Bending the Landscape : Science Fiction [Hardcover]

Nicola Griffith (Author), Stephen Pagel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1998 | Series: Bending the Landscape; Original Gay and Lesbian Writing (Book 1)

Volume II of the award-winning collection of gay and lesbian short fiction exploring the horror genre.

On the heels of the phenomenal success and acclaim of Volume I (Science Fiction), Bending the Landscape: Horror brings together a tantalizing slew of truly "horrific" tales guaranteed to provoke, entertain and inspire fear. Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel have, once again, compiled an exciting array of never-before-published stories both from talented newcomers and award-winning genre veterans. In Kraig Blackwelder's Coyote Love, a man wakes up in a stranger's bed, not knowing how he got there. Terror ensues as the reader is shown just how far a person is willing to go to deny reality. In The WereSlut of Avenue A, Leslie What shows us that change is not always a good thing as we witness what may or may not be a physical transformation into something inhuman. These stories, written by writers both gay and straight, incite fear and spur thought. Contributors include Brian A. Hopkins, Holly Wade Matter, A.J. Potter, Carrie Richerson, Mark Tiedmann, Alexis Glynn Latner and more.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This second volume of Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel's Bending the Landscape anthology series focuses on science fiction stories (the first book covered fantasy, and the third will cover horror). The editors asked contributors to "imagine a different landscape... some milieu that had not happened" and then address the theme of Alien or Other, with the Other being a lesbian or gay man. Since the writers include men and women, gay and straight, the results are fascinating and kaleidoscopic.

One of the best stories in this stellar bunch is Ellen Klages's "Time Gypsy," a "lesbian time-travel-romance-revenge story" about a scientist who discovers love in an unlikely way. L. Timmel Duchamp's "Dance at the Edge" is a heartbreaking story of visibility and strength, and Richard A. Bamberg looks at what it might be like to be the last gay person on Earth in "Love's Last Farewell."

Big name authors like Charles Sheffield, Nancy Kress, Stephen Baxter, and Elizabeth Vonarburg contribute stories as well. The science fiction volume, like all the Bending the Landscape anthologies, addresses universal themes of otherness, love, and loss. Great reading for the 21st century. --Adam Fisher

From Kirkus Reviews

A companion volume to 1997's gender-bending BTL: Fantasy with, this time, science fiction themes and ideas given a gay/lesbian perspectivethough the contributors include non-gay/lesbians and mainstream writers. As before, there's a welcome diversity of subjects and approaches in the 21 stories here, ranging from the destruction of an intelligent alien species and a disturbing modern ghetto to the military, time travel, space travel, virtual reality, surgery, and religious fundamentalism. Immediately recognizable authors include Rebecca Ore, Stephen Baxter, Allan Steele, Charles Sheffield, Nancy Kress, and Shariann Lewitt. A respectable assemblage. The problemby no means particular to this seriesis the difficulty of producing distinctive, original work within previously defined parameters. Annoying, too, how often the phrase ``deliciously sly'' crops up in the editorial bits. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (September 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879518561
• ISBN-13: 978-0879518561
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 8.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,802,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An eye-opening anthology., June 18, 2001

By 

Alex (College Park, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bending the Landscape : Science Fiction (Hardcover)

A seemingly simple setup: combine two science fiction templates: an alien landscape - outer space, another planet, the fifties; and an Other - an alien, a foreigner, a renegade, a stranger in a strange land; now, the twist - the Other must be homosexual. How much can be written based on this premise? Volumes.

Start with the brilliant "Sex, Guns, and Baptists" by Keith Hartman, a wicked story of a world gone fundamentalist and a gay detective hired by a jealous wife to find out her husband's sexual orientation. Continue on in the same vein to Bassingthwaite's "Who Plays with Sin", a cyberpunk yarn as good as if not better than anything Gibson has ever written. Plunge into Klages' "Time Gypsy" and discover that the mindset of the fifties is just as alien as that of the previous stories. Examine the adage of "looks don't matter" in Wendy Rathbone's masterful "The Beautiful People." Nancy Kress contributes a thought-provoking tale of survival - at the cost of total isolation, in her "State of Nature." The cost that the artificial intelligence in Shariann Lewitt's (her "Rebel Sutra" is at the top of my reading list as I write this) "A Real Girl" must pay for her humanity is mind-boggling. The viewpoint character in Bamberg's "Love's Last Farewell" has already paid the ultimate price - he is the last gay man on Earth. Tiedemann's "Surfaces" dissects the popular tendency to partition humans into characteristics - and assign blame and praise to them instead of the person underneath. Steele's "The Flying Triangle" and Sperry's "On Vacation" take a more relaxed approach and depict a more accepting - or at least redeemable - humanity.

Out of the twenty-one stories in this volume, more than half deliver much more than promised, and none are really disappointing. In a few cases the authors choke on a message that is too large and fail to communicate it well, but these are rare. Overall, the original subject matter lends a new degree of richness, of credence, of power to the well-worn genre. Each character is so much more an expression of the author's mind, better fleshed-out and rounded because of the innovative undertones. An excellent, eye-opening anthology.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Welcome Surprise, July 13, 2003

By 

Jack M. Walter "Jack M. Walter" (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bending the Landscape : Science Fiction (Hardcover)

I was prepared to be disappointed by this anthology, for so many sci-fi stories that deal with gays are not very imaginative, but there were only a half-dozen or so stories in this collection that missed the mark. Nancy Johnston's "The Rendez-Vous" deals with a woman who may or may not be the victim of nocturnal alien abductions. Kathleen O'Malley's "Silent Passion" shows us that even beings from another planet can teach us a thing or two about humanity. Charles Sheffield's "Brooks Too Broad for Leaping" is a surprisingly shocking view of what it would be like if the only place for gays and lesbians were the military. Elisabeth Vonarburg's "Stay Thy Flight" is the true gem here: a story almost incomprehensible in the beginning which goes on to depict a form of life we could never imagine, and how it is drawn to a human female. A thought-provoking anthology in the truest sense of the word.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ugly cover; Great anthology, December 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Bending the Landscape : Science Fiction (Hardcover)

I really enjoyed the first anthology in this series. After seeing the cover of this second book, I was afraid the series had taken a turn for the worse. The first volume was so expansive!and this cover seems so focused and limiting. I bought it anyways: everything Nicola Griffith has worked on has exceeded my expectations, and I decided to trust her.

Boy was I justified.

The cover of this book suggests that it's "gay fiction." It is, but more importantly it isn't. What it is is a series of remarkable stories that deal with queer themes, from the points of view of straights, queers, and all those real people who lie somewhere inbetween or beyond these labels. Regardless of the themes, you aren't going to be reading a better SF anthology this year. If you're at all interested in having your notions of gender and sexuality expanded, then READ THIS BOOK (and if SF isn't about the expansion of notions, then what is it?).