TY - ABST T1 - Extra(ordinary) People Y1 - 1984 A1 - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) KW - Female author KW - US author AB -

Primarily dystopian with the five stories moving from medieval Scandinavia to the future with some set versions of the nineteenth century. Two themes suggest the possibility of a better world, telepathic people, and the end of sexual differentiation. But the connecting material both supports and undercuts the eutopian interpretation.

PB - St. Martin's Press CY - New York N1 -

Rpt. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985. U.K. ed. London: The Women’s Press, 1985. The reprinted stories are: “Souls” (1-59). Rpt. from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 62.1 (368) (January 1982): 7-46; and as part of a Tor Double with [Alice Bradley Sheldon], Houston, Houston, Do You Read? By James Tiptree, Jr. [pseud.]. New York: Tor, 1989; 14002204330021210423140032403333 [pseud.]; “The Mystery of the Young Gentlemen” (63-92). Rpt. from Speculations. Ed. Isaac Asimov and Alice Laurence (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1982), 245-75; and “What Did You Do During the Revolution, Grandma?” (117-44). Rpt. from The Seattle Review 6.1 (Spring 1983): 5-24. 

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ER - TY - ABST T1 - "Elf Hill" Y1 - 1982 A1 - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) KW - Female author KW - US author AB -

Overpopulation dystopia depicting the Sunset Estates retirement home that has twenty million retirees who each get a huge apartment with all the amenities, but there is only one apartment that is shared by all twenty million. This is achieved through the manipulation of space and time, and the home is actually run down and dirty. Other retirement homes, like Happihomes, only provide a bunk. Another is named Endfun, which makes the point. Female author.

JF - The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction VL - 63.5 (378) N1 -

Rpt. in her The Hidden Side of the Moon. Stories (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), 112-23.

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ER - TY - ABST T1 - The Two of Them Y1 - 1978 A1 - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) KW - Female author KW - US author AB -

Dystopia set in a society that suppresses women and resonates with the most extreme forms of Wahhabism. Uses some characters from 1969 Elgin, “For the Sake of Grace,” and the book is dedicated to Elgin. 

PB - Berkley Publishing Co. CY - New York SN - 9780399121494, 9780425041062, 9780819567604 N1 -

Rpt. New York: Berkley Books, 1979; and Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2005 with a “Foreword” by Sharon LeFanu (vii-xv). 

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ER - TY - ABST T1 - The Female Man Y1 - 1975 A1 - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) KW - Female author AB -

A complex feminist novel that includes a eutopia without men. The focus of the novel is on three women who are genetically identical but, as a result of the different worlds they live in, completely different. See also 1972 Russ, “When It Changed”.

PB - Bantam Books CY - New York N1 -

Rpt. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1977, with an “Introduction” by Marilyn Hacker (v-xxvii); Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1986; in Radical Utopias (New York: Book-of-the-Month Club, 1990), separately paged. U.K. ed. London: Gollancz, 2010, with an “Introduction” by Gwyneth Jones (ix-xii); and in Russ, Novels and Stories. Ed. Nicole Rudick (New York: The Library of America, 2023), 1-191, with a Chronology on 681-694 that includes chronologically references to Russ’s publications, notes on the text on 694 and 697, and notes on 699-702. Selections from throughout the novel are rpt. as “A Few Things I Know About Whileaway.” The New Improved Sun: An Anthology of Utopian S-F. Ed. Thomas M[ichael] Disch (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), 82-97 with an editor’s note on 81.

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ER - TY - ABST T1 - "Risk" Y1 - 1975 A1 - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) KW - Female author KW - US author AB -

A man resurrected from the past hates the future eutopia in which technology keeps people from being injured. 

JF - The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction VL - 48.6 (289) U5 -

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ER - TY - ABST T1 - "Nobody's Home" Y1 - 1972 A1 - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) ED - Robert Silverberg (b. 1935) KW - Female author KW - US author AB -

Eutopia. The focus of the story is an extended family of eighteen adults living in a future world with a fairly low population. The main technological change is a matter transmitter that allows nearly instantaneous travel to any place on Earth, which means that only some are living together at any one time. The family described values high intelligence, and it is implied that this is the norm. Each person must contribute "tax labor" to the Earth community.

