It's not necessarily a shortcoming that any given SF alien species serves as a metaphor for some aspect of humanity, either. It's a reasonable approach.
Angel: Yeah, I never told anyone about this, but I-I liked your poems. Spike: You like Barry Manilow.
'Hell Bound'
Spike's Bitches 44: It's about the rules having changed.
[NAFDA] Spike-centric discussion. Lusty, lewd (only occasionally crude), risqué (and frisqué), bawdy (Oh, lawdy!), flirty ('cuz we're purty), raunchy talk inside. Caveat lector.
-t - Sep 16, 2009 12:33:51 pm PDT #23428 of 30000
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
Daisy Jane - Sep 16, 2009 12:34:06 pm PDT #23429 of 30000
"This bar smells like kerosene and stripper tears."
Did she write "Herland"?
StuntHusband - Sep 16, 2009 12:35:31 pm PDT #23430 of 30000
Electromagnetic candy! - Stark
I did find that bias in Tiptree - except in "Brightness Falls from the Air" which is a CRUSHING novel, about inevitability, and cruelty, and vengeance. The writing is so beautiful that I have to re-read it every so often, but not more than once every couple of years; I find it shattering.
(I'm sure this comes as little surprise to most of the Bitches that the "James Tiptree Award" is handed out every year for SF/F that challenges assumptions about gender)
Strix - Sep 16, 2009 12:35:45 pm PDT #23431 of 30000
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
I can totally see how some of Tepper's works could be seen as one-note, ita. Some of her books I just have to roll my eyes at, but some of them, I think she has some gallow's humored, funny scenes.
Connie Neil - Sep 16, 2009 12:43:25 pm PDT #23432 of 30000
brillig
"Ensign Rock" shows up in 2 (non-canon) Trek novels from the 80s, as a Starfleet Academy trainee.
It's only Ensign Rock because humans can't pronounce Horta, and he's a son of the original Horta (I personally find the series of books quite fun). And I think only the Romulans call him Ensign Rock. Diane Duane, I think, wrote them, and she has some interesting stuff about Romulans and Vulcans.
re: Sherri Tepper-- Grass, Raising the Stones, and Sideshow are the ones I recommend for her, they're something of a trilogy, and there's a lot of her typical gender/social issues involved, though not as strongly as Gate to Women's Country, which I tend to argue with.
Connie Neil - Sep 16, 2009 12:49:50 pm PDT #23433 of 30000
brillig
poptarts
Naraht! That's his name.
Strix - Sep 16, 2009 12:53:27 pm PDT #23434 of 30000
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
Hmm, yes, Connie- GtWC is a *tad* on the "men are evil, unless they are SNAG's, OMG, run!"
Also, I get the impression that she thinks liking sex makes you an intellectual moron. Heh. Well, I don't have to agree 100% with an author . Sometimes it 's more fun to mentally argue with them!
Strix - Sep 16, 2009 12:53:28 pm PDT #23435 of 30000
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
-t - Sep 16, 2009 12:56:42 pm PDT #23436 of 30000
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
I rather like Tepper, but I tend to read her stuff as thought experiments. I don't know that I buy her conclusions but I'm interested in her premises. Or I was, at least, I haven't felt like reading anything of hers in quite a while.
Strix - Sep 16, 2009 1:00:55 pm PDT #23437 of 30000
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
I agree, -t.