From: Amber (angelsslayer99@hotmail.com)

First off I have to say how fantastic I think it is that you take time out of your day to answer questions from your readers. I really didn't have a question; I just wanted to tell you much I loved The Blue Place, Stay, and Slow River. I have yet to read Ammonite because well, I have to confess I read your novels backwards: first I read The Blue Place, then Stay, then Slow River, then I tried to read Ammonite, and I couldn't; I'm sorry! The three novels I've read I consider to be some of the finest, most beautifully written literature I've had the pleasure of absorbing. I sincerely mean that. I will read Ammonite soon, I promise.

But actually, in regards to your request for book recommendations, might I suggest:
Foxfire - Joyce Carol Oates
The Pillars of The Earth - Ken Follett
Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice
Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
Sleight of Hand - Karin Kallmaker
The Rowan - Anne McCaffrey
Thank you for reading, and I can't wait to read your next novel!

Many thanks for your suggestions. It always intrigues me when someone suggests less well-known works by famous writers. At some point, if you're inclined, I'd be interesting in hearing why you chose these particular titles rather then some of the authors' more widely read books.

From: anonymous

I've been reading the Ask Nicola archives for a few years, and John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee books have come up a few times in relation to Aud, so I decided to try them. I've read the first four books so far.

I think MacDonald is a wonderful writer, and I've been enjoying the books. However, in "The Quick Red Fox", the character of McGee meets a lesbian, and goes off on one of the most homophobic rants I've ever heard. It is a few pages into Chapter 12. To summarize, McGee treats lesbians as freaks and sexual predators who prey on weak straight woman, and who live in cult-like "colonies".

My question is, what do you do when you like a writer and enjoy his books, but then encounter that kind of blatant homophobia? Do you stop reading their books? Do you blow it off and ignore it? Granted the McGee books are 40 years old, but I've encountered similar homophobia in more recent books: Orson Scott Card's "Songmaster", Holly Black's recent "Tithe," more mysteries than I can count where the murderer turned out to be an Unstable Psychotic Gay Person (not to mention Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where they killed off one lesbian and turned the other one evil).

I guess I should be used to the treatment of gay characters in the media by now, but it still makes me feel like I had the wind knocked out of me when I read or see something especially nasty, and I was wondering how you deal with it.

The first time I heard about an organisation called RVing Women, and the fact that there are now several permanent women's RV parks (there's one, for example, on the Olympic Peninsula here in Washington), I couldn't help grinning: it reminded me, superficially, of the sort of trailer park and populated by dykes in THE QUICK RED FOX. Yes, THE QUICK RED FOX is exceedingly homophobic; lesbians are portrayed as man-hating, brute pack animals. If this had been the first Travis McGee book I'd encountered, I would have stopped right there. However, by the time I got to this one, I was willing to follow Trav almost anywhere. I sighed while I read and told myself that something written in the early sixties (can't remember the exact date) would, of course, display a sensibility different to that of the present day ("present day" at that point being 1990 or thereabouts). I reminded myself that a lot of novels written by dykes in previous decades appeared to be rather self-hating, too (the protagonists killed themselves, or willingly let their girlfriend fall in love with a man because it was a better moral choice, or ended up pitifully broken addicts: no happy endings for evil lesbians). It didn't help much. It sickened me to contemplate the fact that people used to walk around comfortably secure in the perfect rightness of their belief that lesbians are subhuman; it reminded me that some people still believe that.

I have to disagree with you, though, about the death of Tara on Buffy. All the relationships on that show came to grief, gay, straight, or inter-species. That between Willow and Tara was no exception. In tone, their relationship was probably closest to the one depicted between Buffy and Angel: world-shattering, epic, unbreakable except by Fate--certainly not ruinable by mundane things like, you know, compatibility issues. For Angel and Buffy it was the curse that got in the way. For Our Gels it was a bullet. As for madness stemming from grief (when Willow goes bonkers and starts killing people), that's a time-honoured dramatic convention. See, for example, the ending of The Blue Place.

From: lucilla (celery@eudoramail.com)

Hello. I just read your answer to somebody's question about love: you said that to love and to be loved (or known) is a choice.

My question is about Aud. Aud is essentially closed or not known, despite her love affair with Julia. The implication in the two books is that Aud only opened herself to Julia because Julia was "the one." Aud's psychological world is black and white, all or nothing. According to the logic of the books, it is appropriate for Aud to let herself be known only if she believes in the potential "all" of the situation. How does Aud reconcile this personal belief, which requires for the sake of her honor that she be unknown to all except her true love, with Julia's request that Aud love again? It would almost seem that to love and be loved is not a choice for Aud, since it can only properly be done with one's soul mate and that soul mate has come and gone.

Well, no. I don't think Aud believes there can Be Only One. She doesn't believe in the concept of a soul mate. For what it's worth, I don't either. The whole idea relates to notions of perfection and predestiny which just don't fit my worldview. Aud fell in love with Julia, yes, and she believed that this was the reason she began to open up to the world. But actually what happened was that she was already beginning to open to the world, and as a result was able to fall in love. Now that Julia is dead, it's quite possible that she'll fall in love again. I doubt she'll be happy about it, at least at first--because love does make you vulnerable, and Aud is still grieving for Julia--but I imagine she'll come round.

I also don't believe we would ever catch Aud thinking or talking in terms of "honour." She does what she says she'll do, just because, but honour isn't a cherished concept for her. I can't imagine her ever talking about one's True Love, either: you either love someone or you don't. "True" in this context has a sentimental, romantic ring to it.

