Eileen Gunn
Encyclopedia
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author and editor based in Seattle, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
, who began publishing in 1978.
Her story "Coming to Terms", inspired, in part, by a friendship with Avram Davidson
Avram Davidson
Avram Davidson was an American writer of fantasy fiction, science fiction, and crime fiction, as well as the author of many stories that do not fit into a genre niche...
, won the Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
for Best Short Story in 2004. Two other stories were nominated for the Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
: "Stable Strategies for Middle Management
Stable Strategies for Middle Management
"Stable Strategies for Middle Management" is a science fiction short story published in 1988 by Eileen Gunn. It was nominated for the 1989 Hugo Award for Best Short Story as well as the 1989 Locus Reader’s Poll.-Plot summary:...
" (in 1989) and "Computer Friendly" (1990).
A collection of her short stories, Stable Strategies and Others (2004), was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award and short-listed
Short list
A short list or shortlist is a list of candidates for a job, prize, award, political position, etc., that has been reduced from a longer list of candidates . The length of short lists varies according to the context.-U.S...
for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award
James Tiptree, Jr. Award
The James Tiptree, Jr. Award is an annual literary prize for works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one's understanding of gender. It was initiated in February of 1991 by science fiction authors Pat Murphy and Karen Joy Fowler, subsequent to a discussion at WisCon.- Background...
and the World Fantasy Award
World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
. The Japanese translation was awarded the Sense of Gender Award at the 2007 World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
About the stories: "Stable Strategies for Middle Management" has generally been interpreted as a pastiche
Pastiche
A pastiche is a literary or other artistic genre or technique that is a "hodge-podge" or imitation. The word is also a linguistic term used to describe an early stage in the development of a pidgin language.-Hodge-podge:...
of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world...
, with satiric relevance to late-20th-Century high-tech corporate culture. "Fellow Americans" (1991) posits an alternate history
Alternate history (fiction)
Alternate history or alternative history is a genre of fiction consisting of stories that are set in worlds in which history has diverged from the actual history of the world. It can be variously seen as a sub-genre of literary fiction, science fiction, and historical fiction; different alternate...
in which Barry Goldwater
Barry Goldwater
Barry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
hired Roger Ailes
Roger Ailes
Roger Eugene Ailes is president of Fox News Channel, chairman of the Fox Television Stations Group. Ailes was a media consultant for Republican presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W...
to run his 1964 presidential campaign, and Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
became the host of a TV game show called Tricky Dick.
Green Fire (1998), a collaborative novella by Gunn, Michael Swanwick
Michael Swanwick
Michael Swanwick is an American science fiction author. Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he began publishing in the early 1980s.-Biography:...
, Pat Murphy, and Andy Duncan
Andy Duncan (writer)
Andy Duncan is an award-winning American science fiction and fantasy writer whose work frequently deals with Southern U.S. themes. He was born in Batesburg, South Carolina in 1964. He graduated from high school from W. W...
, is an homage
Homage
Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....
of sorts, in which Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
, Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
, and Grace Hopper
Grace Hopper
Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was an American computer scientist and United States Navy officer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language...
take part in the Philadelphia Experiment
Philadelphia Experiment
The Philadelphia Experiment is the name of an alleged naval military experiment said to have been carried out at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA sometime around October 28, 1943. It is alleged that the U.S. Navy destroyer escort USS Eldridge was to be rendered...
, with the assistance of Nicola Tesla and the Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
deity
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl
Quetzalcoatl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and has the meaning of "feathered serpent". The worship of a feathered serpent deity is first documented in Teotihuacan in the first century BCE or first century CE...
.
Gunn has a background in high-tech advertising and marketing; she wrote advertising for Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
in the 1970s and was Director of Advertising at Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
in 1985. She is a graduate of the Clarion Workshop
Clarion Workshop
Clarion is a six-week workshop for new and aspiring science fiction and fantasy writers. Originally an outgrowth of Knight and Wilhelm's Milford Writers' Conference, held at their home in Milford, Pennsylvania, USA, it was founded in 1968 by Robin Scott Wilson at Clarion State College in...
and is on the board of directors
Board of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
of the Clarion West Writers Workshop. She is also the editor/publisher of the webzine The Infinite Matrix. Her website The Difference Dictionary is an online concordance to The Difference Engine
The Difference Engine
The Difference Engine is an alternate history novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.It posits a Victorian Britain in which great technological and social change has occurred after entrepreneurial inventor Charles Babbage succeeded in his ambition to build a mechanical computer .The novel was...
, a novel by William Gibson
William Gibson
William Gibson is an American-Canadian science fiction author.William Gibson may also refer to:-Association football:*Will Gibson , Scottish footballer...
and Bruce Sterling
Bruce Sterling
Michael Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which helped define the cyberpunk genre.-Writings:...
.