(1) INSIDE UTAH’S EXTRAORDINARY SF FANDOM. Provo’s Daily Herald interviewed Dave Doering and learned the answer to “Why Utah’s literary Big Bang? ‘Life, the Universe & Everything’ symposium, for one”.
When you name your symposium “Life, the Universe, & Everything,” and that symposium is in the heart of Mormon country, outsiders can get a little suspicious.
“I often had to cajole guests to come because they feared this was an indoctrination boot camp for Mormonism,” Dave Doering recalled.
Well, it’s certainly not that. Rather, LTUE is about science fiction and fantasy literature. The annual three-day symposium ushers in its 34th year on Thursday at downtown Provo’s Marriott Hotel. At this point, those early boot camp suspicions have waned: LTUE has become one of the premier symposiums of its kind, drawing more than 1,000 attendees and renowned sci-fi/fantasy authors each year, and covering a wide range of subjects pertinent to that industry. Not bad for an event that had only 30-40 attendees in 1983….
It worked. BYU’s small sci-fi/fantasy community grew as students started coming out of the woodwork. Within five years the symposium was drawing 300-400 attendees. That amount stayed somewhat stable through the years. Five years ago, though, things really blew up. Utah-bred authors like Shannon Hale (“Princess Academy”), Stephenie Meyer (“Twilight”) and James Dashner (“The Maze Runner”) put Utah on the map for young adult fantasy literature. New York City publishers now regard Utah as fertile literary ground.
“No one, I think, would have believed that Utah writers would make as big an impact as we have now in the young adult and fantasy areas,” Doering said. “Four of the top five writers in that field are from Utah, and you think for the population, that’s ludicrous! How did that happen?”
The Wasatch front, Doering said, has a particular storytelling culture that mainstream audiences have come to crave.
“We grow up with stories, and we are a very positive people. And I think that resonates,” he said. “By and large, the authors on the coasts that had been big names in the past, their dystopian view or manner of treating characters and situations, I think it got to be so repetitious that people were hungering for something different. And the kind of storytelling that we do here, and the worldview we have, people were just very hungry for. So it’s blossomed.”
Life, The Universe & Everything begins Thursday, February 11.
(2) IN LIVING B&W. At Galactic Journey, The Traveler just can’t turn off the tube the night that Twilight Zone is on. For one reason, this being 1961, if he misses one he won’t have another chance to see it until summer reruns begin.
It’s certainly not as if TV has gotten significantly better. Mr. Ed, My Sister Eileen, the umpteenth season of the Jack Benny Show, none of these are going to win any awards. On the other hand, The Twilight Zone has already won an award (an Emmy last year), and I’m hoping that my continued watching and review of that show excuses my overindulgence in the others.
(3) INCREASED INTEREST. Fantasy Faction has advice for putting your loot to work “A Guide To Banking In Fantasyland”. (Beware mild spoilers.)
These are tough times, and everyone needs a little help with the big decisions. Not sure which bank to choose? Sure, the Charity and Social Justice Bank [1] has an impressive name, but those offers at Valint and Balk [2] are really tempting. Perhaps Gringotts’ [3] goblin efficiency has caught your eye, or the great interest rates at the Royal Bank of Ankh-Morpork? [4] Then again, the long standing stability of the Iron Bank of Braavos [5] is looking pretty good right now…
Hard decisions? Never fear! We are here with a handy guide to finding the RIGHT bank for YOU!
(4) DEL TORO TWEETS. Guillermo del Toro had this to say —
Book: Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison. More than an anthology- an inventory of the best science fiction minds of the 20th century
— Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) February 7, 2016
(5) TRANSTEMPORAL PIZZA PARADOX. A NASA scientist questioned the scientific veracity of a situation John Scalzi’s Redshirts. It seems John forgot to science the shit out of the pizza.
As you can see from the above embedded tweet and picture, a reader (who also appears to be a NASA scientist) asked me a question about the atoms in the pizza eaten in Redshirts, consumed by the heroes of the story, who had also traveled back in time.
Why would this matter? Because as a plot point in the book, time travelers had about six days to get back to their own time before they began to disintegrate — the atoms of their bodies from the future also existed in the past they’re visiting, and the atoms (eventually) can’t be two places at the same time and would choose to “exist” in the positions where they were in the current frame of reference.
