Science Fiction - The Crazy Year

This is old.

This is new.

Sometime, June-ish, the science fiction and fantasy world blew up over a chain-mail bikini and a couple of old guys talking about science fiction publishing over 60 years ago in which they spoke admiringly of "lady writers" and "lady editors" and mentioned that someone or other was particularly good looking.

The. World. Ended.

This ancient June history is important because World Con just happened and the call for inclusive science fiction is continuing to gain strength with the article from the Guardian stating the dire state of modern science fiction. Both articles are extremely short and informative concerning events, though I'm having trouble finding something pithy to quote from them. Mostly, though, it's assertions of fact that are easily disputable.

Science fiction loves a good paradox. Here's one for you: how can a genre that dreams up alien cultures and mythic races in such minute detail seemingly ignore the ethnic, religious, gender and sexual diversity right here on the home planet, here in the real world?

Science fiction also likes a good Fantasy, and this is one of them. It's such a NICE fantasy. So CONVENIENT for our science fiction Church Ladies.

Wolf in Shadow

It's easy enough to point to no end of "diversity" in protagonists and easy enough to find the hard numbers that show female authors in SF and F to be at near parity (45% to 53%, IIRC) to male authors. But in the end we've still got the chain-mail bikinis or black leather body suits. Right? Well, I want to say something about that.

I'm a girl. Right? Well, who do I want to imagine I look like? When I design my toons in a fantasy computer game, what do I prefer to look like? Sure, chain mail bikinis are pretty darn silly, but so what? So is Mr. Mad Men there to the left. So is Conan. What am I supposed to do? Take my escapism dollars and pretend to be fat and dumpy?

And bitter? Lets not forget bitter.

Comments

Some times some people.

It's Not Projection

Take the case of "fascism". When you can see clear as day that the person who is accusing you of fascism is a fascist, they aren't projecting. They're talking about something ELSE. Basically, in the case of fascism, the basic set of fascist government controls are the default assumption of reality for a whole lot of people. The government is supposed to control every part of your life. The government is supposed to make you moral and good and reflect "justice". The government is supposed to do this by picking winners from the good people and losers from the bad people. The government is supposed to control the way people do business, how businesses (and farmers) function and what they produce. And people should be made to cooperate with this control because they are part of society and society is dependent on everyone being in compliance. This is simply the Truth. It's how the world works and how the world is supposed to work. The Socialist Nationalism,

What You Know That Isn't So

The saying goes like this, It's not what you *don't* know that is going to trip you up, it's what you know that isn't so. I believe that the first lady might possibly have been feigning helplessness, just a little bit. She already had concept art and visuals, so I think she'll be okay. But someone might truly be so new that they know nothing about science fiction as a genre or how it works in the world. That person, the truly "new" person, might not realize that the second lady, no matter how assured she seems to be that she's passing on vital Wisdom, is wrong. So lets unwrap her backpack a little (to steal a metaphor). Stories about space pirates are Space Opera, generally. "Soft" science in science fiction usually refers to sociology or psychology, social "science". A story about space pirates might be "soft". But that's picking nits. The first big boo-boo is this: "not as popular *because* it is women

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