My devotion to nerddom:
So I got two requests for help in filling syllabi for courses. One is looking for bizarre, but neat articles on genes and the other is looking for freaks and weirdos sf short stories. I really did spend hours combing through my collection to find all of my favorites that I think would be good and read a few new ones I'd suspected would be, but hadn't gotten around to finishing. Two things I've learned...
1) Octavia Butler is just totally, absolutely the shit. Anybody who tries to name a contemporary sf writer that's better needs punched. She's fucking wonderful.
2) I really am this big of a dork. I could've tutored. I could've worked on the dress, skirt, and pants I've been wanting to sew. I could've finished the Zora Neale Hurston book I've been reading. Hell, I could've been writing. Instead, I fell in love with a whole bunch of weird stories all over again. I'm pasting the summaries of the short stories below because I love them that much. The * mark my favs.
Oh! And I finished (as well as I can right now) the throw for the chair. I might take a pic tomorrow and show you because it's just so cool to have made a velvet cover for an overstuffed chair. I almost feel goth...again.
"Enemy Mine." It's about two dudes fighting in a war in space who shoot each other down onto the same planet. One is a hermaphroditic alien who's impregnated himself (his gender term) and the other is human. The alien ends up dying after giving birth and the human raises the kid until he's rescued. I think he raises him for life, actually. I don't remember the author's name. It's straight up social commentary SF dealing with racism. I think it's a novella, but it might just be a longish short story.
*"Beggars in Spain." Nancy Kress. The Hard SF Renaissance. Watch out that you get the novella and not the book. I love them both, but the book can be tedious to a non lover of this genre as it's the beginning of a trilogy. The essence of this novella is that there is a generation of children genetically modified so they can't sleep. They're starting to come of age and do a bunch of drugs so they can dream. Society is learning how to adjust to their existence. We follow a teenage girl to learn about the society. Essentially, Nancy Kress likes too sleep too much and imagined getting sleep genetically removed. Image a baby that doesn't sleep and you'll get an idea of the dysfunctional world these kids are trying to survive. It's a mix of hard SF with a lot of pysch and social stuff it focuses on.
*"The Girl Who Was Plugged In." James Tiptree Jr. Google Books link that I've got a PDF file of already. This is the one I taught last semester about the ugly girl who became a beautiful "god" or celebrity by plugging in to a grown beautiful body by selling her entire life to a company whose products she is required to endorse. It's one of my all time favorites and my class last semester is still pissed that when they didn't complete the reading and came to class, I decided to refuse to talk about the story for the rest of the semester. Imagine if the beats wrote SF and were anti-feminist female powered types. This author is an ex-CIA psychologist who killed herself when her husband was terminal. Other excellent short stories by this author: Beam Us Home and The Women Men Don't See. They're her more famous ones, but not my favorites. Borderline novella/long short story.
"His Vegetable Wife." Pat Murphy. The Norton Book of Science Fiction. I loved this as a freshman so much that I spent several years trying to remember the author's name. The idea is amazing. I skimmed it again for this list and the writing isn't as good as I remember, but essentially he decides to grow a wife and it's not as great as he thought it would be. There are several passages of molestation and I believe a rape. Be warned about class discussion before choosing. It's a classic SF warning tale about the dangers of progress without thought. Growing a wife is clearly progress without considering her feelings. Personally, I'd stay away from growing a wife because I just want one who cooks. Short story.
"R.U.R." Karel Capek . Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts. Also available in old school Dover Classic type bindings. Ever wonder where "robot" comes from? This is the play. Written in 1921, the word robot comes from the Czech word "robota" meaning worker. I don't remember the play all that well, except that I read it in an isle of the Strand when Al handed it to me on the clock and then promptly bought it because I was in love. I'm still in love. Also, it's a super short play.
"The Persistence of Vision." John Varley. Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts. This one is a little funky. It's post-apocalypse and it's a wandering dude as our narrator. He's wandered all over, but the story focuses on this place that was built for a generation of people with Helen Keller's disease/syndrome. They're all blind and deaf from a virus when they were babies. He's hanging out and learning to be around free-loving blind and deaf people with children they've had who can see and hear, but prefer to stay there. Orgy alert. it's part of the renaissance of SF in the 70's. It was such a weird story that it stuck with me for years until I found it again. Longish short story.
"Johnny Mnemonic." William Gibson. The Science Fiction Century. I don't know about you, but I love me some classic cyberpunk. This is one of the excellent ones that got adapted into a shitty Keauno Reeves (or however it's spelled) movies. This short story is where "cyberspace" comes from and it's one of those stories that asks the reader to question where the line between human and machine really is. Longish short story/novella.
