aka The Knights Who say Ni Award
In today’s roundup: Vox Day, Lindsay Duncan, Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag, David Gerrold, Sara Amis, Dave Freer, Chris Gerrib, Lisa J. Goldstein, Lis Carey, Rebekah Golden, Russell Blackford, Camestros Felapton, Mabrick, Will McLean, Alexandra Erin and cryptic others. (Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editors of the day sveinung and ULTRAGOTHA.)
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“In the SF world rages a war” – June 3
[The translation of an article in Finland’s largest newspaper profiling Markku Koponen and Castalia House.]
IN THE SCI-FI WORLD OF USA RAGES A WAR, IN WHICH EVEN THE GAME OF THRONES AUTHOR IS ENTANGLED WITH – AND IN THE EPICENTER OF IT ALL IS THIS KOUVOLA MAN
Sci-fi literature enthusiasts in USA are in civil war. A conservative mutiny is trying to push out of bestseller lists and awards the mainstream, “tolerant” sci-fi. The battle is already being called culture wars – and one of the headquarters is located in Finland.
There is a man in Kouvola, and before the man, a computer.
Together, the man and the computer are in the front lines of a battle that is shaking the entire world of sci-fi literature.
The man and the computer were revealed to the world, spring this year.
At the time was published “the Oscars of sci-fi books” – Hugo-awards – nominees.
The entire sci-fi world roared: lists were full of works by religious extremists and ultraconservatives.
The surprise was so big that even The New York Times and Washington Post wrote about it.
And behind the entire surprise were a man and a computer in Kouvola.
The name of the man is Markku Koponen, and on the computer runs a company called Castalia House.
Lindsay Duncan on Unicorn Ramblings
“Tuesday Thoughts” – June 3
Behind all this kerfluffle is a tension between the idea that the quality of fiction, like all art, is subjective; and the action of presenting an award, which gives the veneer of some objective quality. Let’s add one more statement to the narrative: diversity is a good thing and necessary in a genre that builds upon possibilities, but we don’t want to set up a forced, artificial diversity. (Already, you can see the questions bubbling up.) What am I thinking of when I say “artificial” diversity? It’s when a work rises to the top not because of merit, but because its author or subject matter checks a particular box. It would be like saying that every novel awards slate has to include one urban fantasy, two epic fantasies, one hard science fiction novel and one soft science fiction novel … even if there were three amazing soft SF books that year.
SF Signal
“MIND MELD: Genre Awards: What are They Good for Anyway?” – June 3
[Bradley P. Beaulieu:] I’m saddened by the tactics that were chosen by the various Puppy campaigns to game the Hugos, but I’m confident the award will live on, and I’m hopeful that in the end the voting base for the award will be broadened. After all, as long as everyone is given a fair shake, how can giving a voice to more fans be a bad thing?
Laura “Tegan” Gjovaag on Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog
“Oh dear, not the freaking Hugos again…” – June 3
On Facebook, David Gerrold nails the problem with the slate nominations in the Hugo awards. Namely, the people who participated have developed a narrative of “evil liberals” rather than “good works worthy of nomination for the Hugo Award.” Part of the post was also quoted at File770. Of note is the fact that Gerrold has asked these questions repeatedly, and he describes the “answers” he gets from slate-voting puppy-supporters….
…The last question, #6, is a no-brainer. The excellence of the story is the only thing that truly matters. There have been some fantastic works by authors that I wouldn’t want to sit at the same dinner table with. And I’m sure there are awful works by people who completely agree with me on every major political point. Politics are utterly irrelevant to the conversation. Or, at least, they should be.
David Gerrold on Facebook – June 3
As long as we’re still talking about the sad puppies and the rabid puppies, there is one question that has not yet been asked.
Will Larry Correia and Brad Torgersen be attending the Hugo award ceremony? Will Vox Day and John C. Wright be attending the ceremony? What about the other nominees and the various puppy supporters?
I have been told that none of the major architects of the slates have attending memberships. So the answer is no, they will not be there.
(Some of the slated nominees will likely be there, but that’s not the question I’m asking.)
And that causes me to wonder —
Some of the puppy supporters have said this whole thing is about reclaiming “the real science fiction” from those who have hijacked it into the realm of literary merit. (Something like that.)
Okay — but if we take that at face value — then why aren’t the leaders of the movement coming to the award ceremony to cheer for their nominees? If this is really that important, why aren’t they coming to the party?
Not attending the celebration makes it look like this was never about winning the awards as much as it was about disrupting them.
David Gerrold in a comment on Facebook – June 3
I did not know that Brad Torgersen had been deployed. I’m sure he will serve admirably and I expect him to return home safely. I might disagree with him on some things, but I wish him no ill.
