Clarkesworld Anthology 2012

by Wyrm Publishing

  Not much sulking?

  [Laughs.] No, not much sulking. She doesn’t have time to sulk. She’s got too many problems to sulk.

  What are you working on now?

  I’m working on a new YA [book]. And I don’t want to talk about it yet because I don’t like to talk about work in progress. But the decision to write YA was simply, like all of my writing, sort of a non-decision. I kind of write when it comes to me. I know writers who say, “Oh, I’ve got a million ideas and I just need to develop them.” I’m not that writer. I don’t get very many ideas that I’m excited about enough to write. And sometimes, there’s a stretch of a month or two where there aren’t any ideas I’m excited about to write, and that makes me really, really uneasy. Just before I started this book, there had been a month with no writing. And then this idea came to me. I’m always so grateful when I get one that I like. I can’t write a synopsis. I’ve never sold a book on a synopsis in my life. I always write the whole book, because I don’t know where they’re going to go. I dive in and then plot as I go along. I don’t even know if I can finish it.

  Now you just got back from a two weeks of teaching Taos Toolbox.

  I love to teach. And I do a lot of workshops here and there. I tend to rely heavily on critique workshops because I think the best way to learn to write is to actually write, and then get feedback on it, and then re-write it again. These workshops where you’re given prompts and the ideas you’re supposed to be inspired and all the rest of it, I don’t much hold with those. Writing is not a matter of inspiration except for your initial idea. Writing is a matter of sitting down and doing it. And you have to do a lot of it to get publishable. I know Robert Silverberg sold his first story, but we can’t all be Robert Silverberg now can we? You can’t teach imagination, and you can’t teach a feeling for English prose, but you can teach craftsmanship.

  Now with the books you’ve written about elements of craft, do you ever get tired of people asking you about viewpoint or talking about description or characterization? Does it ever get old?

  It isn’t that it gets old but after a workshop like Taos Toolbox, I get burned out for a while. I don’t want to see a student manuscript for another couple of months. But that works out fine. Because the next one I do will be in October in Seattle, and by that time, I’ll be ready again. I like teaching. I just would not want to do it full-time.

  Does teaching feed the writing at all?

  No. In fact, it probably takes the same parts of the brain. The thing about writing is that it’s a solitary activity. It’s you and your computer and a bunch of people who don’t exist. And when you spend a lot of your day doing that, it’s good to get out and talk with other people who are in your field. I like conventions. I like SF parties. I like teaching workshops. I like the contact with people. I’m married, so I see my husband, but he also has an actual job, and my kids are grown and gone. So I need this, and also I like it. I like giving back something to the field.

  About the Author

  Jeremy L. C. Jones is a freelance writer, editor, and teacher. He is the Staff Interviewer for Clarkesworld Magazine and a frequent contributor to Kobold Quarterly and Booklifenow.com. He teaches at Wofford College and Montessori Academy in Spartanburg, SC. He is also the director of Shared Worlds, a creative writing and world-building camp for teenagers that he and Jeff VanderMeer designed in 2006. Jones lives in Upstate South Carolina with his wife, daughter, and flying poodle.

  Another Word: The Exceptional Smurfette, or Being One of the Guys as a Superpower

  Ekaterina Sedia

  This essay is a result of some thoughts that occurred during one of the weekly FeministSF chats on Twitter, when we were discussing exceptionality of female characters in urban fantasy novels—that is, their tendency to be the only woman in the book. This essay is meant to summarize some thoughts on this issue. And to encourage everyone to participate in FeministSF chats, obviously!

  We all are familiar with the Smurfette principle—the idea that in any group of characters (such as The Smurfs) only male leads are allowed personalities, while the girl gets to be . . . well, a girl. That’s her whole shtick. It is also nothing new that urban fantasy is lousy with strong female characters—an epidemic well described elsewhere (for example, here). I am here, however, to tell you that the two of them combined created a terrible monster—an Exceptional Smurfette (or Super-Smurfette, if you will), and she is not exactly good news when it comes to representations of women in fiction and advancing the cause of said representations.

