---item---
storytitle:
firstname: Andrea
lastname: Hairston
booktitle: Mindscape
periodical: 
date: 
publisher: Aqueduct Press
year: 2006
htmldescription: 
<a href=http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9781933500034-0>Powells.com</a>
<p align="left" class="byline">"Like The Orphan's Tales, Mindscape is a deeply layered work. Reading
Hairston's novel is like falling through the layers of the Earth. The 
truth you find at the core is startling and utterly different than the 
appearance of  the surface. Beginning with a seemingly too-hip, flashy 
series of scenes where the characters appear to be two dimensional, 
Mindscape sinks down through layer after layer of meaning. In doing so, 
the book explores the people, politics and wildly contradictory 
cultures of  a future Earth where the world is literally divided 
by impenetrable barriers.

"Most delightful about Mindscape is Hairston's in-depth study of the 
six viewpoint characters. No one is who he or she seems to be. In the 
process of telling their stories, issues of gender and race are 
examined in a matter-of-fact way that takes what could be stilted 
politics and turns it into story. Two-thirds of the way through the 
novel, Hairston succeeded in literally jerking me out of the lazy 
stereotypes I had built up around one character and, in the process, 
changed how I viewed what a woman or man could think or do."
<em>--Diane Silver</em></p>
---item---
storytitle:
firstname: Betsy
lastname: James
booktitle: Listening at the Gate
periodical: 
date: 
publisher: Atheneum
year: 2006
htmldescription: 
<a href=http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780689850684-2>Powells.com</a>
<p align="left" class="byline">"This book doesn't so much explore gender as it inhabits it in a new 
way. Through the protagonists of Kat and Nall, James shows us what men 
and women can be when they are not limited by gender expectations. Both 
come from cultures with traditional male/female gender roles. However, 
both also have contact with individuals or cultures that help the two 
characters break out of the norm. Nall, the male, and Kat, the female, 
are able to act in ways that can be seen as either male or female.

"If you define a hero as a super-competent man who acts when others 
wait passively, if the hero is a male who slays the monster, reveals 
the hidden truth or changes society, then both Kat and Nall are men. 
If a man is someone who is a leader, than both are men. If a man is 
someone who isn't afraid of physical challenges, then both are men.

"At the same time, if emotions and the open display of them are 
female, then both Nall and Kat are women. If spirituality is seen 
as the kingdom of women, then both are women. If intuition is a 
woman's talent, then both Nall and Kat are women. 

"Listening at the Gate also enthralled me with its simplicity of 
style and its lyrical evocation of mountain and sea. I also loved 
James' refusal to portray her heroes as perfect. This book 
reminded me of why I love reading."
<em>--Diane Silver</em></p>

<p align="left" class="byline">"A beautiful and mythic Young Adult novel. James creates a complex 
tale of dualities as two children from two different cultures 
struggle for identity. Escaping patriarchy, Kat is raised by her 
aunt in the Upslope world of the forests and farms, while Nall, 
a young man washed ashore from a Selkie island, is an outcast 
whose sealskin has been destroyed. Both young adults confront 
the rigidity of their cultures - with terrible and world changing 
results. James illustrates each chapter with small, elegant 
woodcuts, and incorporates fragments of poetry and children's 
songs which act as poignant commentary on adult conventions."
<em>--Midori Snyder</em></p>

<p align="left" class="byline">"I love this book. I found the language interesting and adept 
and organic to the characters and the characters themselves complex 
and unique. It is more about identity within culture and within a 
relationship (Nall & Kat) than it is about gender specifically, but 
it does explore women's and men's roles within several different 
cultures."
<em>--Laurel Winter</em></p>

---item---
storytitle:
firstname: Ellen
lastname: Kushner
booktitle: The Privilege of the Sword
periodical: 
date: 
publisher: Spectra
year: 2006
htmldescription: 
<a href=http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780553586961-0>Powells.com</a>
<p align="left" class="byline">"I do not live in the world of Ellen Kushner's duels and dukes. Her 
exploration of gender roles is so deep and true, though, that reading 
this book transported me back to my own childhood in the Fifties and Sixties.

"Kushner constructs a fascinating portrait of a young woman's awakening 
to gender roles in a society where all choices are limited by gender. 
I was particularly taken by the emotional and physical journey Katherine 
takes as she is forced to put aside her female clothing and life and take 
on the clothes, training and role of a man. The fact that Kushner does all 
of this while also constructing a dashing adventure makes this an even 
more delightful read.

