sci-fi/fantasy column

[rm]

My first piece is up:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976899202

Please come comment; the poetry guy as 87 (87!) comments on his piece.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

Because of the turns the world has taken since it was written, it can seem a little quaint, but William Gibson's Neuromancer has solid characters, a detective-like tone and is convincing.

Elizabeth Hand's winterlong and Aestival Tide straddle the sci-fi/fantasy line very well. She's an amazing technician and you care about her characters. Takes place ina post-apocalyptic US where the Mall in Washington DC has become so overgrown it is called "the narrow forrest" and the Lincoln Memorial is believed to have been a god of the ancient Egyptians, "the Sorrowful Lincoln."

Want a Regency romance novel that isn't Regency and isn't really romance? Try Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint.

Want a big complicated love story involving the search for self and a creature hat can only be seen in its true form when it is engaging with someone else -- since it becomes what you desire? Clive Barker's Imajica. It's not horror, and his female characters can be a bit clunky , but it's really amazing.

Steve Erickson isn't a science fiction writer. But he's written some insanely strange and magical books, focused to various degrees on Sally Hemmings. Try Arc d'X, about the day falling between December 31, 1999 and January 1, 2000 made up of all the moments that have ever been lost to memory. One of my absolute favourites. Compelling, tragic and strange.

How does one foster intelligence and what is the price of it? What must we subject children to to make them brilliant; what would you subject yourself to in order to rule a nation, or at least a political corporate conglomerate, as a teenager? CJ Cherryh's Cyteen.