Sara Amis on Luna Station Quarterly
“Hugos, Puppies, and Joanna Russ” – June 3
I always intended from the beginning to write about Joanna Russ. How could I not? It just so happens, though, that she is particularly relevant right at this particular moment.
So, there are some shenanigans with this year’s Hugo awards. And by “shenanigans” I mean “cheating” in the finest, most self-righteous, letter-but-not-the-spirit-of-the-law, but-really-we’re-the-good-guys fashion.
“But some white women, and black women, and black men, and other people of color too, have actually acquired the nasty habit of putting the stuff on paper, and some of it gets printed, and printed material, especially books, gets into bookstores, into people’s hands, into libraries, sometimes even into university curricula.
What are we to do?” —-from How to Suppress Women’s Writing by Joanna Russ
I might add, some of it gets nominated for Hugos, and even wins. What are we to do???
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“Hugo Recommendations: Best Fan Writer” – June 3
This is how I am voting in the Best Fan Writer category. Of course, I merely offer this information regarding my individual ballot for no particular reason at all, and the fact that I have done so should not be confused in any way, shape, or form with a slate or a bloc vote, much less a direct order by the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil to his 368 Vile Faceless Minions or anyone else.
- Jeffro Johnson
- Dave Freer
- Amanda S. Green
- Cedar Sanderson
- Laura J. Mixon
With regards to Mixon, I still don’t consider a professional writer with five novels published by Tor who also happens to be the current SFWA President’s wife to be what anything remotely recognizable as a proper “Fan Writer”, but that ship sailed back when John Scalzi, Jim Hines, and Kameron Hurley waged their successful campaigns for it. No sense in fighting battles already lost. The more relevant problem is that Best Related Work would be a more reasonable category for a single expose, and Deidre Saorse Moen’s expose of Marion Zimmer Bradley was a considerably more important work in that regard. That being said, I don’t regard the Hugo Awards as being the place to recognize investigative journalism, otherwise I would have nominated Saorse Moen’s stunning revelations about Marion Zimmer Bradley as a Best Related Work. But regardless, Mixon did publish a credible expose and she is a legitimate, if not necessarily compelling candidate.
Dave Freer in comment #58 on the same post at Vox Popoli – June 3
“Freer’s been an ass to me, and incoherent at length to pretty much everybody” sniff. I shall wear this with such pride, just because it comes from Crissy! I am amply rewarded for the time spent pointing out he was mathematically illiterate and logically incompetent.
To be fair to Mixon (I do not approve of her biased reporting, but still) 1)I have 20 novels published. 2) Both Amanda and Cedar are independently published – and both quite successful at it. I suspect they outsell Mixon, who IIRC has day job and a husband to share cost (he also has a day job). Strictly speaking she’s more of a ‘hobbyist’ than any of the three of us. 3) I am not, and never have been married to the pres of SFWA. Neither have Amanda or Cedar or Jeffro. Speaking strictly for myself, I hope to avoid that dreadful fate.
I raised the same objection to my being nominated Vox does on MGC when I was first put on recommended lists and, um, never found out my name was still there. I actually didn’t know I had been nominated (the Hugo Admins didn’t succeed in contacting me) until the nasty messages started popping up telling me I was going to suffer for it and should immediately abase myself. I don’t bully well, so despite the fact I didn’t want to be there, or feel I should be, I still am. Screw them and the donkey they rode into town on (the difference is hard to establish, but the donkey is the more intelligent and prettier).
Jeffro seems a good guy, and I can vouch for Amanda and Cedar.
Chris Gerrib on Private Mars Rocket
“Hugos, Fan Writer, Rant Regarding” – June 3
First, per section 3.3.15 of the WSFS Constitution, Fan Writer (like Best Editor) is an award for the person. It is not, like Best Novel, an award for a particular work. It is thus perfectly acceptable to say “fan writer X is a jerk” and use that as a critique of their nomination.
Actually, it is entirely within the rules to vote based on any criterion, if you want to be a stickler for the rules. Or, people who insist on following the letter of the law do not get to lecture me on the spirit of things.
Second, David Freer is a poor writer, at least with regards to his blog. His posts are lengthy, poorly-thought-out, (see, for example, his 1500 word post on Hugo probabilities, discussed and linked to by me here) and not to me particularly entertaining.
Third, in general the Hugo nominees are asking me and the other voters for a favor. They are asking that we take time out of our day, consider their material, and in the end give one of them an award. I don’t know how things work on Planet Puppy, but here on Earth, if one is asking somebody for a favor, normally the person requesting the favor attempts normal human politeness.
Lisa J. Goldstein on theinferior4
“The Hugo Ballot: All the Rest of the Novels” – June 3
I think the final vote on the novel will come down to what kind of sub-genre people like to read. Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Sword deals with galactic empires and planetary intrigue, but also plays with ideas about gender. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison is charming and elegantly told, a tale of manners in a fantasy setting. Cixin Liu’s The Three-Body Problem dances out on the far edges of scientific speculation. Really, any one of these could win and I’d be happy, but if I had to choose (and I guess I do), for me the best of them is Ancillary Sword.
