Back In Print After 30 Years from DPS: Feminist SciFi Legend Jody Scott's I, VAMPIRE!!

Digital Parchment Services and the estate Of Jody Scott are pleased to announce the re-publication of Jody Scott's sequel to her feminist, surreal SciFi classic, Passing For Human: 

I, Vampire

—with a special introduction by SciFi Legend Theodore Sturgeon!

Plus new estate-sponsored site dedicated to Jody's life and work by her partner, Mary Whealen!

#

"A rip-roaringly magnificent time ... quite unlike anything anyone else has ever done."
—Neil Gaiman

"I liked I, Vampire enough to check it off on the Nebula ballot."
—Pamela Sargent

Back in print after 30 years, I, Vampire is the sequel to Jody Scott's acclaimed SciFi classic, Passing For Human (and part two of the four-part Benaroya Chronicles), featuring the adventures of Jody's charming vampire Sterling O’Blivion:

After seven hundred years, glamorous vampire Sterling O’Blivion has begun to think the joy is going out of life. Then she meets Virginia Woolf in the ladies’ room of a dance studio in Chicago. But Woolf is really Benaroya, a dolphin-like alien anthropologist here to learn all there is to know about humanity and to fight the good fight against the evil, slave-trading Sajorians. Sterling falls madly in love with Benaroya. It’s just the sort of romp an aging vampire needs—but first, to defeat the Sajorians, they have to sell millions of Famous Men’s Sperm Kits to every woman on Earth.

"A lot of fun ... its real appeal is in Scott's stabs at the foibles and shortcomings of our society. Jody Scott sees things with a clear eye. You must read carefully, for she can point a caustic finger with a single throwaway line. And when she really winds up, everything is fair game: big business, the military, politics, religion and more. In addition to sharpness and criticism, there are wackiness, clever dialogue, action and lots of love. I enjoyed this one immensely and recommend it highly."
—The Seattle Times

"Exuberantly clever and wildly iconoclastic ... if you thirst for something really witty, quirky, with bags of brains [...] you'll do no better than this wonderful novel."
—For Books' Sake

"Those who seek to deride feminist SF often suggest that it is too serious and po-faced, but Jody Scott’s wild imagination, seemingly scattershot but tightly controlled, makes ... an absurdly comic romp of unexpected juxtapositions and witty asides."
—SF Mistressworks

Plus Jody's partner, and her Estate Manager, Mary Whealen has launched a band new site celebrating Jody's life, work, and her lasting influence on science fiction, feminism, and modern literature: http://www.jodyscott.info.

Born in 1923, Jody Scott, or Joann Margaret Huguelet as it says on her birth certificate - Mr. Scott came later closely followed by Mr. Wood, two characters out of P.G. Wodehouse (if Wodehouse had happened to marry Jean Genet) - was born in Chicago of an old-settler family of Fort Dearborn (as the toddlin' town was once called) with loose ties to the underworld.

Ms. Scott attended Daniel Boone grammar school, Senn High, North Park College, Northwestern U. and U.C. Berkeley before crying out in clear, ringing tones: "Enough of this crap. If you wanna be a writer never, NEVER go to college or you'll come out a brainwashed zombie who offends nobody but writes like everyone else or as Monty Python used to say: 'Dull, dull, dull!' - the L's sounding like W's."

Our subject then worked as a sardine packer, orthopedist's office assistant, Circle Magazine editor (knew Henry Miller and Anais Nin), artist's model at Art Institute Chicago, factory hand, cabbage puller ("in Texas where I was arrested with my buddy Don Scott for hitchhiking and slapped around then thrown in jail for eight days; how stupid can 'The Law' be? Its reasoning was: my gay friend {close pal of Leonard Bernstein and Tennessee Williams} had long hair, therefore we must be criminals"), blue movie maker, headline writer for the Monterey Herald ("that's where I got my spare, lean style"), bookstore/art gallery owner, vacation land salesman and at many other fascinating trades, spent six months in Guatemala (in Antigua enjoyed a night alone with Gore Vidal at his house both madly talking) and lived in Seattle in a falling-apart house choked with ivy and blackberry brambles a stone's throw from Puget Sound and was the winner of the 'America's Ugliest Couch' contest upon which she wrote every day from 9 AM to 2 PM Pacific time.

Jody died in 2007.

#

For review copies or information on the Jody Scott estate please contact the Publisher, M.Christian at m.christian@digitalparchmentservices.com

I, Vampire (The Benaroya Chronicles I)
By Jody Scott
ebook: http://amzn.com/B01BNVU9QY - $2.99 (free on Amazon Unlimited)
Trade paperback: coming soon!

