[T]he presentation of the intimacies of power is consistently compelling.
Let me stress that. These books are hard to put down; as a reviewer of the fourth volume put it,
“This is worth stating at the outset, because it would be very easy to describe what Duchamp is doing with the Marq'ssan Cycle in terms which would make it all sound eminently worthy and improving and provocative of deep thought, and what we all should be reading, while neglecting the absolutely visceral impact of each volume as a narrative which grabs and does not let you go and leaves you breathless at the end.”
The books have been praised by other science fictions writers including Samuel Delany and Cory Doctorow, and have been compared to work by HG Wells, George Orwell, Ursula LeGuin, Joanna Russ, and James Tiptree, Jr.
Like works by those writers, Duchamp’s speculative fiction torques our
world to make it strange to us, yet recognizable; it investigates the
complexities of inseparable political and personal relations; and it
recognizes both the necessity and the difficulty of creating fundamental
change in human social organizations.—Frann Michel, KBOO Radio (Read
the whole review here.)
- Alanya to Alanya: Book One of the Marq'ssan Cycle, Aqueduct
Press, June 2005.
(Order now from Aqueduct Press
or purchase from University Bookstore)
Read Chapter One
-
Regime Change is Not the Answer
Seattle, February 2076. The Marq’ssan bring business as usual to a
screeching halt all over the world, and Professor Kay Zeldin joins Robert
Sedgewick, US Chief of Security Services, in his war against the
invaders. Soon Kay is making rather than writing history. But as
she goes head-to-head against the Marq’ssan, the long-buried secrets
of her past resurface, and her conflicts with Sedgewick and Security
Services multiply. She faces terrifying choices. Her worldview, her
very grip on reality, is turned inside out. Whose side is she really on?
And how far will she go in serving that side?
Alanya to Alanya is the first book of
the Marq`ssan Cycle, which Aqueduct Press has published in
five volumes.
What reviewers say about Alanya to Alanya:
"The intersection of science fiction and politics has always served an
important critical function, from George Orwell's dystopian 1984 and Ursula
LeGuin's The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness to Robert
Heinlein's ultra-nationalist Starship Troopers, but until now they have
always served as a means of analyzing political structures. With L. Timmel
Duchamp's million-word Marq'ssan novel (broken into five books), anarchy is
extrapolated. This is not anarchy in its popular sense, but in its truest
sense. It is also feminism at its most fundamental level, and neither can
be un-twined from the other." (read the whole review)
—Sean
Melican, Ideomancer, March 2007.
Not an easy or comfortable book, but one that rewards a thoughtful reader who is willing to give up simple action plots for a close consideration of political and social ideas. In fact, the closest comparison one might give is to some of LeGuin's later work-no small recommendation. Worth looking for.--Asimov's SF
(read the whole
review)
Alanya to Alanya does just what a political sf novel should do: it leavens
its political message with first-rate futuristic extrapolation, chilling
dystopianism and a breathless adventure story that keeps you turning the
pages. It was a refreshing read and a rare example of deft political
storytelling.--Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing, July 2006
)
As with The Female Man… Alanya to Alanya is far more than
just a dry "thought-experiment in political science." Rather, it's a book
fueled by rage at the injustices of the world, both those inflicted upon
women and those perpetrated on the common people, by an uncaring, selfish,
and self-indulgent elite.--Michael Levy, New York Review of Science
Fiction, December 2005
Politically savvy and philosophically relevant, this title puts a human face on today's problems.
—Library Journal, June 15, 2005
(read the whole review)
Alanya to Alanya is an intriguing mixture of SF genres and styles: It has
utopian and dystopian elements, a strong splash of the political thriller,
a good mystery subplot in Kay's amnesia, a hint of the sense of discovery
that imbues first-contact novels and plenty to say about the current state
of the real world.
—Science Fiction Weekly, June 27, 2005
(read the whole review)
Alanya to Alanya is SF on a broader scale, with The War of the
Worlds as one inspiration, but its metaphors apply to a very human
tangle of loyalty and betrayal, politics and idealism—Wells and
Orwell updated for the end of the 20th century.
—Locus, June 2005
Alanya to Alanya is not so much an exploration of the way humanity
responds to an alien presence as an illustration of how a world under siege
from its own governments finally revolts; the invaders are simply the
catalyst for change.
—Seattle Times, July 3, 2005 (read
the whole review)
[Duchamp's] political world building has a level of detail and
believability that rivals Bruce Sterling at his best, and her pacing is
much better than most other books driven so heavily by political concepts,
such as Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged or Sheri S. Tepper's The Gate
to Women's Country.
—Strange Horizons, November 30, 2005.
(read the
whole review)
This is the first of a five novel series which mixes politics, aliens, and
a variety of feminist and political issues which might easily have become
- Renegade: Book Two of the Marq'ssan Cycle, Aqueduct
Press, June 2006.
(Order now from Aqueduct Press
or purchase from University Bookstore)
Read Chapter One
-
The Free Zone's Nonviolent Anarchy Is Under Attack!