Lis Carey on Lis Carey’s Library
“Adventures in SciFi Publishing — Best Fancast Hugo Nominee” – June 3
http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/
This is the first of the Hugo-nominated fancasts that I’ve listened to. Briefly — it’s good.
Rebekah Golden
“2015 Hugo Awards Best Movie: Reviewing Edge of Tomorrow” – June 3
Altogether a fun little movie, well handled and nicely plotted. I haven’t watched it, wasn’t planning to, but am happy I did. I will probably rewatch it before I decide how it stacks up against the other movie nominees.
Russell Blackford on Metamagician and The Hellfire Club
“Rest Related Work nominations reviewed & discussed – Hugo Awards Voting” – June 3
Antonelli’s Letters from Gardner seems, from what I’ve read, to be about the author’s development, at a relatively late stage of life, as a well-published author of (mainly) short stories. It includes a considerable amount of Antonelli’s fiction, with much commentary and reflection, and amongst it some perfectly sound advice on the craft of writing. If it were up for a lesser (perhaps regional) award, I’d have no difficulty in voting for it. From what I’ve read, however, I just don’t think the book is good, distinguished, or interesting enough to be worth a Hugo Award. It does not stand up well against past winners. Your mileage may vary. It’s not a bad book, and I’d have happily read the whole thing if it had been provided in the Hugo Voters Packet.
“Why Science is Never Settled”, by Tedd Roberts, is a well-written and thoughtful discussion of its subject matter. It popularises certain ideas in the history and philosophy of science, and does a workmanlike job of it. It was aimed at an SF-reading audience, and it was doubtless of interest to many people within that audience, but it does not seem to me to be sufficiently distinguished or relevant to deserve this award. There is some relationship to science fiction – enough that it would interest many readers who are also SF readers – but it’s a rather tenuous one.
Cirsova
“Hugo Art” – June 3
Fan artist category was rather disappointing; while I don’t want to say that any of these artists are bad, many artists I’ve seen on places like Deviant Art or here on WordPress have impressed me more; I really just don’t feel like many of these are ‘best of the best’ quality in terms of sci-fi art, at least by what I’ve seen. The lone exception is Elizabeth Legget, whose work, while not really blowing me away, is evocative and impressive enough that she easily rises to the top in this category….
In the Professional Artist category, I’d almost say that Julie Dillon wins by virtue of including a much larger portfolio to better display the range of her work….
Lastly, I’d like to note that it’s been interesting to see how the Fan Writer category is playing out. When I think of Fan Writing, I think of Algis Budrys and Baird Searles, who wrote on topic about notable books, movies and television that was relevant to fans of Speculative Fiction. One strange notion I’ve seen floated is that a Fan Writer should be writing ABOUT rather than TO the fandom, yet ironically those Fan Writers who have been writing more about the fandom than to them are paying the price, to an extent, for doing so. I enjoy the Mad Genius Club, but the rants about culture wars type stuff are going to come off to dedicated culture warriors about as well as Ann Coulter telling that Muslim girl to ride a camel. Meanwhile, many of those who don’t find pdfs an inaccessible format (sometimes grudgingly) acknowledge that Jeffro’s kept a laser-like focus on important works of Science-fiction and Fantasy, so we’re starting to see sort of a ‘man, we kind of want to hate this guy, but he’s actually writing about and bringing attention to some great authors!’ reaction. Given Jeffro’s decidedly apolitical approach (not ‘this is conservative/liberal’, ‘this is feminist/anti-feminist’, but ‘this is awesome’) to his subject matter combined with some of the backlash against Mixon (for myriad reasons), I think he has a pretty good shot in this category.
Adult Onset Atheist
“SNARL: Championship B’tok” – June 3
This novelette lacks several of the critical elements that any string of words needs to tie it up into a story; the most glaring of these exposes itself as a regular disregard for continuity. It is impossible to tell if this story is actually a chapter of a larger story, or it is just half-written. I get the impression that this author may be able to wrote, and write stories, but this is not one of them. I will eventually pull out a reasonably good excuse for awarding one whole star to this novelette.
Camestros Felapton
“The Puppy Works – Ranked from Bad to Okness” – June 3
So below the fold is an attempt to rank all the Puppy nominated works (not including dramatic, editorial or artistic) altogether from the worst to the least worst. I’ll spoil the suspense by revealing that “Wisdom From My Internet” not only came top but also provides a neat demonstration why rankings can be inadequate when what you need is some kind of measurement scale.
