i would add that there are more and more women, gay and straight, writing science fiction than there have ever been. explorations of sex and sexuality by those authors is not surprisingly less targeted at adolescent males and somewhat more thoughtful, if also occasionally quite steamy. here i'm thinking first and foremost of octavia butler and melissa scott, but there are others.
the truth is, of course, that there is a lot of thoughtful, well-written science fiction (by men and women, gay and straight, a variety of ethnicities) mixed in with a lot of garbage. sounds like mainstream fiction, to me, except i think that it worth noting that sf has come a long way since heinlein and campbell.
without trying to make this list an sf discussion list any more than it's a religious studies list, i am curious, since we're on the topic, what any listmembers who've read him think of bruce sterling . . . the novel "distraction", in particular.
j
On Wednesday, January 23, 2002, at 09:43 PM, Kendall Clark wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 23, 2002 at 09:02:34PM -0600, C. G. Estabrook muttered
> something about:
>> You're right -- it was Haldeman's 1997 novel, Forever Peace, that so
>> appalled me. And, on the basis of these two examples, it does seem
>> that
>> arrested psychosexual maturation is required to write science fiction.
>
> You haven't read any Samuel R. Delany, apparently. Rather a careful
> marxist
> (at least, compared to the, in my view, clumsiness of Asimov on that
> count),
> he's written space opera, sword & sorcery, tons of engaging non-fiction,
> much of which handles human sexual relations with amazing sensitivity
> and
> grace and wit. Highly recommended.
>
> Best,
> Kendall Clark
> Monkeyfist.com
>