The Cascadia Subduction Zone Vol. 8, 2

The April 2018 issue of The Cascadia Subduction Zone is out. This issue includes short fiction by Toby MacNutt, a poem by Alicia Cole, an essay by Morgen Tell on a forgotten feminist fantasy film, a Grandmother Magma entry on Angelica Gorodischer by Cristina Jurado, a new column by Karen Burhnam, "Dust Lanes," reviewing short fiction, reviews by Arley Sorg, Nancy Jane Moore, and others, as well an appreciation of Ursula K. Le Guin by Nisi Shawl, and an appreciation of the CSZ's first managing editor, Lew Gilchrist, by Kath Wilham. The issue's featured artist is Erika Steiskal.   

The CSZ is available for purchase at http://thecsz.com/. Electronic copies are $3, print copies $5; electronic subscriptions $10, print subscripts $16.

In Memoriam

Ursula K. Le Guin
Lew Gilchrist

 

Poem

Saint Roc Cemetery
  by Alicia Cole

 

Essay

Willow: A Forgotten Feminist Fantasy
  by  Morgen Tell

 

Flash Fiction

Somatic Market
  by Toby MacNutt

 

 

Dust Lanes

Short Fiction Reviews
   by Karen Burnham

Grandmother Magma

Trafalgar, by Angélica Gorodischer
     reviewed by Cristina Jurado 

Book Reviews

Torn, by Rowenna Miller
   reviewed by Kate Schaefer

Liminal Spaces, by Beth Plutchak
  reviewed by Tonya Liburd

Her Own Hero: The Origins of the Women’s Self-Defense Movement, by Wendy L. Rouse
  reviewed by Nancy Jane Moore

Wonderblood, by Julia Whicker
   reviewed by Arley Sorg

Featured Artist

Erika Steiskal

Eleanor Arnason's Ring of Swords

I'm pleased to announce the release of a new edition of Eleanor Arnason's Ring of Swords as a volume in Aqueduct's Heirloom Book series in both print and e-book formats. Long out of print and short-listed for the Tiptree Award, many people, including Ursula K. Le Guin and Jo Walton, have wished for a new edition.

In her introduction to this new edition of Eleanor Arnason's Ring of Swords, Le Guin writes, "Ring of Swords is an intellectually fascinating science-fiction story told in the novel tradition, peopled by ordinary people content with their ordinary life, appalled to find themselves swept up into a social crisis, forced into acts and choices of historical consequence. Its ancestry includes not only The War of the Worlds but also A Tale of Two Cities and War and Peace.

"Having recently brought their own competitive, feud-ridden society into a fragile balance of peace, the Hwarhath have been facing an unexpected problem: the lack of enemies. Given the apparently innate male propensity for finding pretexts to fight, and the fact that their men were all trained as warriors, the women running things at home make sure the men stay out in space protecting the home planet. The drawback is that there seems to be nobody to protect it from. So, when in the vastness of space they finally stumble into another intelligent species, they rejoice. Enemies! At last!"

"The usual assumption," Le Guin notes, "is that if you threaten a war early in a novel, you'd better hurry up and get the bombs bursting in air. And they usually do. Novels that portray war as totally destructive and futile still focus on it--war is what they're about, war is central to them, just as it was central to the old epics that glorified heroes and battles. But a war not fought? What kind of subject is that?" Le Guin asks. Her answer? "It's a beautiful subject for a novel, and Ring of Swords is a beautiful novel."

You can read a sample of Ring of Swords here, and purchase it here.