Passing for Human (The Benaroya Chronicles II)
By Jody Scott
ebook: http://amzn.com/B0143K2LXG - $2.99 (free on Amazon Unlimited)
Trade paperback: http://amzn.com/1517285291 - $8.99

#

The Estate-Authorized Jody Scott site: http://www.jodyscott.info

The Digital Parchment Services Jody Scott site: http://www.authorjodyscott.com

Digital Parchment Services: http://digitalparchmentservices.com

For information please feel free to contact mchristian@digitalparchmentservices.com

WIN A FREE COPY OF I, VAMPIRE!

(from the Official Jody Scott site)

DATELINE: NOVEMBER 2015, FLASH!

Hey, kids - how'd you like a free copy of I, Vampire: Book 2 Of The Benaroya Chronicles ... soon to be in print again for the first time in 30 years?

Here's how it works:

From the all correct answers to the question below will be selected one winner at random to receive a free e-book of I, Vampire.

Send your answer to jodyscottinfo@aol.com. DO NOT post your answer here, that will not count as an entry and it will give away the answer.

Here's the question: (From Passing For Human) the robots on Benaroya's ship Vonderra took their likeness from which "minor twentieth century president?"

Again, send you answer to jodyscottinfo@aol.com and also be subscribed to Mary Whealen's personal bi-monthly e-letter about all things Jody Scott: with announcements and exclusive content and more chances to win free goodies!

Contest closes November 30th. So send those entries in today to jodyscottinfo@aol.com.

Out Now After Almost 40 Years: 

The Surreal Feminist SF Classic, 

Passing For Human

By Jody Scott

Out Now on Kindle!

Kicking And Screaming: A Previously Unseen Story By Jody Scott!

(from the estate-authorized Jody Scott site)

\We are tremendously thankful to Mary Whealen for this very special treat: a previously unpublished story by Jody!

Kicking And Screaming

By Jody Scott

Naked we come into this world and handsomely outfitted in a new pinstripe from Big & Tall, complete with a foulard tie, we go out of it.

At any rate that’s what happened to Nettie Polotnik’s husband Phil who had been dead nine years to the very day when our story begins. Philip Hart Polotnik had never been neat while he was alive (Phil died at age fifty-six, his skull broken in a car crash); he drank like a fish, played poker all night long and smelled like the nasty brown cigars he smoked (and those cigars were what killed him, according to Nettie! If it hadn’t been that accident it would have been emphysema like the late Johnny Carson). Nettie herself was the neat one in the family. Their four children, Michael, Tim, Meredith and Polly, now grown-and-gone were about average on the neatness scale, with son Timmy (once a juvenile delinquent, today a world famous oncologist; can you believe such a turn of events?) being the sloppiest of the lot, Nettie was thinking as she hummed somewhat happily while cleaning out the fridge.

Funny how much junk gets collected when a person lives alone. Now why was there an open, moldy (covered with a crawling, green, slimy fuzz; ick! The smell of it—phew! Into the garbage it went)—can of tuna when the only person in this family who even liked tuna was daughter Meredith who lived in New Rochelle and had four children of her own? You’d think—but never mind what you’d think; Nettie didn’t want to dip into that old barrel of pain, regret and sorrow, why should she? She was alive, vibrant and happy, she liked living alone in peace and quiet and most of all you can’t change the past so why bother yourself with it?

“I don’t know about that,” Phil said. “Reality isn’t exactly what we always thought it was, honey.”

Her husband was sitting across the table in his new pinstripe suit, smoking a cigar and drinking coffee which was all wrong because he’d been dead for nearly a decade. . And yet—!

“I’m not going to argue with you so butt the hell out,” Nettie snapped. Feeling tired, she didn’t have time to argue the same foolish old arguments, she had a dental appointment in an hour and had to buy gas on the way (running out of gas was always so embarrassing) and then grocery-shop. But she felt strange, very strange indeed. And there certainly wasn’t any use in snapping at poor dead Phil about it because the poor guy wasn’t even alive for mercy sake!…

Something was happening to Nettie and she had no idea what, except that she was terribly dizzy and before you could say “Poof!” she was sprawled on the floor in her ratty old blue bathrobe that had come untied and was all rucked up under her. There wasn’t much pain, except for a clutching in the chest (it reminded her of Valentine’s Day in school when the kids all exchanged hearts, big shiny paper hearts that said “Be mine!” with a pretty lace banner across the front of them) but this was different, because—

Suddenly Nettie found herself up at the ceiling looking down at her body. She hadn’t realized how filthy it was up here—the entire ceiling could use a good scrubbing but most especially the overhead fixture; there were dead flies in the globe, quite disgusting but that wasn’t the worst of it.

