Machine Sex and Other Stories

by Candas Jane Dorsey

Contents:
(Learning about) Machine Sex (1988)
By Their Taste Shall Ye Know Them (1988)
Willows (1986)
Black Dog (1988)
Death and Morning (1988)
Johnny Appleseed and the New World (1985)
The White City (1985)
Sleeping in a Box (1988)
The Prairie Warriors (1988)
Columbus Hits the Shoreline Rag (1977)
Time Is the School in Which We Learn, Time Is the Fire in Which We Burn (1988)
War and Rumours of War (1988)
"You'll Remember Mercury" (1988)

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

164 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Candas Jane Dorsey (born November 16, 1952) is a Canadian poet and science fiction novelist.
Born and still living in Edmonton, Alberta, Dorsey became a writer from an early age, and a freelance writer since 1980. She writes across genre boundaries, writing poetry, fiction, mainstream and speculative, short and long form, arts journalism and arts advocacy. Dorsey has also written television and stage scripts, magazine and newspaper articles, and reviews.

Dorsey currently teaches, does workshops and readings. She has served on the executive board of the Writers' Guild of Alberta and is a founder of SF Canada. In 1988, Dorsey received the Aurora, Canadian science fiction and fantasy award.

Dorsey was editor-in-chief of The Books Collective (River, Slipstream and Tesseract Books) from 1992 through 2005.

- Source: Wikipedia

Reviews

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories were weird to the point where it was a slow and hard-working read. Many were dystopian, usually without the redeeming feature or happy ending. I liked that the gender and sexuality identity in them was pretty fluid and revolutionary even for 2015 let alone the eighties when it was written, and that nearly every character in the book was bisexual. It's pretty sex-positive as a book even when showing some of the abusive and tarnished sides of sexuality people tend to be social agents not victims.

I loved the Prairie Warriors and I was left wanting more, so when the author immediately followed that one up with War and Rumours of War I was ecstatic. Not being American might have meant I missed some of the nuances in the space-age versions of Johnny Appleseed and Columbus in two of the stories. Did I have the cultural capital to really understand them?

The stories are surprising, thought provoking, original. They are also darn hard to read or understand and rather dark. I really think that this is a talented writer and I will see what else she has written. But I only moderately enjoyed the difficult grammar (sometimes a-grammatical) and hard to understand points of view.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked:
Death and Morning (1988)

Johnny Appleseed and the New World (1985)

The Prairie Warriors (1988)

War and Rumours of War (1988) - a sequel to The Prairie Warriors

(Learning about) Machine Sex (1988) - this is like William Gibson's Sprawl series but better

Black Dog (1988)

By Their Taste Shall Ye Know Them (1988)

Willows (1986)

OK:
Sleeping in a Box (1988)
"You'll Remember Mercury" (1988)
Time Is the School in Which We Learn, Time Is the Fire in Which We Burn (1988)

Disliked:
Columbus Hits the Shoreline Rag (1977)

the white city (1985) - this story was written entirely in lowercase letters. I consider mixed case one of the hallmarks of civilization.

[Dominick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dorsey's one of Canada's most respected SF writers, and this collection certainly has strengths. It avoids most of the pitfalls of the genre, such as clunky exposition, flat style, and so on. Unfortunately, it most definitely does NOT avoid the pitfalls of arty pretentiousness; many of the stories are too precious, too self-conscious, too self-indulgent to be very effective. There are nevertheless some gems.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing, because her novels are wonderful, but most of these stories are even opaquer than Black Wine and come across as pointless collections of beautiful sentences. The last one was good, though.

[Emily Andrews · Rating 2 out of 5]

although it was very well written, it seemed like I was reading the middle of stories. I couldn't get in to the characters or situations because there was no backstory and no hint as to the future.