Phyllis M. BetzCritiques

I received this book from the Early Reviewers program. I must start off by admitting that I am not a scholar or even extensive reader of current fantasy/science fiction. I read quite a bit of science fiction in my teens (Tolkien, Heinlein, Herbert, Asimov, etc.) and have always been fascinated by dystopia, from 1984 to The Handmaid's Tale. I requested this book in the hope that it would provide a useful guide to which lesbian fantasy/science fiction books I might want to read. On that count, I suppose it succeeded; I now have a list of books that, based on the description in The Lesbian Fantastic, I might want to take a look at. That being said, I was rather disappointed in the book as a whole.

Approximately 75% of the book was an analysis of the problem of fantasy genre categorization. Honestly, a brief presentation of these issues in the historical background chapter would have been enough for me. Instead, much of the book read more like a dissertation on the question of "What Exactly Counts as Fantasy/Science Fiction/Gothic?" Some of the primary sources cited provided a queer perspective, but many were more general. I would have rather the entire analysis assumed some basic knowledge about the different fantasy genres and then discussed how "The Lesbian Fantastic" expands or challenges those basic distinctions. Unfortunately, that discussion was only a small portion of this book. To make matters worse, the same gothic vs. fantasy vs. science fiction vs. romance vs. detective/mystery debate got rehashed in each of the five chapters. This emphasis took away from the discussion of lesbian-centered works that should have been the focus of the book.

In fact, only in Chapter 2 (on Lesbian Gothic), was the focus actually on lesbian works. The bulk of the chapter is an analysis/comparison of Karen Minns' Bloodsong and Jewell Gomez' The Gilda Stories as vampire tales. The final third of the chapter briefly presents several lesbian ghost stories and werewolf tales. After reading this chapter, my main criticism was that it focused too extensively on only two works . . . but it ended up being the most lesbian-centered chapter in the whole book.

The first third of Chapter 3 (on Lesbian Fantasy) is more general history and genre analysis with barely anything about lesbians at all. The chapter then briefly mentions female-centered fantasy before devolving into a discussion of the television show, Xena: Warrior Princess. Specific works of lesbian fantasy are only mentioned (and each only briefly) in the last third of the chapter.

Chapter 4 (on Lesbian Science Fiction) has many of the same problems as Chapter 3, though at least the opening digression contains a discussion of women-authored (though not lesbian) texts (rather than the tired rehashing of Dracula, Lord of the Rings, etc. that was repeated in the previous chapters). Honestly, if so much time had to be spent on non-lesbian texts, I would have rather been reading about Harry Potter (which was never even mentioned at all).

Chapter 5 on Mixed Genres was even more baffling/disappointing. Rather than introducing new works that bridge categories, some of the same works mentioned in earlier chapters were discussed again to illustrate how each genre contains elements of the other genres. *Yawn*.

By the time I got the Conclusion and Appendix, I just wanted to be done.

Finally, the numerous spelling and grammatical errors throughout the text were a huge distraction. (I should have anticipated trouble when Katherine Forrest's name was misspelled on p. 6!) Using the spelling/grammar check in a word processor is not enough; many instances similar to "that" for "than", "it"/"is"/"if", "Output" for "Outpost" (in a book title no less), as well as numerous errors of noun/verb agreement, slipped through whatever process was used. In addition to simple errors, the book contained quite a few cases of awkward sentence structure and/or mis-matched parallel construction (e.g., " . . . Orwell's 1984 and Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate . . . studied for their representation of magic realism and dystopian fiction" (p. 6) will leave the reader grossly misinformed about the class of each work). Also, please review the proper use of [sic] in quotations: it is not necessary to flag a British vs. American spelling; however, [sic] should be used when a word in a quotation is actually misspelled. Unfortunately, in The Lesbian Fantastic, nearly every instance of British spelling was flagged with [sic], while the many instances of actual misspelling within quotations, and not noted with [sic], leads me to believe that the originals were probably just fine, and the errors were introduced by the person doing the quoting.

In summary, if you are interested in Lesbian Fantasy/Science Fiction, you might want to scan the bibliography of The Lesbian Fantastic and/or page through the last 10 pages of each chapter to note the lesbian books mentioned. I honestly can't recommend spending the time to read this entire book.

This was an interesting book. I follow critical work on feminism and science fiction, so I was pleased to see more done on this topic. However, I thought that it could have gone into more detail and could have used *more* critical analysis and sources.

