Steam Engine Time 11.pdf

Steam Engine

Time 11

February 2010

TODAY’S WOMEN OF WONDER :

Liz de Jager

Carol Kewley

Lyn McConchie

Terry Morris

Gillian Polack

Pamela Sargent

Janine G. Stinson

Kaaron Warren

in the issue about

C. J. Cherryh

Ursula K. Le Guin

Urban fantasy

The art of editing

The art of writing

and much else besides

Steam Engine Time

Steam Engine Time No 11, February 2010 , was edited by

Janine Stinson (tropicsf at earthlink.net), PO Box 248, Eastlake, MI 49626-0248

USA and

Bruce Gillespie (gandc at pacific.net.au), 5 Howard St., Greensborough VIC

3088, Australia, and published at

http://efanzines.com/SFC/SteamEngineTime/SET11 . Members fwa.

Website: GillespieCochrane.com.au.

primary publication is electronic. A thrice-yearly publishing schedule is intended

but rarely achieved. All material in this publication was contributed for one-time

use only, and copyrights belong to the contributors.

Illustrations: Carol Kewley (front cover: ‘Creatrix’); Taral Wayne (pp. 4, 10,

43); Steve Stiles (pp. 38, 42); Sheryl Birkhead (pp. 39, 47); David L. Russell

(pp. 41, 45, 46, 48); various book covers; promotion cartoon from the Ghibli

Production Tales from Earthsea (p. 28).

Print edition only available by negotiation with the editors; first edition and

Contents

3 EDITORIALS

Editorial 1: Today’s women of wonder

Bruce Gillespie

Editorial 2: List? What list?

Editorial 3: Urban Fantasy on the rise

Jan Stinson

TODAY’S WOMEN OF WONDER

20 The doors of perception:

The science fiction works of C. J. Cherryh

J. G. Stinson

24 Inside the nightmare:

Liz de Jager interviews Kaaron Warren

28 ‘Earthsea’ and ‘Tales from Earthsea’

Terry Morris

33 What shape is a wave?

Gillian Polack

7 Illegible history

Lyn McConchie

9 Are editors necessary?

Pamela Sargent

38 LETTERS OF COMMENT

Jeff Hamill :: Paul Anderson :: Alex Slate :: Robert Elordieta :: Steve Jeffery

:: Kathleen Jennings :: Darrell Schweitzer :: Sheryl Birkhead :: Martin Morse

Wooster :: Chris Nelson :: Patrick McGuire :: and a few others.

If human thought is a growth, like all other growths, its logic is without foundation of its own, and is only the adjusting

constructiveness of all other growing things. A tree cannot find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time.

A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine time.

— Charles Fort, Lo! , quoted in Westfahl, Science Fiction Quotations , Yale UP, 2005, p. 286

Editorials

Editorial 1: Today’s women of wonder

by Bruce Gillespie

I can’t remember how the idea of a ‘women’s issue’ of Steam Engine

Time came about. The central article was always going to be co-editor

Jan Stinson ’s article about the works of C. J. Cherryh . We also wanted

to feature a cover from Carol Kewley , who has recently been doing

artwork for Melbourne-based publications, and on her own website.

Kaaron Warren in this issue, but otherwise we’ve still failed in this aim.

Deb Biancotti has a new collection; Margo Lanagan won the World

Fantasy Award for her latest novel, and the others are publishing

regularly and winning awards. Please send your articles about our

writers!

What we could not have anticipated was the offer of a long article from

Pamela Sargent , one of America’s most distinguished SF writers. I was

last in touch with her and her husband George Zebrowski in the 1970s;

you might remember that the first edition of Women of Wonder (1975),

edited by Pamela, contained in its introduction the longest footnote in SF

publishing history: the correspondence between Ursula Le Guin and

Stanislaw Lem from an early issue of my SF Commentary . Women of

Wonder was followed by More Women of Wonder , and later by two

completely revised versions of the same books.

In talking about major women SF and fantasy writers, critics and

reviewers tend to think immediately of Ursula Le Guin . In the last forty

years has become an American Classic Writer. Hence we welcome articles

by Melbourne writer Terry Morris (about the ‘Earthsea’ books and the

Japanese movie supposedly inspired by them) and Canberra writer,

academic and critic Gillian Polack (about a variety of Le Guin’s works).

We are also pleased to present a variety of comments on more general

subjects: Jan Stinson on the Urban Fantasy movement; New Zealand

writer Lyn McConchie on what writing is all about; and Pamela

Sargent on one of the big questions: ‘Are editors necessary?’

If ever Pam Sargent edits Even More Women of Wonder , based on the

work of the last two decades, we trust that she will derive many of her

stories from Australian authors. Not only did Jan and I want to celebrate

our favourite women SF and fantasy writers in this issue of SET , but we

wanted to demonstrate the importance of the vital work that has come

from Australia’s current SF and fantasy writers and editors, such as Margo

Lanagan, Kaaron Warren, Cat Sparks, Deborah Biancotti, Lucy Sussex,

Kirstyn McDermott and Alison Goodman. We present an interview with

This issue of Steam Engine Time is designed to send out one central

message: Jan Stinson and I welcome articles and reviews by women

talking about women’s writing. We look forward to your response.

— Bruce Gillespie, February 2010

Editorial 2: List? What list?

by Jan Stinson

There is no way I can come up with the sort of editorial Bruce has written

for the companion issue ( SET 12), because I wasn’t paying much

attention to what I read, saw or heard during 2009. I remember some

of the movies and books, but there wasn’t any music bought. One might

call it my own peculiar version of a Lost Weekend that lasted nearly 12

months.

