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bookaneer's review against another edition
4.0
Now a Hugo nomination for best related work!
Before this book, I have never read any work by [a:Joanna Russ|52310|Joanna Russ|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1423801257p2/52310.jpg]. I was intimidated, I guess, reading all those reviews, and also scared that I would end up disliking them. (She was the inspiration of many of my favorite authors, including Kameron Hurley.)
I picked this up because I was curious. I thought I might repeat my so-called 'Le Guin experience' (I read her non fiction work first before (re)reading her fiction and ended up worshiping her) with Russ.
Did it work? I think so. I don't mind having been spoiled of many endings of her works in this book - which also discussed some at considerable length. I will still pick and choose though.
Gwyneth Jones did an admirable job in weaving all the threads of Joanna's works, from essays, reviews, shorts and novels, as well as her relationship with other authors, male and female (which was fascinating! reviews and ripostes!), and of course her own life journey. Recommended book for Russ fans and fledgling feminist who happen to love SF like yours truly.
Thanks to Netgalley and University of Illinois Press for the review copy.
Before this book, I have never read any work by [a:Joanna Russ|52310|Joanna Russ|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1423801257p2/52310.jpg]. I was intimidated, I guess, reading all those reviews, and also scared that I would end up disliking them. (She was the inspiration of many of my favorite authors, including Kameron Hurley.)
I picked this up because I was curious. I thought I might repeat my so-called 'Le Guin experience' (I read her non fiction work first before (re)reading her fiction and ended up worshiping her) with Russ.
Did it work? I think so. I don't mind having been spoiled of many endings of her works in this book - which also discussed some at considerable length. I will still pick and choose though.
Gwyneth Jones did an admirable job in weaving all the threads of Joanna's works, from essays, reviews, shorts and novels, as well as her relationship with other authors, male and female (which was fascinating! reviews and ripostes!), and of course her own life journey. Recommended book for Russ fans and fledgling feminist who happen to love SF like yours truly.
Thanks to Netgalley and University of Illinois Press for the review copy.
nwhyte's review against another edition
3.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3423925.html
Russ is a fascinating writer, whose work I don't know as well as I would like, and this book goes in great detail (perhaps too much detail) in its recounting of the stories in each of her published (and some unpublished) work. But I don't get a sense of how she fitted into the broader sfnal picture - there is a discussion of the Khatru Symposium, but without really explaining where it came from and what happened after. Russ herself, as a personality, flits in and out of the narrative. I found it a bit frustrating.
Russ is a fascinating writer, whose work I don't know as well as I would like, and this book goes in great detail (perhaps too much detail) in its recounting of the stories in each of her published (and some unpublished) work. But I don't get a sense of how she fitted into the broader sfnal picture - there is a discussion of the Khatru Symposium, but without really explaining where it came from and what happened after. Russ herself, as a personality, flits in and out of the narrative. I found it a bit frustrating.
anna_hepworth's review against another edition
3.0
There is a lot of interesting information here, and it was well worth reading, but I found something about the presentation meant that a lot of it went in the eyes and straight out the back of my head. I'm not sure that I have a better insight into the works of Russ than I did when I started reading this, which disappoints me. It has prompted me to consider acquiring some of the works that I don't have, because I am interested in (re-)reading, but whether or not this is something I'll remember, *shrug*
It is a good book, it just wasn't a good book for me.
It is a good book, it just wasn't a good book for me.
triscuit807's review against another edition
4.0
4 stars for the sheer wealth of information, 3 stars for readability = 3.5 stars. Joanna Russ was a sf writer that I read back in the day - when I was more closeted than not, her book "The Female Man" sat on my bookshelves, out (not hidden) if anyone cared to look. She is not an easy author to read, doubtless she was also not an easy person to know. She was smart, well-educated, and literary...and private. Jones's biography is more of an annotated bibliography than an outright biography, as it's almost completely lacking in personal detail. Is this an important contribution to the field of SF/F? Yes, especially since the early feminists are on the verge of being forgotten. I read this for my 2020 Reading Challenge (Reading Women "biography by/about a woman") and the 2020 Hugo nominations (Best Related Work).
arifel's review against another edition
4.0
This academic biography, written by Gwyneth Jones, is one of the latest in the University of Illinois' Masters of Modern Science Fiction series on the works of prominent science fiction and fantasy writers - and the first of the series I've actually read. That means I don't have much to compare the particular style to, but I enjoyed the largely chronological deep dive into Russ' works, encompassing novels, short fiction and her extensive review work, much of which was unknown to me. In doing so, Jones charts - sympathetically but with an eye to contradictions and tensions within Russ' identity - her journey within science fiction, from a talented but not challenging fiction writer and a reviewer more likely to judge her female peers harshly while offering men a free pass for much worse books, to the explicitly feminist writing and stances which readers are more likely to associate with her today.
