all women in the region. This is of a U.S. Government product of collective action. Beginning both deeply unusual and reflective of the document as it introduces with “A Note from One of Many Edi- kind of radical decentering of historical the existence of a tors,” A Small Key centers its “stitch[ed]” narrative undergirding A Small Key, un- revolutionary movement together nature, highlighting that this like the overall slant of the 2007 movie that rejects nationalism anthology is a work of love and “frag- and 2003 book Charlie Wilson’s War: The and statehood. ments” representing the work of Kurd- Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert ish revolutionaries and their allies across Operation in History, widely praised for its the world. Some of these fragments are humanizing the mujahedeen supported truly ephemeral — snippets from listservs by Reagan. In contrast to this narrative and lines of poetry and prose smuggled of benevolent American intervention, across rapidly shifting political borders. A Small Key states that the “Kurdistan Even the regional map included in A Regional Government (KRG) exists not Small Key reflects both the timeliness of because the United States protected the this anthology and its ephemerality: its Kurds, but because they took U.S. and H caption notes that the map was current coalition aid and resources to prepare as of November 2014. their own defense.” This is important to 18 A Small Key is conceived as both a man- emphasize for two reasons. First, this is ifesto and an archival project. In order a book that makes the Kurdish struggle to realize their lofty goals, the anarchist for autonomy its central focus, in con- publishing collective of Strangers in a trast to other histories of the region that Tangled Wilderness begins with targets focus on the Kurds’ oppression. Second, at the level of the everyday. The first few placing emphasis on the emergence of sections provide a brief overview of Ro- the KRG (sometimes called Western java as a region, in a format reminiscent Kurdistan or Syrian Kurdistan) presents of the CIA World Factbook. This is both a dramatically different characterization a useful introduction for the reader and a of the region’s political landscape. succinct way of making it clear that the For example, both the New York neutrality of data included in those en- Times and Washington Post have noted …a book that makes cyclopedic entries must be interrogated. that one of the problems facing U.S. the Kurdish struggle for In one entry the editors write, “Popula- coalition-building in Syria has been the autonomy its central tion: At the start of the Syrian civil war, defection of U.S. trained locals. In one focus, in contrast to other Rojava was home to nearly 3.5 million recent article in The New Yorker, trainees histories of the region people. Now it is home to a little over are described as feckless and unreliable that focus on the Kurds’ oppression. 2.5 million…. Nearly a million people cowards fleeing from ISIL. Arguing have fled, many to refugee camps in Tur- that Kurds are instead making use of key and Iraq.” This book begins by mim- that training to realize their own po- icking the format of a U.S. Government litical goals is not only a bold move but document as it introduces the existence seems to be a more accurate description of a revolutionary movement that rejects of current events. In a November 11 nationalism and statehood. press briefing, U.S. State Department Immediately after this, the editors Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner ex- present a collectively written history of pressed concern about the emergence of Rojava as a semi-autonomous politi- and Jazire, two of Rojava’s three subre- cal entity. “I think we’re always — again, gions, have vast oil reserves. For the first we’ve been very clear about our support time, Kurds have begun refining oil and for the YPD. They’ve been effective. But negotiating its sale on the global market, The political structure and we also have talked about some of the making use of the technology left be- integration of ecofeminist, caveats — that we don’t want them devel- hind when multinational corporations socialist, and anarchist oping some kind of semi-autonomous abandoned the region. The idealist in beliefs into the movement can offer inspiration zone. We remain committed to the me wants to cheer for an ethnic minor- to U.S.