2006 - 05/2006 Meeting

Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/29/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 04/01/08.

JUDITH BERMAN

Novels:

Bear Daughter

Author's website: http://www.judithberman.net/

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: May 13, 2006

Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 24.

Meeting Program: Talk by Fantasy Writer

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The General Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held on Saturday, May 13, 2006 at the Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Fantasy/science fiction writer and critic Judith Berman was the speaker.

The Animation Associates screening of classic episodes of JONNY QUEST was well received, with some in the audience reliving old memories and others exposed to the show for the first time. The Final Frontier discussion of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was cancelled.

Judith Berman has officially been an anthropologist by trade since graduating college. Writing is a part time sideline for her. She doesn't want to give up academia "because you show up in a classroom and someone gives you a check."

She spent much of the early part of her talk reminiscing about her days as a museum employee in the American Indian department. She worked extensively with mummies from Peru. These were natural mummies--dead bodies which slowly dehydrated as opposed to the Egyptian sort. She stated that there was a unique scent to a room full of mummies. Not exactly unpleasant, but quite memorable. For some reason, it can be depressing to work in a room with shelves full of mummified heads looking down upon you.

She told tales both funny and creepy about the museum. The mummies were in a sub basement, the museum had more than a few leaks, and water flows to the lowest level. Every now and then in foul weather, she would get a call to come down and get her mummies because they were floating away. Then, in a scene that could have come out of any horror movie, she would have to go down this long, dark corridor past three rows of mummies, wrapped in the indescribable mummy smell to descend to the lower levels.

Ms Berman's specialty is with the Native Americans of the North West. They are featured in her first novel, BEAR DAUGHTER (available in mass market paperback in the fall), and other stories, both written and planned. The discussion went in all sorts of directions for a while--The Hudson Bay Company, British Colonialism, various Amerindian beliefs and practices, the effects of trade between different cultures and the like. Although it was not science fiction, a number of people were very much into this portion of the talk, although others found it a bore.

Our guest was the youngest of four children. One brother read a lot of science fiction, so there were always books all over the house. She was attracted to the fantastic at a young age, with CALVIN AND HOBBS being her favorite newspaper comic strip.

She knew she wanted to be a writer, but didn't know how. She took Creative Writing classes--where she did not encounter the anti-science fiction / fantasy bias that others have reported--but did not learn the mechanics of the craft. She would start stories and not finish them. She was also ignorant of the business of publishing.

After years of writing for herself and dreaming about being published, Ms Berman began to apply herself to the task of learning the mechanics of writing for publication. She was accepted to the Clarion science fiction workshop in 1994. The experience gave her the tools to break into the science fiction marketplace. She is a slow writer and has no intention of giving up her day job in the foreseeable future.

Her story "Lord Stink" attracted critical attention. It originally appeared in an online magazine and was later reprinted in a chapbook of her stories. The tale is an X-rated prequel to her novel, BEAR DAUGHTER.

BEAR DAUGHTER is inspired by the legends of the Pacific Northwest Indians. However, variations of the myth of human/bear mating are found among many cultures across Europe, Asia, and North America.

The heroine of the book is Cloud. She is the offspring of the fearsome immortal spirit, Lord Stink, and a human woman. Cloud had lived as a bear in flesh and spirit until she was twelve. Then she hit puberty and changed into a mortal girl (kind of like THE X-MEN, except in reverse).

The existence of Cloud is a threat to her step father, King Rumble, who has bound the spirits of Cloud's father and bear brother to Power his magics. Cloud must flee human society in order to be safe from the plans of King Rumble. She sets off on a journey through the worlds of flesh and of spirit in order to uncover the essence of her dual nature and restore the natural order to both worlds.

The subject of man and bear expanded to the interaction between the two species in the present day. She said that Native Americans respected but by no means romanticized ursines. Bear / human pairings end badly in most legends. Something like GRIZZLY MAN would not occur with the Indians. They know how powerful and unpredictable the creatures are. A bear wandering into a NA village would be killed if it could not be quickly shooed away.

Someone pointed out that a bear had recently been shot in the area of Irvington, New Jersey. Barry corrected this by saying that this was New Jersey, the bear hadn't been shot, it had been whacked.

Ms Berman is at work on her next novel. This will not be a fantasy, but rather far future science fiction. The story opens with a woman awakening in a crypt. Everyone else in the crypt is dead, and has been for centuries. Her editor's comment about shifting to such a different milieu for her next book was, "No. Don't commit professional suicide!"

Our guest disagrees with those who would sever the connections between science fiction and fantasy. Although the two are not identical, they have much in common. They merely offer different sets of tools to explore worlds not our own. She wants to be a writer like Ursula K Le Guin who can move back and forth between fantasy and science fiction depending on the story she intends to tell.

The author also has plans for future fantasy tales. One of them concerns a clash of cultures when traders from one parallel Earth establish trade with the Pacific Northwest Native Americans of another parallel Earth. The trade is in furs. What the natives do not realize is that the furs embody the essence of their universe, and that it is slowly being leeched out of their reality.

Judith Berman commented with disappointment that she appeared to be the youngest person in the room. She wants science fiction to have a future, but it seems that the sort of person who would gravitate to sf in earlier generations is embracing role playing games today instead. This led to a whole series of digressions as many in the room weighed in with their observations. One was that young people today are simply stupid, an assertion with which I disagreed.

She closed with a joke she has with some Australian friends: "Aren't you glad your country was settled by deported convicts instead of religious fanatics?"

After the departure of Ms Berman, there was a discussion of recent events and member expulsions. Matters quickly escalated, ending in my resignation from the S F A B C, a decision I later recanted.