From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Constance Burris Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 8:22 AM To: - Subject: [CarlBrandon] Diversity in Speculative Fiction <http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fantasymag/~3/458527216/> Diversity in Speculative Fiction Paula R. Stiles Nov 19, 2008 10:00 AM - <http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fantasymag/~3/458527216/> Show original item It seems like a common trope that diversity and quality in speculative fiction are mutually exclusive. Or, at least not a double necessity. Whenever an internet discussion blows up over this issue (notably, the <http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/006777.html> Eclipse 2 anthology and <http://tempest.fluidartist.com/2008/07/07/william-sanders-senior-bigot-heli x/> Helix Magazine debates just this past year), I see it frequently stated that quality is more important than diversity, to the point where you would think quality and diversity couldnt live in the same story. And nobody ever questions this. This feels like an intentional non sequitur. Quality isnt something that you can judge universally; its highly subjective. One persons gold is another persons fools gold. But more to the point, quality as a criterion really has nothing to do with the health of the speculative fiction field. Quality may give us a little more prestige with the literary folks, but it doesnt stretch the boundaries of what we consider speculative fiction. It doesnt get us thinking new ideas, seeing new horizons. Diversity does. Two fairly recent anthologies: <http://www.indiebound.org/aff/darkfantasy9?product=9780446693776> Dark Matter: Reading the Bones (2005), edited by Sheree R. Thomas, and <http://www.indiebound.org/aff/darkfantasy9?product=9780819566348> Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain (2003), edited by Andrea L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilán, showcase African-American and (mostly) Spanish-speaking spec-fic writers respectively. Both, as Silvia Moreno-Garcia remarked to me a few months ago, have stories that are far more likely to appear in literary publications than any spec-fic market. Now theres an irony for youquality according to literary terms is used as an excuse for not aggressively pursuing diversity in spec-fic, yet all the ethnically diverse spec-fic is in the Literary section of the bookstore. This brings us to the central irony of downgrading the importance of diversity in speculative fiction. The term is speculative fiction. Its not just about shiny, phallic rocket ships populated by deep-in-the-closet Aryan brethren conquering the Final Frontier, people. Its about different futures, alternate realities, dangerous fantasies. Youd think such places, where dragons dwell, would be heavily populated with equally unusual people, but nope. Looks like everybody important there is white, male, anglophone and straight. Not to mention perfectly healthy physically and mentally. Excuse me, but how is that speculative? The two anthologies, in and of themselves, are deliberately non-diverse in that they are limited to specific subgenres. Every story in Dark Matter is written by African-American or Caribbean writers for an African-American audience. Every story in Cosmos Latinos is written by Spanish, Catalan or Basque speakers from Latin America and Spain. But each anthology showcases a speculative tradition with visions not usually seen in mainstream specific because these traditions have been neglected by that mainstream. Cosmos Latinos is an historical overview of Latin American and Spanish spec-fic, starting in the 19th century and ending in 2004. The book begins with an excellent literary essay that puts the stories into historical and thematic perspective. The rest is divided into periods with representative groups of writers. Most of the early stories seem there mainly for historical value. The editors admit outright that much Spanish-language spec-fic is derivative of English spec-fic, though with a more playful and philosophical bent. But some of these early stories presage later spec-fic, as well. The Distant Future (1862) by Juan Nepomuceno Adorno and On the Planet Mars (1890) by Nilo María Fabra seem like a cross between H.G. Wells and Soviet-era SF of the boy meets girl meets tractor utopian variety. Another distinctive aspect of Latin American spec-fic is the merry disregard for scientific accuracy in favor of imagery and ideas. This is both disconcerting and a nice break from the straitjacket of todays hard SF tropes (heresy, I know). The Death Star (1929) by Ernesto Silva Román calls the titular celestial object a