-based activists unity and integrity of Syria, territorial ity controlling the means of production. looking for an alternate integrity. We’re focused on advancing a The realist in me is deeply concerned mode of interacting with genuine negotiated political transition over the fate of a small confederacy of an oppressive state. in Syria.” Despite Rojava growing into “a cantons with multiple state and finan- pocket of stability” according to Reuters, cial interests invested in its failure. If this the United States remains unwilling to movement is to succeed, this small book support one of the few local successes must travel far and fast in its journey to against ISIL. Basically, Rojava is not re- find supporters. jecting the Syrian government so much Further Reading: as it is introducing a democratic confed- http://www.newyorker.com/news/news- eration of local councils whose primary desk/ our-high-priced-mercenaries-in-syria goals are to maintain regional stability, protect women’s rights, and empower a http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ civilian populace for whom the Syrian dpb/2015/11/249394.htm#SYRIA civil war is but a new iteration of a cen- http://www.reuters.com/ turies’ old conflict. article/2014/01/22/us-syria-kurdistan- Ultimately, A Small Key is not a plea specialreport-idUSBREA0L17320140122#yW If this movement is to for aid. It is instead a call to arms made MIPo5bwF7ZutKb.97 succeed, this small book i by equals and comrades. The political http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-kurds-refine- must travel far and fast structure and integration of ecofeminist, oil-themselves-first-time-072900132.html in its journey to find 19 socialist, and anarchist beliefs into the supporters. movement can offer inspiration to U.S.- http://www.economist.com/news/ based activists looking for an alternate middle-east-and-africa/21656692-turkey- mode of interacting with an oppressive and-jordan-are-considering-setting-up- state. This revolution is part of a global buffer-zones-war-scorched struggle, with connections to Zapatismo, the Spanish Revolution, and the Argen- tine Neighborhood Movement. It is also a heavily idealistic movement, one plac- ing feminist principals regarding bodily autonomy and women’s political em- powerment at its center. I’m not sure it is a viable movement. In Maria Velazquez received her doctorate my work on U.S. military interventions in American Studies from University of in the Middle East and their connec- Maryland, College Park. Her dissertation tion to American social justice projects, focuses on belly dance and its use as an I have consistently seen that projects like embodied political rhetoric post-9/11. When Rojava are deliberately undermined be- not thinking big thoughts connecting global politics to American wellness movements, cause of their perceived connection to she is an avid reader, writer, and fangirl for all a Communist threat. These Cold War things sci-fi and fantasy. concerns are simple costuming, a pretty mask to justify the ongoing imperialist and capitalist aim of exploiting a vulner- able region’s natural resources. Rojava as a whole produces something like 60% of Syria’s grain, and Kobane y Erin Harrop, A Different Language

In 10th grade, my high school required further my engagement with these top- me to take an art class, and I now owe ics; it deepens my own understanding, a great debt to their graduation require- and I hope that it also communicates to ments. While I had previously consid- others. I also use art to cope in times of ered myself a writer, I had not dreamed struggle. It helps me to persevere, mud- of calling myself an artist. “Drawing and dle through, and process grief. Painting 1” taught me a different language The pieces in this series each deal and gave me a new way to communicate. with illness and embodiment in dif- Since then, visual art has enabled me to ferent forms and stages. When engag- explore areas of my life that I struggle to ing with the body, I play with ideas of convey with language. How do you de- power/powerlessness, celebration/grief, fine beauty when it is so varied, tender, and beauty/death. These pieces explore and personal? How do you capture what what it is to be female and feminine. it is to be powerless, yet feel in control? My art questions the portrayal of some How does one experience a body that is women’s bodies as hypersexual and oth- weak and dying? How do you talk about ers as asexual. Some of the pieces glo- wounds that were perpetrated before you rify illness. Some of the pieces speak of could speak? abuse. All of these pieces are influenced These are some of the questions that by socially constructed ideas of beauty, I explore in both my artwork and my both implicitly and explicitly. Ultimately, scholarship. As a social welfare gradu- I hope that my art can be a co-creation. I have brought some ideas to the canvas. ate student, I am deeply curious about You will bring your own perspectives and H theories of embodiment, gender and views, and hopefully we will both learn a power, body-based discrimination, and little more. 20 mental health recovery. I use my art to Featured Artist

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