Sideshow

Don’t Look Back, is the second story appearing at SpaceWesterns.com by Ben Jonjak.

It wasn’t even a vaguely held notion in my mind that there would exist Space Western Music… until I was introduced to the concept album Sundown on Venus by The Jet Black Berries. A cover of the title song Sundown on Venus, was performed by The Atomic Swindlers, and we have it here for download.

[The Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy is held roughly once a month, with rotating hosts.]

Aside from the wealth of posts listed from The Hathor Legacy in Part II, I reviewed some of the older carnivals, and found that there were older posts on the topic that should probably be brought back out into the light.

1st Carnival at Written World

• Where No Woman Has Gone Before (on the “Calamity Jane” of Star Trek: The Next Generation)
• Must See Video (Joss Whedon on Strong Women)

2nd Carnival at Pretty, Fizzy Paradise

• What is Science Fiction? (the history of science fiction from a feminist perspective)
• The Cult of Princess Leia’s Metal Bikini
• BSG part 2 – femina ex machina (contains an excellent quote: Humanity is ‘very, very good at dehumanizing their enemy to justify their own needs,’)
• My Love Affair with the Almost Love Affair Between Starbuck and Apollo (“Battlestar Gallactica doesn’t condescend to its women fighters”)
• Would you like some racism with your sci-fi?
• Is Joss Whedon Feminist enough?

4th Carnival at Shrub.com [mirrored at Alas, a Blog]

• Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ”“ Jadzia’s Gender

6th Carnival at The Hathor Legacy

• SPACE CHICKS: An alternative history of the future
• Agency, Chivalry, and Self-Replicating Men: Another Look at Gender in the ‘Verse

9th Carnival at League of Substitute Superheroes

• Seven of Nine and Anise

10th Carnival at Adventures in Lame

• Some Thoughts on Mary Sue
• Kasidy’s Convictions

12th Carnival at Pen-Elayne

• Life after Starbuck
• John Patrick writing about Feminism in Space

13th Carnival at Words from the Center, Words from the Edge

• In Defense of Ripley

14th Carnival at Heroine Content

• Princess Leia Made Me A Feminist
• Alison Sommer, from her collection Strong Women of Sci-Fi

16th Carnival at The True Confessions of an Hourly Bookseller

• The Complex and Terrifying Reality of Star Wars Fandom (Star Wars fans hate Star Wars)
• My First Idol (Princess Leia)
• The Reason We Are Relocating To Indiana on Tuesday (loves Leia)

19th Carnival at Girls Read Comics, and They’re Pissed

• Of genre television, Helena Cain, and Gender Roles

21st Carnival at Heroine Content

• Firefly and Serenity

[This is Part III. Part I and Part II were published previously.]

[The Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy is held roughly once a month, with rotating hosts.]

In researching blog posts I found a veritable wealth of Space Western related posts at The Hathor Legacy: It was such an astounding collection that I felt it must be shared…

• Keeping female aliens pretty

Star Trek

• Star Trek Deep Space Nine: the quality and equality link
• Chakotay is my Co-Pilot
• Seven of Nine and Anise
• Kes: dumped for a younger sex symbol
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Keiko’s Career
• Voyager and the Patriarchy
• Authority v. Femininity
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Leeta’s Love Life
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Jadzia’s Gender

Battlestar Galactica

• BsG: Roslin and Adama’s Relationship
• BsG: Apollo Gets His Kit Off
• Carter Vs Roslin
• Maternal Instinct
• Starbuck Revisited
• The Women of Battlestar:Galactica; Six
• The Women of Battlestar:Galactica; Laura Roslin
• The Women of Battlestar:Galactica; Sharon Valerii/Boomer
• The Women of Battlestar:Galactica; Kera Thrace/Starbuck

Firefly/Serenity

• Firefly: The Trouble With Saffron
• How to Write Good Ship That Doesn’t Demean the Woman: Zoe and Wash from Firefly/Serenity
• Inara’s misogynistic client
• The Women of Firefly/Serenity: Kaylee
• The Women of Firefly/Serenity: Zoe
• Hearts of Gold, Backbones of Steel
• Women viewers need not apply
• The One Thing I Don’t Like About Firefly and Serenity

[This is Part II. Part I and Part III are also available.]

[The Carnival of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy is held roughly once a month, with rotating hosts.]

Space Westerns: Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly”¦ when you get right down to it, most science fiction on television traces its roots back to the Western, where most problems could be solved at the end of 60 minutes with a violent shootout. For the most part America hasn’t grown beyond the Western. Conflicts between Good vs. Evil, the fight against that “alien other”, the need to explore the frontier, the need to conquer and have dominion over the natural world ”“ when you put it like that you can see that the Western never died, it just changed uniforms.

Camille Alexa graces us with a four-part post:

Part I: a conversation with A Dude
Part II: a conversation with An Editor
Part III: Q/A with author Jessica Reisman
Part IV: Where Tina Connolly and I veer into the uncharted frontier of Cozypunk

Firefly

There’s no way to do a Carnival where Feminism and Space Western intersect without mentioning Joss Whedon’s Firefly. It stems back all the way to ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’: Postfeminist Prostitution in Joss Whedon’s Firefly? (pdf).

Heroine Content recently viewed and reviewed Firefly and Serenity.

Socrates referred to himself as a gadfly and was poisoned by those he tried to educate. Why? Because he challenged their most dearly held assumptions. People hate that. It’s interesting to see the spirit live again in a multiracial Radical Feminist Lesbian, Allecto, who posted A Rapist’s View of the World: Joss Whedon and Firefly, A Rapist’s View of the World: Our Mrs. Reynolds: Part One, and A Wife-Beater’s View of the World: Our Mrs. Reynolds Part Two. You have to admit that it did cause discussion. Responses were varied and fan outrage was high (Allecto’s Joss Whedon Rant Raped My Miiiiind). But what really seemed to be at stake was what Words From The Center, Words From The Edge talks about in Critiquing Joss Whedon. The Hathor Legacy sums it up in Joss Whedon and feminist cookies: “No one deserves accolades for being a feminist … no one deserves is insulation from criticism.”

Star Wars

Stanley Schmidt, editor of Analog, says, “Star Wars is a Western ”“ with really good special effects.” While Princess Leia was a competent leader of the rebellion, it’s a little sad to see her part has since devolved to The Cult of Leia’s Metal Bikini.

Alien

Alien seems to follow in the tradition of the Indian abduction stories. What you have is an “alien other” who is fighting with us to subsume our reproductive rights (as a race). What is really interesting to me (again, as an intersection of Space Westerns and Feminism) is The Bechdel Rule (AKA Ripley’s Rule). Cinemathematics explores The Two Ripleys while John Scalzi believes that Ellen Ripley Paved the Way for Strong Female Leads.

[This is Part I. Part II and Part III are also available.]

For the Good of the Settlement, by Vonnie Winslow Crist, was only the second story that we’ve published that passes the Bechdel Rule (the first was Mathematics of Hunger, by Jason Andrew).

Since I was involved with the 2007 Browncoat Ball in Philadelphia, I was able to obtain an Interview with “Tequila” Matt Black.

James Chambers is the third author to write a story set on Byanntia outside of C.J. Henderson & Bruce Gehweiler. His entry into the canon is Law of the Kuzzi.

Green River Rain, was John M. Whalen’s first submission to SpaceWesterns.com. More examples of his Tulon stories have been published on Raygun Revival.

When I first read No Right, by Jens Rushing, I was confounded. I wasn’t expecting such a jump in the quality and style of his writing, compared to his earlier submission, How Beautiful the Herd on the Dark Matter Range.