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} }) </script> </div> </form> </fieldset> <article class="entryArticle content STeditorial"> <header class="entryHeader icon-author"> <h1 class="entryTitle">Mixon, Laura J </h1> </header><p class='tagLine'>Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.</p><div class="browsingBtns"> <span> <input class="button PNI previous" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?id=p&entry=mixon_laura_j'" value="Prev" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI next" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/next.php?&entry=mixon_laura_j'" value="Next" /> </span> <span> <input class="button PNI incoming" type="button" onclick="window.location.href='/incoming.php?entry=mixon_laura_j'" value="About This Entry" title="What links to the entry; contributor initials explained; how to cite; other information" /> </span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Checklist" onclick="window.location.hash='chklst'" ></span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Alpha" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=mixon_laura_j&abc'" ></span> <span><input class="button PNI" type="button" value="Chron" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=mixon_laura_j'" ></span> <span style="cursor: pointer;" onclick="window.open('/gallery.php?link=mixon_laura_j');"> <img alt="Icon made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com" style="margin: 0; position: relative; top:-2px;" src="/images/icon-gal.gif"></img></span> </div><p style='float:right; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:10px; position: relative; top: 3px;'> <a href='/gallery.php?id=Mixon-UpAgainst.jpg' target='_blank'> <img src='https://x.sf-encyclopedia.com/gal/thumbs/Mixon-UpAgainst.jpg' alt='pic'></a></p> <p>(1957-    ) US author, married to Steven <a href="/entry/gould_steven">Gould</a>, who began publishing sf with the first of the <b>Omni Odysseys</b> sequence for younger readers, <i>Omni: Astropilots</i> (<b>1987</b>; vt <i>Astro Pilots</i> <b>1987</b>); other titles were from other hands. Her first adult novel, <i>Glass Houses</i> (December-mid-December 1991 <a href="/entry/analog">Analog</a>; <b>1992</b>), is a <a href="/entry/cyberpunk">Cyberpunk</a>-influenced tale set in New York City, told in a style one might describe as East Coast <i>noir</i>. The female protagonist, grittily characterized, is tough, believable, humanly vulnerable. The plot, which involves at least one <a href="/entry/mcguffin">McGuffin</a>, brings in the usual cyberpunk suspects: corporations; henchmen; crazed entrepreneurs; <a href="/entry/virtual_reality">Virtual Reality</a> surfers. It was a remarkable debut, and laid out the territory Mixon would traverse again and again, even in <i>Greenwar</i> (<b>1997</b>) with Stephen <a href="/entry/gould_steven">Gould</a>, a <a href="/entry/near_future">Near Future</a> ecothriller set at a point when the oceans have risen dangerously as a consequence of <a href="/entry/climate_change">Climate Change</a>; it was notable in this book that the authors' cogently argued conclusions about the global environmental crisis were articulated through a plot – evil ecoterrorists threaten a low-cost energy scheme because it is funded by an axiomatically evil corporation – that melodramatizes the issues.</p> <p>Over-complicated, action-dominated plotting arguably weakens, as well, Mixon's main accomplishment to date, the <b>Proxies</b> sequence comprising <i>Proxies</i> (<b>1998</b>) and <i>Burning the Ice</i> (<b>2002</b>), set in a <a href="/entry/near_future">Near Future</a> whose <a href="/entry/cyberpunk">Cyberpunk</a> surface is complexified by such a density of information that the world seems, at points, indecipherable. This intuition as to the ultimate unavailability of information as far as humans are concerned (see <a href="/entry/singularity">Singularity</a>) is sidestepped through adventure plotting which involves the theft of an interstellar <a href="/entry/spaceships">Spaceship</a> in order to protect specially-bred "bubble" children (see <a href="/entry/genetic_engineering">Genetic Engineering</a>) who are restricted to a <a href="/entry/prisons">Prison</a>-like <a href="/entry/keep">Keep</a> from which they operate, by an instantaneous <a href="/entry/communications">Communication</a> system, advanced