The worst of it was: leaving that funny-looking hunk of clay all sprawled out, its butt showing, right in the middle of her scrubbed kitchen floor for someone else to find which was awful but she couldn’t do anything about it, so—

“What were you saying dear?” she asked Phil but Phil was long gone, so Nettie hurried so she wouldn’t be late—very sorry about the mess on the floor but wasn’t that the way life always ended?—so no use worrying about it. Sad, but true; and with a sigh, Nettie herself was out of there.

Out Now After Almost 40 Years: 

The Surreal Feminist SF Classic, 

Passing For Human

By Jody Scott

Out Now on Kindle!

Back In Print After Almost 40 Years: The Surreal Feminist SF Classic, PASSING FOR HUMAN By Jody Scott

Own it for $2.99!

Free on KindleUnlimited

Considered by i09 as "One Of The 10 Weirdest Science Fiction Novels That You've Never Read" Digital Parchment Services, and the estate of Jody Scott, is thrilled to announce the republication of Passing For Human!

"I liked Passing for Human." –Neil Gaiman

Passing For Human is the beginning of The Benaroya Chronicles trilogy, continued in the soon-to-be-released I, Vampire and concluding with Scott's never-before-published final book in the series!

"A joyously and at times scatologically tangled Satire of the post-industrial Western world from a Feminist point of view that wittily verges on misandry." -The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

Passing for Human Or
Who Isn't Afraid Of Virginia Wolf?
Starring:
Benaroya
A 36-foot
Extraterrestrial "dolphin"
In the role of:
"Brenda Starr"
"Emma Peel"
Mary Worth
And a happy New Guinea hoptoad

With an all-star cast including
Abraham Lincoln
Jennison, the Kansas Jayhawker
Heidi's Grandfather
General George S. Patton
The Los Angeles Police Department
The Prince Of Darkness
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Ancient Egypt
The Isle of Capri
Interstellar Station 8
Four billion newly created people
And several hundred Richard Nixons

When a dolphin-like alien comes to Earth disguised in a female human body, it sets the stage for a wild feminist romp that out stranges Stranger in a Strange Land!

"The pace of the story never lets up, yet it finds room for serious contemplation of humanity’s woes. The style is easy, with an edge of noir. The central character is a bit of a tough girl which, mixed with her naivety about humans, makes for an intriguing and likeable character. Especially as she (in common with the other aliens) inhabits bodies she has chosen from Earth culture – Brenda Starr, Emma Peel, and Virginia Woolf. Who could not like that, especially the final scenes in which Virginia Woolf is involved in a running gun battle. The humor, pace, and wry observation make this a rare and wonderful beast – a serious science fiction novel that doesn’t take itself seriously."

– Graeme K Talboys, grumbooks Review

"The novel leaps along with an energy and a disregard for convention that reminds me a little of genre outsiders like Barry Malzberg and possibly Josephine Saxton in that this reads like a romp through the Collective Unconscious. A closer comparison might be with the early novels of Ishmael Reed who shares with Scott a vitriolic contempt for seemingly all and everything, sniping and satirizing hilariously along the way.  Jody Scott’s wild imagination, seemingly scattershot but tightly controlled, makes Passing For Human an absurdly comic romp of unexpected juxtapositions and witty asides. Good examples of what SF can do when it steps out of its comfort zone, and of how women’s SF can challenge the genre assumptions by challenging its tropes and its language. Take a look, see what you think."

– Performative Utterance

This Strange Particle Press release features Barry N. Malzberg's original 1977 introduction, and a special forward by Jody Scott's heir and life partner, Mary Whealen.

Passing for Human (The Benaroya Chronicles) By Jody Scott http://amzn.com/B0143K2LXG

$5.99

FREE on KindleUnlimited for a limited time!

Paperback edition coming September 15th

#

The estate-authorized Jody Scott site (http://www.authorjodyscott.com)

Digital Parchment Services (http://digitalparchmentservices.com)

For information please feel free to contact mchristian@digitalparchmentservices.com

Wonderful Picture Of SciFi Fan Favorite Jody Scott!

(from the Jody Scott site)

Here's a wonderful picture of Jody Scott, from the Jody Scott Facebook fan page!