Renegade, the second of the five-novel Marq’ssan Cycle, opens in August
2077 as the Pacific Northwest Free Zone, having survived the first year of
its existence, faces both internal and external challenges. The US’s
Security Services has deployed a paramilitary covert action team to capture
Kay Zeldin, Security’s most wanted renegade, and destabilize the Zone’s
civil order. Nevertheless, Kay ventures outside the Free Zone to search for
her spouse and dozens of other scientists who have disappeared, travelling
through a war-torn American landscape she barely recognizes. When she
encounters Security’s formidable Elizabeth Weatherall, each woman risks all
she has become in no-holds-barred, mortal combat.
Renegade is a passionate novel of love, trust, and betrayal as
well as matters of life and death; it poses vital questions about political
morality that resonate powerfully with the most significant issues of our
day. With this novel, L. Timmel Duchamp, best known for her
“provocative,” “daring” short fiction, moves into new
territory, mapping largely invisible connections between how humans
negotiate the most intimate and the least intimate of relations.
"Duchamp doesn't need headlines to grab the reader. You do that with good
writing and strong characters. Both are to be found in abundance in
Renegade. And I do mean abundance. This here is a 616 page pulse-pounding
page-turner, based on Duchamp's research into the shenanigans and
evil-doings of our own favorite set of spies, the CIA. What would happen to
our bureaucrat-overseers, were they to be freed into a landscape overrun by
near-civil war, greed and violence? No, this novel is not about current
history or anything resembling it. You do, indeed, get hints of the truly
alien. They're the seeds of change."
—Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column
(for
the whole review, go to
http://trashotron.com/agony/news/2006/03-20-06.htm#032206)
"This second installment of Duchamp's (Alanya to Alanya) projected
five-volume saga of postmodern society continues to establish the breakdown
of familiar social structures and the transformation of human values from a
self-serving model to one that is truly cooperative. Feminist in intent and
meticulous in execution, this work of dystopian fiction belongs in most
large sf or speculative fiction collections." — Library Journal, June
15, 2006
"This is easily one of the best science fiction series I've read in
years. Rather than beginning with what is already known, it strips bare the
arbitrary structures of our world (sexuality, gender, government) and
rebuilds them in complex, new structures that are strikingly at odds with
our experience-homosexuality as the norm, at least among the highest
levels, and men willing to forgo sexual pleasure for political power-and
yet also strikingly familiar, with classes or castes, torture, war, the
designation of the unfamiliar as automatically 'terrorist'. The arguments
for the elasticity of sexuality, and against the hierarchical structures of
gender and government are complex, and thoroughly examined-whether you
accept or deny the possibilities and premises presented, Ms. Duchamp does
not take lightly her responsibilities of presenting a believable, if
frightening world; nor does she present a simple dichotomy between men and
women, or between human and Marq'ssan." (read the whole review)
—Sean
Melican, Ideomancer, March 2007.
"{T]hrough the last two thirds of Renegade, [Duchamp] successfully
maintains narrative tension almost solely through the battle of wills
between Weatherall and Zeldin. That Duchamp has also done her homework in
the series' preparation appears in the scary verisimilitude with which she
depicts the intelligence service sub-culture, its methods and their impact
upon detainees. Indeed, the work at times reads much like a concentration
camp narrative (Levi's Survival in Auschwitz or Solzhenitsyn's
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich come to mind) in its lengthy,
semi-philosophical passages about self-preservation. While I have certainly
been guilty of grousing about and skimming through such long-winded
philosophical digressions in other works of SF, with Renegade, I
devoured every word of every page." — Amy J. Ransom, SFRA Review, Oct/Nov/Dec 2006
- Tsunami: Book Three in the Marq'ssan Cycle, Aqueduct
Press, January 2007.
(Order now from
Aqueduct Press) or purchase from University Bookstore)
-
The Global War May Be Over, But LA Is About To Go Up In Flames...
Tsunami, the gripping third volume of the five-novel Marq'ssan
Cycle, opens in early 2086, immediately after the signing of the Madrid
Accords at the conclusion of the Global War. Many countries, including the
US, have been devastated by war, and some of them turn to the Free Zones
and the Marq'ssan for assistance in rebuilding their infrastructure. In the
US, the Executive, which has turned its attention to reconsolidating its
power, meets with growing resistance to executive rule; and in the Pacific
Northwest Free Zone, the Co-op faces an internal crisis when ugly,
long-buried secrets are dragged into the light of day. Meanwhile, the lives
of three very different women—executive Elizabeth Weatherall,
anarchist Martha Greenglass, and human rights lawyer Celia
Espin—become entangled as each strives to bring about the change she
so passionately desires.
"The third volume of the Marq'ssan cycle, Tsunami, confirms what
the second volume, Renegade, made clear: the narrative drive and
sheer invention of the work is more than up to the size, scope, and
ambition of this extraordinary project. What a grand job! What a great
read! It's been a long time since I've read science fiction with such a
dramatic grip on the political complexities of our slow progress toward the
better world we all wish for." —Samuel R. Delany, author of
Dhalgren and Trouble on Triton
"Readers familiar with Duchamp's work will not be surprised to find that
Tsunami is a thoughtful and intensely political book. The human exercise of
power is its chief concern, and this plays out on a variety of stages: in a
prison where human-rights activists are being humiliated and tortured, in
the careful workings of the Free Zone Cooperative, in offices, embassies,
classrooms and even campgrounds. Duchamp's powerful use of language and her
gift for creating unforgettable and complex characters make this novel a
dark and suspenseful read... The author's sense of irony and her
unflinching understanding of human nature add much-needed wryness (and an
occasional flash of romance) to the mix." (read the whole
review)
—A.M.Dellamonica, Science Fiction Weekly, Jan
10, 2007.