star, planet, comet and meteor respectively in a perfunctory discussion of its nature. Román mainly cares about the collapse of society in the face of the disaster, with the now-classic plot turn of the elite hiding themselves away in hopes of surviving and creating a utopian society later on. He could care less about the science of the disaster itself. Things dont get really interesting until the 1960s with dystopian tales like The Crystal Goblet (1964) by Jerônimo Monteiro and The Last Refuge (1967) by Eduardo Goligorsky. This isnt to say that the previous stories are bad. Baby H.P. (1952) by Juan José Arreola is a very funny satire on how to use a toddlers restlessness as a household energy source. But the stories dont deepen in exploring their ideas until the period of the 1960s. Before that, they either skim the surface or take a fussy, didactic tone. The anthology shows how Spanish-language spec-fic references Anglophone spec-fic of the same period. But this isnt a derivative exercise in simple imitation. The anthologys acknowledgment of this imitation makes it that much easier to see how these ideas are used differently in the Spanish-language part of the genre than Anglophone spec-fic. The Crystal Goblet and The Last Refuge are both set in dystopian futures that look an awful lot like the totalitarian present of the Latin American 1960s. If any overenthusiastic fan of Heinleins Starship Troopers needed a dose of what the reality of Heinleins militaristic utopia would be like, these two stories provide the necessary bucket of cold water. Maybe its not such a coincidence that Heinleins protagonist, Juan Johnnie Rico, is from Buenos Aires. In The Crystal Goblet, Miguel, a Brazilian intellectual survivor of government torture, rediscovers a blue glass goblet that he had found as an abused child. As a broken adult, he realizes that it shows the future, and the future is rather grim. But when he shows it to his friends, they disagree over what they see and what it all means, whether the future will get better or worse. In The Last Refuge, Guillermo Maidana tries to flee an Argentina closed in a bell jar of a generation of isolation from the rest of the world. Cornered, he finds a World Council spaceship that has landed in the forbidden zone of his country. But when he tries to seek refuge in it, to board it, the ship instead leaves him behind, incinerating him with its engines. Dystopic tradition continues in the Chilean cyberpunk tale, Exerion (2000) by Pablo A. Castro. A man, nameless for most of the story and crippled in mind and body by government viruses, sends his recovered memories onto the hypernet through a beloved old video game, Exerion, just before the jackboots come for him. He thus dies, but also survives as a new AI personality, a ghost in the machine. Other tales in Cosmos Latinos have urban settings and several are cyberpunk, an interesting thing considering the rural Third World image of Latin America. Like the Roses Had to Die (2001) by Michel Encinosa presents an anarchic society where people change their identities using non-human DNA and implants. The heroine, Wolf, is on a quest to save her lover and stop a virus that threatens to wipe out exotics like her. Her worst enemy is the person she least suspects. Some stories are unique. Gu Ta Gutarrak (We And Our Own) (1968) by Magdalena Mouján Otaño is an extended satire on Basque obsessions with Basque identity. For the Basques, this ethnic identity is formed by their unique language. The author gently pokes fun at this self-assurance of uniqueness with a time-travel plot. The protagonist and his family become so obsessed with the idea of proving the superiority and timelessness of Basque culture (he calls them a separate species from other humans) that they found a science institute and build a time machine. They go back, further and further, finding other Basques living exactly as in the present. Finally, they reach a point where there are no Basques, settle down, and realize that they have created a time loop where they have founded the Basque race. Rather than upsetting them, this gives them great pride. The editors make no bones about the male-dominated nature of Spanish-language spec-fic. Some of the stories even turn on the strong patriarchal reality of Latin American culture, with all its attendant misogyny and homophobia. In The Violets Embryos (1973) by Angélica Gorodischer, the author takes a similar but opposite tack to Joanna Russ When It Changed. A spaceship comes to rescue a group of seven stranded cosmonauts on a barren planet. Instead, the crew find a paradise. The previous crew have discovered violet patches that give them whatever they can imagine