Which is fine as long as you don’t mix atom eras. But when the characters ate pizza, they were commingling atoms from the book’s 2012 with their own atoms several centuries later — and what happens to those atoms from the pizza when the characters return to their own time? Because the atoms gained from the pizza would simultaneously be present elsewhere, and, as already noted, the atoms default to where they were supposed to be in their then-current frame of reference. Right?
As you can see from the tweet above I avoided the answer by giving a completely bullshit response (and then bragging about it). I’m delighted to say I was immediately called on it by another NASA scientist, and I responded appropriately, i.e., by running away. I’m the Brave Sir Robin of science, I am.
(6) TEE IT UP. At the B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy blog – “That Time the NFL Paid Jack Kirby to Design an Intergalactic Super Bowl”.
At the height of his power in the 1970s, Kirby was commissioned for a feature in the October 21, 1973 issue of Pro! Magazine, the official publication of the National Football League. At the time, Kirby had switched to DC comics from Marvel, and presumably had a little spare time to pick up extra commissions. Hyperbolically titled “Out of Mind’s Reach,” Kirby’s collection of art depicted a future pro football match and debuted bizarre new costume designs for four different teams.
(7) TODAY IN HISTORY
- February 7, 1940 — Walt Disney’s movie Pinocchio debuted.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOYS
- Born February 7, 1812 – Charles Dickens
- Born February 7, 1908 – Buster Crabbe, who played Flash Gordon in serials.
(9) HARASSING PHOTOGRAPHER. Lauren Faits, who writes Geek Girl Chicago, broke a years-long silence in “Zero tolerance: Naming my cosplay harasser”.
I want to publicly thank C2E2, Chicago’s premiere comic convention, for action they took this afternoon. I was not going to attend their Mardi Gras event tonight due their affiliation with a traumatic figure from my past. Now, I enthusiastically will, and encourage everyone else to support C2E2 as well.
I am going to share my story before anyone else does.
Thirteen years ago, I was under 18- a minor. I was attending an anime convention in the Chicago area. A group of cosplayers, including myself, headed up to a hotel room to change out of our costumes. We were followed. While we were undressing, a photographer began slamming into our room’s locked door in an attempt to break in. The room had one of those sliding locks, which broke open under the force. The photographer rushed in with a camera, attempting to get nude photos and/or video of underage cosplayers.
This photographer’s name was Ron “Soulcrash” Ladao….
C2E2 is the first organization thus far to take me seriously. They are no longer professionally affiliated with my harasser, and thanked me for helping provide a safe environment for all. I encourage everyone to attend their party tonight, the convention, and other affiated events.
A lesson for everyone: If someone is making you or a loved one uncomfortable, don’t ignore it. It is easy to brush off someone’s disconcerting actions as “just their sense of humor,” but acts like these are no joke. We should not be laughing at predators. In fact, several people told me I should “talk” to Ron, to see if he’d apologize. Absolutely not. If someone broke into your home, or mugged you on the street, would you follow them later to seek an apology? No. We should believe and support one another, and let our actions show zero tolerance for harassment. We don’t owe harassers anything.
(10) NOT SORRY. Stephanie S. at The Right Geek justifies last year’s actions in an extensive post, “Dear SJW’s: We Sad Puppies CAN’T Repent”.
Lastly – and most importantly – there is no such thing as a “natural vote.” This is probably one of the biggest misconceptions that under-girds our opposition’s argument: the idea that, before we philistines got involved, the Hugos highlighted works that were genuinely the best in the field — which were selected by a group of high-minded, pure, and totally impartial fans. Ha. Ha ha. And again: ha. Do you know how many works of science fiction are published in a typical year? Many thousands. There is no one on God’s green earth who is capable of reading them all. In reality, modern fandom (like any other large group of human beings) has always had its aristoi — in this case, a small group of influential bloggers, reviewers, publishers, and magazine editors that routinely has an outsized impact, intentional or not, on what gets the hype and what doesn’t. The only thing that’s changed here is that some “politically objectionable” people have proven themselves to be a part of that aristoi and have decided not to play pretend. My suggestion? Make peace with the fact that factions will forever be with us. Man is inherently a political animal. Instead of denying this state of affairs, try to manage its effects by increasing overall participation on both ends of the Hugo process.
