After struggling through Manifesta, what I clearly needed in my life was some good, thoroughly absorbing sci-fi. Nothing on my shelves was particularly tempting, but a quick trip to the used bookstore turned up a copy of Darwin's Children, sequel to Darwin's Radio. I read Radio a few years ago on the recommendation of a friend and I absolutely loved it. It's the story of an evolution event in the human race. Suddenly men in committed relationships start expressing a virus that infects their partner, causing a reshuffling of genes producing offspring that are markedly different from their parents. People, of course, freak right the hell out. Well, Children picks up the story a few years after where Radio left off. The majority of the "virus children," as they are called, have been herded into special schools where they can be isolated from the rest of the human race. The children are nearly adolescence, and people are terrified that as they reach sexual maturity, that they will produce a virus that will wipe out the "old humans." Greg Bear follows the children, their parents, doctors, scientists, bureaucrats and elected officials as they fight to make sense out of all that's happening.

My favorite thing about Greg Bear is that he writes what is known as "hard sci-fi," where the fiction is based on hard science. He's clearly done a lot of research for these books, in anthropology, archeology, genetics, evolution... You actually learn things as you read. Of course, a lot of what I learned were fairly obscure scientific theories that do not enjoy widespread acceptance in the scientific community, but most of the time, those theories are more interesting anyway. Also, at the end of Children, Bear includes a section on references and how to go about learning more on these topics.

And like all good sci-fi, the exploration of what humanity would do faced with such an extraordinary circumstance is illuminating. There is no shortage of parallels between his world and ours. The concentration of power into the hands of those who can successfully manipulate our fears, our willingness to sacrifice those who are not like us for "the common good," the control and censorship of science for political ends... Really good sci-fi doesn't just change how you think about the future, it changes how you think about the present.

Oh, Michelle Tea, how I love you... When I heard you were collaborating on a graphic novel, I nearly wet myself. Procuring this book somehow required two trips to the comic book store and two trips to the local feminist bookstore, but finally, I had this book in my hands, and it was all worth it. So yes, Michelle, maybe some of these stories were a little bit familiar. But really, as I've already read two of your memoirs and your collection of poetry, and you are still so young, I could hardly be dismayed. Plus, never before were your stories accompanied by such charming illustrations! And never before were all the stories of your experience with prostitution collected in one place.

I wish for you that this book will fly off of the shelves. Because, really, what could be more hip and edgy? A Graphic Novel About Lesbian Prostitutes! Every "thinking" girl in her twenties should have a copy. I wish for you a huge promotional budget. Ads in Bitch and Bust and Jane, not to mention Out, Curve, and The Advocate. I wish for you a nationwide speaking tour. That you would come to my town and talk to girls and grrls and bois about owning their bodies. I wish for you to be carried high on the shoulders of my generation, which will suddenly realize that gender is not set in stone, taking joy in performing whatever gender they feel like at the moment until they finally find the home of their heart, not just the F or M on their driver's license.

I wish for Oprah to call you on the phone, and for you to laugh yourself silly when you come home to find her voice on the machine. I wish for people of my hometown of 1200 souls in Kansas to think of you fondly, and to remember with a touch of embarrassment the days that they were threatened by those whose sexual identities did not look like theirs. And in five years on your birthday, Congress will finally pass a law saying: you know what? discriminating on sexual orientation or identity is never okay. and anyone can marry anybody they want, and the government is finally going to take its big nose out of marriage forever because really, what business is it of theirs?

In short, I hope the whole world changes. And they all fall in love with you.