Pixel Scroll 4/10/18 The Third Little Pixel Had Scrolled Beef

(1) TOLKIEN’S GONDOLIN. Tor.com carries the official word: “J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Gondolin to Be Published as a Standalone for the First Time”. It will be published August 30.

HarperCollins UK announced today that it would publish The Fall of Gondolin, J.R.R. Tolkien’s tale documenting the rise of a great but hidden Elven kingdom and its terrible fall, for the first time as a standalone edition. Edited by Christopher Tolkien using the same “history in sequence” mode that he did for 2017’s standalone edition of Beren and Lúthien, and illustrated by Alan Lee, this edition will collect multiple versions of the story together for the first time.

Tolkien has called this story, which he first began writing in 1917, “the first real story of this imaginary world”; i.e., it was one of the first tales to be put to paper. The only complete version of The Fall of Gondolin was published posthumously in The Book of Lost Tales; however, different compressed versions appeared in both The Silmarillion and the collection Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth.

(2) POTTER ANNIVERSARY COVERS. Gwynne Watkins, in the Yahoo! Entertainment story “Accio ‘Harry Potter’ covers: See the dazzling new 20th anniversary artwork”, says the Harry Potter books are coming out with new covers by Brian Selznick, author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret (which was the basis for the movie Hugo). See all the covers at the link.

Do your well-worn Harry Potter books need a new look for spring? In honor of the 20th anniversary of  the U.S. publication of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Scholastic is releasing new paperback editions of J.K. Rowling‘s entire series, featuring gorgeous cover art by Brian Selznick. When the seven books are placed side by side, the intricate black-and-white illustrations form a single piece of art chronicling Harry’s adventures. Scroll down to see the covers, which are full of tiny details for readers to discover. (Can you spot the Hogwarts Express? How about Harry’s Patronus?)

(3) ABOUT THE SIMPSONS’ APU. The Simpsons creators can’t figure out how something people laughed at in the past became “politically incorrect.” (And isn’t that term always a signal flare preceding a complete lack of empathy…) Entertainment Weekly’s Dana Schwartz discusses “Why The Simpsons’ response to the Apu controversy was so heartbreaking: Essay”.

…In 2017, comedian Hari Kondabolu wrote and starred in a documentary called The Problem with Apu in which he examined the cultural significance of The Simpsons character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the Kwik-E-Mart owner, who speaks with a heavy, stereotypical Indian accent and is voiced by Hank Azaria, a white man.

Last night, The Simpsons offered its tepid reply.

The scene began with Marge reading a bedtime story to Lisa that had been neutered with social justice buzzwords. “What am I supposed to do?” Marge asks when Lisa complains.

“It’s hard to say,” says Lisa, breaking the fourth wall and looking directly at the camera. A photo of Apu on the nightstand helped make it very clear they were no longer talking about the fictional bedtime story. “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?”

“Some things will be dealt with at a later date,” says Marge, also to the camera.

“—If it all,” Lisa concludes.

There’s something about the response that came across as not only tasteless but viscerally unsatisfying. In his documentary, Kondabolu initiated the complex conversation about what it meant to have a white actor voicing an Indian character (with a heavy, caricatured accent) during a time when there was little or no Indian representation in the media.

The Simpsons on-air response reveals that the minds behind the long-running animated series either entirely failed to grasp Kondabolu’s point or (perhaps, unfortunately, more likely) they were completely indifferent to it.

(4) VAST GALLERY OF SFF ART. Enjoy TheVaultofRetroSciFi — Lots and lots of SF images, from all sorts of media.

(5) PARANORMAL ROMANCE. Mad Genius Club’s Amanda S. Green explains why it’s hard to “Know Your Genre – Paranormal Romance”. She disagrees with the definitions posted on some of the leading sites.

…So why the confusion about what a PNR is when checking the RITA nominees?

Simply put, that confusion rests solely with RWA. A quick check of their website shows this definition for paranormal romance: “Romance novels in which fantasy worlds or paranormal or science fiction elements are an integral part of the plot.” See, there it is. Science fiction elements.

This definition might have worked several years ago, before there was an increase in the number of science fiction romance titles. Now, it only confuses the issue and muddies the waters when it comes to readers and booksellers. “Paranormal” doesn’t send most readers into the realm of sf, no way and no how. Yet, for RWA’s purposes, science fiction romance mixes and melds with PNR.