(11) TITANIC DISCOVERY. Futurism reports “The Mystery of Pluto’s ‘Floating Hills’ Solved : They’re Icebergs!”
NASA’s New Horizons mission keeps astonishing us with new images and new revelations about the mysterious, demoted dwarf planet, Pluto.
The most recent discovery is this little gem: Pluto has hills and small mountains that literally float across its surface. It’s weird and unearthly, but we’re dealing, after all, with a very alien world on the outskirts of the Solar System.
And things are bound to get even weirder.
The newly discovered hills are mostly small, typically a few kilometers across, and were discovered in the immense frozen ocean of the so-called “Sputnik Planum,” which represents the western lobe of the famous heart-shaped Tombaugh Regio, the most prominent feature on Pluto
It seems these hills are composed of familiar water ice (so they really are icebergs, just like their terrestrial counterparts); since water ice is less dense than nitrogen ice, these hills are literally bobbing in a vast glacier or frozen ocean of nitrogen.
(12) SUPER BOWL ADS. Here is the Independence Day Resurgence trailer that aired during the Super Bowl.
And the X-Men Apocalypse trailer, too —
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]
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RedWombat
Years ago I came round, from what was supposed to be a minor procedure, being punched by the anaesthetist whilst she shouted Breathe, damn you, breathe, to which I replied I’m trying, damn you, I’m trying.
After that I got a telling off for giving the theatre staff a nasty scare; by that point I realised that there was no point in pointing out that they’d given me a nasty scare as well. And that sentence definitely looks like me channelling the very drunken Deanna Troi, so I will say goodnight…
Someday my PIN will come…..
Send out the PINs
There have to be PINs….
Don’t bother. it’s here.
ETA. But I won’t work!
ULTRAGOTHA
You forgot the magic word. Without that it’s just a statement and not a directive.
I want someone to bring all your snow over here and spread it across the terrain. I also want the weather fixed so the snow doesn’t melt right away.
(And I know, wishes like that are a classic rookie mistake. If this was a fantasy story I would wake tomorrow in an ice age or something like it. http://www.tor.com/2014/09/10/as-good-as-new-charlie-jane-anders/)
Was thinking about “defaults” in writing when I ran across this (Neil Gaiman responding to a question/comment about Anansi Boys):
http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/138932552931/is-there-a-reason-you-dont-often-describe-race-in
@ Johan P:
No, no, no–“It didn’t even start with ‘I wish’!”
Don’t mean to pile on, Dann, but:
It’s a vision statement. People aren’t allowed to have differing grand visions of the future of sf anymore? We cannot live on nutty nuggets alone.
Nowhere does she say it is. She merely talks about it in relation to Western culture.
someone questioned the puppies inability to respond to things logically, wondering how it is they are blind to the wackadoodle being spewed.
It’s very simple:
THEY are RIGHT. (about whatever they choose to be right about). Facts are unimportant to the overall message that THEY are RIGHT. It’s messianic. The ends justify the means. The heretics must be expunged – and it’s perfectly fine to balance a woman and a duck to see whether or not she is a witch, because wood and tiny rocks float too –
She’s a witch! Burn her! Burn Her! After all, she did turn me into a newt, though I got better.
In other news, experiments continue to determine the true air speed velocity of an unladen sparrow…..
(The answer is “because ‘e hasn’t got shit all over ‘im” or “blue”, depending upon whether or not the bridge keeper is present)
Interesting point; it hadn’t occurred to me, but once it’s pointed out …
I hope Maia is more successful with it than Elizabeth was.
Also, glad to hear that your life is improving, and that fandom has helped in that. I hope to see you here more often.
(Sorry that this response is so late; blame those time zone thingies)
I’m not sure if **chuckle** or **sigh** are more appropriate at this point. I did apologize up front for jumping in.
I understand how y’all are reading what she wrote. It is a charitable reading at its finest.
Regards,
Dann
@DriveByFruiting, I’m very fortunate to be able to use the word “bitter” ironically. I’m so very sorry that you don’t have that privilege and hope your road continues to get easier. I’m so glad that fandom provides a haven for you.
Maia’s paid a bit more attention to the succession issue that Lizzie ever did.
I understand how y’all are reading what she wrote. It is a charitable reading at its finest.