"The old US government is attempting to reassert its authority, but
discovering that not everyone is welcoming them with open arms. This
lengthy, thoughtful, and intelligent novel examines the social, political,
and personal consequences, seen chiefly through the eyes of three women
– a lawyer, a businesswoman, and a political activist – all of whose
ambitions become intertwined. The series is an ambitious project that is
probably just a shade too intellectual for the mainstream commercial SF
market, but which should appeal to readers who like something a little more
thoughtful than the latest military SF or post-apocalyptic
dystopia."—Donald D'Ammassa, Critical Mass
- Blood in the Fruit: Book Four of the Marq'ssan Cycle, Aqueduct
Press, January 2008.
(Order now from Aqueduct Press
or purchase from Powells.com)
Read Chapters One
and Two
-
Hidden Agendas, A Loose Cannon, and Desperate Measures
Blood in the Fruit, the hard-hitting fourth volume of the five-novel Marq’ssan Cycle, focuses sharp, analytical attention on human rights issues. The novel opens in October 2086. After ten years’ absence, the Marq’ssan Fleet returns to Earth to determine whether humans should be quarantined, and a young alien, unprepared for the shock of human culture, becomes a dangerous loose cannon taking violent, unilateral action. In the Free Zone, a flood of renegades led by Elizabeth Weatherall establish a fortress; even Hazel Bell, Weatherall’s lover, doesn’t know what they’re up to. In the US, when the government responds to increasing dissent and civil disorder by ratcheting up its repressive tactics, brave and dedicated human rights activists like Celia Espin join forces with the Free Zones in a global challenge that threatens to undermine governments around the world. Blood in the Fruit offers a grand, sweeping story through the eyes of four individuals with markedly contrasting perspectives and experience.
Blood in the Fruit is the fourth book of
the Marq`ssan Cycle, which Aqueduct Press will publish in
five volumes.
What reviewers say about Blood in the Fruit:
Before saying anything else, what I want to emphasise about this book is that it is an absolutely compelling read: I started it one Saturday and was so gripped that I finished it the following day—and it is a long and dense book—in spite of domestic distractions. It was very hard to put down. This is worth stating at the outset, because it would be very easy to describe what Duchamp is doing with the Marq'ssan Cycle in terms which would make it all sound eminently worthy and improving and provocative of deep thought, and what we all should be reading, while neglecting the absolutely visceral impact of each volume as a narrative which grabs and does not let you go and leaves you breathless at the end.
— Lesley A. Hall, Strange Horizons
The novel - the series for that matter - is a distillation of political and ethical philosophy, a commentary on the importance and frailty of human rights, a feminist dystopia, and something of an adventure story, although most of the real conflict tends to be on the intellectual rather than physical level. This is the kind of novel which probably won't appeal to a mass audience, in part because it steps outside the usual genre rules. For those willing to invest the time to actually think about what they're reading and work out the implications, it's a treasure house.
— Don D'Ammassa, September 25, 2007
- Stretto: Book Five of the Marq'ssan Cycle, Aqueduct
Press, July 2008.
(Order now from Aqueduct Press
or purchase
from A Room of One's Own)
Read Chapters One
and Two
-
Whose World Is It?
Stretto, the grand finale of the Marq'ssan Cycle, weaves together the major threads of the Marq'ssan story and encourages readers, as Joan Haran says, "to write beyond the ending." The novel, like the series as a whole, inquires Whose world is it? and shows several possible ways of answering the question through the respective perceptions and perspectives of the novel's five viewpoint characters: Alexandra Sedgewick, heir to the Sedgewick estate; Anne Hawthorne, Security operative; Hazel Bell, subversive activist; Celia Espin, human rights lawyer; and Emily Madden, star pupil of the maverick Marq'ssan, Astrea l Betut san Imu. As always, never predictable, never finished, the consequences of all that has gone before continues to play out.
Advance praise for Stretto:
The final volume in the Marq'ssan series will encourage its readers to write beyond the ending. There are no gift-wrapped resolutions or easy redemptions on offer, rather there is a clear-sighted focus on the always-unfolding consequences-intended and unintended-of personal and political action taken. This is a series that is deeply invested in social transformation while resisting any temptation to consolation. As a resolute utopian, I see this as a hopeful strategy.
—Joan Haran, author of Human Cloning in the Media
What reviewers say about Stretto:
Like its predecessors, this is very much a novel of ideas and personal relations rather than of action or adventure. The author is more interested in the clash of ideas than in describing pitched battles in the streets of Washington. If you enjoy books designed to stimulate thought as well as entertain you, Duchamp's speculations about the forms of government and the ways in which people in power interact should prove very rewarding.