Is this the only definition? Far from it. One site defines PNR this way, “For a novel to be a Paranormal Romance, a simple thing must occur: love must begin between a human and a supernatural being (whether wholly supernatural or partially, just as long as there are supernatural elements present)”

Another site has this to say: “Most people hear the words ‘Paranormal Romance’ and visions of sparkly vamps and bare-chested wares seeking virginal human mates spring like crack-addicted leprechauns from the recesses of their minds. While these have certainly been the topic of many a novel **cough** Twilight **cough**, there are so many more topics joining the ranks of Paranormal Romance today.  Among them: Shapeshifters—half-human, half-animal beings with the ability to transmute between forms on cue, Angels, Demons, Nephilim, Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Ancient Greek mythology, and even the occasional Ghost or Alien thrown in for good measure. And I would be amiss in not mentioning the perennial time-traveling, kilt-wearing highlander with the rippling biceps and the heart of gold. His broadsword isn’t the only steely thing about him, if you know what I mean.” Where I have a dispute with the site and its definitions is when it say UF is a sub-genre of PNR. Nope, totally different.

(6) THE WASTELAND. The trailer for Future World has dropped:

In a post-apocalyptic world, where water and gasoline have long since dried-up, a prince from the oasis (one of the last known safe-havens) must venture out to find medicine for the ailing queen (Lucy Liu), but along the way he gets mixed up with the warlord (James Franco) and his robot Ash (Suki Waterhouse), which leads to a daring journey through the desolate wastelands.

 

(7) FOUNDATIONAL TELEVISION. From Deadline: “Apple Lands Isaac Asimov ‘Foundation’ TV Series From David Goyer & Josh Friedman”.

In a competitive situation, Apple has nabbed a TV series adaptation of Foundation, the seminal Isaac Asimov science fiction novel trilogy. The project, from Skydance Television, has been put in development for straight-to-series consideration. Deadline revealed last June that Skydance had made a deal with the Asimov estate and that David S. Goyer and Josh Friedman were cracking the code on a sprawling series based on the books that informed Star Wars and many other sci-fi films and TV series. Goyer and Friedman will be executive producers and showrunners. Skydance’s David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross also will executive produce….

The project shows a different level of ambition for Apple’s worldwide video programming team led by Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg. In November, they set their first scripted series, a morning show drama executive produced by and starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon, with a two-season, straight-to-series order. Apple also has given straight-to-series orders to Amazing Stories, a re-imagining of the anthology from Steven Spielberg, a Ronald D. Moore space drama, a Damien Chazelle series, a comedy starring Kristin Wiig, world-building drama See from Steven Knight and Francis Lawrence, as well as an M. Night Shyamalan psychological thriller.

(8) TWO BUTLER FANS SEEK FUNDS TO ATTEND WORLDCON. Alex Jennings asks “Help Me and Amanda Emily Smith Get to Worldcon 76” via a YouCaring fundraiser. To date people have chipped in $285 of their $2,500 goal.

Last year, Amanda and I both submitted letters to be published in Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler. Octavia was a huge influence on both of us, and Amanda and I had met her separately before her death.

Both our letters were accepted for publication, and we were so pleased to be a part of such a wonderful project. This event was even more of a milestone for Amanda as this was her first professional sale in the science fiction field.

On April 2, the official announcement came down that Letters to Octavia has been chosen as a finalist for the Hugo Award in the category of Related Work! We literally jumped for joy. Honoring one of our greatest influences had lifted us up, as well!

The Hugo Awards are basically the Oscars of Science Fiction. Both Amanda and I have dreamed of attending Worldcon and the Hugo Awards all our lives, but we’ve never been able to before. Now that a book we are both in is a finalist, we feel we must get to Worldcon 76 in San Jose by any means necessary.

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • April 10, 1953 — Feature length, full color, 3-D movie premiered: House of Wax starring Vincent Price.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born April 10, 1953 – David Langford

(11) CANDLE TIME. Steven H Silver lights up Langford’s birthday cake at Black Gate with “Birthday Reviews: David Langford’s ‘Waiting for the Iron Age’”.

Langford may be best known as the holder of twenty-one Hugo Awards for Best Fan Writer, including an unprecedented nineteen year winning streak. During that time he also won six Hugo Awards for Best Fanzine for Ansible and a Best Short Story Hugo for “Different Kinds of Darkness.” In 2012, he won his 29th and most recent Hugo for Best Related Work for The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Third Edition, edited with John Clute, Peter Nicholls, and Graham Sleight. Langford has tied with Charles N. Brown for the most Hugo Awards won.

(12) SOCIETY PAGES. Liz Bourke, Sleeping With Monsters columnist and 2018 Hugo nominee, announced the good news earlier this month:

(13) READY FOR HIS CLOSEUP. Neil Gaiman will appear on The Big Bang Theory this month. He’s guested on various TV series over the years, sometimes as an animated character, but this will be live action.

It’s kind of pathetic there are people tweeting responses that they never heard of him. Who cares?

(14) THIS DOCTOR IS NOW IN. ScienceFiction.com reveals that “Peter Cushing’s ‘Doctor Who’ Is Now Canon (Sort Of)”.