being, though none of it can leave the planet (why they never rescued themselves). Unfortunately, absolute power has driven most of them more than a bit batty. One, for example, engages in violent and elaborately masochistic fantasies straight out of a hurt/comfort fanfic; another lives in a literal womb. A central irony of the story is that of all the things and creatures and humans that the stranded cosmonauts have created, they cant create any women because they could never imagine being women. The rescuers are repulsed by the fact that the stranded cosmonauts, who have harems and servants and the like, therefore engage in de facto homosexual relations and transvestism. This bothers the rescuers a lot more than the various extreme manifestations of the stranded cosmonauts madness. The rescuers dont even notice that the problem behind all of this homosexuality is the cosmonauts total inability to put themselves in the shoes of a woman, no matter how hard they try. The all-male space explorers in the story are so macho that the other gender is a complete mystery to them, to the point where heterosexuality becomes impossible to maintain in the absence of women. Dark Matter: Reading the Bones has a somewhat freer structure than Cosmos Latinos by virtue of being the sequel to its equivalent, <http://www.indiebound.org/aff/darkfantasy9?product=9780446525831> Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (2000). Dark Matter: Reading the Bones is therefore able to avoid the necessity of a chronological overview (though it does have some historical stories) and concentrate on much newer stories, as well as a more cohesive focus on the themes in the subgenre. Thomas does a fantastic job of bringing together the many themes, concerns and approaches in African-American spec-fic into one anthology. Probably the best story in the anthology, Nalo Hopkinsons The Glass Bottle Trick (2000) takes a well-known European fairy tale and sets it so seamlessly in Caribbean society that you will wonder how it could have originated anywhere else. The original (Bluebeard) is about the Bad Husband, or (depending on how misogynistic the reader is) the Disobedient Wife. Hopkinsons story gives the Bluebeard character a much better motivation than just abusive OCD for wife-murder. Hopkinsons version is ashamed of his dark skin, so he always marries light-skinned women. Everything is fine until they get pregnant with his dark-skinned babies. Thats when his insecurities come roaring back and things get really ugly. Hopkinson also leaves the story on a Lady-and-the-Tiger ending that should be frustrating, but isnt. In a reversal of this appropriation from European lore, Douglas Kearneys Anansi Meets Peter Parker at the Taco Bell on Lexington (2000) cheerfully asserts that Spiderman is a rip-off of Anansi, the West African trickster who takes the form of a spider. In this hysterical tale, Anansi gives a few pieces of advice to Peter Parker, who promptly turns around and plagiarizes Anansis M.O. for his Spiderman persona. Meanwhile, Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachus The Magical Negro gets tired of always being the token ethnic guy who gets killed defending the white protagonist in heroic fiction. He sets out to make his own mighty talesafter casually tossing said white protag, dimwitted Thor the Brave, off a cliff. That should give Conan and his literary descendants some pause. In Ibi Aanu Zobois Old Flesh Song (2004), an aging witch (a soucouyant) sits on a street corner of New York City and calls the babies of rich white people who have nannied them out to immigrant caregivers. She wants to eat them, as in Hansel and Gretel. But an unexpected obstacle shows up in the person of an experienced nanny who knows exactly what the old witch is up to. Shes a younger, stronger witch who is worried that the old witch will alert the outside world to what is going on, and she has no intention of giving up her own territory or food sources. Thomas works carefully to include the various themes in African-American spec-fic, as well as important older authors like SF writer Samuel Delaney (Corona from 1967) and heroic fiction writer Charles Saunders (Yahimbas Choice from 2004). Delaneys story feels a bit conventional now, with its white-trash narrator watching the brilliant young black girl from a distance, but it points up just how few African-American characters populated spec-fic in the 1960s. Saunders tale comes from his series (mostly showcased in Marion Zimmer Bradleys Sword and Sorceress anthology series) about Dossouye, a former Dahomey Amazon-turned-freebooter and Woman-without-a-Name heroine. Dossouye remains more unique in heroic fantasy than she