The Michigan Daily-Su
Pdge 10-Sunday, April 9, 1978-The Michigan Daily
hOOKS
STRANGERS.
Meet the SF Romance
STRANGERS
By Gardner Dozois
Berkley-Putna m By
191 pp. $795 B Bill Barouur
BEFORE Strangers, I've read only
one piece of fiction by Gardner
Dozois. It was "Horse of Air," a highly
complex, avant-garde short story. Now
Strangers, the author's first novel, is
written in a different vein. It combines
some elements from sci-fi with several
aspects of mainstream fiction to
produce something which I had thought
impossible: a good science fiction
romance novel.
Strangers tells the story of Joseph
Farber, an Earth artist of the future,
and his love for Liraun, a humanoid
alien from the planet Weinunnach.
Farber meets Liraun at one of the
Cian's (Liraun's people) rituals and
falls in love with her. This causes some
problems for both of them: they are
both scorned by their people. There is a
schism, and Farber asks Liraun to
marry him.
This decision by Farber marks a
transition in his character from Terran
(Earth emigrants on Weinunnach) to
Cian. He must cut himself off from the
other Terrans and allow himself to be
genetically altered by the Cian.
Farber starts to eat Cian food, gets a
job in which he works with them side by
side, and he moves with Liraun into a
place where Farber was previously un-
comfortable - the Cian Old City. He
begins to learn, however, that there are
native customs and laws that Liraun
never explained to him. The laws,
coupled with a lack of communication
between Farber and Liraun, lead to a
crisis and the novel is brought to a
tragic climax.
This is a new science fiction style - a
style I like to call the new new wave.
The "waves" of science fiction can be
traced back to the 1950's, when a group
of young writers (Isaac Asimov,
Frederik Pohl, C.M. Kornbluth, and
Robert Heinlein) produced a plethora
of good stories which caused critics to
call the period "the golden age of scien-
ce fiction."
IN THE 1960's, a younger group of
writers (Harlan Ellison, Barry
Malzberg and Phillip Dick,) turned out
stories which delved into subjects -
sex, drug problems, environmental
concerns - previously taboo in science
fiction. This was labeled the "new
wave". Today, writers like George Alec
Effinger, Joe Haldeman, and, now,
Gardner Dozois, are blending tried-
and-true science fiction writing
techniques and mainstream style -
thus, a new new wave.
Strangers is a paradigm for this new
era in science fiction. Stylistically a
mainstream work, its bulk is descrip-
tive. It isn't a rock 'em-sock 'em space
opera like the science fiction of the
past. It is a well-written piece with~
strong, believable characters that will
make you wish that the book could go on
a little longer.
Bill Barbour, a Music
sophomore, writes for the
Art page.
School
Daily's
New Riverworid
novel extends
leading series
When
Hustling
in Ann
Arbor
Daily-What are the going rates and
how many hours a week do you work?
Denise-Well, for house calls it's got
to be at least fifty. I mean for me, I
don't do nothing for less than fifty, just
for an oral or whatever playing around
they want to do. Screwing has to be
more, anywhere from seventy to a hun-
dred. I vary it somewhat, depending on
the customer, depending on how much
money I think they have and how often
they come. With my standards of living,
I can turn two sixty dollar tricks a
week, get by (ine on that and just work
two hours a week.
Ernst-The Ann Arbor market is
pretty high-priced.
Denise-It's the place to do it, let me
tell you, Ann Arbor is the place to be in
the business. Hell yes, they're dying for
it.
Daily-Is sixty dollars an hour a
fair wage?
Denise-Yes. Sometimes I think what
men hate about it the most is the money
we make. They want us to do it for free.
This is one of the few jobs which women
have where they can make good money.
And it's a job that frequently has to be
part-time, or should be, because of -the
physical and psychological wear and
tear.
Daily-Can most prostitutes work
just a few hours a week and get paid
that kind of money?
Denise-The class strata goes all the
way from women who work on the
street to the highly-paid call women,
with the massage parlor businesses
falling in between. In a town where
there's a lot of street walkers and adult
businesses, prostitutes don't get as high
a price for their particular service.
They'll see more customers but that's
harder on their bodies and their minds.
Ernst-So sometimes you work four
hours a week and sometimes it's thirty
of forty. You'll find that at the lower
end of the spectrum, women are locked
into it much more. In the middle
classes, you'll find women who really
view it as temporary or part-time work.