"By the end of the book, Katherine has emerged as a different kind of 
human being -- one that may never have appeared in her world before. 
Perhaps most important, she has thrown off the perspectives of the men 
who rule her society and begun to view the world through her own eyes. 
As a 20th Century woman who grew up in a Midwestern household without a
 sword in sight, I remember well what it was like to take that kind of journey."
<em>--Diane Silver</em></p>

<p align="left" class="byline">"Ellen Kushner brings these gender-bending characters to life in such a 
well-detailed world we think we could live there. I love the complexity 
of their various explorations of the intrigue that is the world of the sword."
<em>--Laurel Winter</em></p>

---item---
storytitle:
firstname: James
lastname: Morrow
booktitle: The Last Witchfinder
periodical: 
date: 
publisher: Morrow
year: 2006
htmldescription: 
<a href=http://www.powells.com/biblio/18-9780060821791-0>Powells.com</a>
<p align="left" class="byline">"Morrow's The Last Witchfinder is a wonderful novel. The narrator is 
Newton's Principia Mathematica who is enamored of the heroine, whose 
life he traces from her childhood being taught cutting edge (for the 
18th c) science by her aunt, through her aunt's execution for 
witchcraft, through her picaresque adventures involving native Americans 
and Ben Franklin, as she quests to end witch hunting through the power of 
reason. The characterization of woman as strong, scientifically wise, and 
sexually liberated not only as a young but as an older person, offers 
terrific role models. The re-visioning/secret history aspect, inserting 
women into a history from which they have been excised, is pretty neat too."
<em>--Joan Gordon</em></p>


<p align="left" class="byline">"A diabolical novel of witch hunts, Newton's mathematics and Aristotle's 
elementals. It chronicles the life of an 18th century woman, Jennet Sterne 
Compton, the rebellious daughter of a Royal witchfinder. Using science and 
philosophy, Jennet sets out to refute and repeal the Witchcraft Acts that 
led to the persecution of innocent women. Jennet's remarkable life is filled 
with lusty adventures, danger, and a dazzling array of interesting men. 
Morrow's research and rich historical detail is fascinating (Jennet Compton 
is an American Moll Flanders), moving through a turbulent and unforgiving 
world on her own terms."
<em>--Midori Snyder</em></p>

<p align="left" class="byline">"I enjoyed reading Morrow's entertaining alternate history The Last 
Witchfinder. This pre-modern transatlantic adventure of the female natural 
philosopher Jennet offers a unique reading of Isaac Newton and the heroine's 
affair with Ben Franklin and a tragic-comical representation of Salem witch 
trials. The author is deeply knowledgeable about the history of Colonial New 
England. What impresses me especially is his description of a young Ben 
Franklin not only as a gender bender using the pseudonym of the 
proto-feminist widow Silence Dogood, whose writings Jennet adored (256), but 
also as a race bender or ethnic transvestite disguising himself as the 
Indian Chief Ephemero, who succeeds in rescuing the heroine: "Indian 
disguises were by far the most common subterfuges employed by dissident 
American patriots during the Colonial era"(488).  Yes, Ben Franklin's 
various and very often female personae encourage us to redefine him not 
only as the modern Prometheus, that is, the precursor of Dr. Frankenstein, 
but also as a computer hacker constantly changing and reinventing his 
identities in cyberspace. What with the heroine Jennet's proto-modern and 
natural philosophy not incompatible with Ben Franklin's gender politics and 
what with a radical re-narrativization of Salem witch trials leading to the 
rise of modern feminist culture, The Last Witchfinder anachronistically 
gives us a number of clues to reconsider today's problems of gender and sexuality."
<em>--Takayuki Tatsumi</em></p>

---item---
storytitle: Horse-Year Women
firstname: Michaela
lastname: Roessner
booktitle: 
periodical: Fantasy & Science Fiction
date: 200601
publisher: 
year: 
htmldescription: 
<p align="left" class="byline">"I liked this story because it explores how women imagine and manage their empowerment in a variety of ways."
<em>--Joan Gordon</em></p>

<p align="left" class="byline">"Through parallel tales of myth and modern life, Michaela Roessner paints a 
stark picture of what happens to women who fail to conform to social norms. 
I found this story to be quite bleak, but was buoyed by the end where the 
narrator takes up a "blade" - perhaps real, perhaps symbolic - to fight 
for the horse-year women and, possibly, for all women in the world."
<em>--Diane Silver</em></p>

<p align="left" class="byline">"How fascinating and direct. The depiction of the horse year women, past 
and present, is presented in a way that cuts deeply without being 
sentimental in any way. Great language and concept."
<em>--Laurel Winter</em></p>