—Don D'Ammassa, Critical Mass
It is this awareness of the varying reactions (and not just a simplistic
dichotomy) to such radical change—from government to anarchy (keeping in
mind this is not synonymous with chaos, but merely the complete lack of
government agency and agencies) that imbues the series with such
power. Characters are not merely mouthpieces, but are fully fleshed out and
more importantly, their arguments are fully fleshed out. Duchamp does not
use straw men and women. She challenges her own thoughts and
assumptions. Her novels are the strongest utopias written to date.\227Sean Melican, Ideomancer
Stretto, the fifth and final book in L. Timmel Duchamp's stunning Marq'ssan
Cycle, has just been published by Aqueduct Press. Taken as a whole, the
Marq'ssan Cycle is one of the most ambitious political SF series to appear
in the last twenty years. The novels have received praise from the likes of
Samuel Delany and Cory Doctorow, with Doctorow calling them "a refreshing
read and a rare example of deft political storytelling."\227Jeff
VanderMeer, Omnivoracious
- The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding), Aqueduct Press, December 2005.
(Order now from Aqueduct Press
or purchase from University Bookstore)
-
[Eve] turned her attention to the monitor displaying Minnivitch’s
cell. Never had it been so clear what Minnivitch was up to. The bare
minimalist space of the cell screamed stage, and some strange,
dramaturgical magic had transformed the white glare of the indirect
fluorescent lighting into spotlights. Kneeling bald and naked on the
floor’s glassine surface, Minnivitch—her arms, wrists, hands, and
fingers as dramatically expressive as her face—was telling a story to an
audience somewhere outside the glare of the lights.
—from The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding)
Sarah Minnivitch, an actor sentenced to prison for acts of civil
disobedience, wreaked havoc at the for-profit medium-security facility she
was first sent to. When Penco transfers her to a high-security facility,
the facility’s director assigns Dr. Eve Escher the task of
rehabilitating Minnivitch and recovering the corporation’s
losses. Escher believes she is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough
that will not only rehabilitate the prisoner but also win the physician
fame and glory. But the stakes for both Escher and Minnivitch prove to be
higher than either of them imagined.
-
Read the first two chapters
What reviewers say about The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding)
The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding) is an intense and gripping read. It
is dense with ideas without ever becoming bogged down, as the narrative
momentum keeps everything moving. It repays rereading to pick up the hints
and clues and recurrent themes and images that the pace of the writing may
sweep one past during the first read: for example, "the rose-like designs"
of the heat-trace readings on Minnivitch when she is in black isolation,
Eve's nightmare of a blood-red flower/wound splitting her foot, the rose
preserved in glass on Dorner's austere desk, the "flower of fire blazing
within" Venedra Poole. Not a comfortable book, but a compelling and
thought-provoking one.
—Lesley Hall, Strange Horizons April 24, 2006
(
read the whole review)
"[an] effectively ironic short novel of near-future dystopia and
professional disillusionment"
—Locus "New and Notable" Feb 2006
- Love's Body, Dancing in Time, Aqueduct Press, April, 2004.
(Available from Powell's.)
-
This handful of SF tales demonstrates superbly what the genre can really
do. Rich with social resonance, these stories elicit the thrill of ideas
struggling to manifest as pure drama. Duchamp writes some of the most
rewarding science fiction stories you can read today; she is simply and
unarguably among the best.
—Samuel R. Delany, author of Dhalgren and
Nova.
... Each tale is a polished gem, reflecting human nature in all its
goodness and ugliness, and inviting deeper inspection of cherished belief
systems and re-exploration of the big questions of relationships with
ourselves, others, and God. Supremely intelligent and confident, Duchamp
infuses her consistently sensual prose with mystery and beauty. Moreover,
it is unpredictable—so emotionally and conceptually multifaceted that
there is no fast track through one of her stories.
—The Booklist, March 1, 1504
- De Secretis Mulierum, Volume 22 in the Conversation Pieces
series (available from Aqueduct
Press)
" If countless numbers of people throughout history have wished for an
early menopause, probably no one wished more devoutly for it than Thomas
Aquinas. No doubt he literally prayed for it morning, noon, and night. A
picture comes to mind of him kneeling in his cell, pleading with the
Virgin for release from a burden even Job hadn't been forced to bear..."
(from De Secretis Mulierum)
According to the Pentagon-owned-and-operated Past-Scan Device, Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Aquinas were both women in drag. Jane Pendler's advisor says that's impossible, that the technology must be bogus, and pulls the plug on Jane's dissertation research on Leonardo. What a feminist graduate student to do? What else, but do the research behind her advisor's back, of course...
A Locus-recommended novella for 1995, the year of its original publication.
"Duchamp's novella asks profound questions about the limits of our historical knowledge, the socially constructed nature of knowledge, and the gendered and sexual biases therein."
—Ritch Calvin, FemSpec, Vol.9, no.2
"A masterful exploration of sexual identity and sexual mastery ...marvelously intricate..."
—Tangent (Summer 1995)
-
- The Grand Conversation, Aqueduct Press, October, 2004.
