Picnic on Paradise by Joanna Russ (1968 Ace Books Paperback) Fair/Good

Description: FREE shipping for orders of 8 or more items (*sets count as 1 item), and multi-item orders over $100! Please refer to photos. Comes sealed in acid-free bag. Packaged between cardboard in a padded flat mailer (all made from 100% post-consumer recycled materials), by a one-man/single father independent shop. Combined shipping discounts available! Use the "Request Combined Shipping" link above your cart prior to checkout on a computer. Picnic On Paradise by Joanna Russ 1968 Ace Books Paperback A new kind of sci-fi heroine, the tough-as-nails Alyx, is introduced in this Nebula Award finalist that Poul Anderson called an “extraordinary” novel. Set in a semi-utopian world, Joanna Russ’s groundbreaking debut novel is the story of Alyx, a female soldier, survival guide, and agent of the Trans-Temporal Authority. Displaced in time from her ancient Greece, Alyx is tasked with safely leading a group of pampered human vacationers—including some unconventional nuns and a detached teenager known as the Machine—across an uninhabited scenic terrain to a relief station. But the journey proves more challenging than anticipated as they confront one another’s failings; the physical dangers of an icy, hostile wilderness; and Alyx’s own personal demons. Long before the kick-ass heroines of current science fiction and fantasy, Russ unapologetically introduced readers to a short, strong, middle-aged (for her world/time) woman of twenty-six who knows how to survive but struggles with the emotional nuances of her charges and the confusion of her own mixed feelings. With iconic characters like Alyx, Russ “four decades ago helped deliver science fiction into the hands of the most alien creatures the genre had yet seen—women . . . [and] helped inaugurate the now flourishing tradition of feminist science fiction” (The New York Times). Reviews“The depth, humanity and craft of this novel are as rich as the situation is stark.” —Samuel R. Delany “Splendid!” —Theodore Sturgeon “Picnic on Paradise is the only science fiction novel I’ve read in a single sitting in the past ten years. The tough little heroine Alyx grabbed my interest in the first sentence and never let go, any more than she ever lets go of her job of herding a fascinating bunch of future tourists across a winter resort planet which is the battlefield of an eerie war and glitters with peril. Here is adventure, not romanticized, but as it really is: rough, dangerous and dirty, a-bristle with the unexpected though with moments of high humor and surprising beauty.” —Fritz Leiber “[Russ offers] sharp lessons in gender perception. For Alyx does not seem to realize that it’s a man’s world she triumphs in. An adventurer and a thief, she is shockingly matter-of-fact about being a free spirit, a hero, a protagonist. She is simply herself, and very relaxed and savvy about the fact.” —The Washington Post Praise for Joanna Russ“Joanna Russ offers a gallery of some of the most interesting female protagonists in current fiction, women who are rarely victims and sometimes even victors, but always engaged sharply and perceptively with their fate.” —Marge Piercy “As hard and mean and fine as Flannery O’Connor . . . I wish that everyone would read Joanna Russ's books.” —Dorothy Allison “Beyond questions of genre or gender, Joanna Russ is one of the best prose writers working in the English language.” —Marilyn Hacker “One of the pioneers and luminaries of women’s science fiction!” —Ms. Magazine “Joanna Russ at her merciless, irreverent, hilarious, cold-hearted best is one of the most serious and satisfying writers of science fiction and fantasy. . . . One of this country’s most important writers.” —The Washington Post Book World “A most entertaining and challenging science fiction novelist . . . Provocative, uncompromising brave . . . Her fiction was stylistically diverse, and much of her work showed genuine good humour and a sense of the absurd.” —The Guardian “[Russ] actively pushed the boundaries. . . . She looked under the hood of what made science fiction tick, and began to question the underlying social structure which informed its creation . . . advancing science fiction into bold new worlds.” —Kirkus Reviews About the AuthorJoanna Russ (1937–2011) was a radical feminist writer and academic who became one of the seminal figures of science fiction during the 1960s and ’70s, when women began to make major inroads into what had long been a bastion of male authorship. Her best-known novel, The Female Man, is a powerful mix of humor and anger told from the alternating points of view of four women—genetically identical, but coming from different worlds and vastly different societies. Russ wrote five other novels—including the children’s book Kittatinny—and is renowned for her literary criticism and essays. Her short stories appeared in leading science fiction and fantasy magazines and have been widely anthologized as well as collected into four volumes. She received the Nebula Award for her short story “When It Changed” and a Hugo Award for the novella “Souls.”Russ received a master of fine arts degree from the Yale School of Drama and was a 1974 National Endowment for the Humanities fellow. She was a lecturer at Cornell and other universities and a professor of English at the University of Washington, where she taught from 1984 to 1994. Her scholarly work includes How to Suppress Women’s Writing and To Write Like a Woman, among others. Her papers are collected at the University of Oregon.

Price: 8.99 USD

Location: Grass Valley, California

End Time: 2025-01-08T20:28:24.000Z

Shipping Cost: N/A USD