On Joanna Russ, a new book of essays on the great lesbian-feminist science fiction writer and to which I am a contributor, has just received a great review in The Village Voice:
Mendlesohn brings 17 writers (including eight men) to her critical enterprise, which picks up where Jeanne Cortiel’s 1999 Demand My Writing: Joanna Russ/Feminism/Science Fiction leaves off. The essayists all believe that Russ’s career trajectory has much to teach next-generation feminists. And all approach Russ’s seven novels, three nonfiction collections, and three short-story collections impressed by how each book bristles with epistemological invention. Her fiction twists the most shopworn genre conventions—like time travel, sword-and-sorcery, or all-female planets—into scenarios that intentionally subvert stereotypical expectations. Comparing these texts against copious amounts of analytical opinion from her various interviews, letters, book reviews, and pedagogic essays, Mendlesohn’s team constructs a fascinating picture of this pioneering “scholar/practitioner” as visionary cultural critic.
