Q - B., you served on the editorial staff for Pulphouse in the early '90s.  In your editorial capacity you dealt with authors like Harlan Ellison, Greg Bear, Charles de Lint; you worked on Octavia Butler's manuscript for Pulphouse's short story paperback line--

A - And don't forget the slushpile.  I saw way more of the slushpile than anything else. 

Q - Ah . . . slushpiles [*sigh*].  In what subgenre would you classify most of what you were getting at that time?

A - Oh, everybody wanted to be cyberpunk.  Very few people pulled it off.

Q- Did you ever get any space westerns in the slush?  First, I guess you could help me define space westerns.

A - To me, space westerns are about the new frontier.  At their very worst, space westerns are about imperialism; you go in, kill all the natives, take all the resources for yourself.  At their best, space westerns are about fleeing an unsustainable system to create something new.

Q - Frontier stories.

A - Exactly.  I grew up with hippy parents, with firewood and no indoor plumbing and weeks at a time with no electricity 'cause when the weather took our power out it took that long for The Man to come get us back online.

Q - Basically, you're attracted to the empowering aspects of self sufficiency in a harsh or hostile environment -- like space or the wild west.

A - Definitely.

Q - Like, how cool is Robinson Crusoe?

A - So cool!  My favorite twentieth-century colonization story is Bradbury's "Dark They Were with Golden Eyes."  It's about scientific hubris - and this comes right out of the Space Race - they think they've conquered the planet, but it's actually conquering them.  It's that additional twist that I like -- human arrogance.  Some of the best frontier literature is actually non-fiction writings by women; Indian captivity narratives, a few women who came out west, were unmarried, went it alone.  One of the best novels is The Jump-off Creek by Molly Gloss, but I love women's first-person frontier narratives, written by regular people, not necessarily people with any formal education --

Q - It sounds like you'd like to see some modern space western literature head this direction.

A - Hell yeah!  You'd have to be so brave to push so far out; basically, you'd have to have nothing left to lose.  This might be a very difficult place to take space westerns today, because society is so different now.  Women do everything.  The idea of a woman striking out on her own doesn't have the same impact.  Anything "space" is future-occurring to us.  It's in the future, and modern women can't imagine not being able do anything they want.

Q - What do you think draws people to the space western subgenre?

A - We're running out of resources!  There are too many of us!  So we have two options:  kill half of us off, or find somewhere else to go.  Plague, or a new frontier.

Q - So you're saying this subtext resides in the back of our imaginations?

A - Yeah!  In that Bradbury story, those people left Earth because of nuclear war!  Frontiers are fueled by fear or adventure.

Q - For escapism literature, adventure is probably what people are hoping for, though fear of *something* spurs us to seek adventure, even if it's fear of boredom, fear of death--

A - --Fear of mediocrity.

Q - What do you think of when you think of women characters/roles in space westerns -- anything particularly appealing?  Anything off-putting?  What & why?

A - Well, I'm frustrated by the old-school nuclear family models, and by Heinlein's scantily-clad nymphets.

Q - As a woman, as a reader, the idea that women are often relegated to relatively uninspired, limited roles is rather disappointing.

A - I may be remembering wrong, but I remember reading a really interesting Heinlein story, took place in space, and when they get to their destination and women finally enter the scene they aren't even a part of the story -- they're just furniture.  The most interesting thing about them is that their nipples change color or something.  I may be misremembering, but that's the impression I was left with.  I love Heinlein, by the way.   It's just that that kind of thing's pretty disappointing to a female reader.  At least in Robinson Crusoe there ARE no women, so you can just pretend you're Robinson Crusoe.

Q - . . . Or Ms. Bat Durston.  Thanks, B!  I really enjoyed this discussion.

A - Me, too!  It's so funny; I sometimes don't even realize I have opinions about things, but then find out I do.  Really strong opinions . . . .