One of the biggest tasks an anniversary special has is to balance fan service with a story that can stand on its own merits. Among the many ways ‘The Day of the Doctor’ accomplished this rare feat was to feature appearances by multiple incarnations of the Doctor. Though only three were really sharing the spotlight, every version of the beloved Time Lord made at least a brief appearance, mostly through the use of archival footage. On top of this, Steven Moffat even took the opportunity to introduce a new incarnation in the form of the War Doctor, unforgettably brought to life by John Hurt.

And now he’s done it again.

In the newly released novelization of the fiftieth anniversary special, Steven Moffat has slyly worked Peter Cushing’s version of the Doctor into the series’ continuity

(15) OUTWARD BOUND. A new find pushes the date back: “Finger bone points to early human exodus”.

New research suggests that modern humans were living in Saudi Arabia about 85,000 years ago.

A recently discovered finger bone believed to be Homo sapiens was dated using radio isotope techniques.

This adds to mounting evidence from Israel, China and Australia, of a widespread dispersal beyond Africa as early as 180,000 years ago.

Previously, it was theorised that Homo sapiens did not live continuously outside Africa until 60,000 years ago.

(16) MODEST TRIBUTE. The BBC says “Belgrade’s ‘tiny head’ Gagarin statue causes dismay”.

The bust of Yuri Gagarin was ordered by the city council last year, and was put up on a street that bears his name, the Blic news website reports.

But its appearance – a tiny bust on top of a tall plinth – has been met by a hugely negative reaction, the paper says.

“The only way you can see it clearly is to launch yourself into the sky,” the Noizz website says. “While this is somewhat symbolic,” adds writer Ivana Stojanov, “there’s certainly no common sense on show”.

(17) IT’S NOT DEAD, JIM. Nerd & Tie’s Trae Dorn tries to figure out what happened: “Cherry City Comic Con Confusingly Cancelled and then Uncancelled?”.

…Of course, as a Facebook video, it’s highly unlikely that anyone will really end up watching this. Which really does beg the question: if you uncancel a show no one knows was cancelled, did anything really happen at all? Because right now, most people have no idea.

Update 4/10, 12:00pm: In a strange series of events, Cherry City Comic Con has now been uncancelled. The announcement was made, again, with a Facebook video…

Of course, as a Facebook video, it’s highly unlikely that anyone will really end up watching this. Which really does beg the question: if you uncancel a show no one knows was cancelled, did anything really happen at all?

(18) QUICK FLASH. Charles Payseur turns his eye to “Quick Sips – Flash Fiction Online April 2018”.

Continuing the newer tradition of coming out with fairly thematically linked issues, Flash Fiction Online presents an April full of fools. Or maybe fooling. Also aliens. Yup, all three stories feature alien beings, and in most of them there’s also a vein of something…well, of someone pulling one over on someone else. Maybe it’s an actress tricking an alien monster to spare Earth, or a group of alien agents trying to set up first contact on the sly, or even the own paranoid post-drunken-weekend-in-Vegas thoughts of a man who might have just married an extraterrestrial. In any case, the stories are largely bright and fun, even when they brush against planet eating and possible invasion. So without further delay, to the reviews!

(19) ALL KNOWN BRITISH SFF. At THEN, Rob Hansen’s British fanhistory site, you can find scans of a 1937 British SF Bibliography. Once upon a time, the literary universe was a smaller place.

Edited by Douglas W. F. Mayer for the Science Fiction Association and dated August 1937, this was one of the earliest bibliographies to be produced by fandom and contains many titles that would be unfamiliar to a modern reader. A mimeographed publication, it was printed in purple-blue ink, had a soft card wraparound cover, and was stitch-bound. The particular copy scanned for this site includes its unknown previous owner’s checkmarks against many entries.

This is a list of books, only. However, it’s still an interesting coincidence that Mayer himself edited Amateur Science Stories #2, where Arthur C. Clarke’s first published story appeared in December 1937.

(20) JAWS. Or at least part of a jaw: “Ancient sea reptile was one of the largest animals ever”.

Sea reptiles the size of whales swam off the English coast while dinosaurs walked the land, according to a new fossil discovery.

The jaw bone, found on a Somerset beach, is giving clues to the ”last of the giants” that roamed the oceans 205 million years ago.

The one-metre-long bone came from the mouth of a huge predatory ichthyosaur.

The creature would have been one of the largest ever known, behind only blue whales and dinosaurs, say scientists.

(21) SUMMER MUNCH. The Meg is slated for release on August 10, 2018.

In the film, a deep-sea submersible—part of an international undersea observation program—has been attacked by a massive creature, previously thought to be extinct, and now lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest trench in the Pacific…with its crew trapped inside. With time running out, expert deep sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham) is recruited by a visionary Chinese oceanographer (Winston Chao), against the wishes of his daughter Suyin (Li Bingbing), to save the crew—and the ocean itself—from this unstoppable threat: a pre-historic 75-foot-long shark known as the Megalodon. What no one could have imagined is that, years before, Taylor had encountered this same terrifying creature. Now, teamed with Suyin, he must confront his fears and risk his own life to save everyone trapped below…bringing him face to face once more with the greatest and largest predator of all time.

