Posts Tagged "SFF"

• Religious Tolerance in the SFF Community

  Uncategorized

  Forward:

  Inspired by Betsy’s post on Monday, I too am going to address the issue of religious tolerance in the science fiction and fantasy community, but first I must lay a bit of groundwork about myself—groundwork that I realize is a little argumentative in nature.

  Hopefully, there is a payoff for you. I appreciate you pushing through to the end.

  #

  

  Pictures of me as a kid. Maybe religion was never in store for me. The mafia, however...

  As recently as three or four years ago—around the time editors started publishing my fiction—this would’ve been an easy post to write. Mind you, at that point I’d been an antireligious agnostic atheist for many years, but I still I enjoyed talking to people about their religious convictions. Now and then I even wrote about religion as a problematic but oftentimes beautiful phenomenon. I’d often find myself defending aspects of religious expression—though, in truth, I rarely understood why.

  Now, however, I’m unable to glean much from discussing religion. I still enjoy discussing the urge to be religious, but the actual thing—faith in something exceeding the ken of our senses, surety (or near-surety) in the existence of forces outside nature (or so far beyond our reasoning that the distinction begins to appear ridiculous)? Well, I find that to be rather odious. Worse, in fact: by my reckoning it’s massively destructive to our species. I’m actively angry at—and embarrassed by—what appears to be a collective delusion, an infantile supernatural fantasy. I believe faith devalues the here-and-now, ultimately allowing individuals to rationalize being assholes to one another.

  Does that sound harsh? I hope not abnormally so. I’m only being honest about my beliefs in the same way many Christians or Muslims (etc.) would. I don’t take particular offense when someone tells me I’m blind to the truth: why would I expect a believer to believe otherwise? It would be supremely odd, I think, for a person who feels they know the truth to say, “Hey, but you know the truth too!”—especially then our visions conflict so obviously.

  I believe what I believe. I’ve fought long and hard, mostly with myself but sometime with others, to come to these convictions. I will not lie to anyone and say that I rank all beliefs equally moral. I also will not admit to any prejudice. Prejudice is a preconceived opinion, not based on reason or actual experience. Homophobia, a completely irrational fear, is not the same thing as judging someone’s belief in a deity.

  But anyway, I’ll quit indulging this line of reasoning. (I even told myself I wouldn’t go on like that, but with five drafts of this post behind me I’ll just have to admit that I simply can’t get to the next part without indulging myself a bit. Hopefully it makes it easier for you to see where I’m coming from as I discuss—I promise I’m getting to it!—religious tolerance in the sff community.)

  #

  The regrettable thing about discussing beliefs, I’ve found, is that it draws lines. Even if you celebrate diversity—and I hope you do, because it’d be sad and boring if we were all identical—you must acknowledge the way in which belief informs action. And from there, you must further acknowledge that you will not agree with every action another person takes. Indeed, some people’s actions might be enough to cause you to react violently, even if only to screech at them to stop their ludicrous behavior.

  Does this mean you hate them? Does this mean that I, for instance—a stridently antireligious individual—am intolerant of religious people? No, of course it doesn’t. I may disagree heartily with them about their convictions; I may think even the most peaceful of their religious expressions are destructive to the psyche; but my assessment of individuals is (I hope, anyway) holistic rather than local-symptomatic.

  #

  Example: My parents and two younger siblings are Mormon. Do I respect their religious convictions? No—not at all, frankly. I respect their right to believe as they do, of course, but this is where the respect ends as far as religion goes.

  And yet… I do respect them more than any other people in existence.

  I see no contradiction there.

  #

  The world, I believe, would be a better place if people simply admitted that we need not respect every aspect of a person to come to the conclusion that they are good.

  As I stated at the outset of this post, I was inspired by Betsy Dornbusch to talk about this today. Betsy is a Christian; I am not; and yet I likely have more in common with her than I realize. From our interactions on Facebook, I know that we stand for many of the same causes. For all that I find disagreeable about the phenomenon of faith, I do not see her Christianity as a sign that she is an intolerant person. Point in fact, the only conclusion that I draw from her Christianity is that she believes in Jesus Christ as her savior.

