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Gordon, Joan

(1947- ) US editor and academic, currently a professor of English at Nassau Community College in New York, whose writing career began with Joe Haldeman (1980 chap), a serviceable introductory study of the work of Joe Haldeman. Her next book, Gene Wolfe (1986), comprises an early attempt to present the work – up to and including The Book of the New Sun – of perhaps the most difficult of all sf authors to attempt to understand; as he has with subsequent commentators, Gene Wolfe at times defeats Gordon's efforts to find sustainable routes into the labyrinth of his work.

Her three critical Anthologies, all involving Veronica Hollinger, examine Gender issues and Feminism in general; their Edging into the Future: Science Fiction and Contemporary Cultural Transformation (anth 2002) assembles a range of acute essays addressing the nature and limits of sf, as understood until this century, in the new world. Several contributors describe the future in terms generally consistent with the use of the term Fantastika in this encyclopedia. Gordon received the Thomas D Clareson Award in 2002 and the Pilgrim Award in 2014. [JC]

Joan Lois Gordon

born 25 February 1947

works

Joe Haldeman (Mercer Island, Washington: Starmont House, 1980) [nonfiction: chap: Joe Haldeman: in the publisher's Starmont Reader's Guide series: pb/Stephen E Fabian]
Gene Wolfe (Mercer Island, Washington: Starmont House, 1986) [nonfiction: Gene Wolfe: in the publisher's Starmont Reader's Guide series: pb/Stephen E Fabian]

works as editor

Blood Read: The Vampire as Metaphor in Contemporary Culture (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997) with Veronica Hollinger [nonfiction: anth: hb/John M Digby]
Edging into the Future: Science Fiction and Contemporary Cultural Transformation (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002) with Veronica Hollinger [nonfiction: anth: hb/John Hubbard]
Queer Universes: Sexualities in Science Fiction (Liverpool, England: Liverpool University Press, 2008) with Veronica Hollinger and Wendy Gay Pearson [nonfiction: anth: in the publisher's Liverpool Science Fiction Texts and Studies series: hb/Wendy Gay Pearson]
The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction (Middletown, Connecticut: Wesleyan University Press, 2010) with Istvan Csicsery-Ronay Jr, Arthur B Evans, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham and Carol McGuirk [anth: hb/from George Méliès]

links

Entry from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2011-current) edited by John Clute and David Langford.
Accessed 00:25 am on 13 April 2026.
<https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/gordon_joan>