everything comes back to the alien sex eventually

[buggery]

-- make us into these Last Men!

As Jenn seperis herself makes clear, the movement to get Last Men written is some sort of fandom zeitgeist, possessed of a motive force beyond anything I could muster on my own. I'm as much caught up in it as anyone else. Or, as I told Val grrleloquence, it is Sucking My Head.

What is Last Men, you ask? last_men


Incidentally, I never tempted Koi koimistress in a desert. Ever. And let me just point out that she's the one who brought [what became] Last Men back up, not me.



And you know, no, English doesn't have a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun set (aside from it-its-it, which just doesn't fit animate beings well). But it's not unbearably awkward to just strip off the letter or two that indicate gender from he-his-him and she-hers-her:

Look, I told h, I don't even have time to learn how to set one up.

Want your username to be Koi, or koimistress? e asked, and soon thereafter login instructions arrived.

I've written drafts that way for years, if I hadn't yet decided whether a given character would be male, female or otherwise. It fits nicely into syntax already in use.

Granted, I have an easier time adjusting to the way third-singular pronouns are used in Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand than I do adjusting back to the real world after I put the book down, so your mileage may vary...

Comments

[buggery.livejournal.com]

I have to love anyone else who actually knows my (admittedly semi-obscure) favourite novel. And chatting with you has only borne out that first impression.

Barely a day into joining the Last Men project, and already you're pulling your weight! We're lucky to have you, J.

PS Finish writing that comment, already. You know the one i mean.

[j-bluestocking.livejournal.com]

I love Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand. My favorite bit is the funny (okay, blackly funny) scene where that friendly sadist explains to the protag that if he sticks around, he's going to find himself in a starring and probably fatal role as masochist. Our hero listens and prudently departs. I haven't re-read the book in years, but I remember that bit was so beautifully written -- comedic timing in prose. I read it aloud to a friend and she burst into laughter. (Wow, I'm suddenly remembering the apartment I was living in at the time.)

My favorite Delaneys, though, are probably the novella "Time Considered As A Helix of Semi-Precious Stones" and the Neveryon stories. (Hmm. Well, you could probably figure out the latter from my attachment to Sumerian myths. Not to mention Kryptonian ones.)