Masculinena

In the Ekcolir Reality
Original cover art by Michael Mariano, Edmund Emshwiller
and Edward Valigursky.

Gohrlay has been telling me tales about the origins of the science fiction genre. During her life in the Ekcolir Reality, Gohrlay grew up reading science fiction and she still thinks of that Reality as the golden age of science fiction, in part because the science fiction genre in that Reality was dominated by women. I suspect that Gohrlay is rather disgusted by the form that science fiction took in our world, the Final Reality.

I recently asked Gohrlay who her favorite science fiction story writer was. Apparently in the Ekcolir Reality, Katherine MacLean was mainly an influential editor within her own science fiction publishing empire. One of the magazines that she developed was called Masculinena. That word has little meaning in our Reality, but in the Ekcolir Reality it meant something like "alternate worlds".

In the Ekcolir Reality
Original cover art by Frank Freas

According to Gohrlay, Kate MacLean and Roberta Moore published monthly chapter-long installments of a space opera known as the 'Space Queen' through nine continuous years of editions of Masculinena. Before getting into the world of publishing, Kate earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and was involved in the discovery of PCR in the Ekcolir Reality.

In the 'Space Queen' saga, PCR is used to obtain evidence for the presence of aliens (most specifically, the Kac'hin) on Earth. When the protagonist (Lathia Tarkin, a scientist modeled after Kate) publishes a scientific article about her findings, she comes to the attention of the Overseers and is taken off of Earth. Most of the 'Space Queen' saga documents Lathia's travels to worlds of the Galactic Core where she learns about the origins of both the Kac'hin and Earth's humans.

In the Ekcolir Reality - Original cover art

During her travels, Lathia is transformed into an artificial life form, becoming a powerful 'Space Queen' who can attain direct contact with the Huaoshy (according to Gohrlay, the term 'Space Lords' was used to refer to the aliens) in the Sedronic Domain.

The last eleven chapters of the Space Queen saga documented Lathia's return to Earth and her startling revelation of Earth's secret history in the popular press and a "final showdown" with the "Kac'hin ruler of Earth", modeled after Grean. Apparently Kate MacLean was a master of science fiction story writing collaboration, and in the Ekcolir Reality she wrote very little, but she was an endless source of story ideas for other writers.

Next: censored science fiction in the Final Reality.

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