QSFer David Gerrold has a new queer sci-fi book out (gender fluid, intersex, non-binary): The Boy Who Was a Girl.
Whatever you do, don’t piss off Slither. That’s the only warning you’re going to get. Slither is an augmented, shapeshifting assassin with a hair-trigger temper. Hurled across space to a world of violence and treachery, a place where no one can be trusted, Slither can’t get home until she (or maybe he?) stops an interplanetary invasion. What happens next is a ferocious, fast-paced brawl where revenge is a dish best served NOW. Fasten your seatbelt! This is David Gerrold at his best!
Get It At Amazon | Publisher
Excerpt
One
Didn’t want the assignment, didn’t like the assignment, refused to take the assignment, ended up with it anyway. The Old Man takes no for an answer like any other Italian grandmother. It’s not in her vocabulary.
BTW, she’s not an old man—at least, not this year, but that’s only one of the things we call her. Partly because that’s the job title and partly because she won’t let us call her “mother” to her face . . . or the longer word of which “mother” is only the first two syllables.
I told her I wasn’t going to take the job—I was overdue for leave and there was a very affectionate redhead waiting for me—but I never got that far. I got drafted instead, because I was the only one with the right physique. I’m five-five, mostly hairless, slender, and golden-dark. This month. Which means that even without makeup, even without much shifting, I can pass as a native almost anywhere—except perhaps Sweden.
Most folks think shifters are like amoebas—that we’re boneless blobs of human gelatin, flowing into this shape or that like so much warm pudding poured into a mold. That’s what comes from too much pop-life funneled into the brain. In truth, most shifting is makeup and acting and only a little bit of it is morphing. And the part that is morphing is mostly painful. I can shrink or stretch a couple of centimeters, and I can pump up with extra fluid and collagen if I have to, but the appearance of muscle isn’t muscle, it’s appearance.
A quick shift can be done in a week. A real shift can take six months or longer. This trip was an emergency, I’d be shifting in transit and onsite and I’d make up the difference with charm and a chador.
I like being female, even though it isn’t my native gender. Mother says I have an aptitude. Three of my grandparents were shifters, both my parents were shifters, and my dad’s eggs were sorted for Z-chromosomes before mom fertilized him, so there was never any doubt about my training. I grew up thinking that transformation was normal—and was shocked to find out that most human beings spend their whole lives in one identity and only the unhappy ones question why.
I have a repertoire of identities that I can drop into in a hurry. Depending on the makeup, I wake up an appropriate personality to the moment—but this was to be a quick wham-bam, rescue ma’am. In and out, by the book, catch you on the bounce, and all I needed to do was pass through customs. I’d go in as a naïve student. It sounded simple enough—which was why I refused. It’s the simple ones that get people killed.
Mom refused to listen and tossed the mission file, a passport, and my tickets across the desk. “Your suitcase is packed, that’s it by the door. Your makeup and a change of clothes are in the dressing room. You won’t have time to change here, do it on the train. Your contact is Jiminy. Have a good trip. Be careful, I love you too, see you Thursday.”
Two
The train slid south out of Phoenix and I went to the dining car to carbo-load with as much bread and pasta as I could hold. I went through three cherry Cokes, and I pocketed all the sugar packets on the table too. Apple pie with ice cream for dessert, and on the way back to the cabin, I stopped at the snack bar and bought twenty dollars’ worth of candy, pork rinds, Gatorade, and two cheeseburgers. It wasn’t going to be enough, but I couldn’t buy as much as I might need without calling attention to myself. I’d restock later, after the shift change.
Pulled the shades, hung a do-not-disturb, and locked the door. Stripped naked and took inventory. Not bad for a thirty-three-year-old man, but not very good for a twenty-two-year-old woman. Popped the appropriate pills and began the way I usually do, by massaging my nipples and my breasts—not because breasts are important, they are, but not the way most people think.
But that’s where I start getting into the mindset—by reminding myself that these things are sensory organs. Breasts are sensitive to temperature, sound, and physical well-being. Not to mention emotion. Most men think it’s funny—I know I did the first time Mom told me to “listen with your tits.” But most women know exactly what the experience is.
Mom taught me that being male is about projecting outward. It’s about strength. And Dad said that being female is about listening inward. It’s about assimilating and becoming. And that means being sensitive to the moment. What it means is being irritable. Look it up in the dictionary. Capable of responding to stimuli. In the case of a shifter, it means abnormally sensitive to stimuli. It also means easily annoyed, which is also accurate in my case.
Did I mention that shifting is painful? Not painful like screaming agony or burning needles, but painful like stretching the stiffness out, like working sore muscles, like pushing and stretching in six directions at once. But it’s also very sensual. It’s sexy. It’s lustful. Part of the fun is standing in front of the mirror and modeling yourself into someone you want to fuck—or someone that other people want to fuck.
There’s nothing wrong with being sexy. Unless of course, you’re supposed to be inconspicuous, in which case, you have to go for unsexy. I usually try for sexy, but that’s just because I want to see if I can still do it. The trick is to remember that sex isn’t about sex, it’s about sensuality.
Shifting to female is an internal/external process. Internal, you’ve got to shift gears from male-thinking to female—and that means a lot more than just letting go of the habits of testosterone.
Author Bio
David Gerrold’s work is known around the world. His novels and stories have been translated into more than a dozen languages. His TV scripts are estimated to have been seen by more than a billion viewers.
Gerrold’s prolific output includes stage shows, teleplays, film scripts, educational films, computer software, comic books, more than 50 novels and anthologies, and hundreds of articles, columns, and short stories.
He has worked on a dozen different TV series, including Star Trek, Land of the Lost, Twilight Zone, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Babylon 5, and Sliders. He is the author of Star Trek’s most popular episode “The Trouble With Tribbles.”
Many of his novels are classics of the science fiction genre, including The Man Who Folded Himself, the ultimate time travel story, and When HARLIE Was One, considered one of the most thoughtful tales of artificial intelligence ever written. His stunning novels on ecological invasion, A Matter For Men, A Day For Damnation, A Rage For Revenge, and A Season For Slaughter, have all been best sellers with a devoted fan following. His young adult series, The Dingilliad, traces the healing journey of a troubled family from Earth to a far-flung colony on another world. His Star Wolf series of novels about the psychological nature of interstellar war are in development as a television series.
A ten-time Hugo and Nebula award nominee, David Gerrold is also a recipient of the Skylark Award for Excellence in Imaginative Fiction, the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Horror, and the Forrest J. Ackerman lifetime achievement award.
In 1995, Gerrold shared the adventure of how he adopted his son in The Martian Child, a semi-autobiographical tale of a science fiction writer who adopts a little boy, only to discover he might be a Martian. The Martian Child won the science fiction triple crown: the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Locus. It was the basis for the 2007 film Martian Child starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet.
Gerrold’s greatest writing strengths are generally acknowledged to be his readable prose, his easy wit, his facility with action, the accuracy of his science, and the passions of his characters. An accomplished lecturer and world traveler, he has made appearances all over the United States, England, Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. His easy-going manner and disarming humor have made him a perennial favorite with audiences.
David Gerrold is the 2022 winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award.