 

(22) AND DON’T FORGET THESE SHARKES. The Shadow Clarke jury’s Nick Hubble picked six books on the submissions list to review, and tells why in this post.

My criteria for the selection of these six titles this year – none of which I have read – was not what I think might be in contention or even necessarily what I think I will personally rate. Instead, I have chosen a range of books that I hope will enable some sort of literary critical discussion of the field as a whole in 2018 (although clearly this remains an entirely subjective choice on my behalf). Therefore, I have tried to mix first-time authors with established novelists, sequels with standalone works, and genre and mainstream literary texts; but I have married this with a practical policy of also choosing books that took my fancy for whatever reason.

I was also trying to pick a set of choices similar to the that offered by this year’s shortlist for the BSFA Award for best novel: Nina Allan’s The Rift, Anne Charnock’s Dreams Before the Start of Time,? Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, and Ann Leckie’s Provenance?. I thought this was a good list because there were different types of novels, all of which I enjoyed (and because I have read them, I have excluded them from my Clarke selection below even though all have been submitted). Despite large differences in approach, these novels share a focus on family relationships that perhaps tells us something about the preoccupations of our age. It would be trite to argue that they simply demonstrate a retreat from political and ideological uncertainty to take refuge in the personal sphere but perhaps they suggest different ways in which politics and relationships are both being reconfigured in an age of digital communication. It will be interesting to see what patterns emerge from the wider Clarke submissions list.

(23) ABOUT KRESS. Joe Sherry is not fully satisfied with the book, but it’s close: “Microreview [book]: Tomorrow’s Kin, by Nancy Kress”, at Nerds of a Feather.

Once we move past the conclusion of Yesterday’s Kin, the focus remains on Dr. Marianne Jenner as well as pushing in tighter on that of her grandchildren. This is character driven science fiction. Kress explores the impact of Earth’s interaction with a spore cloud that was initially described as a world killer, but she does so through the lens of characters who have become as familiar as family. To a reader not steeped in the nuance and minutiae of science, the unpinning science of Tomorrow’s Kin comes across as fully rigorous as anything in a more traditional “hard” science fiction novel. Kress does not engage in interminable info dumping. I read Tomorrow’s Kin not long after finishing the latest Charles Stross novel, Dark State (my review). There is no real point of comparison between the two novels, except that I generally love the ideas that Stross plays with and wish he did a better job at actually telling the story. That generally isn’t the case with Nancy Kress. She is a far more accomplished writer and is far smoother with her storytelling. Kress’s ideas are just as big and just as bold, but they are strongly integrated into the story.

(24) CATS STAR ON SFF. Moshe Feder has discovered the true identify of Number One!

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, JJ, Mark Hepworth, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Carl Slaughter, Hampus Eckerman, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Ingvar.]

198 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 4/10/18 The Third Little Pixel Had Scrolled Beef

  1. Let’s not all volunteer at once! But if anyone does, I’d suggest working on different time ranges so as not to duplicate one another’s labor.

    There’s a pixel scrolled every centon.

  2. Dann: WRT to books and sensitivity, there seems to be very little sense of scale on this issue, IMHO. An author that writes something that has a minor feature that might be considered a bit insensitive in one or two areas is given the same response as someone that sprays every page with….just bad stuff.

    Citations required.

    I’m seeing exactly the opposite: as Lenora Rose has pointed out, people will issue caveats or content warnings for works which have “a minor feature that might be considered a bit insensitive in one or two areas”.

    When the whole work is based on an extremely problematic premise, as with this work of Walton’s, then yes, the response is much more vehement — which is as it should be.

  3. One further though on Poor Relations: It occurred to me that the easy reversible changes to biological form in the novel makes the characters no longer human as we know it, and thus have nothing to do with today’s gender-trans people, who have no intention of going back (as I understand it). However, the world of the novel still has psychopaths, which seem to be a universal commonality.
    More thought seems to be indicated.

  4. Jeff Jones: One further though on Poor Relations: It occurred to me that the easy reversible changes to biological form in the novel makes the characters no longer human as we know it

    Um, no. The characters are still human. And saying that the gender changes make them not human is a really, really problematic stance.

  5. I could be wrong, but the stance is not problematic–unless you view non-human as sub-human, which I don’t (even mosquitos are worthy of respect). And it’s certainly within the mandate of SF to explore such things.

  6. It’s problematic because you have just said that people who change their genders are no longer human. 🙄

    Try to put yourself in a transgender person’s shoes for a moment and imagine being told that you’re not human.

  7. Also note that the problem isn’t an SF novel which explores gender changing. It’s an SF novel which does so in a hurtful way.

