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May242011
The Women of Science Fiction Week – Guest Author & Giveaway: Kristine Kathryn Rusch
by Carolyn • Posted in Uncategorized
Today I have the pleasure of welcoming Kristine Kathryn Rusch to Book Chick City. Kristine has visited the blog before as part of my “Where Stories Are Made” feature and I reviewed “Diving into the Wreck” the first book in the ‘Diving Universe’ series last year.
Kristine is an award-winning mystery, romance, science fiction, and fantasy writer. She has written many novels under various names, including Kristine Grayson for romance, and Kris Nelscott for mystery. Her novels have made the bestseller lists worldwide and have been published in 14 countries and 13 different languages.
Pyr published her novel, Diving into the Wreck, in November of 2009. In spring of 2011, she will publish City of Ruins, the next book in the Diving universe, and she will have a new Kristine Grayson novel, The Charming Way.
You have a chance to win a signed copy of “City of Ruins” at the end of Kristine’s post, so make sure you enter.
So, without further ado, please give Kristine a warm welcome.
Women in Science Fiction: Andre Norton
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
By today’s standards, I was an athletic kid. All summer long, I was active. I swam (usually in lakes), rode my bike everywhere, walked when I couldn’t ride, played ball, played baseball, played tennis, and played volleyball.
But by the standards of the day, I was a bookish kid. I swam in the lake, then, when I was tired, got out, climbed on my beach towel, and read in the sun (without sunscreen—such dangerous days!). I walked to the local drugstore where I bought comic books and novels with my allowance. I rode my bike to the library every single day, took out five books (the maxim), and rode home. Then I read the five books in the hammock my parents had placed between the two giant shade trees in our yard.
What did I read? Everything. Mysteries, gothics, horror fiction, short stories. But what I remember reading the most were some slim paperback volumes with little rocket ships taped onto their spine.
In the United States, the library system used little icons to signify genre. The rocket ship icon was—you guessed it—science fiction. Was I reading Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein? Nope. I tried Asimov and found him dull. I didn’t read Clarke until college. I read Stranger in A Strange Land the year that Helen Reddy sang “I am Woman,” and I flung that sexist book across the car (nearly killing my dad—and the rest of us, since he was driving).
Nope. I read Heinlein after I became the first (and only) female editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. In that summer—what I privately called my rocket ship summer—what I read was everything I could find by this great guy named Andre Norton.
I had no idea until much, much later that Andre Norton was a woman. I just knew at the time that her fiction resonated with me in a way that other rocket ship novels did not. I even remember the covers—all 1960s art in muddy colors with young faces staring at me as I plowed through the pages.
Oh, yeah, I read a lot of other science fiction, mostly short stories in the Year’s Best volumes. But I loved Andre Norton. I was sad when I ran out of books by her, and picked up the new ones whenever I could.
Readers give Andre Norton lots of props for her wonderful space opera stories. But the hardcore science fiction professional world, which I entered in 1985 after I attended Clarion Writers Workshop, made fun of her. She was a hack. She was a “bad writer.” She didn’t write “quality.” There was even a nasty story that one of my Clarion instructors told about the way that Andre Norton was treated at a Milford Professional Writers Conference that just broke my heart.
She never got the respect she deserved from the professional field—the in-crowd back then—and even had her royalties miscounted, so that she never earned the money she was entitled to, until much later in life when the fraud perpetrated on her was discovered.
Which still breaks my heart. Because I wouldn’t be sitting here, typing this, without Andre Norton.
When my husband, the writer Dean Wesley Smith, and I started Pulphouse Publishing, it took us both a while to get up enough nerve to ask Andre Norton to write for us. But ask we did. Dean put her on the cover of our first issue of Pulphouse: The Magazine, and she was delighted. “I’ve never been a cover girl before,” she said.
She was—I believe—in her eighties at the time.
In my years at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, I tried to get another Andre Norton story. But she was unable to give me one—first because her writing schedule was still stringent, and then because her health wouldn’t allow it. I also tried to put stories like the ones she wrote into the magazine. The fans loved space opera and of course, the in-crowd—those in the center of sf publishing—said I was cheapening the magazine.
Yep, I was. If you look at the circulation figures for my years as editor, you’ll see that F&SF sold more copies in those years than any other year in its history. Popular fiction is called “popular” for a reason. People like it.
So when I finally came to my senses and quit editing, dedicating myself to my writing career fulltime, I decided I wasn’t going to write for the in-crowd. I was going to write for the fans, the readers, the little girls who biked to the library every day and got five books to read that very night. In addition to my science fiction, I write romance (as Kristine Grayson, Kristine Dexter, and Kris DeLake), mystery (as Kris Rusch & Kris Nelscott), fantasy, horror, and mainstream fiction.
I write in genres that in-crowd people look down their noses at because they “don’t read that sort of thing.” I love that sort of thing. And in science fiction, that love started with Andre Norton.
