by Janice L. Newman

Sibyl Sue Blue was not what I expected.

Set in the futuristic year of 1990, Rosel George Brown’s Sibyl Sue Blue takes place in a world both like and unlike today’s world of 1966. Sibyl is a tenacious and smart detective working for the city’s homicide department. When a series of bizarre ‘suicides’ start plaguing the city’s youth, she’s called in to investigate. As she follows the clues, she’s drawn into increasingly strange events, from trying alien drugs to being invited to join a spacefaring millionaire on an off-world jaunt.

Sounds like fun, right? Yet when Judith Merril told me the other day that she’ll be reviewing it in an upcoming issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction, she mentioned that “…under all the froth and fun and furious action, there is more acute comment on contemporary society than you are likely to find in any half dozen deadly serious social novels.”

She’s right!

The cover of Sibyl Sue Blue shows her smoking her signature cigar.

That’s not to say that Sibyl Sue Blue is dry, boring, or preachy. In fact, it’s the exact opposite of these things. But, as Merril promised, beneath the wild ride exists a sharp yet understated criticism of both modern racial tensions and treatment of women in science fiction.

Let’s take racial tensions, for example. When I say that SSB offers subtle commentary on race relations, I’m not talking about the obvious parallels between the story’s alien Centaurians and modern day Black people. That analogy is obvious to anyone with half a brain: places where the ‘aliens’ have moved in have become ghettos, they smoke strange cigarettes, and they are generally distrusted by the native human population – but if you’re a cop, you don’t dare say so.

I’ll admit, it threw me for a loop at first. What was with this heavy-handed analogy? It wasn’t until I read further into the story that I got it. The subtlety comes into play in Sibyl’s interactions with Centaurians, as well as Brown’s portrayal of them. Throughout the story Sibyl treats Centaurians the same way she treats humans. Though she warns her colleague not to get caught saying he doesn’t like Centaurians, never once does Sibyl herself express dislike or distrust of a Centaurian simply because they are Centaurian. In fact, though the story opens with her being attacked by a Centaurian, her sharp mind is already searching for the reason behind his actions.

Then, too, Brown’s portrayals of Centaurians are as variegated as her portrayals of humans. They’re not saints, but they’re no worse than anyone else, and better than many. And like humans, they can be coerced, manipulated, and used by people or entities more powerful than themselves.

There’s a certain cynicism coloring everything. The good-hearted and earnest “Jimmy” says things like, “Gee, it’s a shame about Centaurian prejudice,” and sounds hopelessly naive. Yet only a couple of chapters later, Sibyl doesn’t hesitate to invite her Centaurian friend, contact, and occasional lover over for some info and an intimate pick-me-up. The contrast between Sibyl’s attitude and Jimmy’s is telling. It’s not enough to criticize prejudice, Sibyl (and Brown) seems to be saying. You need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. And Sibyl walks it – boy, does she!

Rosel George Brown, author of Sibyl Sue Blue.

Speaking of walking the walk, another thing that startled me, at least until I got what Brown was doing, was the story’s ‘romantic’ subplot.

Multiple science fiction magazines and occasional science fiction novels, TV shows, and movies are released every month in the USA and the UK. In a good month, maybe ten percent of the fifty or sixty stories published are penned by women. In a bad month, none of the stories are written by a woman. The average usually falls somewhere in-between.

Perhaps it isn’t a surprise, then, that so few protagonists of science fiction tales are women. Whether written by men or women, whether they’re complex and interesting or shallow and flat, main characters are overwhelmingly white men. When women do show up, they’re often relegated to the role of helpmate, something in need of rescuing, or the prize the man wins after overcoming his trials – sometimes all three!

Obviously, there are plenty of exceptions, but in terms of trends, if a beautiful woman is introduced into a story (or a TV show, or a movie) in the first act, chances are she’ll fall in love with the male lead by the end. This is true regardless of how unappealing, uninteresting, or unlikeable the man is.

This cliché is another that Sibyl Sue Blue turns on its head. What is it like to be the woman who seemingly inexplicably falls for a rich, handsome, clever, yet completely terrible man? What happens when a woman who is herself independent, interesting, and already has her own life suddenly gets caught up in the implacable tide of the plot?

Traditionally, the woman marries the man after he solves the case and the two live ‘happily’ ever after. But as I found when I kept reading, if the woman is someone like Sibyl Sue Blue, nothing will turn out the way you expect!

Sibyl is fascinating. She’s small but powerful, repeatedly shown as able to hold her own in a fight, even against men who are bigger than she. Yet she’s also unapologetically feminine. She enjoys wearing nice dresses, applying makeup, and accessorizing. Far from being stoic, when something terrifying and grotesque happens, she screams. When she’s overwhelmed, she cries.

And then she gets up and keeps going. Like so many women throughout history, when faced with circumstances far beyond her control, when she’s sick and exhausted and frightened, she keeps pushing forward.

Rosel George Brown and her children.

Sibyl Sue Blue has silver stripes in her hair and a daughter in high school. She’s strong and vulnerable and smart. She enjoys a startling amount of sexual freedom, unhesitatingly inviting handsome men to her bed as a matter of course. Above all, she is herself – not an easily categorized and dismissed ‘helpmate’, ‘damsel in distress’, or ‘prize’. She’s human and messy and makes mistakes and is sometimes clever. She’s as complex and interesting as the best of the male leads, and maybe even more than any of them.

Because I’ve read the stories of a lot of white men, but I’ve never met a character like Sibyl Sue Blue.

Get your copy of Sibyl Sue Blue from Journey Press today!

Custom bookplates with art by The Young Traveler available at a bookstore near you!

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