(Order now from Aqueduct Press
or purchase from University Bookstore)
-
The Grand Conversation, collects four essays by L. Timmel Duchamp
that explore her conceptualization of feminist sf as a conversation. These
essays, which have been previously published in the scholarly journals
Foundation and Extrapolation, lay out the thinking behind the Conversation
Pieces series.
- Talking Back: Epistolary Fantasies,edited by L. Timmel Duchamp Aqueduct Press, February, 2006.
(Order now from Aqueduct Press
or purchase from University Bookstore)
-
Talking Back showcases the epistolary fantasies of eighteen writers,
among them Carol Emshwiller, Leslie What, Eileen Gunn, and Rosaleen
Love. Invited to “talk back,” the authors penned love letters, fans
letters, angry letters, thoughtful letters; letters to dead people, letters
to fictional characters, letters to corporations. Carol Emshwiller writes
to her beloved Ledoyt; Eileen Gunn, provoked by a New York Times review of
Lady Windermere’s Fan, addresses Oscar Wilde; Heather Lindsley tenders
friendly advice to Citibank; and Nisi Shawl explains to Jack Kerouac that
the joke is on both of them. “Lovely Madame,” writes James Trimarco
to Charles Dickens’s infamous Madame Defarge, “you whose eyes flash as
your knitting needles click-clack at the table, I spit on the death your
father has written for you and burn those pages from my book…” These
are letters that will never be sent, intimate and personal, fantasies the
authors have agreed to share with their readers.
"unusual and thought-provoking"
— Locus, "New and Notable," May 2006
"...a slim volume, yes, but filled with potential, great fun to read, and thought-provoking too. What more could one ask from a book, or a letter?"
—Maureen Kincaid Speller, Strange Horizons,
January 17, 2007
(
read the whole review)
- A Case of Mistaken Identity, Pulphouse, 1991.
-
L. Timmel Duchamp's A Case of Mistaken Identity is the finest
original in the bunch, a gentle satire of marriage. A yound history
student, enamored of the works of Jane Austen, is visited one afternoon by
Elizabeth Bennet, straight from the pages of Pride and
Prejudice. She has a sad tale to tell—Jane's world has nothing to do
with reality. It's charming, clever, and beautifully written.
—Locus Magazine, March, 1991.
back to homepage
(Order now from Aqueduct Press or purchase from University Bookstore)
Read Chapter One
Seattle, February 2076. The Marq’ssan bring business as usual to a screeching halt all over the world, and Professor Kay Zeldin joins Robert Sedgewick, US Chief of Security Services, in his war against the invaders. Soon Kay is making rather than writing history. But as she goes head-to-head against the Marq’ssan, the long-buried secrets of her past resurface, and her conflicts with Sedgewick and Security Services multiply. She faces terrifying choices. Her worldview, her very grip on reality, is turned inside out. Whose side is she really on? And how far will she go in serving that side?
Alanya to Alanya is the first book of the Marq`ssan Cycle, which Aqueduct Press has published in five volumes.
What reviewers say about Alanya to Alanya:
"The intersection of science fiction and politics has always served an
important critical function, from George Orwell's dystopian 1984 and Ursula
LeGuin's The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness to Robert
Heinlein's ultra-nationalist Starship Troopers, but until now they have
always served as a means of analyzing political structures. With L. Timmel
Duchamp's million-word Marq'ssan novel (broken into five books), anarchy is
extrapolated. This is not anarchy in its popular sense, but in its truest
sense. It is also feminism at its most fundamental level, and neither can
be un-twined from the other." (read the whole review)
—Sean
Melican, Ideomancer, March 2007.
Not an easy or comfortable book, but one that rewards a thoughtful reader who is willing to give up simple action plots for a close consideration of political and social ideas. In fact, the closest comparison one might give is to some of LeGuin's later work-no small recommendation. Worth looking for.--Asimov's SF (read the whole review)
Alanya to Alanya does just what a political sf novel should do: it leavens its political message with first-rate futuristic extrapolation, chilling dystopianism and a breathless adventure story that keeps you turning the pages. It was a refreshing read and a rare example of deft political storytelling.--Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing, July 2006 )
As with The Female Man… Alanya to Alanya is far more than just a dry "thought-experiment in political science." Rather, it's a book fueled by rage at the injustices of the world, both those inflicted upon women and those perpetrated on the common people, by an uncaring, selfish, and self-indulgent elite.--Michael Levy, New York Review of Science Fiction, December 2005
Politically savvy and philosophically relevant, this title puts a human face on today's problems.
—Library Journal, June 15, 2005
(read the whole review)
Alanya to Alanya is an intriguing mixture of SF genres and styles: It has
utopian and dystopian elements, a strong splash of the political thriller,
a good mystery subplot in Kay's amnesia, a hint of the sense of discovery
that imbues first-contact novels and plenty to say about the current state
of the real world.
—Science Fiction Weekly, June 27, 2005
(read the whole review)
Alanya to Alanya is SF on a broader scale, with The War of the
Worlds as one inspiration, but its metaphors apply to a very human
tangle of loyalty and betrayal, politics and idealism—Wells and
Orwell updated for the end of the 20th century.
