Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (532 page)

By the 1980s, the possibility of including LGBT characters and themes in SF was well-established and new work in the area started to proliferate. Suzy McKee Charnas continued her explorations of a dystopian gender segregated world that began in
Walk to the End of the World,
where a post-apocalyptic future produces a misogynist culture in which men exist in a homosocial (and homosexual) society where women, considered subhuman and called ‘fems,’ are enslaved and used for breeding purposes. The fem protagonist, Alldera, escapes the men’s territory and crosses the desert to find a colony of escaped slaves. In the first sequel,
Motherlines
, Charnas presents the reader with two all-women cultures, including the world of escaped slaves whose society is marked by patriarchy in negative ways, and which is contrasted to the non-hierarchical world of free Riding Women who have lived outside the men’s territory since the holocaust and are completely self-sufficient, including in reproducing without men. The Riding Women organize their society along kinship lines based on consensual non-monogamous relationships, whereas the Free Fems see sex as possession of another human being.

Another even more prolific writer whose work, like Charnas’s, has received little critical attention is Marion Zimmer Bradley. Many of Bradley’s novels and short stories are set on the planet Darkover, where human settlers have interbred with the telepathic Indigenes, producing an aristocratic, feudal society. Several of the novels in this series explore either gay male or lesbian sexuality.
The Heritage of Hastur
involves the protagonist Regis Hastur’s homosexual affair with another young man; when he tries to suppress his homosexuality, he ends up also repressing his telepathic abilities. In other Darkover novels, however, Bradley explores the world of the Free Amazons, who exist outside of Darkover’s male-dominated culture. In
The Shattered Chain
, the female protagonist, Jaelle, meets and becomes the partner of Magda; their relationship and their search for a rumored city of telepathic Amazons continues through
Thendara House
and
City of Sorcery.

Nicola Griffith’s
Ammonite
is another novel which involves a female protagonist traveling into an all-female world. Griffith plays the changes quite deliberately on a number of feminist utopias, such as Sally Miller Gearhart’s The Wanderground, as well as on works by Le Guin, Russ, and Charnas. Griffith’s all-female world is the result of a plague that kills all men arriving on the planet Jeep. In a riff on Russ’s “When It Changed,” a short but powerful story about the re-introduction of men to Whileaway after 600 years, Griffith’s protagonist, Marghe Taishan, has the job of trying to discover how the women on Jeep survived both the plague and 300 years without contact with other humans. Ammonite is a powerful adventure story that does such a thorough job of depicting its all-woman world as filled with complex real humans that the reader may not really notice the complete absence of men.

Another important lesbian writer is Melissa Scott. Scott has written one of the most interesting explorations of biological sex in
Shadow Man
, where she literalizes biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling’s argument that there are really five sexes, not two. She is probably best known for her cyberpunk novel,
Trouble and Her Friends.
Trouble is the central character, along with her lover, Cerise. Trouble and Cerise are very good hackers, but what they do has just been criminalized by the government, as has the use of the brainworm that links human and computer. Scott makes the point that only some people are willing to take the risks of having the brainworm surgically implanted: “the underclasses, the women, the people of color, the gay people, the ones who were already stigmatized as being vulnerable, available, trapped by the body” (129). In Trouble’s world, despite the multiple potentials and confusions of cybersex, being gay is still stigmatized, as are other minoritarian identities. A future that stigmatizes homosexuality is also the background for Maureen McHugh’s China Mountain Zhang, a novel which intertwines several narratives, the main one of which features a half-Chinese half-Hispanic gay protagonist trying to find a way to survive and thrive in Communist Chinese-controlled twenty-second-century America. This is a novel that, again, ties Zhang’s abilities to his sexuality: While being gay makes his life difficult and anxious, particularly around love and sex, it also produces an alternative perspective which enables him to see the world differently.

The reader encounters an even more different world in Eleanor Arnason’s
Ring of Swords
, a novel about the war between humans and the Hwarhath. Arnason’s aliens consider heterosexuality to be an animalistic practice and avoid it except for procreation, a process controlled by women in a society that is deeply divided by gender: women make the administrative decisions and men practice particular professions, notably war.
Ring of Swords
includes the perspective of Nicholas Sanders, a human who was captured and who has since formed a relationship with the Hwarhath general. The other humans are dumfounded that a “perfectly ordinary heterosexual male twenty years ago” would experience sexual desire for a furry grey male alien (79), though Nick makes the point that his sexuality should really be called “‘homeosexual’ from the Latin for ‘sex’ and the Greek for ‘similar’” and concludes that, “There’s something pleasant about the idea of inventing a new form of sexual activity and the word for it” (252–53). The Hwarhath are a particularly interesting representation of homosexuality, precisely because they valorize same-sex relations and feel queasy about the human devotion to heterosexuality. Indeed, human heterosexuality is one of the reasons the Hwarhath think they should perhaps treat humans as “very clever animals, who can mimic the behavior of people” (130). From an LGBT perspective, this is a refreshing and challenging re-imagining of how sexual orientation might be understood.

