reading Eclipse by K.A. Bedford

Was shopping at Robin's (the discount one) & bought Eclipse by K.A. Bedford, an Australian writer. The cover art itself seemed kind of queer: a shadowy close up of a sharp-featured man's head. The jacket copy didn't indicate anything homo but did tell me it was going to be on a space ship. That was enough for me.

It's written in the first person in the voice of a 21 year old newbie space officer. I was immediately skeptical of this P.O.V., because I like my space stories chock full of smart information and not didactic and that's a hard mix for the first person. But the voice of James Dunne is smart without being didactic, is informative without being dry, etc. There's real darkness in the narrative that keeps me turning pages, but I don't actually feel as if the theme is integrated into the speculative elements as much I'd enjoy. I mean, finding aliens affects the crew and how they act/feel, but the emotional verifiability of these characters is not necessarily an organic part of the speculation. (In contrast to something from Joanna Russ, for instance; in The Two of Them, Irene's actions, reactions, etc. completely flow from the realities they move between, the proto-Islamic back to their normal world, & from her lover's attitude about her actions vis-a-vis the girl they "rescue." The story is the speculation, or the other way around.)

Bedford's characters are specific and emotionally verifiable, and interesting, too. The most interesting character, the tough woman (surprise, surprise) doesn't get enough page-time and isn't playing an active role yet (though I'm 2/3 through). So far she's mostly there to make Dunne swoon (also a product of Bedford's use of the first person), but her early characterization showed her to be bold and powerful, so I'm hoping that the author is saving her up for the third act. There's at least one confirmed homosexual who manages to be self loathing and closeted despite the book's assertions that his own family gave him positive images of gay life. And there's plenty of male-on-male rape and rape anxiety.

The violence in the text is interesting in the way it thematizes women in the military and ignores them. According to the Bedford's universe's status quo, men and women are equal and discrimination is dead. But his characters know that's a crock of shit, because, as Dunne says early in the novel, power equals violence and there's a functional and entrenched patriarchy. It's a fascinating text to think about sex, gender and violence in a speculative novel, in particular because it's from the point of view of a straight-identified man but is written in a way that questions the fundamental political assumptions of our patriarchies. It's an attractive and almost hypnotic use of this voice.

Got A Minute

Heard from Alison Tyler yesterday that Cleis is taking my story "Saturday Afternoon Steam" for the forthcoming collection of short shorts Got A Minute.

It's set to come out in March 07 and has a pretty hot cover.

reading Everything I Have Is Blue by Wendell Rickets

I'm reading Everything I Have Is Blue: Fiction by Working Class Men About More Or Less Gay Life. I'm about 5 stories in. They have a different texture than other short stories I've read lately, especially different from the gay stories I've been reading. (Although, to be fair, I've been reading mostly queer sf and queer erotica.) But the politics that manifest in these textures from Blue are maybe what is catching me. So many of the stories I've read in the last few weeks have worldviews and politics that are narrow and heterocentric. I want to read some queer stuff, not just stuff about "queers," i.e. "homosexuals." And Everything I Have Is Blue might have some.
Already, too, I recognize the feelings in the pieces I've read as emotionally verifiable in a working class gay sort of way. But there have been some token figures of poor life. I have no doubt that the emotions expressed in these figures are reliable, and honest--and maybe that's what gives it the extra texture I wasn't finding in all those queer sf and horror stories that were written by straight identifieds and in the sex negative erotica--but the token working class figures aren't always as nuanced as they could be.

Travelrotica 2

My story "Italian Idol" will be in Alyson's Tales of Travelrotica for Gay Men 2, edited by (no relation) Brad Nichols. Check out the original Travelrotica. Travelrotica 2 will come out in August, I think.

on the (midnight) Radio

OK- so I'm not Hedwig, but I'm going to be on the radio, reading my Peter Altenberg story "Grays of the Morning" on Kate Bonner-Jackson's radio show Open Yr Throat & Speak on Radio Volta, a Project of the Philly IMC.

I've never really liked my voice recorded, so I hope I'm not too freaked out to listen to it.