Things We Are Not: M-Brane SF Presents New Tales of the Queer

Edited by Christopher Fletcher

About five years ago, I taught what was certainly the first class in queer literature at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith.  Fort Smith being a region where the occasional exorcism still gets performed on the unwary adolescent who keeps novels about elves lying about in her room, we slipped the class in under the radar with the title Special Topics in Literature; I was, nevertheless, given a free hand in choosing the texts.  Ranging up and down the corridors of our tiny department, I solicited advice and recommendations, sharing titles I was considering, asking everyone’s opinions. To this day I remember a comment made by one of my colleagues about a play I was thinking of using.  “Well, it’s all right,” she said.

“But?” I said, since ‘but’ was strongly implied.

“Well, why does gay literature always have to be all about sex?”

Among other issues, this is the point Christopher Fletcher’s anthology, Things We Are Not: M-Brane SF Presents New Tales of the Queer, seeks to address.  As Fletcher explains in his preface, the creation of the anthology was prompted by the dearth of submissions containing queer protagonists, or with queer themes.  By creating a space specifically to welcome those stories — which other venues either actually are or are assumed to be hostile towards, prompting many writers to be wary of writing LGBT characters or stories on queer themes — Fletcher opened the door to a wide range of stories, as a quick browse through this anthology will reveal.

Is queer fiction all about sex? As for this question, which I was not quick-witted enough to answer when my colleague brought it forth five years ago — well, Christopher Fletcher says, what if it is?  Sex itself, after all, is not just about sex.  Further, as Fletcher points out in the preface, sex is not just something done by queer people. “My recommendation,” he says, “to people who are squeamish about the fact that the vast majority [of] people of all sexual orientations really do like to have sex…is that they change their opinion on it.  Because sex ain’t going anywhere, and it never has been and never will be only about ‘procreation’” (7). 

However, some of the stories in this anthology, as Fletcher further points out, have no overt sex in them at all.  This raises the question:  Is a story even a queer story — about queer characters — if those characters don’t performing their sexuality?   Is the sexuality of the character, in other words, relevant if no sex happens on the page?  Might not these non-sex-having characters just as well have been straight?  Fletcher argues — rightly — otherwise, making the point that identity does not disperse; that who we are sexually continues to inform our character even when we don’t happen to be having sex right that moment (6).

That being said, many of these stories in Things We Are Not do focus heavily on sex.  This should surprise no one.  As I tell my students (many of whom reach the university never having heard the word sex said in a classroom before) when they ask why so much of literature is about sex, human beings are interested in two things: sex and pudding.  And by the time most people reach twenty or twenty-two, we’re just not that interested in pudding anymore.

However, a few of the best stories in the anthology don’t focus very heavily on sex.  (Or pudding.) “Outgoing,” by Alex Wilson, for instance, a reprint of a story originally published in Asimov’s, intertwines two narratives — Tara Jones, a poet whose bones have been left bird-light by disease, and whose introversion keeps destroying her relationships; and Chris Moser, an obsessive inventor who wants to orbit the sun.  She ends up NASA’s poet to the stars; he ends up trying to hijacking the space-stations fuel supply trying to achieve his goal.  Nothing ends the way they hoped.  The writing is lovely in this one.

Same for “Seeker,” by C. B. Calsing, a post-apocalyptic tale.  Global Warming has turned America — probably the world, but all we see in America — into a hot sandstorm, and the NAWC, New Aryan Warriors for Christ, have taken over the Midwest, hunting down and killing anyone who isn’t white, Christian, and heterosexual.  Seeker, a black Lesbian, works for a fortified collective, riding out to pick up survivors who can pay their way.

No seeker should ever let a survivor get hurt. Then, the new member was a liability and expense rather than an asset and a contributor. “We’re not here for social welfare,” [Orvil would] say. This was a business, after all. (141)

When Orvil, leader of the collective, realizes that the new survivor Seeker has picked up, Becca, is both Jewish and hot, he decides she’s the perfect mate he’s been waiting for.  Unfortunately, Becca has already decided Seeker is the perfect mate she’s been waiting for.  Since the collective is supposed to be democratically run, and since in fact Orvil has much more power than Seeker, tensions ensue.  A nicely put together story, with plenty at stake.