JF - New Dimensions II PB - Doubleday CY - Garden City, NY N1 -

Rpt. in Women of Wonder. Ed. Pamela Sargent (New York: Vintage, 1974), 231-56; illus. Dennis Neal Smith in her The Zanzibar Cat ([Sauk City, WI]: Arkham House, 1983), 52-69; and in Women of Wonder: The Classic Years. Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s. Ed. Pamela Sargent (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1995), 249-62. 

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ER - TY - ABST T1 - "When It Changed" Y1 - 1972 A1 - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) ED - Harlan [Jay] Ellison (1934-2018) KW - Female author KW - US author AB -

Eutopia without men, who had all died in a plague, and the clash that occurs when men from Earth arrive. The eutopia is called Whileaway, the name of the eutopia in 1975 Russ. The story is told from the point-of-view of one of two happily married women with three children.

JF - Again, Dangerous Visions: 46 Original Stories PB - Doubleday CY - Garden City, NY N1 -

Rpt. in her The Zanzibar Cat ([Sauk City, WI]: Arkham House, 1983), 3-11; in The New Women of Wonder: Recent Science Fiction Stories By Women About Women. Ed. Pamela Sargent (New York: Vintage, 1977), 227-39; in Kindred Spirits: An Anthology of Gay and Lesbian Science Fiction Stories. Ed. Jeffrey M. Elliot (Boston, MA: Alyson Publications, 1984), 45-53; in The Best of the Nebulas (New York: Tor/Tom Doherty Associates, 1989), 204-10, with an “Author’s Foreword” on 203; in Feminist Philosophy and Science Fiction: Utopias and Dystopias. Ed. Judith A. Little (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007), 333-40; in The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction. Ed. Arthur B. Evans, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham, and Carol McGuirk (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2010), 507-15 with an editors’ note on 507-08; in Sisters of the Revolution: A Feminist Speculative Fiction Anthology. Ed. Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2015), 194-202; in The Big Book of Science Fiction: The Ultimate Collection. Ed. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (New York: Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Vintage Books, 2016), 603-07 with an editors’ note on 602; in The Future is Female! More Classic Science Fiction by Women Volume 2: The 1970s. Ed. Lisa Yaszek (New York: The Library of America, 2023), 59-69, with a biographical note on 492-493, and notes on the text on 481-483; and in Russ, Novels and Stories. Ed. Nicole Rudick (New York: The Library of America, 2023), 621-629, with a Chronology on 681-694 that includes chronologically references to Russ’s publications, notes on the text on 697, and notes on 708-710.

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ER - TY - ABST T1 - And Chaos Died Y1 - 1970 A1 - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) KW - Female author KW - US author AB -

Telepathy on a eutopian planet with Earth an authoritarian dystopia. Children are considered babies until they are prepubescent, after which they become capable of acting telepathically. They can slow down their maturation, in the case mentioned because the girl wants to develop intellectually. Adults rarely talk. In the third section of the novel, the novel shifts abruptly among times and places. In one future Earth, the population has grown immensely, with some cities constructed underground and on and under the sea and few animals are plants remain. Food is manufactured and what plants still grow are contaminated. Few people are literate. People were generally free to do as they choose; drugs are commonly to induce experiences, including death. But there is no organized crime, sex is no one’s business except for the people involved, people have practically unlimited credit. One couple has traditional gender roles, as defined by the man. 

PB - Ace Books CY - New York N1 -

Rpt. Boston, MA: Gregg Press, 1978, with an “Introduction” by Robert Silverberg (v-xi).

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ER - TY - ABST T1 - "The Throwaways" Y1 - 1969 A1 - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) KW - Female author KW - US author AB -

Dystopian satire on future consumption patterns, which focuses on everything being a throwaway.

JF - Consumption (Seattle, WA) VL - 2.3 N1 -

Rpt. in her The Hidden Side of the Moon. Stories (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), 98-102.

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ER - TY - ABST T1 - "Nor Custom Stale" Y1 - 1959 A1 - Joanna [Ruth] Russ (1937-2011) KW - Female author KW - US author AB -

Flawed utopia of a house, which is supposed to be immortal, that took care of all needs of its occupants for many generations and its gradual failure.

JF - The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction VL - 17.3 (100) N1 -

Rpt. in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (UK) 1.5 (April 1960): 34-; and in her The Hidden Side of the Moon. Stories (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987), 124-37.

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