I like to think there’s a direct correlation between my Diving into the Wreck novels and Andre Norton’s space opera. What I do know is that the Dave Seeley covers on my three Diving books—Diving into the Wreck, the newly released City of Ruins, and the upcoming Boneyards—are the kind of covers that would have made the younger me snatch up the books in a heartbeat. A woman, in the middle of an sf scenario, having adventures. Perfect.
That’s what I love to read. That’s what I love to write.
So—to honor women in science fiction on this blog—let me simply say: Remember Andre Norton. She had more influence than the sf field (or at least the in-crowd) wants to admit. She was marvelous—and I wouldn’t be here without her.
Thanks Kristine! 
You can find out more about Kristine Kathryn Rusch here:
GIVEAWAY
Kristine and Pyr are generously giving away TWO signed copies of “City of Ruins” – one to a UK reader and one to a US reader.
To enter all you have to do is the following:
1. Leave a comment for the author
2. Fill out this form (be sure to read BCC’s giveaway policy)
3. Only one entry per person – multiple entries will be disqualified.
Ends Sunday 29th May 2011 8am BST
GOOD LUCK!
22 Comments
Thank you, Kristine! I loved you guest post, and I've been meaning to read your Divine Wreck and City of Ruins for a long time. It's certaingly in my huge TBR pile. It saddens me to hear of such attitude to female writers, but at least it's changing. This crowd becomes smaller and less significant with each year.
Hopefully they'll disappear altogether
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ooops! Got the name wrong! DIVING IN THE WRECK! Please, don't count this comment as an entry
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Ever since I was introduced to Boss, through Asimov's I believe, I've enjoyed reading about her adventures time and time again. I had to be first in Line when Diving came out. You do a great job of telling her story. I'm excited to be introduced to some of the new characters you've teased us with in Becoming one with the Ghosts. Can't wait to read City.
Will we ever see an anthology of Boss' adventures? I'd be first in line to buy that one too.
Can you suggest anything by Norton? Her work is so extensive, I just don't know where to begin.
Thanks, and keep up the great work.
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One can get too many books in the TBR pile and I love that I've just found several more to add
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(='.'=)
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alterlisa AT yahoo DOT com
http://lisaslovesbooksofcourse.blogspot.com/
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The book sounds fantastic! I would love a chance to read this one.
robin [at] intensewhisper [dot] com
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I enjoyed this guest post, Kristine and have been following your blog for some time. I'm definitely going to track down a copy of Divine Wreck. I THOROUGHLY approve of your Women of Science Fiction Week – many of my favourite authors are women – C.J. Cherryh, Lois McMaster Bujold, Andre Norton, Elizabeth Moon, Anne Aguirre, Kage Baker, Sheri S. Tepper, Steph Swainston, Mary Rosenblum, Julian May…
As far as I'm concerned, women write WONDERFUL science fiction!
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Hi Kristine, I loved the post and the chance to learn more about your writing. I've always loved Science Fiction and Andre Norton has always been a favorite, along with so many others, but I never knew she was a female writer. That is interesting to learn, no wonder I liked her so much.
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I really enjoyed Diving into the Wreck — Boss is a great enigmatic character. I read Andre Norton a long time ago and didn't realize till later that she was a woman. It's too bad that she wasn't given her due. Thanks for a greatninterview and the chancw to win City of Ruins.
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I have read "Diving Into The Wreck" and liked it a lot. Looking forward to the sequels. I also enjoy many of your posts via Facebook.
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Sounds like a great read! We all need the escape.
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Thanks for the great giveaway. Your book sounds really great. Tore923@aol.com
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I didn't know that about Andre Norton. I love space operas.
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I was one of those little girls who loved to read (and couldn't check out more than 5 books until I was 12!) Love your story and thank you for writing "those" kind of books.
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great post :0 looking forward to reading these.
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Thanks, Kris, for bringing back fond memories! Andre Norton's "The Zero Stone" was one of the first SF books I ever read way-back-when – I was so engrossed in it that I totally didn't hear what my math teacher was saying to me until he picked up the book and closed it in front of my face!
Ah, yes, fond memories, indeed, LOL!
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I know males are probably not eligible for this giveaway, but I don't care, as I will buy every book Kris writes. After all, she's my teacher.
My library in Omaha limited me to 10 books a day, and I took home (on the streetcar) every day's limit, including Andre Norton and any other female science fiction writer I could find. Perhaps there's something wrong with my taste, but I always found that females could writer better science fiction and mysteries.
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Great giveaway – thanks!
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I, too, was a huge Andre Norton fan, especially in my teens. These included the science fiction stories were The Zero Stone, Moon of Three Rings, Quest Crosstime, and Android at Arms and the fantasies The Crystal Gryphon and Year of the Unicorn, to name a few. In later years, I thought the story quality declined, but I suspect that was a combination of less attentive editing and author age.
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Wow, so you were the kid I was competing with for those Andre Norton books that were never on the shelves. I too loved her when I was n my teens. I still occasionally reread her witchlight series…
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Love the passion in your post. I totally agree that Sci Fi needs more rattling good page-turners (and more women writers).
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WHICH BOOK/BOOKS ARE YOU READING ATM?
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Thank you. I love discovering new books – hoping the love of reading will pass to my sons in a few years time.
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