  8. What if it means they’re more than human? Perhaps better than human? The ability to change sex and gender at will is a characteristic, not often voiced, of any sufficiently advanced shape-shifter. A person who is entirely human and also has a constrained form of that ability is not inhuman–but might be Inhuman–but is perhaps more than.

    (Not that it’s any fun being the “more than” people, as persecuted groups of that flavor can testify throughout the ages, but it doesn’t mean you aren’t human.)

    But that’s not quite what the novel posits, is it? Jo Walton says this is Varley-style gender changing: The technology is not problematic and the procedure is not burdensome and easily reversible. What I gather is not quite as in Varley’s books is people are financially coerced into an unwanted gender reassignment. It’s not “at will”.

    Or do I misunderstand this? I haven’t seen the book, either.

    ETA: But this description from tor.com sounds like a good story:

    Poor Relations tackles familiar themes of hierarchy and oppression in a science fiction setting, depicting a world in which one’s biological sex can be easily reversed, but in which that flexibility has come to be used as a tool to make people more unequal rather than less.

  9. @Jeff Jones & John A. Arkansawyer–

    I think what you’re missing is that at this time trans people are struggling just to be treated as human. Defining being trans as not human, even with a coy qualification of “more than” human, is threatening. This book unchanged might have been very differently received when Varley was writing his books with easy sex change, and might in another ten or twenty years–or it might need significant reworking.

    This is just a very vulnerable time for trans folk, who are visible in a way they weren’t in Varley’s heyday, and it seems Jo has concluded from reactions from people who have seen part or all of the book that, right now, and in its current form, it will affect real, live people in ways she chooses not to do.

    She has the right to make that judgment and that choice, and to not serve your ideas about ignoring impacts on real people in order to oppose the boogyman of Political Correctness.

  10. @Lis Carey: I didn’t want to make the comparison, because it is unfair in so many other ways, but Walton would have benefited from letting this one be published posthumously, just like Heinlein should have done with Farnham’s Freehold, which came out at exactly the worst possible moment.

  11. @John A. Arkansawyer–Again, Jo gets to make her own decisions based n her own ideas and values, not yours. And not having read the book, you’re really not in any position to say it would “benefit” her at some unknowable but hopefully distant point in the future, when we have no idea what anyone will think about anything.

    She’s an independent, fully functional, autonomous adult. It’s her book. She gets to decide, even if you don’t like her decision or her reasons for it. No one owes you a book that other people find hurtful, in order to satisfy your ideas and values rather than the author’s own.

  12. @Lis Carey: And I will go on having and expressing opinions based on what I know and what I infer.

    If you happen to know of a way I can make her decisions for her, please do. There’s one of her short stories I have a small problem with. But short of the actual ability to do so, your lecture falls through listening ears onto barren ground. I don’t have any such ability and I think we all know it.

    I might like to read the book, but I don’t plan to seek out an ARC of it, or lobby her publisher, or call her names. If I knew her and I were well-informed about the situation, I might express it directly to her, and I might not. That is so far out of my ability to imagine that I just don’t know.

    But if it turns out the book circulates in ARC and develops a sufficiently broad reputation as not being the Monstrous Manuscript it’s been claimed to be, I probably won’t wait for the legit edition if it gets bootlegged. That’d be a first for me with a book, and something I’ve only done with the explicit permission of musicians.

    Which of course obligates me to buy a hardcover if and when it comes out.

  13. I think that the key to what Jeff meant is easily reversible gender changes.
    Currently we don’t have that, and I don’t see it happening in the next century or so. (I’m not sure that being able to change gender easily, at will, is something that most humans would go for.)

  14. John: Please cite where anyone has called the book monstrous. Exaggerating the opposition to make your point is not a good look.

  15. @Lenora Rose: I agree that was an exaggeration on my part.

    I also realized, somewhat belatedly, that I’m discussing someone who is personally known to folks here. Given that, it’d be rude for me to continue kicking this can.

  16. @JJ —

    It’s problematic because you have just said that people who change their genders are no longer human. ?

    As PJ already noted, that isn’t what Jeff said. He said that **easily reversible**/**frequently reversed** gender reassignments are not characteristic of the human species — IOW, that humans as we know them are usually strongly attached psychologically/emotionally to one gender or the other, and if they do choose gender reassignment to bring body and mind into agreement they stick with that choice and do not switch casually back and forth.

    For the rest of the discussion, I agree pretty much with Lis Carey’s comment that this particular point in history is especially fraught wrt trans people, and it therefore behooves everyone to be especially sensitive when dealing with issues/topics that might impact on their current struggles. I would’ve loved to read Walton’s book, and had it on my Amazon wish list, but I understand her concerns and those of the people who have been complaining about it.

  17. Incidentally —

    That’s one thing that always bothered me about the depiction of Dono/Donna Vorrutyer in the Vorkosigan books. Donna blithely becomes Dono out of political expedience, and while there is plenty of page time devoted to the social uproar this causes, Dono himself moves happily along and marries a woman with no indication of personal internal struggles with gender identity or orientation — which I found disturbing, especially given that Donna came from a very gender-stratified society and there was never any mention made of her being anything other than straight and cis previous to her need to become male in order to assume the heir’s position.

