Glass Houses

Mixon, Laura. Glass Houses. Analog Dec. 1991.[1] New York: Tor, 1992.

In the words of the Wikipedia entry, see Mixon in general for "the intersection of technology, feminism, and gender." Glass Houses, according to the same Wikipedia entry, was followed by, "Proxies [1999], set in the same universe as Glass Houses, but with a bigger scope."[2] The FantasticFiction website identifies Glass Houses as Book 1 of an "Avatar Dance" series and calls the operating units "androids," with Kubrick's favorite named "Golem" (in the Jewish tradition, not Tolkien).[3]

In "Feminist Cyberpunk," Karen Cadora puts Mixon with Mary Rosenblum as cyberpunk creators of "female characters who find ways to work around or within the system" of power in their worlds. Here, "Ruby Kubick, the protagonist of Mixon's Glass Houses (1992), supports herself and her lover by projecting her consciousness into robot waldos and hauling in salvage from places too dangerous to go in person" (Cadora p. 359). Cadora notes in this novel

[...] Ruby projects herself into waldos, receiving sensory input from them and controlling their movements with an electronic device connected to her brain. Because Ruby is terrified of going outside, her contact with the world is completely mediated by the waldos. [Cf. and contrast "The Machine Stops" and its descendants. — RDE] She spends most of her waking hours plugged into them. Human and machine meld together, a fusion that is reflected in the doubling of prepositions: Ruby is "I-Golem" or "I-Tiger" or "me-Rachne" when she is linked to them. [Cf. and contrast "Arachne" on gender concerns. — RDE] (Cadora 360)

Discussed briefly but with emphasis and put into the context of women's cyberpunk by Austin Booth in "Women's Cyberfiction: An Introduction," especially p. 36. See also Thomas Foster's "'The Postproduction of the Human Heart': Desire, Identification, and Virtual Embodiment in Feminist Narratives of Cyberspace."

RDE, Initial Compiler, 15/16May19, 27Jul23