Damon Knight - Orbit 18

HARPER & ROW, PUBLISHERS

New York, Hagerstown, San Francisco, London

Copyright © 1976 by Damon Knight. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews: For information address Harper 8c Row, Publishers, Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10022. Published simultaneously in Canada by Fitzhenry & Whiteside Limited, Toronto.

FIRST EDITION

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-25089

ISBN: 0-06-012433-4

Designed by C. Linda Dingier

Illustrations by Richard Wilhelm and Gary Cohn

Something different happens when large numbers of women begin to read and write science fiction, as has happened in recent years. By its nature an expansive genre, s/f could conceivably incorporate anything, and as it has grown it has taken in other genres. To some degree this mitigates against the sexual polarities of extreme genreness. It is hard to say whether s/f has gotten better because it is more androgynous, or vice versa; in any case, both have happened at the same time. When a genre moves from “pulp” to “good,” the characters appear more real, more complicated, more subtly drawn. The author’s point of view seems more intelligent, more humane, more philosophical. But actually what we see in the old pulp characters is all too real—we see naked male and female power drives at war. In what we call “literature,” these characters are more civilized. Male and female, and the male and female within any character, are more at peace.

As a result, we have a double standard for literature. On the one hand, a book is “good” if it allows the reader to feel, in a cathartic way, the exciting and violent emotions associated with our cultural neuroses. On the other hand it is “good” if it allows the reader to place these emotions within a rational framework and not let them get out of hand. We don’t admit it, but when we say books are “good” in this sense, we mean morally good. Works of fiction that mean the most to the most people have elements of both kinds of “good,” but in the proper order—the emotions must be felt, then reordered in some enlarging and therapeutic way. They are civilizing works, works of maturity, and do not convey the sense that they were written especially by or for a woman or a man.

—“What’s New from Venus?” by Barbara Damrosch, Village Voice, July 7, 1975

At college, for instance, I learned—and believed—that “really important literature” dealt with bullfighting, storms at sea, barroom brawls, rape (from the man’s standpoint), and grunts and groans. .. . Everybody said, “That’s raw and elemental and true and deep.”

A story I wrote for my class was about a prom; they said it was funny, but trivial. A brawl was important but going into a ladies’ room at a dance and counting up to twenty-five so people would think you were busy doing something was not.

I was convinced I didn’t know what real life was like—I was no bullfighter or mountain climber, and even Anna Karenina and Helen of Troy and Cleopatra didn’t have too much to do with me personally.

So I hit on this stupid-clever idea: “I’ll write about Mars. Nobody knows about that. They can’t tell me I’m wrong.”

Even then, I found myself writing adventure stories about men and love stories about women.

Gradually I began to ask myself, “Why is this? I want to write about a woman who is a hero in this fantasy land.”

It took me three weeks even to begin. I sat there at the typewriter and just shook all over and said to myself, “People will throw stones at me in the street. Critics will say I have penis envy.”

But I finally did it, though I still tried my damndest to make my character beautiful. I kept writing how lovely she was and she kept looking up from the typewriter and saying, “Come on, who are you kidding?”

—Joanna Russ, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, June 9, 1975

A loaf of bread, a wall TV, and thou . . .

4 p.m. Friday

Lottie’s factory closed early on Friday, as most of them did now. It was four when she got home, after stopping for frozen dinners, bread, sandwich meats, beer. She switched on the wall TV screen before she put her bag down. In the kitchen she turned on another set, a portable, and watched it as she put the food away. She had missed four hours.

They were in the mountains. That was good. Lottie liked it when they chose mountains. A stocky man was sliding down a slope, feet out before him, legs stiff—too conscious of the camera, though. Lottie couldn’t tell if he had meant to slide, but he did not look happy. She turned her attention to the others.

A young woman was walking slowly, waist high in fems, so apparently unconscious of the camera that it could only be a pose this early in the game. She looked vaguely familiar. Her blond hair was loose, like a girl in a shampoo commercial, Lottie decided. She narrowed her eyes, trying to remember where she had seen the girl. A model, probably, wanting to be a star. She would wander aimlessly, not even trying for the prize, content with the publicity she was getting.

The other woman was another sort altogether. A bit overweight, her thighs bulged in the heavy trousers the contestants wore; her hair was dyed black and fastened with a rubberband in a no-nonsense manner. She was examining a tree intently. Lottie nodded at her. Everything about her spoke of purpose, of concentration, of planning. She’d do.

The final contestant was a tall black man, in his forties probably. He wore old-fashioned eyeglasses—a mistake. He’d lose them and be seriously handicapped. He kept glancing about with a lopsided grin.

Lottie had finished putting the groceries away; she returned to the living room to sit before the large unit that gave her a better view of the map, above the sectioned screen. The Andes, she had decided, and was surprised and pleased to find she was wrong. Alaska! There were bears and wolves in Alaska still, and elk and moose.

The picture shifted, and a thrill of anticipation raised the hairs on Lottie’s arms and scalp. Now the main screen was evenly divided; one half showed the man who had been sliding. He was huddled against the cliff, breathing very hard. On the other half of the screen was an enlarged aerial view. Lottie gasped. Needlelike snow-capped peaks, cliffs, precipices, a raging stream ... The yellow dot of light that represented the man was on the edge of a steep hill covered with boulders and loose gravel. If he got on that, Lottie thought, he’d be lost. From where he was, there was no way he could know what lay ahead. She leaned forward, examining him for signs that he understood, that he was afraid, anything. His face was empty; all he needed now was more air than he could get with his labored breathing.

Andy Stevens stepped in front of the aerial map; it was three feet taller than he. “As you can see, ladies and gentlemen, there is only this scrub growth to Dr. Burnside’s left. Those roots might be strong enough to hold, but I’d guess they are shallowly rooted, wouldn’t you? And if he chooses this direction, he’ll need something to grasp, won’t he?” Andy had his tape measure and a pointer. He looked worried. He touched the yellow dot of light. “Here he is. As you can see, he is resting, for the moment, on a narrow ledge after his slide down sixty-five feet of loose dirt and gravel. He doesn’t appear to be hurt. Our own Dr. Lederman is watching him along with the rest of us, and he assures me that Dr. Burnside is not injured.”