    Things that make me go hmmmm.

  18. @Contrarius: That’s one thing that always bothered me about the depiction of Dono/Donna Vorrutyer in the Vorkosigan books. Donna blithely becomes Dono out of political expedience, and while there is plenty of page time devoted to the social uproar this causes, Dono himself ….

    Those very points are at the heart of some of the critique of Bujold’s characterization and storyline as problematic.

  19. In the idea that it’s not inherently problematic to view someone as non-human unless you equate non-human to sub-human, I am hearing some really uncomfortable resonances with a defense of a “complimentary” gendered or ethnic stereotype. “It is not sexist to say that all women are just naturally more emotional/intuitive/better child-rearers than men–unless you think those are bad things to be, which would make YOU the sexist, so there!”

    Of course, following up “when I said non-human, I didn’t mean sub-human” with “I even respect mosquitos!” seems like a violation of the first rule of holes. Once you’ve implied someone is non-human, they’re not going to be much mollified to then be compared to mosquitoes.

  20. Contrarius: As PJ already noted, that isn’t what Jeff said. He said that **easily reversible**/**frequently reversed** gender reassignments are not characteristic of the human species

    So if I write a book where the good humans on a planet that is not Earth all have white skin are invaded by an evil race of aliens who have black skin, that’s totally not problematic or hurtful because it’s not humans I’m writing about.

  21. @JJ —

    So if I write a book where the good humans on a planet that is not Earth all have white skin are invaded by an evil race of aliens who have black skin, that’s totally not problematic or hurtful because it’s not humans I’m writing about.

    JJ, at this point you seem to be willfully misrepresenting what both Jeff and I have said in a search for something to be offended by. Neither my post nor Jeff’s reflect your hypothetical about black and white skin — and from what I’ve seen of Walton’s book through a few blurbs, neither does the plot of her book.

  22. Contrarius: JJ, at this point you seem to be willfully misrepresenting what both Jeff and I have said in a search for something to be offended by. Neither my post nor Jeff’s reflect your hypothetical about black and white skin — and from what I’ve seen of Walton’s book through a few blurbs, neither does the plot of her book.

    I’m going to be generous here and presume that you just missed my point, rather than that you are deliberately misunderstanding me. My point is that writing something which has parallels in the real Earth-human world, and then claiming that it can’t possibly be problematic or hurtful, because it’s not about real humans, is a willfully-blind stance.

  23. JJ, I somehow missed your response to what Contrarius said about MY comment. (Instead, you invented a completely new scenario to attack them with.)

  24. P J Evans: you invented a completely new scenario to attack them with.

    1) It’s not a “new scenario” when the scenario is about writing something which has parallels in the real Earth-human world, and then claiming that it can’t possibly be problematic or hurtful, because it’s not about real humans.

    2) It’s interesting that my point is perceived as an “attack”, rather than what it is: an attempt to try to illustrate why saying “but it’s not about humans!” is not a get-out-of-jail-free card.

  25. Walton would have benefited from letting this one be published posthumously

    Since Jo Walton is still alive, at the very least the tenses here are kind of messed up.

    Whether or not she would benefit (not “have benefited”) from having it published posthumously is kind of an unresolvable question at the moment — she’s decided it’s not something she wants to publish now, as opposed to not publishing it in her lifetime. What things will look at at later points in her lifetime remain to be seen.

  26. Of course it’s Jo Walton’s right–I believe she had nothing but good intentions in both writing and withdrawing the book. Since very few here have read the finished novel, we’re essentially arguing over a hypothetical novel.
    It seems that some people reject the distinction I made (that others have pointed out). In the Vimalakirti Sutra, a goddess swaps bodies with Shariputra when he complains about the flowers. Should the Vimalakirti Sutra be withdrawn from public view?

  27. Jeff Jones: In the Vimalakirti Sutra, a goddess swaps bodies with Shariputra when he complains about the flowers. Should the Vimalakirti Sutra be withdrawn from public view?

    Oh, do transgender people swap bodies with each other? I guess I missed that. 🙄

  28. @Jeff Jones–

    It seems that some people reject the distinction I made (that others have pointed out). In the Vimalakirti Sutra, a goddess swaps bodies with Shariputra when he complains about the flowers. Should the Vimalakirti Sutra be withdrawn from public view?

    The Vimalakirti Sutra is a nearly 2000-year-old religious text from another culture that among other things includes body swapping. It’s not a new work of fiction featuring gender changing, written in our culture during a time when trans people are especially visible and vulnerable, and often the targets of both violence and hostile legislation. You’re attempting to compare apples and dice, on the grounds they’re roughly the same shape. In reality, there are essentially zero points of congruence between them in their effect on contemporary North American readers.