Betz makes an excellent comparison to how women are treated in the heterosexual fantasy genre versus women in fantasy where lesbian is the theme. While women in heterosexual fantasy are constantly treated as damsels, secondary characters in their own lives, fantasy geared toward lesbians have women taking and being in control. Lesbian fantasy has strong women characters that are sensual and sexy. However, I did not think that her Gothic analysis fit well with the rest of her book.

When The Lesbian Fantastic: A Critical Study of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Paranormal and Gothic Writings by Phyllis M. Betz was offered through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, I immediately requested a copy. An avid reader of science fiction and fantasy since my youth, and with a personal interest in all things queer (I mean no offense by the term, it's how I identify), I was excited for the opportunity to read The Lesbian Fantastic. Betz has previously written two other full-length works about lesbian genre fiction: Lesbian Detective Fiction: Women as Author, Subject and Reader in 2006 and Lesbian Romance Novels: A History and Critical Analysis in 2009. The Lesbian Fantastic was published by McFarland in 2011. Even though I haven't read any of Betz's previous works, although their subject matter does interest me, I was looking forward to reading The Lesbian Fantastic.

Gothic, fantasy, and science fiction literature deal with human confrontations with the "Other." Stereotypically, the genres are frequently associated with straight men and male readership. In The Lesbian Fantastic Betz explores how these genres and their tropes have been adopted and adapted by and for lesbians, who are often considered to be the Other in society. After a preface and introduction, The Lesbian Fantastic begins with a chapter on the historical backgrounds and contexts shared by the genres. Betz then devotes a chapter to each genre separately as well as a chapter to mixed genre works. The Lesbian Fantastic ends with Betz's conclusions, the appendix "Why Would a Lesbian Author Use Gay Characters Rather Than Lesbian Ones?", chapter notes, a list of works cited, and an index.

The Lesbian Fantastic is inconsistent in how it portrays itself. The description on the back cover and the subtitle seem to indicate that science fiction is the genre most prominently addressed while in fact it is the one with the least information on it in the book. Paranormal isn't explored as its own genre and is instead folded into gothic, the genre that Betz spends the most time discussing. Betz also made the regrettable decision to employ the term "fantasy" to encompass all of the genres examined in The Lesbian Fantastic while continuing to use two other definitions of the word, including the one for the more specific fantasy genre. It is not always clear exactly what material Betz is analyzing in each chapter, sometimes looking a books written by lesbians and sometimes looking at books that are representative of lesbians or include lesbian characters or perspectives. Betz also has the unfortunate tendency to confuse sexuality and gender, which admittedly are very closely related but are two distinct concepts.

Although Betz has some interesting ideas and makes some valid arguments, overall I found The Lesbian Fantastic more frustrating than anything else. The Lesbian Fantastic is not a long book; each chapter is progressively shorter, meaning Betz doesn't have the space to thoroughly examine each subject. Volumes could be written about each individual genre alone; Betz only scratches the surface and is unfocused enough that most of the genres and subgenres aren't done any justice. I do understand why Betz would choose to address gothic, fantasy, and science fiction together in The Lesbian Fantastic. The genres are closely related in their history and in the themes they address. It is notoriously difficult to draw definitive lines between the genres upon which all fans and critics would agree. But the most problematic issue with The Lesbian Fantastic are the errors scattered throughout the book. Sadly, these aren't limited to typographical errors. I noticed several facts that Betz got wrong, too, which makes me question the rest of The Lesbian Fantastic. Still, the book does provide some interesting food for thought.

Experiments in Reading

I also received The Lesbian Fantastic as an Early Review. Here Betz takes on a fascinating topic that has certainly needed more critical study. I also appreciated her focus on the pulp-ier and more everyday examples of genre fiction in order to explore the inclusion and development of lesbian identities in science fiction, fantasy, and gothic fiction.

That said, I felt that the book really fell flat. Despite the topic, the text failed to engage me as a reader, especially as the overly academic prose ran rather dry. Also, as others have noted, the text really needed another round of editing. Not only is the book riddled with careless typos, the book would have really benefitted from more attention to tightening up the writing and clarifying Betz's categories and definitions. As it stands, the author's analysis grows rather murky because her shifts between categories are difficult to track (i.e. titles written by lesbian authors vs. titles featuring lesbian characters, fantasy as an overarching meta-genre encompassing gothic and sci-fi lit vs. fantasy as just another form of genre fiction like sci-fi, mystery, and gothic). Overall, I would suggest giving this text a read for its treatment of an as-yet largely neglected topic. I look forward to future scholars' efforts to more deeply explore the role of sexual identity in genre fiction now that Betz has directed this initial focus on the topic.