Indeed, this is the strength of science fiction for LGBT readers and writers: it provides space to imagine that gender and sexuality could function differently. Really differently or just a little differently, but certainly in ways that unsettle contemporary heteronormative complacency. In Geoff Ryman’s
The Child Garden
, Milena is the only surviving lesbian in a world which has cured both homosexuality and cancer, but at the cost of halving human lifespans.
The Child Garden
is, in part, an allegory about the dangers of medicalization and the ways in which we think about disease. As such it is an obvious allegory for AIDS. Similarly, Nalo Hopkinson uses fiction to consider the intersections of race and queer desire in both her novels and her short stories. Sometimes the queerness of this desire does not involve LGBT people or identities, but rather a subversion of gender norms, as in the short story “Ganger,” where the heterosexual protagonists swap their virtual reality sex suits, each finding out something about how the other experiences sex.

In the long run, the extent to which SF is able to examine LGBT themes and issues is a function primarily of the writer’s imagination and the reader’s willingness to go along with it. It is important to note, however, that this is, at the moment, only true of SF literature; SF cinema remains mostly mired in an unquestioned heteronormativity and the great gay or lesbian SF film has yet to be made.

Works Cited

Arnason, Eleanor.
Ring of Swords
. New York: Tor, 1993.

Bradley, Marion Zimmer.
The Heritage of Hastur.
New York: DAW, 1975.

——.
The Shattered Chain.
New York: DAW, 1976.

Charnas, Suzy McKee.
Motherlines.
New York: Putnam, 1978.

——
. Walk to the End of the World.
New York: Ballantine Books, 1974.

Delany, Samuel R.
Triton
. New York: Bantam, 1976.

Griffith, Nicola.
Ammonite.
New York: Del Rey, 1992.

Hopkinson, Nalo.
Midnight Robber.
New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2000.

Le Guin, Ursula K. “Coming of Age in Karhide.” The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection. Ed. Gardner Dozois. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1996. 395–408.

——.
The Left Hand of Darkness
. New York: Ace, 1969.

McHugh, Maureen.
China Mountain Zhang.
New York: Tor, 1992.

Garber, Eric and Lyn Paleo.
Uranian Worlds: A Guide to Alternative Sexualities in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror
. 2d ed. Boston MA: G.K. Hall & Co., 1990.

Piercy, Marge.
Woman on the Edge of Time.
New York: Knopf, 1976.

Russ, Joanna.
The Female Man.
New York: Bantam, 1975.

Ryman, Geoff.
The Child Garden.
New York: Tor, 1989.

Scott, Melissa.
Trouble and her Friends.
New York: Tor, 1995.

Sturgeon, Theodore.
Venus Plus X.
New York: Pyramid Books, 1968 [1960].

——. “The World Well Lost,” in
E Pluribus Unicorn.
London: Panther, 1968 [1951].

* * * *

Notes

¹
Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Transsexual Two-Spirit Queer Questioning Intersex Asexual and Allies.

²
In England, homosexuality was decriminalized in 1967, in Canada in 1969, and in Australia on a state by state basis between 1975 and 1996. In the USA, sodomy laws, which effectively criminalized homosexual and, indeed, many heterosexual acts, were also a matter of state jurisdiction. In 2003, the US Supreme Court ruled the sodomy laws unconstitutional in the case of Lawrence v. Texas.

³
Tiptree was the pseudonym of Alice Sheldon, who was widely regarded as a particularly successful and masculine writer until her unveiling in 1977. There is a significant body of work looking at the gender issues raised not only by Tiptree’s fiction but also by the controversies that arose after his outing.

⁴
‘Heteronormativity’ is a term that indicates the social expectation that one should not only be heterosexual, but be heterosexual in specifically limited ways, including valorizing the monogamous married child-rearing sexually-unadventurous couple.

* * * *

Wendy Gay Pearson
has published widely on issues of sexuality and queer theory in science fiction. She won the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pioneer Award for “Alien Cryptographies: The View from Queer.”

(1948– )

Humorous genre fiction tends to be very time-sensitive; most of the SF writers who have been known primarily for humor, like R. A. Lafferty, Douglas Adams, Ron Goulart, and Keith Laumer, have had relatively short careers or been forced to move away from humor as readers’ tastes changed. Terry Pratchett, on the other hand, has been at it for more than four decades and remains as popular as ever. Pratchett, best known for his Discworld novels, sold his first story to
Science Fantasy
in 1963, when he was fifteen. Since then he has written or co-written 100 books, which have sold over 70 million copies.