*"Twilight." John W. Campbell. The Norton Book of Science Fiction. This guy edited either Amazing Stories or Asimov's Science Fiction magazine for years. I can't remember which. This is his pseudonym. The story is about a man who's built a time machine and seen the dusk of the human race. He's come back to the wrong time (too far) and told some guys who found him on the side of the road in the mid 20th century. It's one of the saddest, most beautiful things I've ever read. Until Andrew taught it a year ago, I'd been having a hard time getting my hands on it. Then I got it from him and found this anthology. It's classic time travel, untrustworthy narrator, but you want to believe SF. Long short story.
*"Speech Sounds." Octavia Butler. The Norton Book of Science Fiction. I just finished reading everything I have of this author and I'm about as obsessed as I was when I discovered Jeannette Winterson, but more fascinated and sad. She's got three themes: California, pharmaceuticals, and low class/low income/minority (black) people. She interweaves each of them beautifully so that you almost believe the terrible thing that she's saying has happened is going to happen. In this story, a virus has taken speech and comprehension from most of humanity, but left handed people have been harmed less by it than right handers. We follow a woman who's given up and watch her find hope where she didn't expect it. Short story.
-or also by Butler-
*"The Evening and the Morning and the Night." Octavia Butler. The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women. This isn't really fantasty. A cancer drug has created a genetic disease that causes people to destroy themselves. Quite literally going so far as to cannibalize themselves. One woman's parents both have the disease and are dead. She's got both sets of genes giving her the disease, which leaves her very little life to live before she self-mutilates. We follow her life and short term success story until she falls in love with someone else with the disease and they travel to a resort for those who have self-mutilated already and are under 24 hour care (think psych ward for the most violent cases) only to discover that other options do exist and the research toward a cure is still progressing more than she thought. I have another one by this author, too, but it's about aliens using humans as hosts and it's not as good or interesting. Short story.
"I Have No Mouth and I must Scream." Harlan Ellison. Same title, trade paperback. Yes, I have it and not in a plastic cover. It's ready for the spine to be broken again on my scanner. It's a classic of man vs. machine in the realm of the post-apocalypse. It's Ellison's specialty. He hates women more than humans, but he's generally a misanthrope. He does love dogs though. In this one, a machine controls the last handful of people left in the world and is torturing them. There is no escape and it won't let them die. It's a slightly longish short story.Another good one by this author is A Boy and His Dog. It's about a post-nuclear holocaust future where women are scarce and dogs speak telepathically with men. Underground is a world of civilized people where rape and crime doesn't happen. Our narrator gets down there and convinces a woman to come up. It was made into a movie starring a very, very young Don Johnson, too. The short story/novella is way better, but the movie is way weirder.
Ignore the scanning and whatnot. I won't be scanning them in unless I get several requests because it's just too much work. I hope you like the list because I do. ; )
1) Octavia Butler is just totally, absolutely the shit. Anybody who tries to name a contemporary sf writer that's better needs punched. She's fucking wonderful.
2) I really am this big of a dork. I could've tutored. I could've worked on the dress, skirt, and pants I've been wanting to sew. I could've finished the Zora Neale Hurston book I've been reading. Hell, I could've been writing. Instead, I fell in love with a whole bunch of weird stories all over again. I'm pasting the summaries of the short stories below because I love them that much. The * mark my favs.
Oh! And I finished (as well as I can right now) the throw for the chair. I might take a pic tomorrow and show you because it's just so cool to have made a velvet cover for an overstuffed chair. I almost feel goth...again.
"Enemy Mine." It's about two dudes fighting in a war in space who shoot each other down onto the same planet. One is a hermaphroditic alien who's impregnated himself (his gender term) and the other is human. The alien ends up dying after giving birth and the human raises the kid until he's rescued. I think he raises him for life, actually. I don't remember the author's name. It's straight up social commentary SF dealing with racism. I think it's a novella, but it might just be a longish short story.
*"Beggars in Spain." Nancy Kress. The Hard SF Renaissance. Watch out that you get the novella and not the book. I love them both, but the book can be tedious to a non lover of this genre as it's the beginning of a trilogy. The essence of this novella is that there is a generation of children genetically modified so they can't sleep. They're starting to come of age and do a bunch of drugs so they can dream. Society is learning how to adjust to their existence. We follow a teenage girl to learn about the society. Essentially, Nancy Kress likes too sleep too much and imagined getting sleep genetically removed. Image a baby that doesn't sleep and you'll get an idea of the dysfunctional world these kids are trying to survive. It's a mix of hard SF with a lot of pysch and social stuff it focuses on.
*"The Girl Who Was Plugged In." James Tiptree Jr. Google Books link that I've got a PDF file of already. This is the one I taught last semester about the ugly girl who became a beautiful "god" or celebrity by plugging in to a grown beautiful body by selling her entire life to a company whose products she is required to endorse. It's one of my all time favorites and my class last semester is still pissed that when they didn't complete the reading and came to class, I decided to refuse to talk about the story for the rest of the semester. Imagine if the beats wrote SF and were anti-feminist female powered types. This author is an ex-CIA psychologist who killed herself when her husband was terminal. Other excellent short stories by this author: Beam Us Home and The Women Men Don't See. They're her more famous ones, but not my favorites. Borderline novella/long short story.