Can Learn From Moslems by Peter Kreeft. The Butler novels make much

more sense now, and I am amazed that the simple beauty of her writing

didn’t blaze forth from these novels’ pages the first time I read them.

Can I read Hemingway now and not fall asleep? Hmmmm

I spent a fair chunk of 2009 looking for movies that would actually scare

me. Not a lot of luck there. Paranormal Activity didn’t pass muster,

perhaps because I’ve watched too many episodes of ‘Ghost Hunters’ and

‘Paranormal State.’ I haven’t tried the ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ series

yet, so perhaps that’s where I’ll get my jolts. Splatter movies don’t

interest me. The best horror film I’ve ever seen is still The Haunting of

Hell House .

But that sounds incredibly sad, doesn’t it? Well, depression is like that.

If you want the specifics on the symptoms of a major depressive episode,

or clinical depression, Google or WebMD are your friends. The four

symptoms I’ve been battling: loss of energy, lack of interest, sadness,

inability to concentrate. I’ve been on medication and in counselling for

depression for a year now, and only in the last two months have I finally

started seeing what my life was really like from outside of the depression.

Yikes.

Being very short of money, I didn’t buy any DVDs, and rented very few

from the local video store. I’m sure I’ve seen a lot of movies via my cable

system, but I can’t recall them right now. Depression caused me to not

give a damn whether I remembered them or not, it seems.

Fortunately, and thank God for it, my medication works well for me. Might

need a bit of tweaking, but I feel like I woke up from a long, vaguely

negative sleep. My reading comprehension sucked pre-meds, but with

the meds, I re-read books I’ve already read at least twice and it feels

like I’ve never read them at all. No idea why this is so; I haven’t had

time to research it or ask my PCP (primary care physician) about it yet.

I’m still in the middle of it.

Sadly, I can’t recall the last time I bought a music CD. Meniere’s disease

causes deafness in most sufferers, I’m already 90 per cent deaf in my

left ear, and I was depressed most of 2009 — not a recipe for listening

pleasure. But I finally located the pile of LP records I wanted to save,

and if I can talk myself into it, I might listen to at least some of them

this year. The major depression fed my negative feelings about having

Meniere’s; I can no longer hear music the way I could twenty-some years

ago. Now that the major depression is being alleviated (mostly), I

grokked that I still have one good ear, and it was silly to deprive myself

of something I love so much. And I’ve become a Foo Fighters phan to

boot.

What a gift, though. I returned to Peter Watts’ Blindsight and it actually

made sense this time. I returned to C. J. Cherryh’s Cyteen in preparation

for its 2009 sequel, ReGenesis , and came away from it much less

depressed than the first two or three reads. I’ve just finished re-reading

Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents , after

reading a for-review book called Between Allah & Jesus: What Christians

Perhaps the greatest challenge in recovering from depression is learning

the various ways in which I sabotage myself into not doing what needs

to be done. Now that I recognise these behaviours, I can work to reduce

and, eventually, eliminate them. I really, really need to find at least a

local part-time job, and I’m scared to fill out applications. Having

admitted to myself that fear, I can work on moving it aside and getting

those applications completed.

yet.

Along with other resolutions for the New Year, I resolve to do my utmost

to help Bruce get at least three issues of SET out the door before

12/31/2010. Now that I have my reading skills back, I hope to do more

writing for this fanzine as well. Parts of ideas that have been simmering

in my brain for years are starting to come together in interesting ways.

I’ll try to take notes, so I can report on what happened to them at the

end of this year.

Recognising negative behaviors and learning new ones takes time. I am

just as to blame for the fact that SET didn’t get a third issue published

in 2009 as is Bruce, and perhaps more so. Granted, there was that long

space where I didn’t know what the hell I was doing beyond going through

the motions of daily life and faking the rest of it. Let’s just say, shall we,

that I’m moving beyond that now, but I’m not clear of the swamp just

Thanks to all who continue to read and loc SET . I greatly appreciate it.

— Jan Stinson, January 2010

Editorial 3: Urban fantasy on the rise

by Jan Stinson

For our purposes here, urban fantasy is defined as a fantasy work

featuring a contemporary setting in which supernatural rules and entities

are real in the human realm (whether known to humans or not), and the

main characters are either supernaturals or humans, and are often strong

female characters as well. The attitude is by turns clueless, snarky,

disbelieving and empowered, depending on the journey the protagonist

takes. Some protagonists already know and use whatever supernatural

powers they have or are granted, and others come to know and accept

them during their journeys. The attitude could also be called streetwise,

in some instances, or at least informed with that kind of sensibility.

Romance between lead characters can also be included, starting from

the beginnings of more intimate relationships to pairings of long standing,

and often other than heterosexual. These relationships are important,

but not the central reason for the story. Such a definition can, and does,

cast a wide net when one gets down to specifics.

War for the Oaks by Emma Bull is one of the foundation novels in

urban fantasy (if not the foundation novel), in which a female musician

meets an elven lord and learns there is more power to music than she

ever suspected.

Lori Devoti ’s Amazon Ink features a woman who was born to Amazons,

but rejected their culture and allied herself with the human world; it’s a

story about denying one’s roots and being forced through circumstance

to change that stance, albeit not reverting entirely.

Damali Richards, the central character of L. A. Banks ’s ‘Vampire

Huntress Legend’ series , is born to her destiny, growing into it as she

matures physically in Minion and The Awakening , but left free to

choose the light she knows or the darkness of her closest friend and love

interest, Carlos Rivera.

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