The Library Lady

Pastiche

by Wendy K. Smith

I have to admit to a prejudice this issue. I am, after all, from New Mexico and since most of the authors of the Wild Card series are from that state, reading their stories was a matter of local pride.
For those unfamiliar with the series, Wild Cards is a set of shared novels and story collections with the theme of what our world might be like if some people really did have superpowers. [The origins of the superpowers is the alien Wild Card virus. Ed.] One of the characters in the series is Cap'n Trips, a hippy superhero whose powers only work when he's high. Then he becomes one of five alternate personalities one of whom, Moonchild, is female.
Alas, though the good Cap'n is in the latest volume, Jokertown Shuffle, Moonchild is not. However, we do have a new character, the shape-changing Projectionist. In addition, one of the main characters of the series, Dr. Tachyon, is in deep trouble. Tachy's been caught off-guard and ambushed by his grandson, Blaise, who combines total immaturity and selfishness with genuine evil. Blaise is a potentially more powerful telepath than his grandfather and his idea of sweet revenge is to trap Tachyon's mind in the very un-telepathic body of a young woman who had been Blaise's girlfriend. Both Tachyon and Blaise are extreme male chauvinists, so this is most distressing to Tachyon. To maker matters worse [and a little kinky] Blaise has repeatedly raped the body that Tachyon inhabits and "she" is now pregnant. However, Tachyon is very resourceful and is determined not to be beaten. You'll have to read Wild Cards X: Double Solitaire to find out what happens.
I also have a prejudice in reviewing Picking The Ballad's Bones by Elizabeth Scarbrough. I love folk music and this series is about that subject. The basic plot has the Devil thinking that folk music helps people hang on in hard times, so he intends to regulate it out of existence. The only hope is a small band of folkies aided by an enchanted banjo and the occasional boost from the Debauchery Devil who kind of likes drunken singers and bawdy tunes. In this the second book of the series, the Debauchery Devil has cut a deal with the folkies. Our heroes and heroines have to go back in time and live through events that gave rise to the traditional Anglo-Scottish ballads. For every event they survive, they get seven songs back, but surviving isn't easy and the devil has switched their sexes in the trip back. Thus, man-hating, radical Anna Mae Gunn is stuck in the body and mind of a male chauvinist pig, while womanizer Willie McKai is getting a whole different perspective on unwed pregnancy, up close and personal. Like I say, I'm prejudiced about Scarbrough's books, but I think you'll enjoy this one.
I'm very ambivalent about Baker Street. This is a comic book pastiche of Conan Doyle with a female punk rocker version of Holmes. Actually, under most circumstances, it's quite good. In issue #6, it is revealed that the lesbian lover of detective-heroine Sharon Ford, Samantha Neville is a pre-op male to female TS. Of course, by issue #8, Sam was also revealed as the serial killer, The Ripper, and was killed off by issue #9.
I'd like to say that the only nice thing about Sam's death is that the letters column is already being inundated with hate mail from fans who thought Sam was the most interesting character in the book. But I can't.
Much as I loath another TS Killer plot, this isn't Dressed To Kill or Silence of the Lambs. Sam's violence was directed at men who had attacked or brutalized women. Sam had lost all perspective to where a slap was as bad as rape, but her victims were neither helpless nor entirely guiltless.
Neither is Sam's death made into a triumph of good over evil. Her friends grieve. Her lover, Sharon, is devastated and guilt stricken. The scene with Sharon correcting Sam's mother who keeps referring to her "son" at the funeral was very touching and authentic. We also learn that contrary to what everyone has assumed, it was Sam who took in Sharon and saved her life.
I'm going to be a long time forgiving these guys for killing Sam off, but I'll also be thankful to them for creating her in the first place.
Now, to our honorable mention category. These are books and stories that do not have a transgendered theme but that nevertheless have at least one character or scene that is of interest to transgendered people. This issue's nominee is The Nanotech Chronicles by Michael Flynn.
The hook here is nanotechnology, the idea of using programmed molecules to create or restructure things on an atomic level. Flynn uses the idea of employing nanotech manipulation of DNA to rebuild human bodies. In one horrifying story in this collection, a grief-stricken scientist saves a bag-lady from death and then proceeds to transform her into his dead wife.
In The Werehouse, a group of young street punks seek out an illegal house of transformation. One of them has himself made over into a woman, only to be brutalized by his "friends."
Enough fiction! On to history. I am pleased to report that an English translation of Magnus Hirschfield's Die Transvestiten (The Transvestites) is now available. For those of you who have never heard of Herr Doktor Hirschfield, he's the man who invented the word "transvestite" in this book first published in 1910. Hirschfield was also one of the pioneers of both modern sexology and gay liberation. Himself an admitted homosexual, and a reputed crossdresser, he tirelessly put himself on the line for the legal rights of gays in Imperial Germany, only to be finally driven out by the Nazis.
The Transvestites was his seminal work on crossdressers, gay and straight. At its publication, it was a landmark. Granted that after all this time, some of his theories are out of date, but the case histories detailing the lives of both male and female transvestites and transsexuals offer an invaluable perspective. For that matter, one account of a TV's afternoon out as a woman in Berlin in 1909 sounds a lot like some of my experiences in Albuquerque in 1989. Then there's the autobiographical passages from Ulrich von Lichtenstein, a medieval German knight who -- I swear this is historical fact -- ran around dressed as the goddess Venus and challenging every knight he met to a duel.
Finally, for this installment, we look at Dressing Smart by Pamela Satran. The book is billed as a "thinking woman's guide to style." I prefer to think of it as an advanced course in dressing.
The book is divided into sections covering work, men, money, shopping, sex and kids as they affect women's fashion. Each section includes at least one interview with a working woman about her clothes, and one or more emotional issues, such as little girls' addiction to frilly lace, the power of lingerie, and why some clothes make you feel more successful. This book won't tell you how to find your dress size or what color goes with what. What it will give you is the 6-foot pediatrician in Florida to the 5-foot 2-inch newspaper editor/mother in St. Louis, talking about what they really wear for their work and lives and why; how to spot a truly great pair of dress pumps when you see them; really frank discussion of why you hate to shop; how to survive 109 degree day in style; why you should never wear dangling earrings around two-year-olds; and why men never notice their girlfriend's clothes.
In short, it may just tell you more about how to approach dressing as an authentic woman than any other source you are likely to find.

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