—Locus, June 2005
Alanya to Alanya is not so much an exploration of the way humanity
responds to an alien presence as an illustration of how a world under siege
from its own governments finally revolts; the invaders are simply the
catalyst for change.
—Seattle Times, July 3, 2005 (read
the whole review)
[Duchamp's] political world building has a level of detail and
believability that rivals Bruce Sterling at his best, and her pacing is
much better than most other books driven so heavily by political concepts,
such as Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged or Sheri S. Tepper's The Gate
to Women's Country.
—Strange Horizons, November 30, 2005.
(read the
whole review)
This is the first of a five novel series which mixes politics, aliens, and a variety of feminist and political issues which might easily have become
(Order now from Aqueduct Press
or purchase from University Bookstore)
Read Chapter One
Renegade, the second of the five-novel Marq’ssan Cycle, opens in August 2077 as the Pacific Northwest Free Zone, having survived the first year of its existence, faces both internal and external challenges. The US’s Security Services has deployed a paramilitary covert action team to capture Kay Zeldin, Security’s most wanted renegade, and destabilize the Zone’s civil order. Nevertheless, Kay ventures outside the Free Zone to search for her spouse and dozens of other scientists who have disappeared, travelling through a war-torn American landscape she barely recognizes. When she encounters Security’s formidable Elizabeth Weatherall, each woman risks all she has become in no-holds-barred, mortal combat.
Renegade is a passionate novel of love, trust, and betrayal as well as matters of life and death; it poses vital questions about political morality that resonate powerfully with the most significant issues of our day. With this novel, L. Timmel Duchamp, best known for her “provocative,” “daring” short fiction, moves into new territory, mapping largely invisible connections between how humans negotiate the most intimate and the least intimate of relations.
"Duchamp doesn't need headlines to grab the reader. You do that with good
writing and strong characters. Both are to be found in abundance in
Renegade. And I do mean abundance. This here is a 616 page pulse-pounding
page-turner, based on Duchamp's research into the shenanigans and
evil-doings of our own favorite set of spies, the CIA. What would happen to
our bureaucrat-overseers, were they to be freed into a landscape overrun by
near-civil war, greed and violence? No, this novel is not about current
history or anything resembling it. You do, indeed, get hints of the truly
alien. They're the seeds of change."
—Rick Kleffel, The Agony Column
(for
the whole review, go to
http://trashotron.com/agony/news/2006/03-20-06.htm#032206)
"This is easily one of the best science fiction series I've read in
years. Rather than beginning with what is already known, it strips bare the
arbitrary structures of our world (sexuality, gender, government) and
rebuilds them in complex, new structures that are strikingly at odds with
our experience-homosexuality as the norm, at least among the highest
levels, and men willing to forgo sexual pleasure for political power-and
yet also strikingly familiar, with classes or castes, torture, war, the
designation of the unfamiliar as automatically 'terrorist'. The arguments
for the elasticity of sexuality, and against the hierarchical structures of
gender and government are complex, and thoroughly examined-whether you
accept or deny the possibilities and premises presented, Ms. Duchamp does
not take lightly her responsibilities of presenting a believable, if
frightening world; nor does she present a simple dichotomy between men and
women, or between human and Marq'ssan." (read the whole review)
—Sean
Melican, Ideomancer, March 2007.
"{T]hrough the last two thirds of Renegade, [Duchamp] successfully maintains narrative tension almost solely through the battle of wills between Weatherall and Zeldin. That Duchamp has also done her homework in the series' preparation appears in the scary verisimilitude with which she depicts the intelligence service sub-culture, its methods and their impact upon detainees. Indeed, the work at times reads much like a concentration camp narrative (Levi's Survival in Auschwitz or Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich come to mind) in its lengthy, semi-philosophical passages about self-preservation. While I have certainly been guilty of grousing about and skimming through such long-winded philosophical digressions in other works of SF, with Renegade, I devoured every word of every page." — Amy J. Ransom, SFRA Review, Oct/Nov/Dec 2006
(Order now from
Aqueduct Press) or purchase from University Bookstore)
Tsunami, the gripping third volume of the five-novel Marq'ssan Cycle, opens in early 2086, immediately after the signing of the Madrid Accords at the conclusion of the Global War. Many countries, including the US, have been devastated by war, and some of them turn to the Free Zones and the Marq'ssan for assistance in rebuilding their infrastructure. In the US, the Executive, which has turned its attention to reconsolidating its power, meets with growing resistance to executive rule; and in the Pacific Northwest Free Zone, the Co-op faces an internal crisis when ugly, long-buried secrets are dragged into the light of day. Meanwhile, the lives of three very different women—executive Elizabeth Weatherall, anarchist Martha Greenglass, and human rights lawyer Celia Espin—become entangled as each strives to bring about the change she so passionately desires.