Aside from these examples, and a few others, most of the stories do have sex at their center: lots of it, and a wide variety of it — only a few stories deal with straight up human-to-human sex.  “The Offside Trap,” by Stephen Gaskell, for instance, a readable tale in which Jacksy, who is only happy on the football field, takes an irrational hatred to a new teammate, Gail, deciding the man must be gay.  We figure out Jacksy’s issue long before he does; this story suffers a little, I think, from being surrounded by so many better tales.  The SF bit here, that Jacksy can slow time, is not really exploited.  This is also the problem with Jay Kozzi’s “Pos-Psi-bilities.”  Kozzi’s character, Michael Skillman, has freakishly good luck — every lottery ticket he buys wins; he wins every game of chance; when he needs a break, he gets one.  But Kozzi never really does much with this ability.  Michael has it, and that’s that.

Lisa Shapter’s “The World in His Throat,” though it has a few problems, works better. It is the story of a very small group of men sent out to settle a new planet.  Since the culture these men come from has decided women cannot be put at risk in founding colonies, certain men, instead, are biologically re-engineered to conceive and bear children.  A kind of sexual organ, which Shapter does a fine job of describing, is built into the man’s mouth, under his tongue; it leads to an engineered womb, in the man’s throat.  Because the colony needs so many children, the man — on this colony, Olaf Sandström — must bear one child after the next, staying pregnant constantly.  This, of course, damages Olaf; among other things, it destroys his vocal chords. Other complications arise as well This story has many strong points — characters and relationships are complex and compelling, and the situations Shapter raises are intriguing.  The pacing, however, feels a bit rushed; this probably would have done better as a novel. 

“Diplomatic Relations,” by Larissa Gale, also contains explicit sex, of an interesting nature.  The ship has been sent out with an entirely male crew of diplomats:  unwisely, as it develops, when they meet a new species of alien, women who will not (in fact, cannot) negotiate with men.  The male diplomats of slender build disguise themselves as women (with the help of a female Communications officer — nice touch there!) and attempt negotiation; but it turns out the alien women are physically affected by the presence of men.  This is an edgy story — the concluding scene, though Gale means it to be read as salvation for the aliens, could easily be read as a non-consensual sex act — how much choice does the alien actually have, really?  In general, though, Gale’s writing, and the work she has put into building Len’s character, go far towards making us believe her reading.

Another edgy story is Christopher Fletcher’s “The Robbie.”  This one was, on the balance, one of my favorites, though I had to think about it a bit.  This is a future where the RealDoll is now so close to a Real Boy it’s hard to see any difference between him and an actual sex slave.  He’s called a “robbie,” and he’s supposed to be an android; but he obviously feels and thinks and has his own opinions.  Anyone who wants one can have one.  Our couple, Chad and Jayson, have this one — he’s nameless at first, though Chad names him Trade during the story.  What he’s for is why this story works:  he’s the third part of their marriage.  Between the “dates” which Chad takes Trade on — wildly hot fantasies and role-playing games — are interspersed vignettes with Chad and Jayson: their evenings at home, their dates, their nights in bed, their anniversary dinners, the sweet ripening of their twenty-year marriage, and Trade’s role in all of these.  It is because they have Trade, Fletcher makes clear, to add a third point to their marriage, that they are able to have the strength and stability that they have found. 

Finally, there is Derek Goodman’s “As Wide as the Sky and Twice as Explosive,” which concerns what might or might not be a love story between a machine and a boy.  The boy, Johnny Rey, thinks it’s a love story, clearly.  The machines — giant robots, at war with one another, not with humanity — possibly just uses the boy as a way to have sex.  (He’s sort of a robbie, maybe?)  Or it might be that the machine does love the boy.  Goodman leaves the conclusion ambiguous; the outcome, however, since it depends on Johnny’s faith in his convictions, is not, and it leads to an interesting and satisfying conclusion, demonstrating the power of love.

The anthology has a number of other strong stories — Therese Arkenberg’s “Relia’s Machine,” and Alex Jeffers’ “Composition with Barbarian and Animal,” I would like to mention specifically, both being very well written and put together — but even its weaker stories (“Transitions,” by Michael Griffiths, has an ending that strains credibility; the title story, “Things We Are Not,” by Brandon Bell, is a bit hard to follow;  “Confessions of a Call Herm,” by Trent Roman, while interesting in its world-building, is standard fare) all have excellent moments or features to recommend them:  not a single utter dud in the lot.  This is one anthology, in other words, that is definitely worth the ride.