  Again, elsewhere it has been well established that really, we should have more variety of female characters and various definitions of female strength since the kick-ass heroine is sort of taking over, blinding us to other species of strength (and the very notion that a woman doesn’t have to kick ass to be worthy of the protagonist status.) What troubles me most, however, is the exceptionality: in some urban fantasy books (as well as comic books and movies) this kick-ass heroine is the only woman allowed to inhabit the protagonist space. As a result, she is surrounded by men, is friends with men, is romantically involved with them, and usually is a daddy’s girl. She is, in other words, very much one of the guys.

  And really, this by itself, in any given urban fantasy novel, is not necessarily a big deal. It’s just the sheer number of books and movies and other media that present this picture is so great that it becomes a normalized cultural default. And considering that this exceptional lady is just that—exceptional (what with ass-kicking and vampire-hunting and what not), a very insidious pattern is established: A woman becomes worthy of inclusion into a male domain only if she adopts a masculine notion of strength and associated power signifiers, and becomes exceptionally good at them.

  Now, I have my fair number of issues with women who shun the company of their own gender—internalized sexism is a problem, and a culture-wide devaluing of all things feminine is a pervasive and often invisible force. Women often receive a message that they should become like men to become worthy, to become better, to be strong—and when we call a girl “one of the guys” we often mean it as a compliment. But the exceptional female raises the bar even higher: To be included in that masculine domain, a woman must become a superhero—something the original Smurfette never had to deal with. Meanwhile, other women who do not aspire to such pursuit are not just absent (as is the case with the Smurf village), but are painted as lesser, jealous, stupid, meddling, and undeserving. Mothers are either absent or incompetent, and fathers or father figures usually get to do a fair amount of character shaping. There are no female friends in most cases: Other women are either rivals or unflattering points of comparison. That is, Smurfs are paragons of feminism compared to this.

  This situation is not only found in urban fantasy novels, of course: A slew of recent movies features such superpowered Smurfettes. One of the more interesting examples of it in movies is perhaps embodied by Hit-Girl, Chloë Moretz’s character in the movie Kick-Ass. Even though she is quite young, we can see the making of the Super-Smurfette in her. She is raised by her father, who is pretty much the main influence who shapes her; she has no friends among the girls around her age; and in the end she teams up with a lot less competent, male-superhero wannabe. (We won’t go into the whole thing where he gets to save the day). Don’t get me wrong—Moretz is wonderful in the movie. But she so obviously outclasses the titular character that one cannot help but feel that she is settling just a tad. Why? Because being one of the boys is a reward enough.

  It also doesn’t seem to be much of a stretch to see the grown-up version of Moretz in Janeane Garofalo’s The Bowler from Mystery Men—another superhero flick (which predates Kick-Ass by good ten years). Her character’s father is firmly dead but still influential in the form of the talking skull inside the bowling ball with which The Bowler destroys her enemies. She is, of course, the only girl in the group—and as far as skills go, she is also the most qualified. Still, she seeks to be a part of The Mystery Men—a group of super
heroes with dubious to middling powers, indicating that being one of the guys is as worthy a goal as being a superhero (and in many ways equally desirable and/or challenging.)

  This is not a new phenomenon: One only needs to look to the Greek myths, to Athena (the ultimate daddy’s girl), who was positioned as exceptional even among the gods (although there were quite a few goddesses there) because of her persistent commitment to masculinity. I think it is interesting to see Athena’s behavior in The Eumenides—even though she is respectful of the Furies, she is backed by Zeus and has nothing to fear from them. And yet she talks them down, urging them to abandon retribution. She sides firmly with the men, since Furies are the ones avenging wrongdoings done to women. Athena acts remarkably like many urban fantasy heroines who identify more strongly with men and tend to take their side against their own gender. Consider:

  “There is no mother anywhere who gave me birth,

  and, but for marriage, I am always for the male

  with all my heart, and strongly on my father’s side.