Jody Scott's Passing For Human: One Of "10 Weirdest Science Fiction Novels That You've Never Read" from iO9

(from the estate-authorized Jody Scott site)

As a pre-re-release of Jody Scott's legendary science fiction fan-favorite novel, Passing For Human (coming from Digital Parchment Service's Strange Particle Press imprint) here's this wonderful book's listing as one Of "10 Weirdest Science Fiction Novels That You've Never Read" from iO9:

7. Passing for Human, by Jody Scott (1977) 

Benaroya is a giant space dolphin who's only interested in pleasure, until she decides to study humans. To do this, she disguises herself as Brenda Starr, the girl reporter from the newspaper comics. As she tells one human, "You might say I try to relate in a meaningful, concerned way to autochthonous bipeds in general." Later, Benaroya disguises herself as Emma Peel (from The Avengers) and author Virginia Woolf. Other members of her species are disguised as Abraham Lincoln and George S. Patton, while their support drones look like Richard Nixon. While disguised as Virginia Woolf, Benaroya gets herself captured by a race of psychopathic aliens who want to destroy the Earth, and you get a weird scene where Virginia Woolf debates whether it's a bad thing to fall in love with the leader of a group of genocidal alien psychopaths.

Classic Cover of Jody Scott's Cure It With Honey!

(from the Jody Scott site)

Here's a re-issue cover of Jody Scott and George Thurston Leite's Cure It With Honey (sporting the new title of I'll Get Mine and authors as Thurston Scott).

Coming soon from Digital Parchment Services is a brand new edition of Cure It With Honey!

Performative Utterance On Fan-Favorite Author Jody Scott's Passing For Human

(from the official Jody Scott site)

Check out this very nice review of Jody Scott's Passing For Human, courtesy of Performative Utterance.

The brand new edition of Passing for Human will be out shortly from Digital Parchment Services/Strange Particle Press

The fantastic travelogue has been a literary staple since the Iliad at least, and as a means of turning a satirical mirror on society’s failings one of the most frequently adopted. Think of Gulliver’s Travels for instance, and all its subsequent copies. Feminist SF has used this model to explore lands from Herland to Whileaway most effectively. 

In Passing For Human Jody Scott takes a slightly different tack by telling her story from the distorted viewpoint of a Rysemian alien, Benaroya, on an anthropological research visit to Earth in the 1970s. Benaroya is, however, apparently amoral, pleasure focussed and careless. She doesn’t seem to like the ‘Earthies’ as from the start she is condescending, sneering and labels humans primitive ‘bushmen’ on a ‘savage backwater.’ 

To visit Earth Benaroya has had to transfer from her giant dolphin-like Rysemian form into one of a choice of human simulacra. When we first meet her she is a faithful copy of Brenda Starr the intrepid girl reporter of comic strip fame. Later she will be Emma Peel and most significantly Virginia Woolf. Her fellow Rysemians will include Abraham Lincoln, Heidi’s Grandfather and General George S Patton. Support drones are modelled on Richard Nixon. Whilst on Earth Benaroya really just wants to have fun, experimenting with the limits of the Brenda Starr form initially, in a road race that leaves several humans dead and a half-naked Starr in custody, where her lawyer is unable to resist sex with her. 

On her return to her shipworld Vonderra, Benaroya is informed of a threat. Another alien, the Sajorian Scaulzo is about to invade Earth and Benaroya must prevent this. The Sajorians, we are told, are the only truly psychopathic race to have achieved interstellar travel. They are reminiscent of Klingons in that respect, but are explicitly compared to humanity. Scaulzo himself is referred to by Benaroya as The Prince Of Darkness early on, and later, when captured as Woolf she muses on whether it is wrong to ‘fall in love with the Prince Of Darkness.’ 

Passing For Human has a plot, the prevention of Earth’s destruction, and Benaroya’s learning about humans and herself, but plot is not really this novel’s focus. Events happen apace, with absurd leaps, and devices such as the assorted ‘identities’ Benaroya adopts are not really explored in any typical SF manner. As a whole, despite its aliens, spaceships, super weapons and so on, Passing For Human doesn’t look like a lot of SF these days, being unconcerned with plausibility, plot cohesion or real characterisation. The novel leaps along with an energy and a disregard for convention that reminds me a little of genre outsiders like Barry Malzberg and possibly Josephine Saxton in that this reads like a romp through the Collective Unconscious. A closer comparison might be with the early novels of Ishmael Reed who shares with Scott a vitriolic contempt for seemingly all and everything, sniping and satirising hilariously along the way.

Yet the California scenery was ever so pretty. There, just ahead, was some sort of fabulous monument. What could it represent? Aha: a giant taco 80 feet tall, oozing lettuce, bits of cheese and tomato and a thick purple goo, possibly plum jam. She’d seen ever so many pictures in magazines. But the monument was made of plastic! Oh, how inventive. And the sweet, little bushmen were lining up to get small, hot duplicates of the hot food product. 

Benaroya felt a pang of excstasy, this trip was going to be thrilling. 

