Dejah Thoris and Others

In recent years I have hoped some feminist student of science fiction would discover a fruitful area of study being opened within my Kornbluth biography's pages, and take off running. That not having occurred——to my knowledge——I have taken matters into my own hands. I will be taking a feminist revisionary look at Kornbluth in a talk this weekend at Wiscon, the feminist science fiction gathering in Madison.

Interestingly, one of the guests of honor, Jo Walton, wrote recently about The Space Merchants in a manner that indicates she remains unaware of the arguments in my book.

Ignorance of my book bothers me not at all. The failure of its information and ideas to penetrate the science fiction field, however, does.

I believe anyone who becomes familiar with the facts will come to regard The Space Merchants as an embarrassment. It reduces women to nothings, and distorts readers' understandings of Kornbluth's own egalitarian approach to his life and his work.

... And why do I call this entry "Dejah Thoris and Others"—–? I will also read at Wiscon a story upcoming in an Aqueduct Press anthology ... a story that reveals what Burroughs never said about his Princess of Mars.

Cheers ...