  29. @JJ —

    My point is that writing something which has parallels in the real Earth-human world, and then claiming that it can’t possibly be problematic or hurtful, because it’s not about real humans, is a willfully-blind stance.

    Straw man. Again, nobody here has actually made that claim.

  30. All this about Walton’s pulled novel reminds me of how homosexuality in Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War was depicted as something that could be switched on or off on a societal basis. Imagine coming back to a society where your sexuality wasn’t the norm because everyone else had changed. It was just a part of the alienation that Mandela was experiencing as a soldier returning from a war not just a year but hundreds of years later thanks to relativity, and did reflect in a fictional mirror how sexuality changed over the decade of the 1960s. I don’t recall there being all that much shock about it at the time Haldeman’s novel was published, but that was in part because Haldeman treated it in a fairly matter-of-fact way as just something that happened and was, well, a way to normalize homosexuality in a science-fictional fashion.

  31. @David —

    I don’t recall there being all that much shock about it at the time Haldeman’s novel was published, but that was in part because Haldeman treated it in a fairly matter-of-fact way as just something that happened and was, well, a way to normalize homosexuality in a science-fictional fashion.

    Yeah, it’s the old nature/nurture debate. Which I think only really gets problematic when someone says “nurture, therefore it’s okay to make moral judgments about it”.

    In the case of sexual orientation and gender identification, it’s clear that there are important biological foundations to both. OTOH, there can also be important cultural influences on both. For example, homosexual traditions were so prevalent in pre-Conquistador South America that when the conquistadors did arrive, they would brag to each other about how many “sodomites” they had been able to kill that day; and when Christian missionaries arrived in Japan, they were horrified by the widespread and long-standing traditions of pederasty there. And some Native American tribes not only had the famous “third sex” tradition, but would sometimes choose children in infancy to serve such roles, obviously long before the children could have chosen for themselves. So it’s not a simple either/or question.

    I think in cases like Haldeman’s or Bujold’s, both authors are leaning heavily on the “nurture” aspects of orientation and identification — but since neither author draws the line from nurture to moral judgment, they tend to escape widespread condemnation.

    And in Walton’s case — mostly guessing, since I haven’t read the book! — it seems to me that most of the condemnation is arising because it is drawing some undesirable lines. From what I’ve been able to see from blurbs and a few of the complaints about the book, the problems seem to be that: 1. the change is forced, not chosen; 2. the change leads to loss of status, thereby sending an undesirable message to trans folk here in the real world; 3. the worldbuilding assumes that gender disparity still exists (becoming female is seen as a punishment), even though easy gender-switching would logically destroy any such disparity (any women who felt significantly oppressed would logically change to men, in a world where such switching was easy). It’s not the existence of the gender-switching that’s causing the complaints, but the interpretation of its consequences and implications.

  32. Contrarius: Straw man. Again, nobody here has actually made that claim.

    No, it’s not a straw man.

    Jeff Jones: It occurred to me that the easy reversible changes to biological form in the novel makes the characters no longer human as we know it, and thus have nothing to do with today’s gender-trans people

  33. Contrarius: It’s not the existence of the gender-switching that’s causing the complaints, but the interpretation of its consequences and implications.

    That was what I got from the complaints as well.

  34. @JJ —

    No, it’s not a straw man.

    Yes, it is.

    Jeff Jones: It occurred to me that the easy reversible changes to biological form in the novel makes the characters no longer human as we know it, and thus have nothing to do with today’s gender-trans people

    Which is not at all the same thing as your statement that

    writing something which has parallels in the real Earth-human world, and then claiming that it can’t possibly be problematic or hurtful, because it’s not about real humans

  35. Sorry, I wasn’t clear enough.

    One person writing something which has parallels in the real Earth-human world, and then another person claiming that it can’t possibly be problematic or hurtful, because it’s not about real humans, is a willfully-blind stance.

    Are there any other hairs you want to split?

  36. @JJ —

    Sorry, not splitting any hairs. You keep insisting on positing a straw man.

    Here’s the most egregious part of your straw man:

    and then another person claiming that it can’t possibly be problematic or hurtful

    Nobody here has said anything of the sort.

    Any more straw men you want to try out?

  37. Contrarius: Nobody here has said anything of the sort.

    That is indeed what the comment I quoted is saying, that the objections about the book being problematic and hurtful are not valid because the novel’s characters aren’t really human anymore.

  38. @JJ —

    That is indeed what the comment I quoted is saying

    No, it isn’t.

    As I noted several posts ago — you seem to be willfully misrepresenting that statement in a quest to find something to be offended about.

    Please stop that.

  39. @JJ —

    I’ve already tried to explain the post once — see my comment dated 2:22 PM yesterday.

    In essence:

    Jeff is describing distinct biological/psychological differences between the novel’s characters and the general characteristics of humans IRL; he is making an observation, not a value judgment.