"The third volume of the Marq'ssan cycle, Tsunami, confirms what the second volume, Renegade, made clear: the narrative drive and sheer invention of the work is more than up to the size, scope, and ambition of this extraordinary project. What a grand job! What a great read! It's been a long time since I've read science fiction with such a dramatic grip on the political complexities of our slow progress toward the better world we all wish for."—Samuel R. Delany, author of
Dhalgren and Trouble on Triton
"Readers familiar with Duchamp's work will not be surprised to find that
Tsunami is a thoughtful and intensely political book. The human exercise of
power is its chief concern, and this plays out on a variety of stages: in a
prison where human-rights activists are being humiliated and tortured, in
the careful workings of the Free Zone Cooperative, in offices, embassies,
classrooms and even campgrounds. Duchamp's powerful use of language and her
gift for creating unforgettable and complex characters make this novel a
dark and suspenseful read... The author's sense of irony and her
unflinching understanding of human nature add much-needed wryness (and an
occasional flash of romance) to the mix." (read the whole
review)
—A.M.Dellamonica, Science Fiction Weekly, Jan
10, 2007.
"The old US government is attempting to reassert its authority, but discovering that not everyone is welcoming them with open arms. This lengthy, thoughtful, and intelligent novel examines the social, political, and personal consequences, seen chiefly through the eyes of three women – a lawyer, a businesswoman, and a political activist – all of whose ambitions become intertwined. The series is an ambitious project that is probably just a shade too intellectual for the mainstream commercial SF market, but which should appeal to readers who like something a little more thoughtful than the latest military SF or post-apocalyptic dystopia."—Donald D'Ammassa, Critical Mass
(Order now from Aqueduct Press or purchase from Powells.com)
Read Chapters One and Two
Blood in the Fruit, the hard-hitting fourth volume of the five-novel Marq’ssan Cycle, focuses sharp, analytical attention on human rights issues. The novel opens in October 2086. After ten years’ absence, the Marq’ssan Fleet returns to Earth to determine whether humans should be quarantined, and a young alien, unprepared for the shock of human culture, becomes a dangerous loose cannon taking violent, unilateral action. In the Free Zone, a flood of renegades led by Elizabeth Weatherall establish a fortress; even Hazel Bell, Weatherall’s lover, doesn’t know what they’re up to. In the US, when the government responds to increasing dissent and civil disorder by ratcheting up its repressive tactics, brave and dedicated human rights activists like Celia Espin join forces with the Free Zones in a global challenge that threatens to undermine governments around the world. Blood in the Fruit offers a grand, sweeping story through the eyes of four individuals with markedly contrasting perspectives and experience.
Blood in the Fruit is the fourth book of the Marq`ssan Cycle, which Aqueduct Press will publish in five volumes.
What reviewers say about Blood in the Fruit:
Before saying anything else, what I want to emphasise about this book is that it is an absolutely compelling read: I started it one Saturday and was so gripped that I finished it the following day—and it is a long and dense book—in spite of domestic distractions. It was very hard to put down. This is worth stating at the outset, because it would be very easy to describe what Duchamp is doing with the Marq'ssan Cycle in terms which would make it all sound eminently worthy and improving and provocative of deep thought, and what we all should be reading, while neglecting the absolutely visceral impact of each volume as a narrative which grabs and does not let you go and leaves you breathless at the end. — Lesley A. Hall, Strange HorizonsThe novel - the series for that matter - is a distillation of political and ethical philosophy, a commentary on the importance and frailty of human rights, a feminist dystopia, and something of an adventure story, although most of the real conflict tends to be on the intellectual rather than physical level. This is the kind of novel which probably won't appeal to a mass audience, in part because it steps outside the usual genre rules. For those willing to invest the time to actually think about what they're reading and work out the implications, it's a treasure house. — Don D'Ammassa, September 25, 2007
(Order now from Aqueduct Press or purchase from A Room of One's Own)
Read Chapters One and Two
Stretto, the grand finale of the Marq'ssan Cycle, weaves together the major threads of the Marq'ssan story and encourages readers, as Joan Haran says, "to write beyond the ending." The novel, like the series as a whole, inquires Whose world is it? and shows several possible ways of answering the question through the respective perceptions and perspectives of the novel's five viewpoint characters: Alexandra Sedgewick, heir to the Sedgewick estate; Anne Hawthorne, Security operative; Hazel Bell, subversive activist; Celia Espin, human rights lawyer; and Emily Madden, star pupil of the maverick Marq'ssan, Astrea l Betut san Imu. As always, never predictable, never finished, the consequences of all that has gone before continues to play out.