Kelley and I were talking about this over breakfast today, and I found that what really annoys me about the whole Platonic Ideal of soul mates is that it both indicates an already existing predisposition towards and leads to a lack of responsibility. "Oh," someone might think, "I don't have to pay attention to my relationship because, hey, if we're soul mates it'll all work out. And if we're not soul mates then it won't work out no matter how hard I try." I have found that people who doggedly espouse a belief in soul mates tend to refuse self-knowledge. They don't want to know who they are, or who their beloved really is; they don't want to do the work. They don't want to cut the relationship to size and tailor the experience Instead, they take a ready-made romance off the shelf and walk around in it, admiring themselves in the mirror: this is what love is, they say, this is how it drapes, this is how it looks and feels. Well, no. Love is what you make it, and who you make it with and for. It's all couture.

It's interesting, though, to have to think about this consciously. As always, I'm grateful for the question.

From: anonymous

Hi there! First off, all of your novels are fantastic - not only in terms of your writing and the language you use in the books, but also in that you've written extremely convincing and entertaining novels in such different genres. Thanks for many hours of terrific reading.

Secondly, here's a suggestion for your book search: "The Steerswoman's Road," by Rosemary Kirstein. This is a new omnibus edition of two earlier books that had been out of print for a long time (and had been on my "read this someday" list since about 1990). It's a great story in which the reader's original low-tech estimation of Kirstein's world changes into something much different as you follow the clues. There are some terrific female characters driving the story, and what's even more fun is that they think and act like intelligent people do in real life. This book was definitely a pleasant surprise - I had no idea what to expect, and I was very impressed with Kirstein's ideas and her ability to tell a good story. Probably one of the best books I've read all year.

Of course, if you're in the mood for Celtic myths mixed with space opera and more strong female characters, then "The Copper Crown" and "The Throne of Scone" by Patricia Kennealy-Morrison are a lot of fun. She has a bunch more books in the series, but the first two tell a self-contained story and are the best by far. Hope this helps!

I've read the Kirsteins, read them when they first came out in the early nineties. She does tell a good story, and she builds a fine character. However, while I enjoyed the first, I thought the second took a wrong turning and so although the third came out earlier this year, I still haven't got around to reading it. The "wrong turning" part is hard to quantify. It's something to do with the relationships between characters. It's been more than ten years since I looked at this books, so my memory is hazy, but I recall a sense that the book wanted to go in one direction, and as a reader I felt that the author wouldn't let it. I felt this vast, unseen force pulling things off-course--or, hmmn, no, more like trying to pull things onto the book's true course. Or something. I would have to go back and reread the books and mull this over to be able to really put my finger on it. Maybe I'll do that.

From: amber (angelsslayer99@hotmail.com)

I was delighted to find that I've received The Blue Place, and Slow River as Christmas presents. It's wonderful, because I love those books dearly; your writing is simply incredible, so sensual and vivid. However, I've also been reading the Bending the Landscape series, and I just found the Horror anthology at a half price bookstore. So my question to you is, and I'm sorry if you've already answered this: what did you do with that series, as editor? Did you proofread the stories or compile them or enlist authors to write them or all of the above? After reading you and Stephen's introduction, I've grown more and more curious. The stories are splendid by the way; you did a fantastic job with the selection! I'm having trouble reading the horror anthology; I never thought I'd say that! It seems easier to watch horror than it is to read it! Thanks for your time, and I apologize for the length.

Are you having trouble reading all the stories, or just some of them? Every anthology has a few pieces that don't work for some readers. I recommend skipping about a bit, reading what works and ignoring what doesn't. I'd tell you the ones I like best and suggest you read those first but editors, like mothers, aren't supposed to admit to favourites {g}.

Editing the three Bending the Landscape volumes was much harder work than I'd anticipated. Stephe Pagel, my co-editor, and I divided the work into two main areas. We decided between us which stories we wanted--we actively solicited some but most of it was sent to us on spec--but I then edited the fiction and negotiated the contracts, and he did the marketing and dealt with all the fiddly admin. For all three volumes I wrote the introduction; for the SF and Horror volumes I also wrote the story intros. The part I liked best was the actual editing, which I did on a variety of levels (copy-edit, conceptual, character, image systems, and so on). It's incredibly satisfying to take a fourteen thousand-word mess and help the author lift a sleek and shining eight thousand word piece from the swamp. Lovely. It's a heady feeling to call or email a writer and say, Hmmn, you know, you've got the wrong ending here, and let me tell you why, and for the writer to then change it. Amazing.

There were times, though, that I despaired of ending up with three decent volumes. Some of the stuff we were sent was awful. I lost count, for example, of the number of lesbian s/m vampire stories we got. Ditto the amor vincit omniam stories. Sigh. There were lots of people who hadn't a clue how to write a science fiction or horror story, lots of people who had no idea how to construct a decent sentence, lots of people who didn't know a thing about lesbian or gay characters (an astonishing number wanted to write us as perfect beings, no faults whatsoever, which is just as dehumanising as making us evil subhuman man-hating pack beasts who live in trailer parks). Lots of people, sadly, didn't know how to do any of the above. Then there were the (fortunately few) professional writers who should have known better who reacted very badly when I asked for rewrites. One told me that he had better things to do, like "whack off in my hat." He accused me of being young, stupid, and arrogant. Well, maybe. But I was right about the story. And then there were the radical LGBT writers who spurned the anthology because they thought I was homophobic and sexist and racist (and probably classist and anti-Semitic and ageist and speciesist and ableist, and so on). Their reasoning is still pretty fuzzy to me but, hey, there will always be some people who are pissed off at you, no matter what you do or don't do. Rightly or wrongly I've found that it suits me better to plunge in and fix the mistakes later, rather than to sit around fretting about doing everything right the first time.