Mabrick on Mabrick’s Mumblings
“Skin Game A Novel of the Dresden Files Book 15 by Jim Butcher” – June 3
….That was a two paragraph introduction to the review of “Skin Game” by Jim Butcher, for which I am somewhat sorry to inflict upon you, but felt compelled to clarify for them that know of the Hugo Award drama. There are strong feelings on all sides of this issue and some will feel like I have somehow betrayed them by listening to and reviewing this book. Poppycock. Jim Butcher is a New York times best-selling author. He didn’t get there because of the Sad Puppies and he deserves a thoughtful and respectful review of his work just like I’ve done with all the other nominees so far (as part of my Nebula Nominee reviews.) Thinking otherwise is puerile behavior as bad as that exhibited by the Sad Puppies. I don’t believe this applies to all authors and publishing houses on the ballot, for some of them were self-serving in the extreme, but it does apply to Jim Butcher and Tor Books, his publisher.
Will McLean on Commonplace Book
“Nutty Nuggets” – June 2
“What are we looking for again?” said Liu, the technician from Mars Spacefleet.
“Ejecta from Perdita, of course.You saw the images we got from Alaunt. One of what hit Perdita shredded the cargo module and blew debris on a diverging course. The hydrogen tanks were holed too, but we’re not going to waste time looking for hydrogen in space. You have the cargo manifest.” Church, agent for Tranjovian and its insurance agency, was a stubby, thick-lipped, stocky man with heavy eyebrows. Perdita had gone silent on an unmanned low-energy trip to the Jovian moons and Alaunt had found what was left of her hull after a tedious search of her extrapolated course.
“Right.” said Liu, as a document came up on his screen. “Spare parts and luxury goods: single-malt scotch, Napoleon brandy, macadamia nuts and cashews.”
“The liquids will have frozen that far out, so we’ll be looking for nutty nuggets. A pretty unique spectral signature beyond Ceres.” ….
Alexandra Erin on A Blue Author Is About To Write
Sad Puppies Review Books: THE POKY LITTLE PUPPY – June 3
Reviewed by Special Guest Reviewer James May
…Here’s the dividing line and the crucial issue: I don’t care what you do. I don’t care about any of your initiatives. What I care about is it is never expressed without dehumanizing men and whites as racist, women-hating, homophobes who have conspired and continue to conspire to keep everyone but the straight white male out of SFF. That is a lie we have proved with facts over and over again. The history of SFF as portrayed by SJWs is a hoax. It has never been any more exclusionary than Field & Stream.
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@Brian Z I really don’t even understand their point. It’s probably my inability to understand Aristotle.
RAH as character: In Rocket to the Morgue, a 1942 mystery roman a clef* by Anthony Boucher (as H. H Holmes). Heinlein is also referred to in Larry Niven’s “The Return of William Proxmire,” where he is “the Admiral” and runs the (space) navy.
* Sorry about the lack of italics–I’m too lazy to apply whatever flavor of tags work here.
@russell Thanks! I have a lot of new reading to do.
Tony Boucher’s 1942 Rocket to the Morgue has a roman a clef appearance by RAH as “Austin Carter” as well as characters named Anson MacDonald and Lyle Munroe (both pseuds of RAH)
Now I have to find a reading copy of that……..
@Will
Yes, it’s an adventure (or scenario), and so contains instructions for a broad plot, likely events, supporting characters and antagonists, locations etc. It’s designed for use with a system called Trail of Cthulhu, which is relatively a relatively lightweight system that aims to tell procedural stories in the cthulhu mythos.
You would actually play as Heinlein if you so wished.
You can pick up a pdf from sites like drivethrurpg, but understanding the fine details would require you to own the main ToC rulebook as well.
Rocket to the Morgue sounds so modern as to be…almost hard to believe old.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_to_the_Morgue
Brian,
Wow, talk about mixed blessings. I rhimk I need either a drink or a shower after reading that.
Possible title:
The World Day Turned Upside Down
@mark Thank you! My interest is definitely piqued.
Just picked up a used copy of Rocket to the Morgue for $4 on Amazon. Have to love the internet.
@Tintinaus That was how I felt too. Not sure what it meant, but it didn’t sound good.
Will – ,
Rocket to The Morgue is a wonderful book.
A wonderful locked-room mystery, off-hand references by characters of penny-a-word rates, the frisson when you recognize the characters’ names are pseuds for real-life writers & editors, It wasn’t until after I’d read the book before I recognized the roman a clef characters.
It also has a neat bit, though, which places it very squarely in time – the assumption of a certain character’s faith practices clears her from being a suspect. The “place in fixed-time” bit is that the bit about the timing of a character going to confession assumes that the general readership would recognize the [plot point, whether the reader were a Roman Catholic or not.
In re: today’s title: Game of Bones? (Maybe that’s been done. Really is hard to keep up.)
@Craig R That’s great–sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun. (And educational as well.)