  It pisses me off that she—or anyone else of a religious persuasion—experiences feelings of exclusion from full membership in the sff community simply because she expresses convictions of faith. That’s… well it’s bullshit. I can’t imagine excluding someone, calling them stupid, simply because they believe in a god. I might, in my angrier and ruder moments, say “that’s stupid” about a particular belief, but to sum up someone’s intelligence on the basis of one belief that you disagree with is small-minded in the extreme.

  Now, don’t get me wrong: I do believe many Christians get butthurt out of all proportion to the actual discrimination they experience, and are in fact in most cases simply being privileged little snots (as a white male, I know a great deal about this)—a possibility Betsy addresses humbly.

  But. (And this is a big but.) I am not the person best fit to judge how bad the situation is for her or any other religious person. I’m lucky to be in a group of individuals—the sff community—that seems to exhibit a higher-than-average number of atheists, agnostics, and general nonbelievers. It is a rare situation in which to find myself, believe me; most of the world is religious. Even most sff writers and readers are religious, in my experience, but they are often less vociferous in the assertion of those beliefs.

  Perhaps, because of this situation (as well as my relative newness within the sff community), I’ve been blind to intolerance.

  If, indeed, a majority (or dominant minority) is expressing attitudes of intolerance toward the religious individuals in their midst—which, as I hopefully established, is different than a group of people expressing antireligious viewpoints—then that situation needs a good amending. No one is bridging any gaps with that kind of attitude. If you’re not trying to find common ground with people, if you’re only setting out to separate the dumb them from the oh-so smart you, then somebody should be taking you aside and telling you to shut the fuck up.

  I personally will do this if I hear someone doing anything other than criticizing beliefs and actions. If I see you at a convention reducing someone to the status of subhuman just because they practice a religious or spiritual discipline, you’ll get a polite but firm earful from me. I’ve done that kind of thing before, and I don’t mind doing it again. I’m the kind of asshole who likes confrontation in situations wherein I feel justified being confrontational.

  And why, in that situation, would I feel justified? It’s rather simple, really. No one has the ability to sum up a person’s worth based upon one set of beliefs. The fact that a person believes they can is a sign of arrogance, laziness, and—probably—stupidity.

  #

  Now, if someone as unwise and arrogant and downright contentious as Zachary Jernigan gets this, everyone else should, too.

  #

  Afterward:

  I didn’t mean to ignore the subject of this post, as I’ve read—and been inspired—by many works of science fiction and fantasy that deal with religion. Furthermore, I could have used them as a great springboard to talk about my own upcoming novel, No Return, which involves quite a bit of religion, actually.

  In the end, however, I’m happy that I chose to write what I did. As is likely quite apparent, I’m no friend to religion, but I do love people immensely. My desire to communicate with them, the religious and the nonreligious alike, is what inspires me to write. It’s sad that I have to remind myself of that when I get all twelve cylinders chugging away in indignation over some religious issue, but at least I do remind myself.

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• Sexism, Misogyny and Harassment: A Thousand Or So Words to Realize I’m Part of the Problem.

  Conventions and Conferences
  

  Yes, this is your author. Inspires a LOT of confidence, doesn't it?

  I was at Readercon last year, but knew nothing of the harassment of Genvieve Valentine until I got home.

  Yeah, the thought of that happening made me mad, as it obviously should. No man should reach adulthood and feel that kind of freedom to harass another human being. Social pressure should have been exerted on that individual from the moment he started exhibiting sings of such aggression.

  Yeah, the thought of it all made me embarrassed on behalf of my other cock-wielding humans. As it should.

  You know what made me feel the most anger and embarrassment, however? Just after the harassment became public knowledge, there were a couple dude-bros — inevitably; dude-bros ruin everything — who opened their goddamn mouths to say something along the lines of, “If only I’d been there, I would’ve done something.”

  Yeah? What would you have done? Defended poor, weak little Genevieve?

  With all due respect (which isn’t much): Fuck you, you failures at life. Put your dicks back in your pants.

  The only time you should be stepping in and helping someone is when their well-being is threatened — when a person is in danger and unable to defend themself. Or when they ask for help. Even then, you’ll probably make the situation worse.

