Three Observations and a Dialogue: Volume 24 (Conversation Pieces) - Tapa blanda

After WisCon 20, Sylvia Kelso engaged Lois McMaster Bujold in a rich, snappy correspondence about Bujold's Vorkosigan novels. ''You ... remark that '[my] post-modern despair is not [your] emergency' over the failure of feminism to transform SF,'' she wrote to Bujold. ''My postmodern despair OUGHT to be your emergency, buen' amiga, because one of the reasons you are being ignored is that ... you don't fit the male canon either in the community or the critical industry; so unless you catch their eyes with a sand-blaster like The Left Hand of Darkness, the male academics are also gonna find you invisible...''

That correspondence became ''Letterspace: In the Chinks Between Published Fiction and Published Criticism,'' which is published here. Also included are ''Third Person Peculiar: Reading between Academic and SF-Community Positions in (Feminist) Sf,'' a critical essay discussing the intricacies of an Australian feminist scholar writing about science fiction; ''Tales of Earth: Terraforming in Recent Women s Sf,'' which considers colonialism in science fiction by women; and ''Loud Achievements: Lois McMaster Bujold s Science Fiction through 1997,'' which closely examines Bujold's Vorkosigan novels.

Sylvia Kelso lives in North Queensland, Australia. She writes fantasy and SF often set in analogue or alternate Australian settings. She has published six high fantasy novels, two of which, Amberlight and The Moving Water, were finalists for best fantasy novel of the year in the Australian Aurealis genre fiction awards. The third Amberlight novel, Source, was released in 2010. Her most recent novel-length work is the contemporary fantasy duo of Blackston Gold, The Solitaire Ghost and The Time Seam released by Fivestar Books in 2011.