In 2007, Pratchett was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimers, and has since used his celebrity and fortune to help foster research into the disease, while continuing to write. He was knighted for his services to literature in 2009.

He lives in Wiltshire, not too far from Stonehenge, with his wife Lyn. Their daughter Rhianna is also a writer.

A Discworld short story

Written for Timehunt, a game website

When Death met the philosopher, the philosopher said, rather excitedly: “At this point, you realise, I’m both dead and not dead.”

There was a sigh from Death. Oh dear, one of those, he thought. This is going to be about quantum again. He hated dealing with philosophers. They always tried to wriggle out of it.

“You see,” said the philosopher, while Death, motionless, watched the sands of his life drain through the hourglass, “everything is made of tiny particles, which have the strange property of being in many places at one time. But things
made
of tiny particles tend to stay in one place at one time, which does not seem right according to quantum theory. May I continue?”

Y
es, but not indefinitely
, said Death, E
verything is transient
. He did not take his gaze away from the tumbling sand.

“Well, then, if we agreed that there are an infinite number of universes, then the problem is solved! If there are an unlimited number of universes, this bed can be in millions of them, all at the same time!”

D
oes it move
?

“What?

Death nodded at the bed. C
an you feel it moving
? he said.

“No, because there are a million versions of me, too, And…here is the good bit…in some of them I am not about to pass away! Anything is possible!”

Death tapped the handle of his scythe as he considered this.

A
nd your point is
…?

“Well, I’m not exactly dying, correct? You are no longer such a certainty.”

There was a sigh from Death. Space he thought. That was the trouble. It was never like this on worlds with everlastingly cloudy skies. But once humans saw all that space, their brains expanded to try and fill it up.

“No answer, eh?” said the dying philosopher. “Feel a bit old-fashioned, do we?”

T
his is a conundrum certainly
, said Death. Once they prayed, he thought. Mind you, he’d never been sure that prayer worked, either. He thought for a while. A
nd i shall answer it in this manner
, he added. Y
ou love your wife
?

“What?”

T
he lady who has been looking after you
. Y
ou love her
?

“Yes. Of course.”

C
an you think of any circumstances where, without your personal history changing in any way you would at this moment pick up a knife and stab her
? said Death. F
or example
?

“Certainly not!”

B
ut your theory says that you must
. I
t is easily possible within the physical laws of the universe, and therefore must happen, and happen many times
. E
very moment is a billion, billion moments, and in those moments all things that are possible are inevitable
. A
ll time sooner or later, boils down to a moment
.

“But of course we can make choices between—”

A
re there choices
? E
verything that can happen, must happen
. Y
our theory says that for every universe that’s formed to accommodate your ‘no,’ there must be one to accommodate your ‘yes.’
B
ut you said you would never commit murder
. T
he fabric of the cosmos trembles before your terrible certainty
. Y
our morality becomes a force as strong as gravity
. And, thought Death, space certainly has a lot to answer for.

“Was that sarcasm?”

A
ctually, no
. I
am impressed and intrigued
, said Death. T
he concept you put before me proves the existence of two hitherto mythical places
. S
omewhere, there is a world where everyone made the right choice, the moral choice, the choice that maximised the happiness of their fellow creatures, of course, that also means that somewhere else is the smoking remnant of the world where they did not
…

“Oh, come on! I know what you’re implying, and I’ve never believed in any of that Heaven and Hell nonsense!”

The room was growing darker. The blue gleam along the edge of the reaper’s scythe was becoming more obvious.

A
stonishing
, said Death. R
eally astonishing
. L
et me put forward another suggestion
: T
hat you are nothing more than a lucky species of ape that is trying to understand the complexities of creation via a language that evolved in order to tell one another where the ripe fruit was
?

Fighting for breath, the philosopher managed to say: “Don’t be silly.”

T
he remark was not intended as derogatory
, said Death. U
nder the circumstances, you have achieved a great deal
.

“We’ve certainly escaped from outmoded superstitions!”

W
ell done
, said Death. T
hat’s the spirit
. I
just wanted to check
.

He leaned forward.

A
nd are you aware of the theory that the state of some tiny particles is indeterminate until the moment they are observed
? A
cat in a box is often mentioned
.

“Oh, yes,” said the philosopher.

G
ood
, said Death. He got to his feet as the last of the light died, and smiled.

I
see you
…

* * * *

Copyright © 2002 by Terry Pratchett.