Authors, Their Own Worst Enemy

[guy fawkes]

The worst thing an author can do is to attack the criticism in their own personal blog. By doing this they are giving it infinitely more exposure and bringing it to the attention of fans who would otherwise not be aware of it.

[Fenris Technique]

They're baaaaa-aaaaack.

Open your wallets and fund the new divisive issue of Lightspeed. Divide and Profit 2015 is underway.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lightspeedmagazine/queers-destroy-science-fiction?ref=video

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Even in science fiction, supposedly the genre of limitless possibility, where everyone is invited to the adventure, heterosexual, heteroromantic, and cisgendered are considered the default, to the extent that everything else is "deviation," and must be eyed with suspicion. (For a timely example, look no further than the people recutting and remixing the recent finale of a popular animated series to take away the bisexuality of the main character (no spoilers!). Because only a male/female happy ending can truly be considered "happy.") . . . . . . Part of our goal with this project--and indeed, our dearest wish--is to get as many queer creators involved as possible. Show the world that we are legion, we are amazing, and we are a part of the great, glorious landscape of the science fiction genre (right before we burn it all to the ground).

Really, is anyone in 2015 not being published on account of homosexuality? Can anyone who regularly reads the small market press (token paying to pro) claim with a straight face that there isn't a trendy deluge of homosexual characters, themes, and 'twists' featured regularly in almost every publication at this point?

. . . Tiresome. Tiresome and cynical. Plenty of great LGBT authors out there (best short I read this year was by Damien Angelica Waters), but these divide-and-profit collections never fail to churn out tepid and uncompelling stories whose focus isn't on writing the best overall story, but rather on highlighting the political theme of the issue.

Consider - no one views a stunning painting and asks if the painter was gay. No one admires a masterful statue and asks if the sculptor slept with members of their own sex. What's the deal with 21st century writers? Why the need to divide their art along race/gender/religion/age/sex lines and then play nonstop political football?

Maybe most SF doesn't center around homosexual characters and their homosexuality because sexuality is neither Science nor Fiction? Therefore if it is often completely immaterial to the story who the protagonist is sleeping with. Now, there are certain genres of fiction where a character's sexual proclivities are of absolute import, but it's not Science Fiction.

Just something to consider before you throw your money at LightSpeed to help them their crusade against . . . uh . . . cis-gendered something or another . . .er . . . hateful anime editors . . . gotta 'show the world' . . . hrmmm-hmmmph.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

David Pringle once gave his definition of SF as being radical social change often but not always including radical technological change (even if it doesn't focus on the process of changing, it will show the difference from the readers lives). I'm sure many would challenge that definition. Sorry Mr Pringle if I'm remembering your view wrongly.

To me, focusing on sexuality seems like a pretty normal SF trope, just like any social group, race, species etc. I don't think it seems remotely out of place.

But to be honest I'm not very interested in speculative fiction that is political in this way. Not because I think they cannot be good (they could be great), more because I fear these stories are more likely to read too close to tumblr thinkpieces.

I wouldn't be too surprised if prejudice still harms homosexual writers in the regions where most of our English language writers come from but I think it's quite probable in China, Russia and a bunch of other places. I've heard about writers in relatively recent times being told to change the race or sexuality of their main characters.

Maybe it isn't always professional or wise for writers or people with any kind of fame to argue back with critics in comment sections or forums, but I think it can be very funny. Especially when it's someone like Tina Fey attacking an unsuspecting troll who never would have imagined they'd have her criticizing back. And watching people backpedal can be exquisitely excruciating.
But at the same time I am discouraged from writing even inoffensively negative reviews of still living writers who aren't massively famous. I don't like mocking reviews anyway but there are still going to be writers who would be offended by what I consider inoffensive criticism.

I've seen Moorcock respond to a blog in a very fair way because he felt the blogger had got his views completely wrong.

Noah Berlatsky at Hooded Utalitarian seems to welcome authors/creators feedback on the articles they are the subject of.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

I've always been curious about the Queer Fear anthology, just to see how the writers go about it.

[Justin Isis]

I'm interested in homosexual acts but not really in "homosexuality." It's sort of like people who define themselves as "fans" of something - to me this kind of thinking almost always results in personal and artistic mediocrity. 

In this I'm following Gore Vidal, who also didn't believe that fixed sexual identities existed, only actions which could be defined (somewhat pointlessly) as heterosexual or homosexual. 

This whole conversation seems about 30 years out of date...it seems like a bunch of fairly boring and insular people wishing for an oppressive nemesis to make them feel special and rebellious, when in reality no one cares. If all your friends are people you met through some specialized interest, you probably have a pretty distorted view of the world. Unfortunately, science fiction, which for at least a decade and a half in the 60s and 70s was really pushing writing both conceptually and thematically, seems to have degenerated into this kind of alternately prickly and blindly self-affirming consensus reality. It's pretty sad when something written 40 years ago seems more futuristic, challenging and unbiased than something written a few months ago. I usually prefer writers with a high level of autocritique as opposed to autocongratulation.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

This is hardly my specialist area (and I probably cant even explain it well but I'll try) but I've heard some quite compelling arguments about identifying with groups and labels that can be problematic and oversimplifying in some ways but can be a necessary stage in getting equality for all those people who identify with the problems of the group.
I guess I'll just quote Andrea Juno from her Angry Women In Rock book: "The strictly defined identities that helped build up political recognition and rights can then be straightjackets; you want a more complex shading - not black and white. It's about shedding the label without shedding the power base."

[miguel1984]

And that is why I love the Dune books by Frank Herbert, Justin. They really pushed the envelope, even though Herbert had a backwards view of homosexuality (it probably didn't help that one of his sons, Bruce Calvin Herbert, was a gay activist; he died of AIDS in 1993).

Herbert had this to say: "There's an unwritten compact between you and the reader. If someone enters a bookstore and sets down hard earned money (energy) for your book, you owe that person some entertainment and as much more as you can give."

It seems Brian Herbert, his other son, did not read this; otherwise he would not have written those idiotic Dune prequels and sequels and interquels. He and Kevin J. Anderson said that they wanted their Dune books to reach as wide an audience as possible and, in order to do that, they had to simplify the prose, or something along those lines; presumably this statement was to hide their completely lack of talent.

[miguel1984]

Also, the original Foundation trilogy was great, but the rest of the books, starting with Foundation's Edge, was a huge letdown.

[Druidic]

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In this I'm following Gore Vidal, who also didn't believe that fixed sexual identities existed, only actions which could be defined (somewhat pointlessly) as heterosexual or homosexual.

--Justin Isis.

I couldn't resist pointing out a possible flaw (I think) in Vidal's theory, Justin. I agree, more or less, that we choose, consciously or otherwise, to identify with things like our race, culture, whatever...but if there are no fixed biological/sexual identities what can possibly explain the anguish of Transgenders? The identity conflict may or may not involve sexual orientation, i.e., homosexuality, but that just makes it even more complicated. I do suspect gender identification--the psychological aspect of it-- is hardwired, and not merely the result of cultural conditioning; but that probably varies in degree from individual to individual. Still, a male Transgender with hetrosexual impulses might well be experiencing the fixed identity of a female lesbian.
Alas, I've read The Thing on the Doorstep one too many a time.

[teguififthzeal]

There are times when I seriously get sick--while remaining sensitive on a fairly firm level--of hearing about how this person's work should be read because they are transgender. Or this. Or the other thing.


Isn't it the quality of the work that matters?