I have to acknowledge that I am sufficiently plugged into science fiction (and sufficiently old!) that I HAVE heard of Craig Strete. I was subscribing to Galaxy back then, and I read Sturgeon's review, and in fact Street published stories in Galaxy -- "The Bleeding Man", "Horse of a Different Technicolor" -- and "Time Deer" was reprinted in the last issue of Galaxy's sister magazine If. I also remember the controversy about plagiarism, and that he was cleared (in the minds of most people) of that charge -- and it was a shame that after that you really didn't see his stories any more.
I also overestimated how many people had heard of him when I wrote a quiz about science fiction by people of color a couple of years ago. I put in a question about Strete, and I think only 2 people, out of several hundred that too the quiz, got it right -- which was NOT my intention at all, but certainly supports your suggestion that few people will have heard of him!
yes there should have been a special “unless you’re Rich Horton” disclaimer there.… Actually, I’m sort of curious (maybe I should just interview you…), but—what did it feel like when the big Tiptree reveal happened?
The next essay (on “Aztecs”) will be the last of this little series which is a bummer as they’ve been fun to write—but I will get to write about Vonda McIntyre, which is nice, so…
enjoyed this! had been anticipating it, and had my anticipation rewarded. i suppose there is less of a plot to talk about than the previous two stories, but that makes sense as the protagonist is not rly capable of grasping what a plot is
animal perceptions in literature...i liked Diana Wynne Jones' Dogsbody, where an enormously powerful (but also, as the title indicates, slightly harassed) alien is incarnated as a young girl's pet. i think some people didn't like the combination of girl-and-her-dog sentiment with a rather busy science-fiction frame, but surely if dogs could tell stories, they would prefer them sentimental and rich with incident...but i really read it too long ago to be theorizing. Tiptree herself, in Love Is The Plan and iirc some sections of Up The Walls Of The World. (the hero of Love Is The Plan is not really an animal but they are resigned to their fate in the way you describe in the piece, as indicated even by the title.) i never really find that the talking animals/werewolves/etc in Discworld are "realistic animals" so much as "realistic to how animals would be in a Terry Pratchett novel." last and imo greatest, Danny Lavery's piece about being the goose from that one videogame
Dogsbody was one of my favorite books as a kid (though I think the copy I had was called Sirius, presumably bc Americans don't respect Olaf Stapledon). I didn't reread it for this but I would like to one day.
One funny example to me of shifts in portraying animal perception: in the first Redwall book, if you read those as a kid, the animals are clearly living in a human-sized world. (There are carts, barn cats, etc.) In every other book they are people in mouse costumes.
yes omg i was thinking about Brian Jacques the other day! i guess he was like "man i can't be bothered with this human-scaling thing in every book"...in the later volumes i think they go sailing which is lowkey so scary to imagine if the boats are human-sized.
the thing that has always stuck with me from that first book is there's a couple paragraphs from the perspective of like a normal, non-sentient toad sitting in a ditch who sees Cluny the Scourge and his army of costumed rats come tramping over the ditch and is like What The Hell Is That...raised many questions in me as a kid about the nature of consciousness in this world
Another excellent essay -- thanks!
I have to acknowledge that I am sufficiently plugged into science fiction (and sufficiently old!) that I HAVE heard of Craig Strete. I was subscribing to Galaxy back then, and I read Sturgeon's review, and in fact Street published stories in Galaxy -- "The Bleeding Man", "Horse of a Different Technicolor" -- and "Time Deer" was reprinted in the last issue of Galaxy's sister magazine If. I also remember the controversy about plagiarism, and that he was cleared (in the minds of most people) of that charge -- and it was a shame that after that you really didn't see his stories any more.
I also overestimated how many people had heard of him when I wrote a quiz about science fiction by people of color a couple of years ago. I put in a question about Strete, and I think only 2 people, out of several hundred that too the quiz, got it right -- which was NOT my intention at all, but certainly supports your suggestion that few people will have heard of him!
yes there should have been a special “unless you’re Rich Horton” disclaimer there.… Actually, I’m sort of curious (maybe I should just interview you…), but—what did it feel like when the big Tiptree reveal happened?
The next essay (on “Aztecs”) will be the last of this little series which is a bummer as they’ve been fun to write—but I will get to write about Vonda McIntyre, which is nice, so…
enjoyed this! had been anticipating it, and had my anticipation rewarded. i suppose there is less of a plot to talk about than the previous two stories, but that makes sense as the protagonist is not rly capable of grasping what a plot is
animal perceptions in literature...i liked Diana Wynne Jones' Dogsbody, where an enormously powerful (but also, as the title indicates, slightly harassed) alien is incarnated as a young girl's pet. i think some people didn't like the combination of girl-and-her-dog sentiment with a rather busy science-fiction frame, but surely if dogs could tell stories, they would prefer them sentimental and rich with incident...but i really read it too long ago to be theorizing. Tiptree herself, in Love Is The Plan and iirc some sections of Up The Walls Of The World. (the hero of Love Is The Plan is not really an animal but they are resigned to their fate in the way you describe in the piece, as indicated even by the title.) i never really find that the talking animals/werewolves/etc in Discworld are "realistic animals" so much as "realistic to how animals would be in a Terry Pratchett novel." last and imo greatest, Danny Lavery's piece about being the goose from that one videogame
Dogsbody was one of my favorite books as a kid (though I think the copy I had was called Sirius, presumably bc Americans don't respect Olaf Stapledon). I didn't reread it for this but I would like to one day.
One funny example to me of shifts in portraying animal perception: in the first Redwall book, if you read those as a kid, the animals are clearly living in a human-sized world. (There are carts, barn cats, etc.) In every other book they are people in mouse costumes.
yes omg i was thinking about Brian Jacques the other day! i guess he was like "man i can't be bothered with this human-scaling thing in every book"...in the later volumes i think they go sailing which is lowkey so scary to imagine if the boats are human-sized.
the thing that has always stuck with me from that first book is there's a couple paragraphs from the perspective of like a normal, non-sentient toad sitting in a ditch who sees Cluny the Scourge and his army of costumed rats come tramping over the ditch and is like What The Hell Is That...raised many questions in me as a kid about the nature of consciousness in this world