  So, in a case where the wife has killed her husband, lord

  of the house, her death shall not mean most to me.”

  (Aeschylus. Trans. Richmond Lattimore. Oresteia: The Eumenides. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953.)

  Athena, however, is an exception in the Greek tradition. Along with the absent mother (who was, ahem, eaten by Zeus) she exhibits many characteristics in common with—and provides a curious point of comparison to—modern urban fantasy heroines. After all, wouldn’t the Furies provide a much better model of strength, not dependent on male (i.e. fatherly) backing and approval? But of course, it is not exactly surprising that under the patriarchal system we do not see three women working together; we see one woman who has internalized male values, working within the system where they are allowed the benefit of exceptional status, and disparaging other women who dare to challenge this system of values and dominance.

  One would expect that as the time goes on, representations of women in literature would become more diverse. And indeed they have been: There are many versions of female characters and female strength being written about. But the Super-Smurfette still towers large in her dominance. I don’t want to call out individual authors and books, because really, it’s just one way of writing female characters. However, I feel that when one archetype becomes so dominant as to pretty much be associated with the genre (urban fantasy and its heroines conform to this mold often enough for us to have this conversation), it is probably time to challenge that and to ask ourselves: Do our strong, kick-ass heroines need to be walking representations of internalized sexism? Can they function without male approval? Will they die if they occasionally have a girlfriend or two who is not into the whole vampire-fighting business and yet is presented as pleasant and levelheaded? I sure would like to see more of them.

  About the Author

  Ekaterina Sedia resides in the Pinelands of New Jersey. Her critically-acclaimed and award-nominated novels, The Secret History of Moscow, The Alchemy of Stone, The House of Discarded Dreams, and Heart of Iron, were published by Prime Books. Her short stories have sold to Analog, Baen’s Universe, Subterranean, and Clarkesworld, as well as numerous anthologies, including Haunted Legends and Magic in the Mirrorstone. She is also the editor of the anthologies Paper Cities (World Fantasy Award winner), Running with the Pack, and Bewere the Night, as well as forthcoming Bloody Fabulous and Wilful Impropriety. Her short-story collection, Moscow But Dreaming, will be released by Prime Books in December 2012.

  Clarkesworld Magazine

  Issue 71

  Table of Contents

  Mantis Wives

  by Kij Johnson

  Honey Bear

  by Sofia Samatar

  Fade to White

  by Catherynne M. Valente

  The Spell of History: Magic Systems and Real-World Zeitgeists

  by Jeff Seymour

  In a Carapace of Light: A Conversation with China Miéville

  by Jeremy L. C. Jones

  Another Word: Plausibility and Truth

  by Daniel Abraham

  Editor's Desk: Finding the Good in a Dark Day

  by Neil Clarke

  Space Journey

  Art by Martin Faragasso

  © Clarkesworld Magazine, 2012

  www.clarkesworldmagazine.com

  Mantis Wives

  Kij Johnson

  “As for the insects, their lives are sustained only by intricate processes of fantastic horror.” —John Wyndham.

  Eventually, the mantis women discovered that killing their husbands was not inseparable from the getting of young. Before this, a wife devoured her lover piece by piece during the act of coition: the head (and its shining eyes going dim as she ate); the long green prothorax; the forelegs crisp as straws; the bitter wings. She left for last the metathorax and its pumping legs, the abdomen, and finally the phallus. Mantis women needed nutrients for their pregnancies; their lovers offered this as well as their seed.

  It was believed that mantis men would resist their deaths if permitted to choose the manner of their mating; but the women learned to turn elsewhere for nutrients after draining their husbands’ members, and yet the men lingered. And so their ladies continued to kill them, but slowly, in the fashioning of difficult arts. What else could there be between them?

  The Bitter Edge: A wife may cut through her husband’s exoskeletal plates, each layer a different pattern, so that to look at a man is to see shining, hard brocade. At the deepest level are visible pieces of his core, the hint of internal parts bleeding out. He may suggest shapes.

