Ah, Speculative Fiction

Jun. 16th, 2013 at 3:02 PM

I could write a big long essay about reading aboutrecent developments in the SF publishing community and my personal estrangement from [that side of] SF fandom, etc etc etc, but instead I'm going to put two links here:

http://nkjemisin.com/2013/06/continuum-goh-speech/
NK Jemisin's speech at Continuum (the ensuing discussion went to some depressing places but/and the speech is well worth reading)

http://booktionary.blogspot.de/2012/04/recommendations-non-european-fantasy-by.html
A list of non-European-based fantasy by women. I used to dream of joining such a list.

ETA Two more links:
"Scalzi and others are pledge matching to raise money for the Carl Brandon Society and Octavia Butler Awards here: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/06/13/pledge-matching-today-for-the-carl-brandon-society/

Arachne Jericho is pledge matching money (up to total of $500) donated to Con-Or-Bust here: http://spontaneousderivation.com/2013/06/13/pledge-matching-for-good-causes/

Current Mood:sad but hopeful

Comments

( 12 comments — Leave a comment )

karadin

Jun. 16th, 2013 10:49 pm (UTC)

I'm pretty shocked about the sexism at the Bulletin, but maybe that's why I haven't read sci-fi in twenty years, I got tired of the inherent sexism and male gaze of those who were once my fave authors, or even the intolerance and bigotry of some of the female authors, that said, I did crack open some of Octavia Butler's novels a few years back and enjoyed those. I can only hope some of the old guard just fucking die off already.

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browngirl

Jun. 17th, 2013 01:44 am (UTC)

What worries me are the seemingly numerous not-so-old and even young people who think this crap is No Big Deal or even Just Fine.

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karadin

Jun. 17th, 2013 02:18 am (UTC)

It makes you want to pound your head against a wall, and things aren't getting any easier for women, just harder, just when you think we might be getting somewhere, then again, this wouldn't have made news before, the fact that most bloggers are women, has a lot to do why these issues get traction now.

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achinhibitor

Jun. 17th, 2013 02:02 am (UTC)

A list of non-European-based fantasy by women. I used to dream of joining such a list.

And why not? You may not have the time to write novels, but you can write short stories.

Considering non-European societies, my impression is that polygyny survived in many non-European cultures long after it was eradicated in Europe. (Even today, Jacob Zuma has multiple wives.) I haven't a clue what the differences in milieu are between a polygynous society and a monogamous one, but it leaves me to wonder if any SF has attempted to tackle that. (Dune used a quasi-Arabic cultural basis, but seemed to be a monogamous culture.)

Even deeper, do you know of any SF set in cultures that have no market transactions at all? I'm reading Debt, The First 5,000 Years, which points out how novel market transactions are in human culture.

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sethg_prime

Jun. 17th, 2013 03:44 am (UTC)

The non-market SF stories that immediately come to my mind are Iain Banks’s Culture novels and Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Dispossessed.

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browngirl

Jun. 17th, 2013 02:40 pm (UTC)

The non-market-society speculative fic I've read has been historical fiction about Paleolithic and Neolithic cultures (Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear etc) and SF about invented cultures along those lines (A Woman of the Iron People). I admit, being a city girl, I have a preference for market-based societies (which go hand in hand with cities right from the start, as I learned from Jane Jacobs' The Economy of Cities.)

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sethg_prime

Jun. 17th, 2013 03:51 pm (UTC)

Have you read LeGuin’s Always Coming Home? (It might be too bucolic for your tastes, but less so than the Paleo/Neolithic.)

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browngirl

Jun. 17th, 2013 04:45 pm (UTC)

Oh, I love Always Coming Home, even though it's more like the polished notes for a book than a book itself. The culture in it is sort of retro-primitive, isn't it? They are not Stone Age in technology but they have deliberately simplified their lives and culture.

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redbird

Jun. 17th, 2013 10:38 pm (UTC)

Simplified because of limited resources, but they do make some use of the worldwide computer net, and they have washing machines, printing presses, and a railroad.

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achinhibitor

Jul. 22nd, 2013 08:02 pm (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions.

Thinking back, I recall that though Heinlein is considered the archetype of conservative/libertarian ideals, very little of his work has a market-oriented component. He's very much into extended families (Moon is a Harsh Mistress), communes (Stranger in a Strange Land), and command-and-control organizations (military and quasi-military organizations, like shipboard societies). I suppose that markets aren't very interesting from a literary point of view. It still leaves me to wonder how markets affect the non-economic part of society.

And then there's Robert Graves' Seven Days in New Crete which is vastly different from modern society in many ways. It's theoretically European-based, but I'm not sure that it has much in common with the last 2,500 years of European culture. My memory is that it's rather patriarchal, though.

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wickedladybear

Jun. 17th, 2013 03:22 pm (UTC)

It's always interesting to see how off the mainstream my particular reading in SF/F has been. I grew through tween and teen years in a house with a "lady author" and spent a lot of those years reading nearly exclusively female authors.

I think you should absolutely write more! I, for one, would love having more things to read that are not by white, middle income, middle aged men.

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