Those who have slogged through the short fiction nominees may find the existence of this new Baen book interesting: The Year’s Best Military SF and Space Opera edited by David Afsharirad. It actually looks like it might be worth reading. There’s a diverse group of authors and sources, and it looks like there might have been some real thought behind the selections. No Hugo nominees included. I’m ordering myself a copy.
“Codename: Delphi” by Linda Nagata (Lightspeed)
“Persephone Descending” by Derek Künsken. (Analog)
“The End of the Silk Road” by David D. Levine (F&SF)
“Picket Ship” by Brad R. Torgersen (Baen.com)
“Decaying Orbit” by Robert R. Chase (Asimov’s)
“Morrigan in the Sunglare” by Seth Dickinson (Clarkesworld)
“Light and Shadow” by Linda Nagata (War Stories: New Military Science Fiction)
“Icarus at Noon” by Eric Leif Davin (Galaxy’s Edge)
“Soft Casualty” by Michael Z. Williamson (Baen.com)
“Palm Strike’s Last Case” by Charlie Jane Anders (F&SF)
“Brood” by Stephen Gaskell (Extreme Planets)
“Stealing Arturo” by William Ledbetter (Baen.com)
“Rules of Engagement” by Matthew Johnson (Asimov’s)
“War Dog” by Michael Barretta (War Stories: New Military Science Fiction)
“Ten Rules for Being an Intergalactic Smuggler (the Successful Kind)” by Holly Black (Monstrous Affections)
The inclusion of “Triple Sun” on a Puppy slate puzzled me. To me, the story had everything that the puppies were supposed to rail against as SJW lit:
Non-european author. Protagonist is a female POC. Sidekicks POC (though not traditional human colors). One of the sidekicks is a silver-skinned Venusian of presumably jewish cultural origins, although none of this is explored beyond the name dropping—how much more diversity for diversity’s sake can it get?
The only piece of technology evident is a BRACELET—wouldn’t a “Golden Age” tale at least feature some good, old-fashioned WEAPONS? And finally, a not overly compelling story is resolved with a preachy, non-European, somewhat socialist parable about mutual cooperation.
Is this supposed to be the kind of fiction the puppies want, or was this nominated because they consider it a brilliant parody of SJW fiction?
Jeffro
The weird thing about my origins, other than the fact we had our very own tank to collect us when rioting broke out, is that it wasn’t until last year that someone at passport control asked me where Abyad is. That was the Eurostar in Paris, heading towards England.
I had gone through US passport control at San Diego, where I had to give them my fingerprints and so forth, but Abyad didn’t raise a flicker, which seemed odd to me, though I was grateful since London-San Diego is quite a long flight…
Ooh, just got a new one.
“No Truce with Kibbles”
To me, the protagonist of “The Day the World Turned Upside Down” definitely seems to be deliberately written that way. Was I the only one reminded of characters in “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, with their bumbling improvisations, absent-mindedness, and occasional petty motivations?
And I forgot to add definitely kudos for Jeffro for being here, being civil, and being interesting!
WHY do I keep putting my comments in older threads?
i, Everybody’s favorite crush, Alexandra Erin : Only the introduction, where I explain my purpose, is original. For about a week now I’ve been toying with a special guest review by a character called “Jeremy Hammond” that would have been based on James May’s signature style,
Might I suggest “Jim Wood” as an alternative?
ii, Anna Feruglio Dal Dan : Schmuck is not American English, it’s Yiddish, a language just as rich and capable of subtle insults as anything Shakespeare ever wrote.
With respect to our Jewish friends, who I’m sure are entirely capable of snark and disparagement as anybody else who came into contact with the Germans, the English are capable of mortal insults simply by twitching an eyebrow.
@Stevie,
Thanks for having me. This has been a great discussion– real eye opening for me. I’m glad to have a sense that there are actual people on the other side of these comments.
I’m actually sort of weirded out that I keep seeing people referring to the Ancillary novels as exploring or in any way being about gender. Aside from the fact that 90% of my “head pictures” for the book were women characters, gender really isn’t important. How can it be? It’s not important to Breq.
Where the message is (for me, anyway, and honestly I thought it was a bit heavy-handed at times) is about empire-building, cultural suppression, oppression of racial groups and underclasses, and the “respectability politics” so aptly explained by Jay Smooth. Aside from noticing that almost all the characters looked like women in my head, gender didn’t even blip my radar.
@Petrea Because Vox Mustela bears a startling resemblance to Cecil the Sea-Sick Sea Serpent?
(
Ann Leckie has said that she never intended Ancillary Justice to be about gender.
Will: Question for the hive mind: Has anybody ever made Heinlein a character in a book?
