Friday, September 24, 2010

Aqueductista News

--In "Steering the Craft," which appears in the Fall 2010 issue of Bitch Magazine, Ursula K. Le Guin does some Q&A (heads-up courtesy of Carrie Devall)

--Thrall, the debut novel of Kimberly Todd Wade (author of Making Love in Madrid, a novella in the Conversation Pieces series), is out in hardback from Hadley Rille Press. (Paperback and kindle editions will soon be available.) Here is the publisher's description:

Drawing from her many years of research, former archaeologist Kimberly Todd Wade paints a world of sight and sound at the dawn of human consciousness. THRALL details the journey of Hoolow, a young hunter, who looses his ability to understand the world as his fellow tribe mates. Instead he faces intense emotions, conflict and tragedy that eventually force him into exile. Beset by visions, Hoolow discovers awareness of self, yet also learns to understand loneliness. When he returns to his tribe he discovers other “individuals” have emerged. Will they be able to communicate with each other and help their tribe mates advance as well? Will love, imagination and art thrive in a world unfamiliar with the idea of idea? THRALL follows the impact of one man’s self awakening and his struggle to initiate others to new understanding.

--Lynne M. Thomas has announced that L. Timmel Duchamp has donated the first installment of her papers to the NIU SFWA Collection. [Other Aqueduct authors are sending Lynne their papers too. Which is interesting, I think.]

--Alexandra Pierce has posted a lengthy review of Helen Merrick's The Secret Feminist Cabal at Australian Speculative Fiction in Focus. Here are a couple of quotes from it:

Merrick had me from her Preface, where she describes her journey towards writing the book in ways that resonated deeply with me, from the nerdy adolescent to the discovery of feminism and the dismay that many female acquaintances not only do not share our love of science fiction, they are completely mystified by it. Having only recently discovered the niche community that is sf fandom, the fact that so much of this book is concerned with expressions of feminism within that community – and how they impacted on sf broadly – was the icing on the cake.

******

A critical work based in a deep-seated love of the genre, Cabal is a testament to the enduring impact of women, feminism, and fandom on the fractured behemoth that is science fiction. 2010 saw it shortlisted on the Hugo ballot for Best Related Work, and win the fan-voted William Atheling award for best critical work. These are well-deserved honours. It is to be hoped that coming generations of both writers and fans will make use of the cornucopia of references Merrick has gathered, both to understand the history of the field and because most of them make for wonderful reading.



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