Ambitions!

I am very happy today. First, I am happy because I churned about 1700 words into Temporary Position and finished a chapter. Yay me!

Second, I am happy because I roamed the university library and found some interesting books, picking up from last summer's Topic of Interest.

Decoding Gender in Science Fiction -- Brian Attebery
Women of the Future: The Female main Character in Science Fiction - Betty King
Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women's Science Fiction -- Lisa Yaszek
Frankenstein's Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction - Jane Donawerth
Where No Man Has Gone Before: Women and Science Fiction -- ed. Lucie Armitt
To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction -- Joanna Russ
The Philosophy of Science Fiction Film -- ed. Steven M. Sanders
Japanese Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films -- Stuart Galbraith IV

Ok, I don't actually expect to READ all of these (I got the one on Japanese film just to read about Godzilla), but there are essays of interest in them all. Those, I think I can handle.

Why this interest, you might ask. Simple enough. My first real ideas about sex came via science fiction. No kidding. I lay most of the blame on Robert Heinlein, but Samuel Delaney and Ursula Le Guin carry some of it, too (the stacks hold at least 2 books just on her writing, but I didn't find them this trip. However, I now know they exist!). A lot of my ideas on sex, gender, love, and relationships came from all those books I devoured between the ages of 11 and 22. I swallowed a lot of science fiction, of all flavors, textures, and types. I was not what you'd call a descriminating reader back then. The only real standards I had was that the library stored the book on the SF shelves, or that the used book store put it in the cardboard flats on the front table where I could flip through the titles on the spine as fast as possible, pulling out whatever seemed the least bit interesting.

Now I'm curious as to what was REALLY going on in those books, and what ideas others saw in the SF I love so much. I think I'll start with Decoding Gender -- right after I read up on Godzilla.

*I also picked up The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes: The Life and TImesw of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I've already dipped into both of those.