“The Return Of William Proxmire” by Larry Niven was mentioned, what wasn’t was that it was Hugo-nominated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_William_Proxmire
And for titles, one I’ve missed:
The Genre That Day Stood Still
Meredith wrote:
I think that comes from the very nature of the Culture War Meme itself, which amounts to, more or less (not anyone’s direct quotation, just set apart):
It stems from an attitude that there in reality can only be a duality of thought, good and evil, monochrome white and black, and since good is self-identified, the other must be evil.
Since Others are Evil, they must, therefore, be using other evil tactics in addition to the control, censorship, and suppression, and since the Evil Others are obviously lying about their motivations in controlling, censoring, and suppressing, they are waging war upon us, so it’s only fair that we do all of it to them in a pre-emptive strike or a response.
It is a self-blinding which ignores that in reality between pure white and pure black there must be greydations (so to speak), or that reality could be even better expressed with a rainbow’s variety of colors.
The late Isaac Bonewits expressed the limitations of the worldview this way:
http://i3.cpcache.com/product_zoom/3889934/theology_tshirt.jpg?color=White&height=460&width=460&padToSquare=true
It doesn’t just apply to religious beliefs, that’s just the way which was most important to Isaac and the audience he was trying to reach.
Glenn Hauman on June 4, 2015 at 10:58 am said:
And for titles, one I’ve missed:
The Genre That Day Stood Still
Bravo !
@Happyturtle; https://file770.com/?p=22915&cpage=4#comment-275249
Yet the topic of gender pronouns has become an aspect of gender politics, especially in the languages that posses gender specific pronouns. The author chose to favour one of the gender pronouns over the other, and that can be taken as a stance on gender politics. Especially when it was perfectly feasible to use the other gender pronoun instead, or even invent ‘Radch’ words for gender pronouns.
But then again, no matter what you choose, you are going to annoy in the least, or in the most piss off someone for whatever reason.
Aside from the fact that 90% of my “head pictures” for the book were women characters, gender really isn’t important. How can it be? It’s not important to Breq.
I actually find this attitude surprising. Gender is a defining trait of modern society, and when an author chooses to create a fictional version of a future human civilization that has shed that element, how can we say that she and her book have nothing to say about gender – especially when the books feature strong interpersonal relationships, sex, and parents with children? It’s true that Breq doesn’t really notice or comment on gender, but that’s because she’s defined as not being interested in such things. The lack of gender and its impacts are woven throughout the world in ways big and small. In Ancillary Sword, for instance, there’s a key character who from different angles seems like a stereotypical mean girl, and from other angles seems like an abusive, brutish boyfriend. The fact that I couldn’t gender the character as male or female and so fit her into an easy box remained on my mind the whole time. I’m not sure that was what Leckie meant to achieve, but it’s certainly what she did.
I’d agree that the presence or absence of gender in the Radch is probably not key to the major beats of the plot. However, I’d say the same thing is true of The Left Hand Of Darkness. My memory might be wrong, but I recall that the changing sexes of the Gethenians only really plays a key role in one scene out on the ice. Genly Ai’s musings on the subject are important in building the world, but the plot could just as easily be carried by people fitting the standard gender binary.
@Tintinaus
Funny thing. I followed Erin’s link back to the original James May comment, but it was the comment above his that really drew my attention. The guy says he wasn’t really happy with the end of Cowboy Bebop. For those of you who don’t know, Bebop is considered one of the seminal anime series and “The Real Folk Blues” is on a LOT of peoples lists for top finales, “ambiguous” ending and all. A puppy not enthusiastic about a lack of cut and dried ending really rings true to the stereotype of them I have in my head.
I don’t think it’s indicative of anything except that he didn’t like it. Honestly, I didn’t like it. I didn’t really care for most of BeBop – I’m a much bigger fan of Samurai Champloo and Michiko to Hatchin, also from Shinichir? Watanabe. They both had ambiguous endings as well. It’s possible he just didn’t like that particular series’ particular ending.
Not defending James May on any other matters, but let’s not extrapolate to that extent? 😛 Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, etc.
@Maine That fascinates me. What is it about gender that makes it so important to you? Do you need to be able to form explicit mental pictures of the characters’ genitalia? (In which case, “he” and “she” are woefully inadequate to describe the range of possibilities). Do you need to place the characters into a preexisting mental schema based on modern cultural norms? (In which case, why assume that such norms will carry forward into the far future?) Or is it something else?
What makes it so strange to think that a culture as radically different from ours as the Radch might have radically different ideas about gender, too?
Mike, please delete the two earlier, typo’d versions of this above, and to paraphrase St. Paul, excuse my stumbling fingers.