The focus here is very much on Russ' work and the highlights for me were reading the deep critiques of Russ' novels, particularly The Female Man and We Who Are About To (a work I tackled during Feminist Futures last year). Jones's reading of The Female Man, in particular, was interesting in the way it presented a radically different lens than the one I had read the novel in, taking the different aspects of the Joanna personality as a reading of identity across time rather than dimensions. It's a reading which brings Russ into conflict with her own identity as an SFF writer and Jones doesn't hold back from the implications of that reading, tracing it throughout the rest of her work and noting where the seeds come in at earlier points. If, like me, you don't often approach literature from a strongly academic lens, some of this will probably be well in the realms of "well I'd never thought of it like that", but it never comes across as particularly prescriptive or inherently dismissive to other readings, so I was able to enjoy the different ways of thinking about the texts rather than feeling put in my place by them, as is always the risk with more academic takes.
What I was missing from this - and, again, I'm not sure if this is me asking this book to be something it's not - was a greater elaboration of Russ 'relationships with others in the genre. There were some interesting gems of interaction here, notably the roundtable on "Women in Science Fiction" which took place over a period of years with other participants including Suzy Charnas, Samuel Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, James Tiptree Jr and brought together by fanzine editor Jeffrey D. Smith, which gets a lot of attention - and which I'd love to learn more about! However, given the breadth of written correspondence which most writers were engaged in at the time, the lack of focus on how Russ was being received by her contemporaries - beyond those who were clearly afraid of what she represented, and its impact on her work - was an area I wish could have been incorporated more in the text.
All in all this is an interesting experience, if sometimes a little routine - collections of short stories are looked at together, followed by review periods, followed by the novels, in a chronological march that doesn't leave a lot of room for novelty. But despite the limitations of coverage and perhaps of the form, this is one to look out for, especially fans of Russ' work who want to read a more academic perspective on her writings, and I hope this is a contender for next year's Best Related Work Hugo.
Review Link: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2019/10/nanoreviews-non-fiction-joanna-russ-new.html
The focus here is very much on Russ' work and the highlights for me were reading the deep critiques of Russ' novels, particularly The Female Man and We Who Are About To (a work I tackled during Feminist Futures last year). Jones's reading of The Female Man, in particular, was interesting in the way it presented a radically different lens than the one I had read the novel in, taking the different aspects of the Joanna personality as a reading of identity across time rather than dimensions. It's a reading which brings Russ into conflict with her own identity as an SFF writer and Jones doesn't hold back from the implications of that reading, tracing it throughout the rest of her work and noting where the seeds come in at earlier points. If, like me, you don't often approach literature from a strongly academic lens, some of this will probably be well in the realms of "well I'd never thought of it like that", but it never comes across as particularly prescriptive or inherently dismissive to other readings, so I was able to enjoy the different ways of thinking about the texts rather than feeling put in my place by them, as is always the risk with more academic takes.
What I was missing from this - and, again, I'm not sure if this is me asking this book to be something it's not - was a greater elaboration of Russ 'relationships with others in the genre. There were some interesting gems of interaction here, notably the roundtable on "Women in Science Fiction" which took place over a period of years with other participants including Suzy Charnas, Samuel Delany, Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, James Tiptree Jr and brought together by fanzine editor Jeffrey D. Smith, which gets a lot of attention - and which I'd love to learn more about! However, given the breadth of written correspondence which most writers were engaged in at the time, the lack of focus on how Russ was being received by her contemporaries - beyond those who were clearly afraid of what she represented, and its impact on her work - was an area I wish could have been incorporated more in the text.
All in all this is an interesting experience, if sometimes a little routine - collections of short stories are looked at together, followed by review periods, followed by the novels, in a chronological march that doesn't leave a lot of room for novelty. But despite the limitations of coverage and perhaps of the form, this is one to look out for, especially fans of Russ' work who want to read a more academic perspective on her writings, and I hope this is a contender for next year's Best Related Work Hugo.
Review Link: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2019/10/nanoreviews-non-fiction-joanna-russ-new.html
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