  The Eccentric Curve of His Thoughts: A wife may drill the tiniest hole into her lover’s head and insert a fine hair. She presses carefully, striving for specific results: a seizure, a novel pheromone burst, a dance that ends in self-castration. If she replaces the hair with a wasp’s narrow syringing stinger, she may blow air bubbles into his head and then he will react unpredictably. There is otherwise little he may do that will surprise her, or himself.

  What is the art of the men, that they remain to die at the hands of their wives? What is the art of the wives, that they kill?

  The Strength of Weight: Removing his wings, she leads him into the paths of ants.

  Unready Jewels: A mantis wife may walk with her husband across the trunks of pines, until they come to a trail of sap and ascend to an insect-clustered wound. Staying to the side, she presses him down until his legs stick fast. He may grow restless as the sap sheathes his body and wings. His eyes may not dim for some time. Smaller insects may cluster upon his honeyed body like ornaments.

  A mantis woman does not know why the men crave death, but she does not ask. Does she fear resistance? Does she hope for it? She has forgotten the ancient reasons for her acts, but in any case her art is more important.

  The Oubliette: Or a wife may take not his life but his senses: plucking the antennae from his forehead; scouring with dust his clustered shining eyes; cracking apart his mandibles to scrape out the lining of his mouth and throat; plucking the sensing hairs from his foremost legs; excising the auditory thoracic organ; biting free the wings.

  A mantis woman is not cruel. She gives her husband what he seeks. Who knows what poems he fashions in the darkness of a senseless life?

  The Scent of Violets: They mate many times, until one dies.

  Two Stones Grind Together: A wife collects with her forelegs small brightly colored poisonous insects, places them upon bitter green leaves, and encourages her husband to eat them. He is sometimes reluctant after the first taste but she speaks to him, or else he calms himself and eats.

  He may foam at the mouth and anus, or grow paralyzed and fall from a branch. In extreme cases, he may stagger along the ground until he is seen by a bird and swallowed, and then even the bird may die.

  A mantis has no veins; what passes for blood flows freely within its protective shell. It does have a heart.

  The Desolate Junk-land: Or a mantis
wife may lay her husband gently upon a soft bed and bring to him cool drinks and silver dishes filled with sweetmeats. She may offer him crossword puzzles and pornography; may kneel at his feet and tell him stories of mantis men who are heroes; may dance in veils before him.

  He tears off his own legs before she begins. It is unclear whether The Desolate Junk-land is her art, or his.

  Shame’s Uniformity: A wife may return to the First Art and, in a variant, devour her husband, but from the abdomen forward. Of all the arts this is hardest. There is no hair, no ant’s bite, no sap, no intervening instrument. He asks her questions until the end. He may doubt her motives, or she may.

  The Paper-folder. Lichens’ Dance. The Ambition of Aphids. Civil Wars. The Secret History of Cumulus. The Lost Eyes Found. Sedges. The Unbeaked Sparrow.

  There are as many arts as there are husbands and wives.

  The Cruel Web: Perhaps they wish to love each other, but they cannot see a way to exist that does not involve the barb, the sticking sap, the bitter taste of poison. The Cruel Web can be performed only in the brambles of woods, and only when there has been no recent rain and the spider’s webs have grown thick. Wife and husband walk together. Webs catch and cling to their carapaces, their legs, their half-opened wings. They tear free, but the webs collect. Their glowing eyes grow veiled. Their curious antennae come to a tangled halt. Their pheromones become confused; their legs struggle against the gathering web. The spiders wait.

  She is larger than he and stronger, but they often fall together.

  How to Live: A mantis may dream of something else. This also may be a trap.

  About the Author

  Kij Johnson is the author of three novels and a number of short stories, a three-time winner of the Nebula Award (including in 2010, for her Clarkesworld story, “Spar”), and a winner of the World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Crawford, and Asimov’s Reader Awards. Currently she splits her time between Seattle and Kansas.