I’m not sure I would describe “reading what she actually wrote” as a “charitable reading”. More like “actual reading”. You added an editorial spin onto what she wrote – an editorial spin that isn’t based upon anything that was actually in her essay. And then you wonder why no one agrees with you other than yipping Pups.
The thing about manifestos is, they tend toward the imperative. This is not new. (Viz. “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste,” Ezra Pound.) And they can be annoying if you’re not wholly invested in the program. (Viz. “A Few Don’ts by an Imagiste,” Ezra Pound.) But this is not new either. Literary movements are messy, contentious things.
@Aaron
Ah yes. Turning to insults obviously proves the validity of your perspective.
Sorry. What she wrote is pretty plain. A charitable reading is that she would really like it if authors would include non-binary gender in their writing. There are ways of presenting that as a positive message of encouragement. And there ways of presenting that as a demand. She elected the latter, sadly.
Regards,
Dann
@Jim,
Crap….just missed your response. I agree.
Regards,
Dann
Sorry. What she wrote is pretty plain.
And yet somehow you read things into what she wrote that simply aren’t there. Sticking out your bottom lip and playing tough isn’t going to change the fact that you wildly misread what she actually wrote and made up a completely different version and pretended she wrote that instead. You can’t bull through this with bluster and bravado. You made some thing up. Numerous people have called you on it. At this point, you’re just digging your hole deeper and making it clear that your opinions aren’t grounded in reality.
@ dann665
Cat wrote:
dann
You are forgiven. You still have to make a case, however.
So she did. More power to her. She is not dictating anything, first because what she is saying is that she thinks that binary gender should be a considered decision rather than unthinking reflex (that’s what “default” means), and second because she has no power to dictate even this much.
dann
Actually, it is–because it was. Go her!
As others have ably pointed out, nowhere did she say binary gender “uniquely” Western, so we’ll just drop that part; this gets long as it is.
dann
And I’m sure that McFarlane would tell you that male and female gender representations in SFF don’t bother her–as long as they are well written and meaningful to the story.
Making McFarlane just as tolerant as the best among the Puppies. No high bar to reach, of course, but still.
So again, how does McFarlane–at least as tolerant of your beloved binary representations as you are of her non-binary ones–hurt those proverbially tender Puppy feelings?
dann665: What she wrote is pretty plain.
Yes, it is.
dann665: A charitable reading is that she would really like it if authors would include non-binary gender in their writing.
No, that’s an actual reading of what she wrote. What you are claiming she said is an uncharitable reading of her text.
dann665: There are ways of presenting that as a positive message of encouragement. And there ways of presenting that as a demand. She elected the latter, sadly.
She elected neither. This is her talking about what she wants. It is neither phrased as encouragement or demand — and it does not need to be. It is phrased as what she wants to see.
What you are really trying to do is dictate what is and is not an acceptable way for her to express her opinion. And to that, I can only say, “Seriously?”
So very much this.
I am also side-eyeing this here very, very hard:
Because goodness knows an author should not choose to protag with anything other than Default Human unless that choice is meaningful to the story.
Heaven forfend ADF gets her way and more authors begin treating binary gender the way you insist non-traditional gender representations be treated–as a deliberate choice the author makes, rather than a default the author falls back on.
Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little: Here might be a place to make an analogy to Chekov’s gun. Unless an author engages a character’s gender as a story element in some way, what is it than just a tag, like finding out Dumbledore is gay?
Consider, as a parallel, the criticism levied on Heinlein himself that it was of little significance some of his protagonists were nonwhite, because their points of view were indistinguishable from the majority culture of the 1950s-1960s.
I’m fond of the saying that science fiction is never about the future, it is always about the present (as a general, not absolute statement) — which applies here in that a minority will encounter cultural friction in whatever way they don’t correspond to the majority. It always reads a little strangely, if an sf story is set in a homogenous future, when distinguishing gender, racial and other social labels are treated as having no weight.
@Mark
That is excellent to know! I finished the first “Half a…” book and dug it, but haven’t gotten around to the rest, yet. First Law seems to be a love it or hate it thing. A friend recommended it to me because I’d just started reading the Black Company books and was in love with them. The friend in question didn’t hold that series in much regard, and suggested I check out Abercrombie for a better take. It didn’t change my opinion of the Black Company series, but I seriously loved the trilogy and the stand-alones in the same world.