At a slim two hundred pages, including chapter notes, bibliography, and index, The Lesbian Fantastic -- as the subtitle claims -- takes on the ambitious task of exploring the history and themes of fantastical literature written by and about lesbians. The brevity of the volume is, indeed, one of its problems, since each aspect of fantastical literature Betz covers (science fiction, fantasy, paranormal, and gothic) could take up a book of its own. I was certainly thankful that Betz refused up-front to play genre border patrol and police the boundaries between, say, "gothic" vs. "paranormal," but that decision left her with a vast landscape of literature to summarize, analyze, and place in some measure of socio-historical context. The inevitable result is that corners are cut and I was left wanting a meatier discussion on many fronts.

More at: http://annajcook.blogspot.com/2011/12/booknotes-lesbian-fantastic.html

The Lesbian Fantastic is an academic work, but author Phyllis M. Betz writes in a style that is accessible and understandable – you don’t have to have a Ph.D. (or even a B.A.) in English literature to follow her arguments.

As the subtitle indicates, Betz examines three different genres of popular fiction: “Gothic” (including horror, ghost, and vampire stories/novels); fantasy (sword & sorcerer tales and stories of magical quests); and science fiction (both “hard” sf and speculative fiction.)

I haven’t read any critical studies of these genres, so the ideas she presents in describing the structure and conventions of each was new to me, and quite interesting. If you have read this type of literary criticism extensively, I suspect much of her general analysis will seem quite familiar.

Betz’s focus of course is not simply these genres in and of themselves, but how lesbians are depicted in such works and how lesbian authors use these types of storytelling to question the status quo and validate their experiences. Her thesis gets repetitive – lesbians frequently write fantasy fiction because it enables them to re-create the world as it could be and ennoble lives that are usually marginalized and demonized. It's an interesting point, but wears thin without other and more nuanced observations.

Betz very intentionally does not discuss well-known authors and their novels -- no Ursula LeGuin, Marion Zimmer Bradley, or Joanna Russ. She focuses instead on fiction that is not well known and writers who are not widely recognized. Most of the novels she explores were written in the past decade, with several published as recently as 2008. That’s intriguing since it means treading new ground. But if the passages Betz includes in her book are any indication, it also means that many of the novels she analyzes aren’t very well written. The interest they hold is their content, nobody is winning any style points here.

Speaking of style points, The Lesbian Fantatic suffers greatly from the lack of a good copy editor. Typos and grammatical errors abound. Not Betz’s fault, but annoying. One surprising factual error that is her responsibility: she includes China Mievelle in a list of “second generation female fantasy writers.” Except Mievelle is male. Certainly a scholar in the field should know this, an embarrassing gaffe.

All in all though, an interesting enough critique. And certainly a source of ideas for your reading list.

Honestly, one of the main reasons I wanted to win this through the Early Reviewers program was to see how long the author could stay on the subject of lesbianism and not veer off into gay men. Which is what always seems to happen in documentaries and critical discussion books such as this one. Usually in the 'gay criticism' books it's all about the gay men and the lesbians get thrown in for one chapter. I was very happy that the author really didn't veer at all in this book. It was refreshing.

The book was a bit hard to get into since it was pretty dense with academic theory and criticism, but once I got into the author's flow it got much easier to read. She first introduced her definitions, the ones she would use for the rest of the book, of each of the three major fantasy genres. Gothic, Fantastical and Science Fiction, and then looked at each of them in more detail.

In some cases if the reader didn't know at least a little about the genres then he or she might become a bit confused. But there are also places where she explains this amazingly.

The Gothic fantasy genre seems to get a lot more coverage than the fantastical or the Sci Fi, but I also didn't know quite as much about the gothic fantasy as the other two genres, so, perhaps that section was longer because I'm not the only one who knows less about the gothic.

All in all it was a good look at lesbians in fantasy literature. I learned a bit, read some stuff I already knew and I got a ton of books that I want to read in the future from this book.

A Literary Criticism book as Reader's Advisory. Who knew.