  But here’s the important thing: That scenario has nothing to do with the victim’s sex, the assailant’s sex, or — and here’s the kicker — your sex.

  Yeah, really.

  Genevieve didn’t need any extra help from the penises; if you paid even the slightest attention to her posts on the incident, you’d know she had plenty of supporters with her — supporters she hardly needed, because she handled herself with strength and aplomb.

  #

  I don’t bring this up to go over what has already been gone over, again and again, by others more literate and knowledgeable than I. No, I bring it up because I think such interactions are a good representation of the sophistication of many — far too many — male geeks when confronted with a vagina’d individual:

  BREASTS
  =
  VAGINA / BUTT / LEGS
  =
  ALIEN
  or
  GODDESS
  or
  WHORE
  or
  MOTHER
  = (eventually)
  WOMAN
  or
  GIRL (as their known near-ubiquitously to such men — ahem — boys)
  =
  OH MY GOD IN HEAVEN IT’S A GIRL LOOK
  IT’S BOOBS AND UNDER THERE THERE’S A
  SNATCH AND STARE STARE STARE STARE…
  =
  CREEPER SNAPSHOT
  or
  INAPPROPRIATE COME-ON
  or (if he’s one of those shy Nice Guys)
  WILDLY MISOGYNISTIC COMMENT LATER ON WOW FORUM

  I’d love, absolutely love, to have a more positive view, but despite any forward momentum gained (and no one will deny that there’s been some), this last year’s been yet another confirmation that male geek “culture” is producing maladjusted individuals at a disappointingly robust rate. I hardly need to provide links; male geeks behaving badly toward female geeks has been all the rage over the interwebs.

  It’s disappointing as hell, frankly. It’s one of the few things that makes me want to be part of another scene.

  #

  Don’t get me wrong: I’m not immune to my culture, geeky or otherwise. I’m not now claiming — nor would I ever claim — that I always act consistently with my stated beliefs. Sometimes, I think sexist thoughts. Disappointingly often, I say things or make assumptions based on these sexist thoughts. It’s an ongoing struggle to unlearn what my culture has told me about the differences between women and men. It’s even harder to let go of the privilege I’ve been born to just because I’ve got a dick and can grow a (neck)beard.

  

  Wha--? A woman? But this is MY Christopher Nolan Batman Trilogy forum! I smeared poop on my computer to prevent things like this from happening!

  But I keep on with the struggle.

  Why? Because I don’t want to view women as less than they are, and — far more importantly — I don’t want women to be held back by my (and my bejohnsoned peers’) prejudice.

  If someone as immature, as indoctrinated, as neuronally-slow as me gets this — or, at the very least, sees that the disparity is entirely unjust and harmful and that something should be done about it — why is it so hard for others to make even a rudimentary effort to change their mindsets?

  Why do so many refuse to see that there’s a problem at all? Why do so many insist that fandom is diverse and welcoming, when the limits of this claim are so clearly defined? Why must there be all this fucking butthurt when a righteous volley is launched at the walls of the palace of geekdom? Do male geeks not realize that self-criticism is necessary for growth?

  But maybe these geeks don’t want to grow up. Maybe it’s more urgent to them that they keep the wiminz out of the borders of their ever shrinking kingdoms than reevaluate their prejudice.

  Maybe the right to tell a boob joke without reprisal is just that important to them.

  #

  If any of the above seems too harsh to any of you guys reading, then you can kindly pull your scrotum up over your head, click the Exit button, and go back to living blind, calcifying in a room that reeks of sweat, masturbation, Cheetos, and failure.

  Real people — no, I won’t say real men — face the charges coming at them. They FIX SHIT.

  I’m angry; I think this is clear. The subject enrages me because I fucking love the science fiction, fantasy, and horror folks who have adopted me with open arms. (For years, I was alone in my geekdom, a silent observer. Only in the last three years have a I really come out.) I’m upset because I’m aware that those arms would likely have been a little less open to me if I were a woman (or a person of color, or a non-cisgendered individual, etc.). I’m upset, basically, because there is a situation under our noses that demands action, and so many people are denying it exists.