Will wrote:
James Blish put a “Brother Anson” among the other altered writer names for his monks in With Fate Conspire; the lead character in J. Neil Schulman’s Alongside Night reads Between Planets by Heinlein while laying low in hotel room, much as the young hero in that book had to do in that novel; “both Heinleins!” are mentioned in passing as attending the Pantheistic Multi-Person Solipsistic Exhibition at the end of The Number of the Beast; and I read a heavy-handed parody/satire in one of the digest magazines (probably Fantasy & Science Fiction) which took place in a retro-future similar to the partially Heinlein-scripted movie Project Moonbase, with the addition of safe, clean, atomic-powered cars with radar to prevent collisions, total racial equality, but deliberately expressed in an exceedingly clumsy manner, and which ended with spaceflight admiral Heinlein submitting himself for court-martial because he had sabotaged a moon flight so that the black man and white woman on it were stranded there and had to begin a colony.
As I said, it was heavy-handed, if my description doesn’t make that obvious; it might have been by Barry Malzberg, but I could be very, very wrong in remembering the writer’s name, so I hope I haven’t inadvertently insulted Mr. Malzburg, and I don’t remember the title precisely, either. No doubt a search in an index of F&SF and whatever other digest magazines still might have existed other than Asimov’s and Analog in the ’80s would turn it up, as I think Heinlein’s name was part of the story title.
And of course, there are all the Competent Man presumed-expys of Heinlein himself in many of his novels.
@happyturtle, Tuomas and Going to Maine
I think that Leckie herself certainly intended to say some things about the gender default of our society by using “her” instead of “him” as the catch-all pronoun. The very fact that Tuomas feels the need to say “but she could have said him!” sort of proves the point of the exercise.
And I loved the fact that you can’t tell whether that character was a shitty, cat-scratching Mean Girl or an abusive slave-raping boyfriend, because it doesn’t matter. The character goes through the same crappy motions and behaviors and their gender is literally unimportant. If you take away the gender of a character and they remain essentially unchanged, then what we reflect on the character is what actually changes the gender. By not letting us impose our own cultural bullshit on male or female characters, Leckie lets us enjoy them in a much “purer” way, IMO.
But the book itself is not about gender. That’s kinda the point. And I’m really surprised to see all the Puppy yelping about the gender in the book when the whole thing reads as a screed against oppression based on race and class.
Jeffro, on the 1980s religious pushback on D&D: “That is a very hot topic and I have written snarky things about the renaming of Deities & Demigods and Sunday Drivers– I have written about that directly in my Appendix N series, but I ended up editing it out”
Fred Clark of Slacktivist has written quite a lot about that, from the perspective of an evangelical Christian taking a highly critical look at his own subculture. (Does writing about D&D count as Fan Writing?) Only a few of them seem to have been tagged: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/tag/dd/ – googling “slacktivist D&D” turns up a few more.
What struck me about “Rocket to the Morgue” is that only the characters based on real people have any real spark; the original characters are all flat, even the two investigators who’d already appeared in another book. As a look at 1942 LA fandom it’s fascinating; as a mystery it’s forgettable.
Craig R: “The World Day Turned Upside Down”
Oh, awesome. Love how my brain doesn’t spot that “Day” is a proper noun until I get to the end and have to go back and see what was really there.
By not letting us impose our own cultural bullshit on male or female characters, Leckie lets us enjoy them in a much “purer” way, IMO.
Right – so I would argue that Leckie’s choice to remove the gender makes the book about gender, because…
a) it’s a conscious choice.
b) it doesn’t just “let” you enjoy the characters in a purer way; it demands it.
(I think i’m just repeating my earlier comment, but yeah. I mean, it’s not like either of us didn’t enjoy the book. I just do rather strongly believe that that authorial point is inevitably a political decision that makes a bigger comment. Not an opinionated comment, but a good ol’ here’s-a-way-things-could-be cmment.)
@Jamoche
Thanks for the link; I’ll have a look!
@Going to Maine
I dunno, the gender question didn’t even really pop up at me. After a certain point in the beginning of the first book where it seemed forced, I fell into the prose and it became invisible. The whole fall-of-the-Empire stuff seemed much more “political,” if anything is. I guess that’s why I’m puzzled about the focus on gender in so many reviews when gender is made explicitly irrelevant to the setting.
@Gabriel F: https://file770.com/?p=22915&cpage=4#comment-275264
Perhaps you should have read bit further before you start speaking of exercises. Because she could have invented words of her own. I mean Rowling did for a multitude of things. Thus few new pronouns should not be that difficult. And to point of the ‘exercise’ was simply to show each possible option is loaded in the current cultural environment.
As for the shitty, cat-scratching girlfriend /or/ abusive, slave-raping boyfriend. It is more than easy to argue that gender does matter. In fact humans are treated differently based on nothing but their genders. I mean, look at the two hyperboles, a shitty, cat-scratching girlfriend compared to an abusive, slave-raping boyfriend. One of them sounds a way lot more worse than the other. (Additionally, you can do a google search on the punishments levied to both genders on the same committed crimes.)