Even amidst action scenes Scott doesn’t let up on her targets: 

‘Emma Peel admired Boolabung hugely. Her Captain was a real man, macho as all get-out, never whimpering or complaining.’ 

As Emma Peel she is later picked up hitch-hiking by a gangster who asks why she is out on the road: 

‘I’m an anthropologist. On vacation.’ 

‘Study Indians and that kind of thing?’ 

She tittered. ‘You might say I try to relate in a meaningful, concerned way to autochthonous bipeds in general.’ 

‘A little girl like you with a big job like that,’ he marvelled. Benaroya pondered this slippery remark and concluded it was the ordinary Earthie belittler camoflaged as a compliment. 

The rapid non-sequiturs Scott puts into Benaroya’s mouth and her aside justifications combine sharp jabbing observations and great humour. Those who seek to deride feminist SF often suggest that it is too serious, po-faced, but Jody Scott’s wild imagination, seemingly scattershot but tightly controlled, makes Passing For Human an absurdly comic romp of unexpected juxtapositions and witty asides.

Being satire this 1977 novel does show its age perhaps more readily than some of its contemporaries in places, but as so little has changed in many respects its jibes at patronising men, the worship of commercialism and other areas still contain truths. Along with its loose sequel I, Vampire Jody Scott has left SF with two provocative, compassionate, and thoughtful short novels. Her style will certainly not be to everyone’s liking, as I said, these aren’t traditional SF at all, but they are good examples of what SF can do when it steps out of its comfort zone, and of how women’s SF can challenge the genre assumptions by challenging its tropes and its language. Take a look, see what you think.

Neil Gaiman's Touching Post About Jody's Scott's Passing

(from the Jody Scott site)

Here's is the legendary Neil Gaiman on Jody Scott's passing - posted to his site on April 3rd, 2007:

Jody Scott is dead - she died on Christmas Eve. I only met her once, in the UK, in 1984, when she was over to promote the Women's Press edition of I, Vampire, and I liked her very much indeed - partly because I liked her books, I, Vampire and Passing For Human. I thought it a pity that she had real trouble getting her other books published. On her website she says of herself: 

Ms. Scott attended Daniel Boone grammar school, Senn High, North Park College, Northwestern U. and U.C. Berkeley before crying out in clear, ringing tones: "Enough of this crap. If you wanna be a writer never, NEVER go to college or you'll come out a brainwashed zombie who offends nobody but writes like everyone else or as Monty Python used to say: 'Dull, dull, dull!'--the L's sounding like W's." Our subject then worked as a sardine packer, orthopedist's office assistant, Circle Magazine editor (knew Henry Miller and Anais Nin), artist's model at Art Institute Chicago, factory hand, cabbage puller (in Texas where I was arrested with my buddy Don Scott for hitchhiking and slapped around then thrown in jail for eight days; how stupid can "The Law" be? Its reasoning was: my gay friend {close pal of Leonard Bernstein and Tennessee Williams} had long hair, therefore we must be criminals), blue movie maker, headline writer for the Monterey Herald (that's where I got my spare, lean style), bookstore/art gallery owner, vacation land salesman and at many other fascinating trades, spent six months in Guatemala (in Antigua enjoyed a night alone with Gore Vidal at his house both madly talking) and now lives in Seattle in a falling-apart house choked with ivy and blackberry brambles a stone's throw from Puget Sound and is the winner of the America's Ugliest Couch contest upon which I write every day from 9 AM to 2 PM Pacific time. If you'd like more, send in that check in any amount but HURRY PLEASE! This offer, like its author, ends soon. 

And she was right, and it did. Steve Jones and I used to send her occasional cheques for her poem in NOW WE ARE SICK, but I doubt they were enough. 

Now I'm going to take the dog for his second walk of the day, and I really hope that nobody dies this time.

BESTSELLERS (October, 1977) Loves Passing For Human

(from the official Jody Scott site)

Check out this very nice review for Jody's Passing For Human (coming very soon in a new edition from Digital Parchment Services/Strange Particle Press) from Bestsellers (October, 1977):

PASSING FOR HUMAN

Mgrird Nixon is the name of Brenda Starr's robot-slave. Or slaves, as she owns several hundred. But Brenda Starr is not really Brenda Starr. She is one of several spare bodies put to use by Benaroya. a 36-foot, dolphin-like extraterrestrial who is furthering her anthropological studies on earth as she hunts down the evil cosmic being who is wor­shipped on 11 primitive planets as the Prince of Darkness. Scott's dar­ing and sense of pure fun makes her first novel a memorable one. a splen­did blend of satire and sf adventure.