  I’m pissed because I KEEP TALKING and — moreover — feeling largely justified for doing so. It’s easy to feel you have an audience when you’re whole life you’ve been made to feel important because you’re a man, and white, and…

  Yeah. It’s all a big unfair mess. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that guys like Scott Lynch speak up against bigots, but for all the attention he’s received you’d think he invented cold fusion. Why aren’t more women being celebrated for knocking in the teeth of gross fanboys?

  I’ll tell you why. It’s because the most vocal part of our community is made comfortable by the knowledge that the act of righteousness comes from a verifiably male (and white, and cisgendered) source. This group of geeks gets to pat itself on the back for being so amazingly buttkickingly awesome, all without having to confront the nasty OTHER.

  #

  Ah, shit. Whatever. I’m going to wrap this up, because I’ve just reread what I wrote and become disgusted by my overabundance of words and self-righteousness. I won’t erase it, however, because I think it’s just enough to prove my point that male geeks are still doing too much of the talking where women are concerned in this community.

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• Rules for a Mostly Sane Writing Experience

  The Life

  Like Courtney I’ve never had a light bulb moment, except when I discovered how much I could delete without ruining the story. For example it’s nice to talk about the engraving on an ivory brush, but in the second half of the second book, people already have a sense of the world and the things in it. Or sometimes a friend can help you see that a character twisting his lips for the fortieth time doesn’t really get the point across – it’s just annoying. So as far as deleting, I’ve had these moments when I realize how pointless so many of my lines and paragraphs are. But other than that? Not really. I do however have some rules.

  1. Take a walk. Or a shower. Or a bike ride. I find that continuing to write when I’m just stuck does not work. I end up with pages that don’t go anywhere that I later have to delete (see above). If I remove myself from the situation, a better solution will come to me. (more…)

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• Does Sex Matter?

  Sex and Feelings; It's in every genre. How are the elements of Romance used in Science Fiction and Fantasy?

  Sex. Many feel it simply has no place in fantasy, and when they find it there, it’s just like the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial – hey! You got sex in my story! – but without the happy resolution. It all depends on the story being told. A person can write a rip-roaring tale of heroes caught in romantic adventures without having to find a way to describe bodies bumping. Others may differ.

  Does sex matter? Sex is part of most of our lives, and certainly not an unimportant one. Our government sees fit to legislate where it can and cannot occur, and what percentage of nipple can appear on our television screens. It’s codified, controlled, and explosively popular: sex propelled Fifty Shades of Grey to the bestseller list and earns the pornography industry $14 billion a year. I would say yes. Sex matters.

  There are many ways to talk about sex in books. One is the craft of the actual scenes which I suspect would be boring to read about. Another is the purpose of sex in the book – what it is meant to convey. Yet another is the societal overtones of that sex, from unconscious Puritanism and sexism to post-colonial biases.

  So where does one begin to unravel sex in our literature? Certainly the temptation is to leave it be. Art is not exactly meant to make sense of our lives – only ask questions or find beauty in it. The great mystery of sex – what it means to each of us and to the characters and world of a book – is only one of a great many riddles in any good story. And yet there persists the worry that something harmful could be there, something twisted, that begs to be opened and put into the sunlight. (more…)

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• A glorious, nauseating journey of discovery

  Writing the Second Novel

  There are two ways to look at publishing your first novel.  My friend Mark Lawrence looks at it this way: you have already won the lottery. With so many good writers out there, and agents and publishing houses drowning in submissions, somehow you got your book noticed, and not only  noticed, but in print and on shelves. Everything else that happens after that is a gift. (He says this while simultaneously writing a best seller, designing a rocket ship, and saving his children from terrorists.)

  I take a more stressful view: this first book is a chance, a foot in the door, a job interview. After that, you could be a writer for real. You just have to learn to write for a deadline; suck creativity out of your overtired, depressed, distracted head; learn how to write a good sentence the first time instead of the fifth; be professional and adult when discussing your work (harder for me than I originally believed); and come up with a good idea more frequently than once every five years.

  Because Mark is right: the first book is a sign of incredible luck. But I think the second book (or trilogy, if you write SFF) is a sign that you are a writer. (more…)

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• Richard Hell and William Gibson: Any Connection?

