2010 Reading CXXI-CXXXI
Catch up!
CXXII: Brian Aldiss, Frankenstein Unbound (1973)
Novelisation of Billion Year Spree in which an American politician travels back through time and meets Frankenstein and Mary Shelley and ends up in bed with one of them. Gives Aldiss a rather Oedipal relationship to sf, which doesn't really bear thinking about.
CXXIII: Octavia Butler, Patternmaster (1976)
Butler inexplicably isn't in SFE 1st edn, but here's a novel which should have qualified her; a battle for supremacy between two telepaths over who gets to be leader, with a strong bisexual woman in a supporting role. The telepaths are slavers, with mutes (non-telepaths) as slaves, which feels ironic given the latter volumes.
CXXIV: Octavia Butler, Mind of My Mind (1977)
Probably my favourite of the series, in which telepath Doro continues a breeding experiment to make telepaths, and comes faces resistance from one of his daughters. I was slightly annoyed it didn't quite pin down the time period - it feels like the present but twenty years or so clearly pass.
CXXV: Octavia Butler, Survivor (1978)
The one she suppressed - mixed raced Alanna acts as go between between aliens and Missionaries, and has to adapt, as Butler's women often do. The women also seem to reach a point of having enough and deciding to die. Too many balls in the air, I fear.
CXXVI: Octavia Butler, Wild Seed (1980)
Back to the experiment, and Doro's battle/affair with a shapeshifter in colonial Africa and pre-civil war America. We know Doro will come through, but I didn't see the ending coming. Almost as good as Wild Seed, but again with the giving up by people. I should read Clay's Ark now, but it's outside the period.
CXXVII: Vonda McIntyre and Susan Janice Anderson, eds, Aurora: Beyond Equality (1976)
A good collection, especially the Tiptree, Sheldon, Piercy and Russ, and the article by Le Guin, the other pieces are less memorable.
CXXVIII: James Tiptree, Out of the Everywhere and Other Extraordinary Visions (1981)
A mixture of Tiptree and Sheldon, and I can see why some of them are published as written by women, because it would feel very different.
CXXIX: M John Harrison, The Pastel City (1971)
Part of the Viriconium sequences; a fantasy not at ease with fantasy, but more Peake than Tolkien.
CXXX: Samuel R. Delany, Triton (1976)
The Delany novel I have least time for, despite its shift into metafiction. Dahlgren does that better. There's something here to be thought through about the constructedness of sex, race and sexuality, but I'm not convinced we're better off for it instead of essentialism. But then we see it through an eternal perspective, and a dissatisfied one at that.
CXXXI: Brian Aldiss, Enemies of the System (1978)
Rather dull and talky dystopia, mercifully short
CXXII: Brian Aldiss, Frankenstein Unbound (1973)
Novelisation of Billion Year Spree in which an American politician travels back through time and meets Frankenstein and Mary Shelley and ends up in bed with one of them. Gives Aldiss a rather Oedipal relationship to sf, which doesn't really bear thinking about.
CXXIII: Octavia Butler, Patternmaster (1976)
Butler inexplicably isn't in SFE 1st edn, but here's a novel which should have qualified her; a battle for supremacy between two telepaths over who gets to be leader, with a strong bisexual woman in a supporting role. The telepaths are slavers, with mutes (non-telepaths) as slaves, which feels ironic given the latter volumes.
CXXIV: Octavia Butler, Mind of My Mind (1977)
Probably my favourite of the series, in which telepath Doro continues a breeding experiment to make telepaths, and comes faces resistance from one of his daughters. I was slightly annoyed it didn't quite pin down the time period - it feels like the present but twenty years or so clearly pass.
CXXV: Octavia Butler, Survivor (1978)
The one she suppressed - mixed raced Alanna acts as go between between aliens and Missionaries, and has to adapt, as Butler's women often do. The women also seem to reach a point of having enough and deciding to die. Too many balls in the air, I fear.
CXXVI: Octavia Butler, Wild Seed (1980)
Back to the experiment, and Doro's battle/affair with a shapeshifter in colonial Africa and pre-civil war America. We know Doro will come through, but I didn't see the ending coming. Almost as good as Wild Seed, but again with the giving up by people. I should read Clay's Ark now, but it's outside the period.
CXXVII: Vonda McIntyre and Susan Janice Anderson, eds, Aurora: Beyond Equality (1976)
A good collection, especially the Tiptree, Sheldon, Piercy and Russ, and the article by Le Guin, the other pieces are less memorable.
CXXVIII: James Tiptree, Out of the Everywhere and Other Extraordinary Visions (1981)
A mixture of Tiptree and Sheldon, and I can see why some of them are published as written by women, because it would feel very different.
CXXIX: M John Harrison, The Pastel City (1971)
Part of the Viriconium sequences; a fantasy not at ease with fantasy, but more Peake than Tolkien.
CXXX: Samuel R. Delany, Triton (1976)
The Delany novel I have least time for, despite its shift into metafiction. Dahlgren does that better. There's something here to be thought through about the constructedness of sex, race and sexuality, but I'm not convinced we're better off for it instead of essentialism. But then we see it through an eternal perspective, and a dissatisfied one at that.
CXXXI: Brian Aldiss, Enemies of the System (1978)
Rather dull and talky dystopia, mercifully short