---item---
storytitle: Ava Wrestles the Alligator
firstname: Karen
lastname: Russell
booktitle: St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
periodical: Granta 93
date: 200604
publisher: Knopf
year: 2006
htmldescription: 
<a href=http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780307263988-0>Powells.com</a>
---item---
storytitle: St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
firstname: Karen
lastname: Russell
booktitle: St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
periodical: Zoetrope: All-Story
date: 2006 Summer
publisher: Knopf
year: 2006
htmldescription: 
<p align="left" class="byline">"This collection contains short stories that have in common surreal or fantastic elements, kids alone or abandoned, ghosts, unresolved endings, missing mothers, and first person narration. Only the last story, the title story, really looks at gender, since girls raised by wolves aren't very girlish by common cultural standards, although they may be by wolf cultural standards."
<em>--Joan Gordon</em></p>

<p align="left" class="byline">"How can you not love a story where the very human girls are 'all hair 
and snarl and floor-thumping joy' and where they make their convent 
school less alien by 'spraying exuberant yellow streams all over the 
bunks?' Such are the protagonists of Karen Russell's story, 'St. 
Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.' Once again transformation 
is the theme as the girls are cajoled, molded and forced into human 
ideas of femininity."

<p align="left" class="byline">"I was equally enchanted by the girls of 'Ava Wrestles the Alligator,' a tale where young women take risks and transform in such unladylike ways."
<em>--Diane Silver</em></p>

<p align="left" class="byline">"Karen Russell's collection of wonderful short stories is reminiscent 
of the subtle magic realism of Kevin Brockmeier.  Most of these tales 
are set in strange backwater towns, where precocious children observe 
the strange rituals of adults and older siblings. A plucky young girl 
wrestles alligators for tourists and saves an older sister from her 
nightly romps in the deadly swamp with a succubus. Two brothers, 
wearing three-d glasses that allow them to see ghosts, search stagnant 
lagoons in search of the ghost of their drowned sister; and packs of 
wild girls are gathered into dormitories where they must be forced to 
shed their raucous, and gleefully wolfish natures and become domesticated young women."  
<em>--Midori Snyder</em></p>

<p align="left" class="byline">"I was in love with this story from the title. With modern, literary 
sensibilities, Karen Russell shows the acculturation and feminization 
of the young women in question. We then can question and celebrate both the success and 'failure.'"
<em>--Laurel Winter</em></p>
---item---
storytitle:
firstname: Karen
lastname: Traviss
booktitle: Matriarch
periodical: 
date: 
publisher: Eos
year: 2006
htmldescription: 
<a href=http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780060882310-0>Powells.com</a>
<p align="left" class="byline">"I really love this series, and it's very rich in ideas about the 
human/animal interface, which is often a place where sexuality and 
gender are also explored. That is definitely happening in Matriarch, 
the fourth in the series. The different species of sentient beings in 
this series of novels have different ways of negotiating sexual 
difference and that all has implications for human negotiation of 
sexuality and gender, of course. The writing is transparent and skillful, 
and the plotting is compelling. Traviss also blends some romance genre 
into the mix. The result is compulsively readable."
<em>--Joan Gordon </em></p>


<p align="left" class="byline">"The fourth book in Karen Traviss' fascinating Wess'har Wars series, 
Matriarch takes us further into the society of the wess'har and into the 
life of the human protagonist, Shan Frankland. In this realm, macho and 
the concept of dominance take on a decidedly female bent. Frankland and 
her two very muscular, totally warrior husbands give the concept of 
family roles and gender a whole new meaning. A great book. I can't wait 
to see where the series goes. Traviss' work may well be a contender for the Tiptree Award itself once the series is completed."
<em>--Diane Silver</em></p>

<p align="left" class="byline">"Traviss does an amazing job of giving enough detail that readers--such as me--who are not familiar with the series can catch up without bogging down. Excellent world-building. I love the idea of the alien culture where the females can inadvertantly ascend to positions of authority. Good exploration of gender roles in humans and aliens."
<em>--Laurel Winter</em></p>

---item---
storytitle:
firstname: Mark von
lastname: Schlegell
booktitle: Venusia
periodical: 
date: 
publisher: Semiotext(e)
year: 2005
htmldescription: 
<a href=http://www.powells.com/biblio/73-9781584350262-0>Powells.com</a>

<p align="left" class="byline">"Von Schlegell's very dense speculative fiction Venusa is very naturally 
considered as homage to Phil Dick, J.G. Ballard, and George Orwell. 
Indeed, insofar as the science fictional gadgets are concerned, this 
novel deals with the Ballardian sentient plants, the Dickian artificial 
reality, and the Orwellian hyper-bureaucracy.  The author has the creative 
ability of producing my favorite type stories, though the end product is 
not satisfactory. And yet, it is also true that von Schlegell foregrounds 
the feminist perspective by featuring the intriguing characters such as 
Dr. Sylvia Yang and Martha Dobbs.  If we take into account Tiptree's 
own admiration of and friendship with Dick as is clear from their 1969 correspondence, Venusia seems worth consideration."
</p>