Queering SF: Readings by Ritch Calvin

Abstract

Reviewed by: Queering SF: Readings by Ritch Calvin Phoenix Alexander Queer SF, Queer Criticism. Ritch Calvin. Queering SF: Readings. Aqueduct. 2022. xi+204 pp. $18 pbk, $7.95 ebk. There is much to admire about Ritch Calvin’s new study of queer sf, provided you go in with certain expectations, the precise nature of which are foregrounded by the author himself in his introduction. This is a collection of “essay drafts” rather than essays, of “fleshed out teaching outlines” rather than exhaustive studies of each of the texts and themes invoked (4). This communal, conversational tone informs the book as a whole. Queering SF is composed of 27 micro-chapters (or “shades,” as he calls them) organized roughly chronologically, that cover works from John Varley’s story “Options” (1979) to Alechia Dow’s novel The Sound of the Stars (2020). I say micro-chapters because they resemble analytic snippets extractable as discussion points and brief précis of the texts, some twentieth century, but mostly post-2010, rather than exhaustively analyzed and argued sections. Acknowledging the somewhat arbitrary nature of alighting on particular dates as starting points of a chronology such as this, Calvin convincingly begins his analysis with texts from the 1970s, catalyzed by the “first undergraduate course on homosexuality” offered by UC Berkeley in 1970 (10). Calvin’s chatty, conversational analysis takes us through each micro-chapter and gives a good overview of both the texts and general contexts of each, with discussion focusing on one or two texts at a time. Throughout, the idea of what constitutes a queer text, and its praxis of queering a certain issue or theme, is emphasized. In its iteration as a verb, Calvin keeps the word flexible and multivalent, allowing meaning to emerge organically from each text. Chapter four’s discussion of the “Four J’s” of Joanna Russ’s The Female Man (1975) exemplifies this (as well as providing an excellent bibliography of Russ’s works for the curious reader). The chapter also models what is both a strength and weakness of the volume as a whole; while linking each text to timely contemporary issues, Calvin’s analysis often becomes somewhat (and surprisingly) ungenerous in judging a text by the concepts and language of queer life in 2021. Giving his arguments a little more room to breathe may have yielded more satisfying and nuanced analysis, but the brief conclusions to the already-brief chapters usually follow the structure of “X got this wrong, but is still useful for reasons Y and Z.” Nonetheless, Calvin does include some often-overlooked names in his collection. It was heartening to see Tanith Lee and Katherine Burdekin read alongside authors such as Russ, Le Guin, and Delany, among others. I also appreciated the range of media and venues the author covered, including such online publications as Kaleidotrope, in the discussion of Romasco Moore’s “The Moon Room” (2020). His analysis certainly becomes more thorough as we move into the later chapters. The texts from 2010 onwards, another temporal landmark, seem more favorably judged in terms of their (positive) [End Page 119] contributions to/wards a queer canon. In this latter half, certain authors, such as Nino Cipri and Larissa Lai, recur in order to do the theoretical heavy lifting. This is appropriate, since such authors have of course done important work, but a slightly more varied spread of names would have been good to see. That said, Calvin does make a few appropriate nods to non-Western, non-Anglophone visions of queerness, namely in chapters 7 and 10. The discussion of Larissa Lai’s Salt Fish Girl (2002) in particular does a fantastic job in drawing out the nuances of non-Western ideas of science and “progress,” and it is perhaps not surprising that the author is again discussed in the chapter 16. Sayuri Ueda’s The Cage of Zeus (2004), the subject of chapter 11, has a slightly more puzzling treatment: Calvin appears to have a less-than-stellar opinion of the novel, labeling it “uneven” and invoking his students’ judgement of it as “painful” (76). One wonders if there could have been a more appropriate text to include or, at least, one...