"His Vegetable Wife." Pat Murphy. The Norton Book of Science Fiction. I loved this as a freshman so much that I spent several years trying to remember the author's name. The idea is amazing. I skimmed it again for this list and the writing isn't as good as I remember, but essentially he decides to grow a wife and it's not as great as he thought it would be. There are several passages of molestation and I believe a rape. Be warned about class discussion before choosing. It's a classic SF warning tale about the dangers of progress without thought. Growing a wife is clearly progress without considering her feelings. Personally, I'd stay away from growing a wife because I just want one who cooks. Short story.
"R.U.R." Karel Capek . Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts. Also available in old school Dover Classic type bindings. Ever wonder where "robot" comes from? This is the play. Written in 1921, the word robot comes from the Czech word "robota" meaning worker. I don't remember the play all that well, except that I read it in an isle of the Strand when Al handed it to me on the clock and then promptly bought it because I was in love. I'm still in love. Also, it's a super short play.
"The Persistence of Vision." John Varley. Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts. This one is a little funky. It's post-apocalypse and it's a wandering dude as our narrator. He's wandered all over, but the story focuses on this place that was built for a generation of people with Helen Keller's disease/syndrome. They're all blind and deaf from a virus when they were babies. He's hanging out and learning to be around free-loving blind and deaf people with children they've had who can see and hear, but prefer to stay there. Orgy alert. it's part of the renaissance of SF in the 70's. It was such a weird story that it stuck with me for years until I found it again. Longish short story.
"Johnny Mnemonic." William Gibson. The Science Fiction Century. I don't know about you, but I love me some classic cyberpunk. This is one of the excellent ones that got adapted into a shitty Keauno Reeves (or however it's spelled) movies. This short story is where "cyberspace" comes from and it's one of those stories that asks the reader to question where the line between human and machine really is. Longish short story/novella.
*"Twilight." John W. Campbell. The Norton Book of Science Fiction. This guy edited either Amazing Stories or Asimov's Science Fiction magazine for years. I can't remember which. This is his pseudonym. The story is about a man who's built a time machine and seen the dusk of the human race. He's come back to the wrong time (too far) and told some guys who found him on the side of the road in the mid 20th century. It's one of the saddest, most beautiful things I've ever read. Until Andrew taught it a year ago, I'd been having a hard time getting my hands on it. Then I got it from him and found this anthology. It's classic time travel, untrustworthy narrator, but you want to believe SF. Long short story.
*"Speech Sounds." Octavia Butler. The Norton Book of Science Fiction. I just finished reading everything I have of this author and I'm about as obsessed as I was when I discovered Jeannette Winterson, but more fascinated and sad. She's got three themes: California, pharmaceuticals, and low class/low income/minority (black) people. She interweaves each of them beautifully so that you almost believe the terrible thing that she's saying has happened is going to happen. In this story, a virus has taken speech and comprehension from most of humanity, but left handed people have been harmed less by it than right handers. We follow a woman who's given up and watch her find hope where she didn't expect it. Short story.
-or also by Butler-
*"The Evening and the Morning and the Night." Octavia Butler. The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women. This isn't really fantasty. A cancer drug has created a genetic disease that causes people to destroy themselves. Quite literally going so far as to cannibalize themselves. One woman's parents both have the disease and are dead. She's got both sets of genes giving her the disease, which leaves her very little life to live before she self-mutilates. We follow her life and short term success story until she falls in love with someone else with the disease and they travel to a resort for those who have self-mutilated already and are under 24 hour care (think psych ward for the most violent cases) only to discover that other options do exist and the research toward a cure is still progressing more than she thought. I have another one by this author, too, but it's about aliens using humans as hosts and it's not as good or interesting. Short story.
"I Have No Mouth and I must Scream." Harlan Ellison. Same title, trade paperback. Yes, I have it and not in a plastic cover. It's ready for the spine to be broken again on my scanner. It's a classic of man vs. machine in the realm of the post-apocalypse. It's Ellison's specialty. He hates women more than humans, but he's generally a misanthrope. He does love dogs though. In this one, a machine controls the last handful of people left in the world and is torturing them. There is no escape and it won't let them die. It's a slightly longish short story.Another good one by this author is A Boy and His Dog. It's about a post-nuclear holocaust future where women are scarce and dogs speak telepathically with men. Underground is a world of civilized people where rape and crime doesn't happen. Our narrator gets down there and convinces a woman to come up. It was made into a movie starring a very, very young Don Johnson, too. The short story/novella is way better, but the movie is way weirder.
Ignore the scanning and whatnot. I won't be scanning them in unless I get several requests because it's just too much work. I hope you like the list because I do. ; )