Which reminds me, I’m about to start on “A Succession of Bad Days,” after having loved (and been reminded of The Black Company by) “The March North.” Well, I’m about to once I finish “The Fifth Elephant,” which I just started.
It reads a lot more strangely if there aren’t any non-white, non-straight, etc. characters at all. Did they all disappear between now and then? If the story’s set in a milieu where those sorts of people never lived (generation ship or space colony sponsored by straight white hetero Christians, f’rex), okay. Otherwise, it’s weird verging on creepy; you wonder if there was a pogrom or ethnic cleansing.
Anyway, that philosophical question has no bearing upon what was literally said.
ADM personally wants stories to carefully consider if every character had to be one of the binary genders, instead of defaulting to that. Also, zie can say whatever the hell they want, however they want to — it’s still a nominally free country, and neither the government nor his/her fellow citizen gets to tell zir how to phrase their heart’s dearest wish.
ADM wishes for an end to lazy default writing. I want an Italian sports car. I have a slightly better chance of achieving that in my lifetime (I might win a contest or the lotto), but Alex’s is the more noble wish.
@Kathodus
+1 for The Black Company. I’ve yet to try The March North, but I keep on hearing good things.
@Dann: To be clear, I’m saying, “Don’t sweat it.” Manifestos are just going to tend to sound demanding. In the end, we can comply or not.
@Mike Glyer: And then you have things like the TV show “The Expanse” and the excited reactions to it. “There’s a prominent white man married to a black man and no one cares!”
Does it affect the characters? Not really; the same dynamic could have played out with a het couple. It’s just a tag. Does it affect the audience? Oh, yeah.
I love the Demon Cycle by Peter Brett, but I think I missed where there were “clear, non-traditional gender representations:”. I mean there’s the girl that likes using a bow and wearing armor instead of dresses, but… that’s about it.
@dann665, I generally refrain from piling on, but if you understand that the rhetorical devices of manifestos lead to imperatives, then I’m unclear as to why you would want her to couch her manifesto as a positive note of encouragement. That bends my brain in some unpleasant ways.
In addition, you’re clearly wrong about at least half your initial statement. So, there’s that. 🙂
Mike Glyer: Here might be a place to make an analogy to Chekov’s gun. Unless an author engages a character’s gender as a story element in some way, what is it than just a tag, like finding out Dumbledore is gay.
I don’t think that is an apt analogy. A gun on the mantel is an object. It’s not part of the populace. Comparing the presence or absence of a gun in a world to the presence or absence of diverse human beings is kind of an appalling thing to do.
The human populace consists of people of varying races, and gender identities, and sexual orientations. A world or universe where everyone is white and straight pretty much defies belief. In fact, it is so odd as to, as lurkertype says, make one wonder if there was a pogrom or ethnic cleansing.
I would go so far as to say that the human population in a book should not be homogenous (all white and straight, or all black and gay, or all Asian and female), unless it being that way is germane to the history of that world/universe; frex, there was some sort of isolation or elimination of races or genders or sexual orientations.
I’d buy into spaceships and FTL travel and galactic colonizations and even aliens, before I’d buy into a world where everyone is white and heterosexual. I’d either be figuring that the book was an alt-history where Hitler conquered the rest of the nations on Earth, or that the author was extremely poor at world-building.
And straight white people have those characteristics mentioned in books all the time, for no real reason other than realistic worldbuilding, such as: “The captain was so attractive, he had to keep reminding himself that she was his superior to keep his thoughts from straying.”
@Mark
As a great fan of the Black Company books I can say that I really like The March North. It did remind me quite a bit of the first three Black Company books while being very much it’s own story.
Basically, what I’m side-eyeing here is the tendency to treat a character’s gayness or gender-fluidity or non-Caucasian ethnicity or femalness (or any combination of the above, and more) as a species of Chekhov’s Gun while whiteness and cis-bodied maleness are treated as just the default.
Gay people, trans people, gender fluid people – they aren’t guns on the mantelpiece whose existence must be justified by the expectation that the author fire them in Act III. They exist for the same reason binary-gendered straight white people exist, which is to say, no reason at all. We’re all born, we live, we die. We’re all potential characters in stories. There shouldn’t be a higher standard of “plot-relevance” for including gay people in fiction than there is for including straight people, for binary-gendered people than for non-binary, for PoC than for white, for men than for women.