  Sub genres, what do they mean (steam, cyber, bio, splatter)? 



  o hold the t.v. to my lips, the air so packed with cash
  then carry it up flights of stairs and drop it in the vacant lot
  To lose my train of thought and fall into your arms’ tracks
  and watch beneath the eyelids every passing dot

  I belong to the blank generation . . .

  –Richard Hell and the Voidoids

  When I learned I was to write a blog post about all the –punk genres (cyber, steam, bio, splatter), I panicked.  Here, I am entirely ignorant. But I do know about punk music, so my mind turned there instead. Why is the word ‘punk’ attached to these genres?

  First I must address the question of whether or not the ‘punk’ of steampunk actually has anything to do with the music. I’ve seen arguments that it doesn’t—that punk is a much older word. No argument that it’s a much older word: I remember my dad being dismayed that punk music was called ‘punk music’ because of what ‘punk’ had meant to him in the Navy. But truly I think arguments that ‘punk’ is referring to something pre-1970s are reaching a bit too far. The term ‘cyberpunk’ was coined in 1983, a mere decade or so after the advent of Television, The Stooges, and the Ramones, an earthquake in terms of contemporary culture. I think the term was meant to build upon that, both for shock value and for aligning itself with punk values. (more…)

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• All about cons from someone who hasn’t been there

  Conventions and Conferences

  Ah, conventions. They sound like such fun. Great costumes, parties, roleplaying games with everyone’s favorite authors—who wouldn’t want to go? Well, a shy person like myself. The best thing about being an international person of mystery is that nobody knows who I am. No phone calls, no author readings, no book signings: so far I have loved it. But I also know that the writing community is just that – a community – and that one day I will join it in person.

  Even so, I imagine my first venture into conventions this way: I will attend a few panels (“Chronological Dissonance: Modern Archetypes & Morals in a Historical Setting” and “Science Fiction & Religion: How Readers and Writers Mix the Two”—both from past cons—are what I imagine), then run off to a museum by myself or else hole up in my room, writing. (more…)

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• Of gods and flying

  From airships to jet packs--The best flying machines.

  When Daedalus fashioned wings for himself and his son Icarus, he knew the danger. He warned his son to fly neither too high nor too low. Too high, and one is too near to the gods; too low, and one is pulled down by earthly needs and desires.  Icarus of course flew too close to the sun, melting the wax that held his feathers together, and he drowned in the sea.

  Daedalus gave his warning, but we human beings have never heeded it. The ages are filled with inventors who attached wings and leaped from tall buildings, usually breaking bones, until at last they turned to gliding. Gliding was the key to achieving the impossible: with lift, we can now fly halfway across the world in less than a day. Next we discovered rocket power and flew to the moon. Not shabby, but also not enough. We don’t want to depend on a metal tube or a capsule. As fantasy readers we want to feel the air brush against our skin, the clouds dampening our cheeks.

  Let us not forget why Daedalus fashioned those wings: he could not leave Crete by either land or sea. In all human ways he was trapped. He needed wings – he needed to pass between the immortal and the mortal realms, between sun and earth. Too high, and the wax would melt; too low, and the feathers would become weighted with water. A fine balance, and his son could not maintain it. (more…)

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• The role of dystopian fiction in a changing world

  From Hunger Games to The Windup Girl. Is Dystopia the new black?

  Dystopian fiction is a time-honored tradition in genre. Beginning with HG Wells and continuing with Huxley, Orwell, Bradbury, Vonnegut, Atwood, and right into the present day with Bacigalupi and Collins, dystopias fascinate and frighten us with what is possible in human society. A well-established subgenre of speculative fiction, they pop up on our bookshelves every few years to bring forth a new set of ‘what if’ questions.

  Dystopias provide a view into the maximum extensions of political, religious and other motivating beliefs. While in real-life societies rarely reach that logical end point of an argument (and when they do, it is always ugly and strictly not encouraged by me), fiction can do it again and again. What if we lived in a theocracy that followed the exact word of the Bible? What if we lived in a society in which the government controlled every aspect of our lives? What if women were denied agency over their own lives and forced to reproduce for strangers? A dystopian novel can take those questions and build them into a world we can examine, discuss, and question. (more…)

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