Advance praise for Stretto:
The final volume in the Marq'ssan series will encourage its readers to write beyond the ending. There are no gift-wrapped resolutions or easy redemptions on offer, rather there is a clear-sighted focus on the always-unfolding consequences-intended and unintended-of personal and political action taken. This is a series that is deeply invested in social transformation while resisting any temptation to consolation. As a resolute utopian, I see this as a hopeful strategy. —Joan Haran, author of Human Cloning in the Media
What reviewers say about Stretto:
Like its predecessors, this is very much a novel of ideas and personal relations rather than of action or adventure. The author is more interested in the clash of ideas than in describing pitched battles in the streets of Washington. If you enjoy books designed to stimulate thought as well as entertain you, Duchamp's speculations about the forms of government and the ways in which people in power interact should prove very rewarding. —Don D'Ammassa, Critical MassIt is this awareness of the varying reactions (and not just a simplistic dichotomy) to such radical change—from government to anarchy (keeping in mind this is not synonymous with chaos, but merely the complete lack of government agency and agencies) that imbues the series with such power. Characters are not merely mouthpieces, but are fully fleshed out and more importantly, their arguments are fully fleshed out. Duchamp does not use straw men and women. She challenges her own thoughts and assumptions. Her novels are the strongest utopias written to date.\227Sean Melican, Ideomancer
Stretto, the fifth and final book in L. Timmel Duchamp's stunning Marq'ssan Cycle, has just been published by Aqueduct Press. Taken as a whole, the Marq'ssan Cycle is one of the most ambitious political SF series to appear in the last twenty years. The novels have received praise from the likes of Samuel Delany and Cory Doctorow, with Doctorow calling them "a refreshing read and a rare example of deft political storytelling."\227Jeff VanderMeer, Omnivoracious
(Order now from Aqueduct Press
or purchase from University Bookstore)
[Eve] turned her attention to the monitor displaying Minnivitch’s cell. Never had it been so clear what Minnivitch was up to. The bare minimalist space of the cell screamed stage, and some strange, dramaturgical magic had transformed the white glare of the indirect fluorescent lighting into spotlights. Kneeling bald and naked on the floor’s glassine surface, Minnivitch—her arms, wrists, hands, and fingers as dramatically expressive as her face—was telling a story to an audience somewhere outside the glare of the lights.Sarah Minnivitch, an actor sentenced to prison for acts of civil disobedience, wreaked havoc at the for-profit medium-security facility she was first sent to. When Penco transfers her to a high-security facility, the facility’s director assigns Dr. Eve Escher the task of rehabilitating Minnivitch and recovering the corporation’s losses. Escher believes she is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough that will not only rehabilitate the prisoner but also win the physician fame and glory. But the stakes for both Escher and Minnivitch prove to be higher than either of them imagined.
—from The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding)
What reviewers say about The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding)
The Red Rose Rages (Bleeding) is an intense and gripping read. It
is dense with ideas without ever becoming bogged down, as the narrative
momentum keeps everything moving. It repays rereading to pick up the hints
and clues and recurrent themes and images that the pace of the writing may
sweep one past during the first read: for example, "the rose-like designs"
of the heat-trace readings on Minnivitch when she is in black isolation,
Eve's nightmare of a blood-red flower/wound splitting her foot, the rose
preserved in glass on Dorner's austere desk, the "flower of fire blazing
within" Venedra Poole. Not a comfortable book, but a compelling and
thought-provoking one.
—Lesley Hall, Strange Horizons April 24, 2006
(
read the whole review)
"[an] effectively ironic short novel of near-future dystopia and
professional disillusionment"
—Locus "New and Notable" Feb 2006
(Available from Powell's.)
—Samuel R. Delany, author of Dhalgren and Nova.
... Each tale is a polished gem, reflecting human nature in all its
goodness and ugliness, and inviting deeper inspection of cherished belief
systems and re-exploration of the big questions of relationships with
ourselves, others, and God. Supremely intelligent and confident, Duchamp
infuses her consistently sensual prose with mystery and beauty. Moreover,
it is unpredictable—so emotionally and conceptually multifaceted that
there is no fast track through one of her stories.
—The Booklist, March 1, 1504
" If countless numbers of people throughout history have wished for an
early menopause, probably no one wished more devoutly for it than Thomas
Aquinas. No doubt he literally prayed for it morning, noon, and night. A
picture comes to mind of him kneeling in his cell, pleading with the
Virgin for release from a burden even Job hadn't been forced to bear..."
(from De Secretis Mulierum)
According to the Pentagon-owned-and-operated Past-Scan Device, Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Aquinas were both women in drag. Jane Pendler's advisor says that's impossible, that the technology must be bogus, and pulls the plug on Jane's dissertation research on Leonardo. What a feminist graduate student to do? What else, but do the research behind her advisor's back, of course...
A Locus-recommended novella for 1995, the year of its original publication.
"Duchamp's novella asks profound questions about the limits of our historical knowledge, the socially constructed nature of knowledge, and the gendered and sexual biases therein." —Ritch Calvin, FemSpec, Vol.9, no.2
"A masterful exploration of sexual identity and sexual mastery ...marvelously intricate..." —Tangent (Summer 1995)
(Order now from Aqueduct Press or purchase from University Bookstore)
(Order now from Aqueduct Press or purchase from University Bookstore)
"unusual and thought-provoking" — Locus, "New and Notable," May 2006
"...a slim volume, yes, but filled with potential, great fun to read, and thought-provoking too. What more could one ask from a book, or a letter?"
—Maureen Kincaid Speller, Strange Horizons,
January 17, 2007
(
read the whole review)
L. Timmel Duchamp's A Case of Mistaken Identity is the finest
original in the bunch, a gentle satire of marriage. A yound history
student, enamored of the works of Jane Austen, is visited one afternoon by
Elizabeth Bennet, straight from the pages of Pride and
Prejudice. She has a sad tale to tell—Jane's world has nothing to do
with reality. It's charming, clever, and beautifully written.—Locus Magazine, March, 1991.