The genre of science fiction often brings to my mind spaceships, colonization of distant galaxies, and Star Trek. But there’s another kind of sci-fi, and that’s the kind written by authors such as Nicola Griffith. Griffith’s sci-fi is far more speculative than space-opera, and instead of spaceships and Captain Kirk we have the sticky heat of an Atlanta dyke bar, the loneliness of an abandoned condominium complex, and the mystery of a South American jungle.

There is still the sense of exploration of new universes, but those universes are often as not interior, and significantly, the heroine is always queer.

Griffith’s With Her Body, part of a chapbook series on feminist science fiction issued by Aqueduct Press, contains three short stories that were originally published at least ten years ago and have since become hard to find. The first story, “Touching Fire,” is also the earliest (originally published in 1991), and stylistically it’s the least adventurous of the three

It is the story of an Atlanta bartender, Kate, who meets and falls in love with a dancer named Nadia. Nadia is no normal dancer: her dances are done with lasers, and her skill is such that she has been declared a National Treasure by the government. Despite Griffith’s skill in depicting the natural world, which is apparent in the other two stories in this collection, her descriptions of Nadia’s dance technique left me a little baffled.

But what is great about “Touching Fire”—and all of Griffith’s writing—is that the sexual orientation of the protagonists is never in question: they’re always queer. As series editor and feminist writer L. Timmel Duchamp notes in her accompanying critical essay, Griffith “creates an exclusively female sexual economy that operates regardless of the presence or absence of males in the narrative, such that only female characters exercise sexual agency or express sexual desire.” And desire is clearly and urgently expressed in all of the stories in this collection, although it is not always the romantic desire that Griffith draws out so expertly in “Touching Fire.”

“Song of Bullfrogs, Cry of Geese,” originally published in 1993, takes place at an undisclosed time, presumably in the future, when the human race is steadily dying due to a disease that weakens them too much to bear children. The protagonist of this story, a scientist named Molly whose lover, Helen, died of the disease, has secluded herself at their home out of grief and despair. Those who have read Griffith’s novel Stay (2002) will recognize the same deep desolation here, and like the novel, “Song of Bullfrogs” is a story about overcoming that grief—which is, at some level, an intense desire for someone who has been lost. Griffith’s writerly skills shine in this story, particularly when she describes the natural landscape that Molly inhabits.

“Yaguara,” originally published in slightly different form in 1994, is the longest story in the collection, and the most complex. It tells the story of photographer Jane Holford, who travels to South America to photograph the ruins of Kuchil Balum being excavated by Dr. Cleis Fernandez. This is no ordinary archeological excavation, however, with teams of graduate students and orderly marked grids for digging. Jane and Cleis are the only occupants of a lonely shack in the jungle, and their sole contact with the locals is the silent but formidable Ixbalum, a woman who clearly knows what the glyphs that Cleis is transcribing mean, but who refuses to share her knowledge.

“Yaguara,” the Spanish word for “jaguar,” is a kind of fairy tale—the kind that was told well before Disney came along, with a palpable sense of wildness and wonder. There is desire here, too, in the form of the sexual tension between Cleis and Jane, and also in the desire to know what goes on in the wet jungles that surround them. It is something primordial and awesome, and Griffith’s prose is as lush as the tropical scenery and as driven as the pull of the wild on Cleis.

Nicola Griffith was diagnosed with MS in 1993, she plans to donate all royalties from sales of With Her Body to the Rehab Services of the King County Multiple Sclerosis Society (MSA). As she explains in a brief foreword to the book, “The MSA is unique. It offers yoga and hydrotherapy classes which are specifically designed for people with MS. These classes aren’t just about therapy, they’re about taking joy in the body, even one that’s not perfect. I want to share that joy—just as I try to in my work.”

With Her Body is an atypical collection of science fiction, and those who are turned off by epic sci-fi shouldn’t hesitate to pick up this volume. It is intimate, sexy, and rich with good old-fashioned storytelling. That sounds like joy to me.

With Her Body is only available for purchase directly from Aqueduct Press