proxies – full-body <a href="/entry/waldo">Waldos</a> capable of being upgraded into <a href="/entry/mecha">Mecha</a> – on behalf of the owners of the world: a cabal of politicians and corporate entities that in some aspects prefigures the world of David <a href="/entry/marusek_david">Marusek</a>. <i>Burning the Ice</i> escapes some of the conflicting intricacies of the first volume, through its setting many years hence on an ice world where descendants of the previous cast create a <a href="/entry/clones">Clone</a> culture not dissimilar in affect to the proxy culture of the previous volume. Further work from Mixon, now that the world she envisioned in the 1990s is markedly aborning, will be welcome. She received the <a href="/entry/hugo">Hugo</a> award as best fan writer in 2015. [JC]</p> <p><b>see also:</b> <a href="/entry/interactive_narrative">Interactive Narrative</a>.</p> <h3 id="chklst">Laura J Mixon</h3> <p><b>born</b> Rowell, New Mexico: 8 December 1957</p> <p><b>works</b></p> <p><input type="button" value="Alphabetical" class="button PNI" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=mixon_laura_j&abc'"> <input type="button" value="Chronological" class="button PNI" onclick="window.location.href='/chron.php?id=mixon_laura_j'"></p> <p><b>series</b></p> <p><b>Proxies</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Proxies&field-author=Mixon+Laura+J" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Proxies</a></em> (New York: Tor, <b>1998</b>) [<b>Proxies</b>: hb/]</li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Burning+the+Ice&field-author=Mixon+Laura+J" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Burning the Ice</a></em> (New York: Tor, <b>2002</b>) [<b>Proxies</b>: hb/Stephen <a href="/entry/youll_stephen">Youll</a>]</li> </ul> <p><b>individual titles</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Omni+Astropilots&field-author=Mixon+Laura+J" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Omni: Astropilots</a></em> (New York: Scholastic/Omni, <b>1987</b>) [contributed to the <b>Omni Odysseys</b> sequence, each volume by a different author: pb/Jeffrey Lindberg] <ul class="x"> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Astro+Pilots&field-author=Mixon+Laura+J" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Astro Pilots</a></em> (London: Dragon, <b>1987</b>) [vt of the above: contributed to the <b>Omni Odysseys</b> sequence, each volume by a different author: pb/]</li> </ul></li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Glass+Houses&field-author=Mixon+Laura+J" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Glass Houses</a></em> (New York: Tor, <b>1992</b>) [pb/Tom <a href="/entry/canty_thomas">Canty</a>]</li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Greenwar&field-author=Mixon+Laura+J" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Greenwar</a></em> (New York: Tor/Forge, <b>1997</b>) with Stephen <a href="/entry/gould_steven">Gould</a> [hb/Peter Bollinger]</li> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Up+Against+It&field-author=M+J+Locke" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Up Against It</a></em> (New York: Tor, <b>2011</b>) as by M J Locke [hb/Donato] <ul class="x"> <li><em><a href="/sfeshop.php?field-keywords=Up+Against+It&field-author="Laura+J+Mixon+writing+as+M+J+Locke"" class="link-amazon" target="_blank">Up Against It</a></em> (New York: Tor Essentials, <b>2021</b>) as by "Laura J Mixon writing as M J Locke" [pb/]</li> </ul></li> </ul> <p><b>links</b></p> <ul class="x"> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?2376">Internet Speculative Fiction Database</a></li> <li><a target="_blank" href="https://sf-encyclopedia.com/gallery.php?link=mixon_laura_j">Picture Gallery</a></li> </ul> <p><b>previous versions of this entry</b></p> <ul><li><a href='https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/mixon_laura_j' target='_blank'>Internet Archive</a></li></ul><br /><br /></article></div> <div class="sideBarsWrapper"> <div class="sideBarsColsWrapper clearfix"> <div class="column sideBar12 clearfix"> <div class="columnForm"><aside id="blogFeed" class="widget"> <div class="content STeditorial clearfix"> <h2>Recently visited entries<span style="background:url(/images/thingSFE2.png) !important"></span></h2><ul style='width: 50%; 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