    He has never (in this thread, at least) said anything at all about what should or should not be considered possibly problematic in literature, much less made any absolutist claims about “can’t possibly be problematic or hurtful”.

    Please stop trying so hard to be offended. It isn’t a good look, and it tends to squelch productive discussion.

  40. Contrarius: Jeff is describing distinct biological/psychological differences between the novel’s characters and the general characteristics of humans IRL; he is making an observation, not a value judgment.

    Ah, well, that explains it. You are taking that comment as something posted in a vacuum. I am taking it as a response to the people saying that Walton’s story is problematic and hurtful because of its portrayal of the consequences and implications of humans undergoing gender changing — a response which says, no, those objections do not apply, because the characters in the book are not technically human anymore.

    So yeah, you’re entitled to interpret it that way. My interpretation is just as valid. Your accusations of “willful misrepresentation” are out-of-line, offensive, and not appreciated. And “trying to be offended”? Oh, please. I realize that you don’t know me personally, so you don’t know how I think. But that is why you shouldn’t be making such ridiculous accusations. 🙄

  41. @JJ —

    Your accusations of “willful misrepresentation” are out-of-line, offensive, and not appreciated.

    LOL.

    But noooooo, of *course* you’re not looking for things to be offended by. Riiiiiight.

    ;-D

    But seriously — if you were concerned that Jeff might have intended to say something like “it can’t possibly be problematic or hurtful”, then it would be much more productive to ASK HIM if that’s what he had meant, instead of assuming a meaning not in evidence and then castigating him for something he didn’t actually say.

    And now I’m leaving and will be back and forth on the road for the rest of the day, so have fun with whatever offense you decide to take from *this* post. 😉

  42. Jeff did respond. He doubled-down, as Nicole pointed out.

    As you have repeatedly claimed to be a mind-reader, then you will of course already know what my response is to your continued bad-faith insistence of the malevolence of my thoughts. 🙄

  43. @Contrarius–

    As I noted several posts ago — you seem to be willfully misrepresenting that statement in a quest to find something to be offended about.

    You’ve said many reasonable and intelligent things in these discussions, but this isn’t one of them. Claiming that the other person is trying to “find something to be offended about” is a Puppy-grade argument leading to the conclusion that you are simply arguing in bad faith. Otherwise, you would not make such claims that inherently have no content except Puppy-grade disrespect for anyone who disagrees with you on the point in question.

  44. Apologies for the delay….life….

    @MattY and @Cora

    Thanks very much. While I am fully capable of saying “I don’t like it, therefore, it is crap”, I do try to avoid that approach.

    @Lenora Rose

    I agree. It isn’t true across the board.

    IMHO, the incidence of that approach is increasing in frequency even if it isn’t the most common mode of expression.

    I wasn’t going to respond to your message mostly because the most recent/memorable example would be the local (i.e. filers) dominant reaction to Nick Cole’s “Control-Alt-Revolt”. As that horse is currently something that now vaguely resembles blood mixed with dirt, I didn’t see any sense in returning to it.

    But then we had some of the responses in this thread regarding Jo Walton’s book that might not be over the line, but IMHO flirt with it pretty aggressively. And then there is the kerfuffle over John Ringo over in that thread.

    So again, I agree with you. There are many examples of people being measured in their criticism and tolerant of authors with dissimilar perspectives.

    There are also examples of intolerance from time to time.

    Regards,
    Dann
    Tronatology 101 – Never let the smoke out.

  45. @Lis —

    Me: As I noted several posts ago — you seem to be willfully misrepresenting that statement in a quest to find something to be offended about.

    You: [….]Claiming that the other person is trying to “find something to be offended about” is a Puppy-grade argument leading to the conclusion that you are simply arguing in bad faith.

    You and JJ both seem to be ignoring the most important words in my statement — specifically, SEEM TO BE.

    I did not accuse JJ of anything — I noted my PERSONAL IMPRESSION of JJ’s previous statements.

    As JJ noted earlier, “you’re entitled to interpret it that way. My interpretation is just as valid.”

  46. Contrarius: I did not accuse JJ of anything — I noted my PERSONAL IMPRESSION of JJ’s previous statements.

    You’re like the little kid who keeps poking at their sibling, always stopping a millmeter away, who when finally called out on it, sneers, “I never touched him!”

    It’s pathetic.

  47. For most of this discussion it has felt somewhat like everyone’s just eeever so slightly talking past each other, and I had some hope that it might eventually level out and lead to something worthwhile, but now it’s just descended into insults and bickering, and a certain amount of weaseling. I’m not sure this is going to be improved by further exchanges in the same vein.

  48. @Meredith: I’ve had a couple more things to say (about mosquitos, Vimalakirti) but I’m wary of saying them. I try to stay out of the lower worlds (anger, instinct, etc.) when commenting. Maybe that’s not enough?

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