Comments for Alison Sinclair

Comment on Utopian science in science fiction by women: Notes from Frankenstein’s Daughters by Paula

Paula — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 23:23:57 +0000

This looks like one helluva good read. I’ll have to get my hands on a copy. And on the sources. And write another. Well, my summer just got booked!

Comment on Postscript: The (woman) scientist in the world by Paula

Paula — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 05:38:03 +0000

Interesting reviews! I’ll have to check out the books, and recommend them to a group of science writers.

Comment on Anticipation schedule by Lynda Williams

Lynda Williams — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:23:32 +0000

Have a great time at the con! Wish I was going to be there but needed the time out socially, financially and all the rest. :-)

Comment on Narrative enclosure in the Left Hand of Darkness by Paula Johanson

Paula Johanson — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 21:18:34 +0000

To me, the thought at the centre of The Left Hand of Darkness was “What does it mean to be human?”
To the humans living on Gethen, they were so alone in the world: there were no other large mammals, and very few animals of any kind. There’s a skeleton on display in the Royal British Columbia Museum that I and several friends have seen; John Herbert says “It has five fingers! It has arms and legs! It looks like us!”
The people on Gethen have had so many human identifiers taken away from them — it is clear that they were PUT on that planet in the distant path, in isolation, and that they were MADE to be an ambisexual race. Whether or not this creation of the Gethen race was one of the sins in the long past of the human homeworld Hain, it was certainly one of the Hainish experiments.
They were made to be alone, a stripped-down form of humanity. When gender is not taken away, but is experienced in kemmer, given time apart from every day, how does that affect how people behave?
Remember the primary focus of the long-standing spiritual discipline on Gethen: the un-learning of preconceptions. A secondary focus of this discipline was the creation of a group of people to answer a question with the Weaver at the centre. Their purpose was to demonstrate the futility of knowing the answer to the wrong question.
LHD is not about gender.
It’s about being the human element in a cold, grand universe. As Stan Rogers wrote in his song “Northwest Passage” –tracing one warm line through a land so wide and savage –

Comment on Say ooooh, please (Darkborn cover) by Lynda Williams

Lynda Williams — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:36:04 +0000

Ooooh! Really lovely cover.