V. Good

[julieandrews]

I read a very good short story yesterday called "Jo's Hair" by Susan Palwick. Found it in New Magics, an anthology edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden.

Not sure why it struck me particularly, especially as I'm told I haven't even read the full version of Little Women. But it did strike me enough that I wanted to tell people, and have a record of it.

So, there you are.

And you know what? You know what? That wasn't even a freaking fantasy or science fiction story now that I think about it. What the frell?!

Comments

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

I love that story.

And it's certainly speculative given the POV :) I think it belongs to the thread of feminist SF that speculates by pulling apart reader-presuppositions and turning around something the reader knows and has accepted, rather than using overtly skiffy tropes. (So like, KJF's What We Didn't Seee, Emshwiller's recent Strange Horizons story, etc)

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

Karen's plays on a known sf story though...

Haven't read the Emshwiller story. I need to read Strange Horizons more regularly.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

The Emshwiller plays on a known SF trope. The Palwick's playing on a non-spec story, but in a way you could not in a non-spec story (the POV). All of them do so with feminist sensibilities.