The Grand Conversation

[coalescent]

The Grand Conversation is a chapbook, published by Aqueduct Press, that collects four essays by L. Timmel Duchamp on aspects of feminism, sf, and feminist sf. It was recommended by oursin. The book is the first of a series to be published by Aqueduct, called conversation pieces, and I recommend it; subsequent issues are primarily fiction-based,

Comments

[ide_cyan]

I posted the link to Duchamp's genealogy in whileaway last year.

Re: "What I Didn't See": It's a fine story--if you know the context.

Not necessarily. Because I knew the context, I disliked the story, which seemed far more mundane than Mary Hastings Bradley's travels with Alice.

I find anything I say on this subject unsatisfactory

Who's your intended audience?

[chance88088]

So tell me, what did you think of Camouflage?

[ide_cyan]

Are you asking me about Joe Haldeman's novel?

I haven't read it, and I don't plan to read it.

[chance88088]

Yes, I was. It won the Tiptree, so I was wondering what you thought of it.

[coalescent]

Heh, you're welcome. And for the record, it's pretty sweltering here, too. We need a good thunderstorm.

[blzblack]

I loved this post. Honest and heartfelt. You're feeling your way through the discussion while trying to be fair to all. Kudos! (You may now be new favorite genre reviewer.)

[fjm]

I haven't read this collection but I have read Timmi's work, far more often than I wish I had. Timmi is, as far as I am concerned, a sloppy and uncriticial historian who clothes an ideological position in convenient annecdotes and calls it evidence

small corrections

[fjm]

Apologies: I didn't have Extrapolation to hand, I now do. GKW's review was 1997. There are responses to Duchamp's article (and I apologise also for spelling her name incorrectly above) by:
Gary K. Wolfe
Josh Lukin
Jeanne Gomoll
Debbie Notkin
Jeff VanderMeer
Laurie J. Marks
Farah Mendlesohn
Candas Jane Dorsey

I should also add that *none* of the responses was entirely unsolicited. Javier Martinez, the then newly appointed editor of Extrapolation, deliberately decided to whip up a response, and I think this is evident in all the letters.

[coalescent]

Thanks. I'm still glad to have read this collection; perhaps that's because I'm not sure there's much actual history in it. Essay four is obviously a personal history, and presented as such, and the others are more about feminist sf now, and (as noted in the main post) I think I can spot where to disagree with them. I'd be extremely interested to read the original exchange in Extrapolation in full, so if I could borrow it that'd be great.

I am getting the sense that things are very different in the UK and the US in this area.

[oursin]

Okay, this was some while ago, but I had a novel turned down by at least one UK publisher as 'too feminist' (I think on the grounds that more of the leading characters were female than male, because it wasn't particularly polemical, more like space-opera). I'm extremely dubious about the 'feminists are creating the ghetto' notion, although there are, it is true, litcrit people getting in on the act who have no genre background, urrrrghhhhh.
Another thing I bought at Wiscon was an reprint of the famous Khatru discussions on feminism and sff, with later responses to them - as I'm sure this is not very easy to get hold of, I could lend it to you if you like. Found it most interesting/provocative/historically illuminating etc.

[ice_hesitant]

As far as sf that happens to be written by a human female goes, CJ Cherryh and Mary Gentle have some spectacular works under their belts. They are on my Top Five of currently active sf writers.

[ice_hesitant]

(China Mieville, CJ Cherryh, Greg Egan, Mary Gentle, Steven Erikson)

Yeah, they are all different.:P