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dee9401's review
3.0
I didn’t enjoy Vonda McIntyre’s “Screwtop”. There were interesting ideas but they were never developed.
James Tiptree Jr.’s “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” had a fantastic premise but the beginning and end suffered from the writing style. Too experimental? Too clever? There was a point where the story was climaxing with Paul, P. Burke, and Delphi that was masterful, but then the ending reverts to the ‘too clever by half’ writing style of earlier.
So, 1 star for Screwtop and 3 for Tiptree’s story (should have been a 4 easily and could have been a 5).
Overall, since these Tor volumes are hard to rate, I’ll go with 3. If I was just rating the Tiptree piece, I’d probably go for 3.5 or 4 stars.
James Tiptree Jr.’s “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” had a fantastic premise but the beginning and end suffered from the writing style. Too experimental? Too clever? There was a point where the story was climaxing with Paul, P. Burke, and Delphi that was masterful, but then the ending reverts to the ‘too clever by half’ writing style of earlier.
So, 1 star for Screwtop and 3 for Tiptree’s story (should have been a 4 easily and could have been a 5).
Overall, since these Tor volumes are hard to rate, I’ll go with 3. If I was just rating the Tiptree piece, I’d probably go for 3.5 or 4 stars.
ihre_hasistaet's review
4.0
A novella (depending on the edition about 50 pages long) set in a cyberpunk world where advertising is prohibited. Corporations use celebrities for product placement, but as "real" humans are too unpredictable, they grow themselves perfectly beautiful brainless celebrity-bodies. P. Burke, a deformed, ugly, suicidal girl who lives in the gutter is offered to be the remote control for the body of new celebrity "Delphi". She gladly accepts.
A story about the power of the media, how corporations control our decision, a person's worth in society, female embodiment and gender roles.
Unbelievably this story is from 1973, it could easily be contemporary.
A story about the power of the media, how corporations control our decision, a person's worth in society, female embodiment and gender roles.
Unbelievably this story is from 1973, it could easily be contemporary.
kayjay34's review
5.0
"The Girl Who Was Plugged In" completely changed so much for me. Completely relevant still today, it's a wonderful and horrible look into female beauty and how television/media/society is fixated on the looks of women. Cannot recommend enough.
shieymn's review
4.0
Novella vincitrice del premio Hugo nel 1974, La ragazza connessa parla di un’entità organica, Delphi, il cui cervello è contenuto all’esterno del corpo; per la precisione, dentro al corpo mostruoso della giovane P. Burke. Delphi è come un Golem, è un corpo coltivato da una multinazionale, che si considera proprietaria di Delphi. Quando è Delphi, P. Burke non sa di non esserlo davvero; e, in effetti, lo è.
La vicenda affronta varie questioni legate all’identità, alla coscienza e alla percezione, ma parla soprattutto di capitalismo e società dei consumi, e di ciò che essi fanno ai nostri corpi. Questo è il lato più lungimirante del testo, che vede Delphi utilizzata come sponsor pubblicitario in quello che sembra l’antesignano dell’odierno reality show.
Il punto di vista è radicale, e anche femminista; suona un po’ ridicolo pensare che all’epoca molti credessero che James Tiptree (nome d’arte di Alice Sheldon) fosse davvero un uomo, arrivando a scandalizzarsi quando qualcuno sosteneva il contrario.
Lo stile è quello più funambolico di certa sci-fi anni ’70, con la scelta di un indicativo presente e di una seconda persona singolare, un tu narrante che – a me personalmente – spesso suona fastidioso, e col passare del tempo ha accumulato quella patina da antichità post-moderna (con tutto il bene che le si può volere). È però uno stile rocambolesco, scoppiettante, che racconta la storia spezzando le distanze tra lettore e racconto.
Non sono riuscita a reperire il racconto di Vonda McIntyre, per cui la mia recensione è solo per Tiptree.
La vicenda affronta varie questioni legate all’identità, alla coscienza e alla percezione, ma parla soprattutto di capitalismo e società dei consumi, e di ciò che essi fanno ai nostri corpi. Questo è il lato più lungimirante del testo, che vede Delphi utilizzata come sponsor pubblicitario in quello che sembra l’antesignano dell’odierno reality show.
Il punto di vista è radicale, e anche femminista; suona un po’ ridicolo pensare che all’epoca molti credessero che James Tiptree (nome d’arte di Alice Sheldon) fosse davvero un uomo, arrivando a scandalizzarsi quando qualcuno sosteneva il contrario.
Lo stile è quello più funambolico di certa sci-fi anni ’70, con la scelta di un indicativo presente e di una seconda persona singolare, un tu narrante che – a me personalmente – spesso suona fastidioso, e col passare del tempo ha accumulato quella patina da antichità post-moderna (con tutto il bene che le si può volere). È però uno stile rocambolesco, scoppiettante, che racconta la storia spezzando le distanze tra lettore e racconto.
Non sono riuscita a reperire il racconto di Vonda McIntyre, per cui la mia recensione è solo per Tiptree.
mattie's review
4.0
(This review is just for The Girl Who Was Plugged In, since I'm going to give a miss to the trashy looking space-prison item published in the other half of this edition.)
The Girl Who Was Plugged In is one of the Tiptree novellas I kept hearing referenced as a classic, and I see why, especially given when it was published. Celebrity and consumerism and bodies (and women's bodies!) and corporations and the self, in a funky scifi package.
The writing was sometimes so stylized it was frustratingly hard to follow (I literally do not understand what was supposed to have happened in the last few sentences; time travel?), but I'd still rather read it written this way than in the hands of one of the fluffy-YA authors of scifi you'd see writing the same idea today. (Sorry, Scott Westerfeld. Kind of.) And generally the stylistic tics worked for the subject matter (and also reminded me of Phillip K Dick, fwiw). Fast, interesting read that left me thinking about it and wanting more.
The Girl Who Was Plugged In is one of the Tiptree novellas I kept hearing referenced as a classic, and I see why, especially given when it was published. Celebrity and consumerism and bodies (and women's bodies!) and corporations and the self, in a funky scifi package.
The writing was sometimes so stylized it was frustratingly hard to follow (I literally do not understand what was supposed to have happened in the last few sentences; time travel?), but I'd still rather read it written this way than in the hands of one of the fluffy-YA authors of scifi you'd see writing the same idea today. (Sorry, Scott Westerfeld. Kind of.) And generally the stylistic tics worked for the subject matter (and also reminded me of Phillip K Dick, fwiw). Fast, interesting read that left me thinking about it and wanting more.
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