Daily-How long do you think you'll
keep working, Denise?
Denise-It depends. I have plans for
other jobs. I graduated from college
recently. But you know, it's very con-
venient to be able to do this between
jobs.'Cause I don't feel that there are
too many jobs that exist that I feel are
really worth forty hours of my time for
the money I would be getting. I ain't
selling my soul. I'll sell my ass for a
couple of hours a week instead of selling
my soul to a job that isn't my bag.
Daily-Are you afraid of being rip-
ped-off or harassed or abused by the
people you deal with?
Denise-I think that anyone that's4
been in the business has been ripped-off
and harassed by someone who's trying
to overpower you. But you get smart.
I've had some real creeps that have
tried to give me a hard time. Well, at
Its ranks included some of the country's best-paid professional
women, long before the advent of feminism. Unfortunately, the job-
prostitution-was and is illegal.
In Ann Arbor, soliciting for the purpose of prostitution ranks as a
misdemeanor, punishable by 90 days in jail and/or a hundred dollar fine.
State statutes upgrade the charge to a felony after a second conviction, as
well as prohibiting a number of related activities such as operating
brothels or pimping.
The laws are being challenged now by a new organization in Michi-
gan, the Prostitution Education Project (Alleycat/PEP), with chapters in
Detroit and Ann Arbor. Formed after last November's police raid of local
massage parlors, the group is pushing for statewide decriminalization of
prostitution. Alleycat/PEP is an affiliate of the nationaly based
prostitution advocacy group COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics),
organized several years ago by the well-known ex-hooker Margo St.
James.
Advocates of decriminaliztion argue their cause on two fronts.
To the community-at-large they maintain that the prostitute's right
to solicit and engage in sexual activities in exchange for money is protec-
ted under constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and the right to
privacy. Though the public should not concern itself with enforcing
private morals, it could still regulate prostitution's business aspect with
civil statutes and non-legal tactics.
With the advent of the women's movement, public views of
prostitution have taken another twist. Well-meaning feminists have ten-
ded to lable prostitutes as "exploited women," products of a sexist
system. Prostitution advocates argue that this attitude lends support to
police "clean-up" efforts which in fact do far more harm to the hookers
than good.
These interviews are excerpts from several successive conversations
between a local call-woman (named Denise here), Carol Ernst, a former
prostitute and coordinator of Alleycat/PEP and Elaine Fletcher, former
Co-editor of the Sunday Magazine.
The two women, both feminists and both advocates of
decriminalization, became prostitutes through contacts with friends.
Denise has been in the business for over five years.
By Elaine Fletcher
'working'
"
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By Jim Martin
THE DARK DESIGN
By Philip Jose Farmer
Berkley-Putnam, 412 pp., $9.95
THE DARK DESIGN is the third
book of Philip Jose Farmer's
Riverworld tetralogy. The premise of
the entire series is the resurrection of
every sane man, woman, and child over
the age of five who ever lived on earth
between 2,000 B.C. and the late twen-
tieth century. The resurrection takes
place on a plant dubbed Riverworld by
its new-inhabitants. It is obviously ar-
tificial and is covered by a river that
runs back and forth from pole to pole,
looping back on itself, with segments
separated by uncrossable mointain'
ranges.
The immortal resurectees of the
series are scattered along this river,
which is some 16,000,000 kilometers
Prof. Jim Martin divides his time
between teaching in the Law School
and reading science fiction.
long. Seventy per cent of the inhabitan-
ts come from a particular time and
place, the other 30 per cent share a
background from a different space and
point in time. Resurrectees don't age
physically, suffer from disease or
become pregnant. Those who die by
violence wake up downRiver with a
new, healthy body.
The first two novels of the River-
world series, To Your Scattered Bodies
Go and The Fabulous Riverboat, raised
but did not answer the central questions
posed by Riverworld: Who made it?
How did they do it? Why? The Dark
Design comes closer to an answer but
stops short. The author states in the
foreward that the original manuscript
for the third book proved too long for
one volume, and promises that the
second half, completed and waiting to
be published as book four, will tell all.
The Riverworld series presents a bold,
dramatic, and essentially new concept
in science fiction--a field in which the
pessimists" have predicted the
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Reprinted from The Politics of Prostitution, by per. of Social Research A:
See RIVERWORLD, Page 12 See PROSTITUTE, Page 4
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