Subject: ARTIFICIAL THINGS by Karen Joy Fowler

From: [email-masked] (Evelyn C Leeper +1 908 957 2070)
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 04:37:32 GMT

ARTIFICIAL THINGS by Karen Joy Fowler
                     A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		      Copyright 1992 Evelyn C. Leeper

     I seem to be on a short fiction binge these days, this being the fourth
consecutive collection/anthology I've reviewed.  Maybe that's because so
many novels seem to be padded-out shorter novels or even short stories.
(This was certainly my objection to THE HOLLOW MAN, the one science fiction
novel I reviewed recently.)  But short stories must of necessity be spare
and economical.  First of all, any padding is more evident.  Secondly (and I
suppose this may sound crass), short stories are bought by the word, and few
editors are willing to shell out extra money for padding.  In any case, I
suppose I have a special fondness for short fiction and look at the novella
as where "lengthy" background and characterization can be done.  Yes, novels
can be good, even long novels.  Yes, LES MISERABLES is a classic.  But
though they may win Hugos, few writers are one.

     So I found the foreword to ARTIFICIAL THINGS of particular interest,
because Fowler also prefers short fiction and even got a reputation as "the
person who wouldn't write a novel for Bantam."  (She eventually did write a
novel, but it serves to highlight that many publishers want writers to write
novels because they sell better than collections.)

     The thirteen stories here are a mix of old and new--or at least were
when the collection was first published in 1986.  Four had appeared in ISAAC
ASIMOV'S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE, three in THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY &
SCIENCE FICTION, one in WRITERS OF THE FUTURE, and five were original for
the volume.  The latter category includes "Contention" and "Other Planes,"
which are not science fiction at all, and "The Bog People," which is just
barely science fiction (by means of a super-weapon which is not necessary to
the plot).  My suspicion is that these are original to this collection
because the market for non-science-fiction short fiction is even worse than
the market for short fiction in the science fiction area.

     Fowler has been labeled as feminist writer.  If that means she uses
women as the main characters of her stories, it's true, and she does talk
about the treatment of women by society and by men in society in stories
such as "The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things," "Face Value,"
"Contention," and "The View from Venus."  But she also looks critically (in
both an analytic and a censorious sense) at how women treat women in
"Recalling Cinderella," "Other Planes," and "The Bog People."  These themes
are carried through in her other works as well: her best-known story is
probably "The Faithful Companion at Forty," a look at how we marginalize the
"other" by making him or her merely an adjunct to the main character who is
of course a perfect representative of the majority.  (As they said about
Ginger Rogers: "She did everything Fred Astaire did, and she did it
backwards and in high heels."  Everyone knows Sir Edmund Hilary, but what
about Tenzing Norgay, who also climbed Everest--carrying Hilary's gear?
What about Cedi Bombay, the first person to cross Africa both north-south
and east-west?  He gets forgotten while Sir Richard Burton gets the credit
for finding the source of the Nile.)

     Fowler's stories are not for everyone, and her research sometimes slips
("The Poplar Street Study" has at least one factual error and one extreme
unlikelihood, though it's clear the story is intended more as a homage to
its source than a serious work), but if you're looking for stories that
examine how people relate to each other, I would strongly recommend
ARTIFICIAL THINGS.

%B      Artificial Things
%A      Karen Joy Fowler
%C      New York
%D      December 1992
%I      Bantam Spectra
%O      paperback, US$4.99 [1986]
%G      ISBN 0-53-26219-X
%P      218pp

Evelyn C. Leeper   |   +1 908 957 2070   |   [email-masked]