@Nicole J. LeBoef-Little
This. I’ve yet to see a good reason why SWM should be the default other than “it’s tradition”. 25-28% of the US is non-white & 50% is women. Why does there need to be a special reason for a character to be anything but SWM? Why should a character be SWM? Authors are supposed to think about what they are writing and why. When creating characters that should mean you ask yourself why am I choosing this race or gender or abelness?
On gender and defaults, my read of ADM’s “imperative” is pretty basic. It looked to me like all she was really asking of authors is that, when crafting a story, they stop asking this question:
in favor of this one:
The first question prevents you from even considering a whole range of options that the second question encourages you to explore. You can still get “cis male” and “cis female” out of either question, just as it’s possible to answer “something else” to the first, but in terms of probable outcomes, I think the second will give more diverse results. One can get a full view of the countryside even while wearing blinders, but they make it a lot harder. Why handicap yourself?
Breaking out of the either-or mindset has other rewards, too. Sex and gender play big roles in our personalities; shaking those up should naturally lead to more nuanced characters right from the start.
I’ve been talking to an author lately about a new character – an attractive woman who has an intersex condition. Right away, that detail leads to a host of questions that flesh her out. Growing up “abnormal” in any way leaves marks; how did this affect her? She escaped the “fix the infant with surgery” trap – how, what does that say about her parents, and how did it affect their approach to raising her? Which specific condition is it, and how does that physiological situation affect her psychologically? That will affect what happened when she hit puberty, too, which has repercussions for her body type.
Regardless of how the author answers those questions, let alone how many of them make it to the page, that character already has layers that aren’t required of a stock gender-binary character.
All of which is to say that the “non-binary gender” aspect may not be what’s important about the character. It may not even surface in the story. Maybe she’s there because of her connection to the mysterious cult that the murder victim joined a few years ago – one which, she reveals, considers any kind of surgery, regardless of the reason, sinful. That wistful look in her eyes, her square chin, and her lower-than-expected voice may be the only clues we get about the “abomination” under her dress…
Cat said: “As I said, nobody ever claimed Hugo voters were totally impartial or pure. That said, when it comes to Puppy taste, I’ve got four words for you, Pup. Wisdom. From. My. Internet.”
I’ll see your “Wisdom From My Internet” and raise you “The Day the World Turned Upside Down.” Or perhaps Redshirts, which was so humdrum it should appear next to “humdrum” in the dictionary. In this scroll we have Scalzi defending some business about time travel that I can’t remember happening in the book, because I can’t remember -anything- from the book.
Alex McFarlan didn’t want to discuss binary gender or alternatives, she said in the first line of her post: “I want an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories.” And you know it. So spare me your outrage. Somebody wants non-binary characters, it’s fine. Somebody wants to tell me I’m not allowed to have binary characters, THAT’S NOT FINE. Get it?
And in case you wonder what that might look like out in the wild Cat, here’s an example that just came over the transom today. Author getting de-listed by Harper Collins for a political issue raised in passing in a book.
http://www.nickcolebooks.com/2016/02/09/banned-by-the-publisher/
I don’t know Nick Cole. I have never read anything Nick Cole has written, so far. I would go so far as to say his post-apocalypse stories are not to my taste, generally speaking. I will even go farther and say the idea he had for his book as described in the post seems a bit weak to me. Insufficient to base an entire robot revolt/AI apocalypse on, IMO.
However IF it is true that he has indeed been treated as he says in his post, then I will be buying all his future output at Amazon and boycotting Harper Collins. That won’t be a big effort, I generally don’t buy books from that publisher anyway, because they generally don’t publish the kind of thing I like to read.
This is a single example of a genre-wide problem. Which is why I spent money to vote on the Hugos. This shall not stand.
Hi Cat,
Well I disagree. No real suprise there.
IMHO, she started an otherwise interesting piece with a “my way or the highway” approach. As Jim suggests, those kinds of polemics tend to run that way. (Perhaps his advice about leaving it alone is wise.) I’ve written a few myself over the years. It’s a hard tone to avoid.