Thus the obfuscation of the ‘gender’ – makes the work inherently about gender politics. Character’s gender becomes defined by their actions, how we perceive them. In fact, in one regard it would be our ‘cultural bullshit’ that defines their genders. (Although I would argue in favour of biological factors over the cultural factors.)
But I’ll be goingnow. Don’t really care to discuss about gender politics.
Meredith: I suspect quantifying the political makeup of past Hugo nominees is not going to be easy, or even possible.
That is true. There re some authors who are absolutely unambiguous about their politics – Iain Banks was a solid British democratic socialist, China Meiville is a Trotskyist. However beyond this authors are tricky customers .
Even so it is interesting to see how others have classified them. I also suspect that the political affiliations of some categories (e.g. fan artist) might be even less obvious that those categories which are specifically writers.
But it is all data – what I’m interested in the range of plausible values rather than knowing what the right value is.
Cat: I don’t think I’m intolerant of message fiction–but if you’re going to present something to me as good and right it needs to be something that is not obviously unfair.
Indeed – it is a raw deal all round. Wright’s story is not so very far away from a critique on the “fall of man” notion.
Instaflounce!
@Learned
Thank you so much for that link. I’ll have to read it again later to let it sink in, but I think Le Guin has really nailed something I was struggling to express a few days ago, about types of speculation in SF.
Isn’t Tuomas will be going just a stock trope no longer needing explanation?
Plus, Tuomas probably hasn’t read the book in the first place.
Gully Foyle: “Isn’t Tuomas will be going just a stock trope no longer needing explanation?”
LOL — and it’s one step away from being set to music and sung by Groucho Marx.
It’s likely he hasn’t. Especially when he sort of made my point for me while arguing against me.
My descriptions of the two different tropes the character might have fallen into automatically had her gender been made apparent is yes, the whole point I’m making. Because our cultural bias toward mean, shrewish women and rapey men are so instantaneous that by making us explore the character on its own, we dispense with those instant judgements.
Apologies for Wall O’Text, but I wanted to collect several different “catching up” replies into one post.
@Cat: “(I wonder again why would loyalty would require redemption)”
Choosing to obey Man over God, perhaps? As for why wild animals need redemption, they disobeyed God’s decree that Man had dominion over them. Imagine the situation where Dad leaves an older sibling in charge of a younger one, and then the older one tries to get the younger to do something Dad wouldn’t like. Unless the younger kid treads very carefully, he’s going to have to answer to Dad for something.
Unfair, perhaps – but this is a story based on a religion where an omnipotent God punishes two innocents for not understanding the concept of deception. Fairness is not one of its strong suits.
@Mark, Will:
There is currently a Bundle of Holding deal on Trail of Cthulhu – interested parties can pick up the core system very inexpensively, or add some supporting works for a little more. The particular adventure under discussion is not part of either package, though.
@Jeff Smith: “No Hugo nominees included.”
Erm. I see Torgersen and MZW in that TOC…
@Glenn Hauman: “The Genre That Day Stood Still”
Oh, I like that.
@Tuomas Vainio: “The author chose to favour one of the gender pronouns over the other, and that can be taken as a stance on gender politics. Especially when it was perfectly feasible to use the other gender pronoun instead, or even invent ‘Radch’ words for gender pronouns.”
Let’s take those in order, hm?
“chose to favour” – Most English texts still prescribe the use of male pronouns when the gender is unknown or in doubt. Do you see that as “tak[ing] a stance on gender politics”?
“can be taken” – Anything “can be taken” to mean anything, with enough effort. Meaningless weasel words.
“perfectly feasible” – Translation: “Why couldn’t she just use ‘he’ like a normal person?” Well, because using the masculine as default would have been invisible. If you want people to realize that you’re making a deliberate choice with your terminology, the one thing you don’t want is invisibility.
“invent ‘Radch’ words” – This would go against the entire point of the Radch not caring about the subject. Imagine: “We are so ambivalent to this concept that we invented whole new words for it!” No, doesn’t work. That is a very silly idea.
@Tuomas Vainio, later: ” In fact humans are treated differently based on nothing but their genders.”
Not in the Radch. THAT’S THE POINT! (Which is, of course, why you’ve now flounced away.)
Gabriel F. on AJ: gender really isn’t important. How can it be? It’s not important to Breq.
Well I think that is what people are trying to refer to – it is ‘about’ gender by stripping away our normal gender-attuned spectacles. So it is ‘about’ gender by not having it there. A bit like that story about a letter of the alphabet that studiously avoided using that letter.
In Japan (or so I have read) they have this whole thing about blood-types as a kind almost astrological personality type. It would be interesting to set a novel in a society that used something else as a social hang-up. Of course as an O-neg that is probably the kind of attitude you were all expecting from me 🙂