perhaps should bea black female Conan in a fantasy version of early modern Africa. Some stories seem better suited to literary magazines. Jill Robinsons BLACKout (2004), for example, is about the chaos that erupts when the U.S. government agrees to pay reparations for slavery, but refuses to extend it to the descendants of later African or Caribbean immigrants. However, the Mundane SF speculative element is often overwhelmed by the clumsily overt literary element of exploring what it means to be African-American. Other stories have been done in other media. Keven Brockenbroughs vampire-ridden New York in Cause Harlem Needs Heroes (2004) feels a lot like the film Blade. John Cooleys The Binary (2004), with its butt-kicking martial arts hero and Japanese mythos, seems to come straight out of Blaxploitation or Asian cinema. Yet, though these character types appear in films and comic books, they hardly seem to show up in spec-fic. All the vampire-hunters seem to be white. Some stories, like Henry Dumas Will the Circle Be Unbroken? (1974) lose some pretty cool concepts in the enthusiastic bashing of their white protagonists. Not that theres anything wrong with a little bashing, except when it takes away from the point of the story. Will the Circle Be Unbroken?, for example, is about a new type of horn (the afro-horn) whose potent Black Power sound can kill white people. Racist, sure, but still an interesting idea that allows the author to include some evocative description of jazz. Unfortunately, the writer then tells the story mainly from the viewpoint of the three hapless white would-be hipsters whom the afro-horn inadvertently kills. This makes the story more about them and their boring foibles than the afro-horn and its unique sound. Too bad. There are story parallels between the anthologies. Dark Matters last story, Trance (2004) by Kalamu ya Salaam and Cosmos Latinos The Day We Went Through the Transition (1998) by Ricard de la Casa and Pedro Jorge Romero are both about time travel. Specifically, they both involve small groups sending people backward or forward in time to cause or prevent change that will improve their ethnic groups position in their present time. In Trance, the world is rapidly turning into a communal society (whether smaller groups like it or not) that still, somehow, discriminates against those with dark skin. The group in question seeks its independence by maintaining an experiment in observational time travel. In The Day We Went Through the Transition, Catalan time cops in the 21st century try to keep the timeline pure, despite repeated attempts to change history in the immediate aftermath of fascist leader Francisco Francos death. The story, like Gu Ta Gutarrak, celebrates a threatened minority culture in Europe and reminds us that before Europeans moved out to suppress other cultures, they first homogenized their own by suppressing all inconvenient minorities. But its also a love story and a meditation on why its important to keep a timeline in which democracy recovered from fascism pure, and how far one will go to keep or regain a lost love when you can meet him or her in an infinite number of timelines. Dark Matter has other stories that turn on ethnic minority differences. One of the most effective, W. E. B. Du Bois Jesus Christ in Texas (1920) steers around the popular Uncle Toms Cabin cliché of turning the African-American characters into Christ-like martyr figures. The lynching victim at the end is actually a parallel to the thief on the cross who joined Christ in Heaven. Instead, Du Bois brings Christ himself to Texas, in all his glory. Du Bois bitter satire on white Texan society turns on the probability that while the Texan white elite of the time might be too awed at Christs majesty to shut him out completely (even if they werent actually aware of his true identity), the historical Jesus would be a little too dark-skinned to pass as acceptably white in segregation-era Texas. More conventional is the conceit that the downtrodden in the story recognize Christ immediately, while the smug elite only feel an unease around Him. That said, this social comment was probably far more original in 1920 than it is now These are stories that you would not likely see in mainstream specific markets. Thats their importance. Thats their value. Whats truly amazing is that such stories exist, have existed all along, yet were still talking about whether or not the writing of stories like them is important. It seems, sometimes, as though the speculative in speculative fiction isnt taken seriously enough. Its certainly not pushed hard enough. Maybe its time we pushed a little harder. http://www.darkfantasy.org/fantasy/?p=1133