However…
Binary representations are not particularly “beloved” on this end of the wire. At least not by me. It takes a fair amount of effort to cross my personal “squick” line. Frequently, there will be much larger problems with the work before it becomes a factor. Sense8 comes to mind.
However the perpetual “special snowflake” treatment does wear a bit.
@alexvdl
Hrm…. So the two decidely gay warriors didn’t register? One of them was so unaroused by women that they had to have a three way just so he could fulfill his cultural duty of siring a son with his wife. Not to get too spoilery, but there is a fair degree of political intrigue and arranged marriage that impacts the story in unusual way.
@JJ
I agree. Yet there are times when a character’s sexuality really is treated as a version of Chekov’s gun. Good writing can include a diverse range of characters. Poor writing will generally present diversity like rhetorical bumper stickers; they don’t make the car (book) go any faster (read better), but they signal something about the driver (author).
Regards,
Dann
I see that Dan655 has taken up the torch. Go Dan!
But here’s something that I have a problem with in the comments answering Dan.
Why is it Just Fine for Alex McFarlan to say: “I want an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories.”? Y’all are bending over backwards to say this is perfectly acceptable behavior.
Why is it Not Fine for me to have a problem with that demand? Why is it racist/bigot/homophobe to say “Are you talking to me? Are you telling -me- how I’m supposed to write?”
Because if somebody said ““I want an end to the default of socialist rhetoric in science fiction stories” I’m sure there would be almighty howls of outrage from the 770 commentariat. “How dare you!” would no doubt be the least of it.
@Dann: Hrm…. So the two decidely gay warriors didn’t register?
Haven’t read the book, but I don’t think I’d call that a non-traditional gender role. For one thing, sexual orientation is not the same thing as gender roles, so you’re comparing apples and oranges. For another, what with Alexander the Great, Achilles and Patroclus, and all the armies of ancient Greece, that seems pretty darned traditional to me, at least as far as Western civilization goes.
When I read that post about default binary gender, I thought the opening line was meant to be a bit of hyperbole to stir up discussion/controversy, somewhat like the other infamous evil SJW who decided not to read anything by white males for a year.
I don’t see how any fan of VD’s could be angry with such mild use of hyperbole, though. Neither of those examples come close to VD’s remarks about NK Jemisin, women’s suffrage, antisemitism, or a host of other topics. I thought taking offense at harmless words was what SJWs did.
@Phantom
I think there’d be a lot more “huh, what default of socialist rhetoric in science fiction stories?” than howls of outrage.
ETA: If Alex McFarlan had said “I want an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories, so let’s create a slate of only works with non-binary gender roles and make sure those works win Hugos,” that’d be get some howls of outrage.
ETA(2): And then when the slate consisted of a few works with non-binary gender roles and a whole lot of manly men doing manly things in space with sexy ladies draped over their arms, all written by McFarlan’s friends, a lot of people would conclude the issue wasn’t with non-binary gender roles, but just getting awards for McFarlan’s friends.
Why is it Not Fine for me to have a problem with that demand?
The primary problem is that it isn’t a demand. It really makes people question your ability to comprehend what you are reading and report on it honestly when you keep insisting that it is.
I’ll see your “Wisdom From My Internet” and raise you “The Day the World Turned Upside Down.” Or perhaps Redshirts, which was so humdrum it should appear next to “humdrum” in the dictionary.
If you insist, but everyone will laugh at you for it. Both Redshirts or The Day the World Turned Upside Down were competently written, even if they were not to your taste. Wisdom from My Internet, on the other hand, was incompetent crap that barely qualified as writing. It was also laced through with nice piles of racism.
So if that’s the hill you want to die on, be prepared for people to never take your opinion seriously again.
kathodus on February 10, 2016 at 1:54 pm said: “I think there’d be a lot more “huh, what default of socialist rhetoric in science fiction stories?” than howls of outrage.”
It is said that fish do not notice the water they swim in either.
Aaron on February 10, 2016 at 1:54 pm said: “The primary problem is that it isn’t a demand.”
And yet Aaron, we have the Orson Scott Card affair and now as I mentioned the brand new Nick Cole affair. I think her post was quite clearly a demand, and backed up by some muscle in the industry as well. Look how hard you are defending it, and lambasting me for the sin of objecting.
Have you even read her post? I recommend it. Here it is: http://www.tor.com/2014/01/21/post-binary-gender-in-sf-introduction/
Aaron on February 10, 2016 at 1:59 pm said: “Both Redshirts or The Day the World Turned Upside Down were competently written, even if they were not to your taste.”
You know Aaron, “competently written” is a very long way indeed from “The Hugo Awards are a set of awards given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year.” (I also think that competent is a stretch for ‘The Day etc.’)
I think it’s plain enough that ‘Redshirts’ and ‘The Day the World Turned Upside Down’ were both a very long way from “the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year” as well. Such a long way as to make Cat’s claims of Quality!!!! a sick joke.
@Kathodus:
@Phantom
You are far more eloquent than I am. My response to that was “whuh?”
(And I thought Redshirts was very clever. I enjoyed it a lot, especially when it went down the meta-rabbit hole.)
@The Phantom
I dunno, I’ve definitely read books that, if not containing socialist rhetoric, were written from a socialist-friendly viewpoint. I’ve also read books that were the opposite, and books where the politics, if any, were buried deeply enough so as to be unnoticeable. Given your extremely politicized view of everything (from what I’ve seen that you’ve written), you may want to apply that quote to yourself, as well. You may be noticing message fiction when it’s a message you disagree with, but think of other stories as simply nutty nuggets because the messages they contain are more to your liking.
And I’m having a hard time figuring out how McFarlan’s desire for an end to default binary genders has anything to do with overly sensitive or controversy-shy publishers. Unless McFarlan is a higher up at Harper Collins?
And yet Aaron, we have the Orson Scott Card affair and now as I mentioned the brand new Nick Cole affair.
You mean two entirely unrelated things that she had no part in? Given that you’re a conspiracy theorist whose musings have no relationship to reality, I can see how you’d think that but the rest of the world will rightly think you’re a clueless fool for doing so.
In any event, isn’t the “Card affair” simply the market speaking? Isn’t that something you bold and brave types are supposed to be in favor of? Isn’t the “Nick Cole” affair simply a publisher refusing to publish a book because they thought it would damage their sales? Isn’t that simply the market at work again?
I think her post was quite clearly a demand,
No, it wasn’t, no matter how much you try to pretend it was. Your continued insistence that it was just makes you look stupider and stupider.
I think the big problem here is that there are people in this conversation who don’t understand the meaning of “want” or “default.”
I would explain “default,” at least, but I think at this point there’s so much invested in ignoring its meaning that it would not accomplish anything.
But I will say that there’s a big difference between wanting an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories and wanting an end to binary gender in science fiction stories.
Words mean things. They’re not just frosting.
Well. Not usually.
As demanded, I’ve been to read the Alex Dally MacFarlane column again.
Does she demand that everyone reads the books she mentions? No, she says:
Does she demand people join her conversation? No:
Does she demand that people read only what she approves of? No:
Basically, if you read past the first sentence you get an opinion piece, not a demand.
@Kurt Busiek
Whoa, is that what’s being claimed? That wooshed right over my head.
Kathodus:
“Somebody wants to tell me I’m not allowed to have binary characters, THAT’S NOT FINE.”
Yes.
@The Phantom:
If this is true, then I, a pro-choice SJW living in Soviet Canuckistan, disagree with Harper Collins. I am admittedly not knowledgeable about contracts, especially as they relate to publishing something that the company believes will alienate their consumer base and damage their brand.
In my imaginary world of faeries and unicorns, an editor would address their concerns to the author about the plot point, and ask for their rationale. In this case I wonder if it read as blatant pro-life “message fiction”. We know how terrible message fiction is, right? But my imaginary unicorn editor wouldn’t say “remove it or else”.
I am curious if there are any other sources of information on this other than the author (who Godwins himself in the blog post of the account, I note).
@Kurt Busiek:
Damn right! I don’t see the problem with asking the open-ended question “what gender is this character?” when doing your world-building. Especially if alien societies are involved. I’ve come across an awful lot of cis- and hetero-sexual non-humans who have monogamous relationships and traditional marriages in my readings. That makes the galaxy awfully boring.
(Then again, I speak as someone who asked “what gender am I?” when growing up. Turns out I’m okay going with the one they told me I am, but that’s partially because I never knew “neither” was an option.)