Cheryl's Mewsings

One of the things you don’t want to happen when you are traveling is have a major online row break out that you feel you need to comment on. Thankfully Nick Mamatas has said most of what I wanted to say, and from the perspective of Haikasoru which lends it more weight.

I do, however, want to focus in on one small part of Norman Spinrad’s somewhat bumbling and insensitive article. Talking about what he perceives as a lack of SF from “Third World” countries, he says:

If it exists, I haven’t seen a significant amount of it translated into any language I can read

Well, there’s a reason for that. It is partly about markets. The bigger the readership you have for a book the better, so you tend to want to write in a language that a lot of people read. That means you should go for Mandarin, English, Spanish, Arabic or Russian. Bearing in mind the relative wealth of the readers, French, German and Japanese might be good too. Portuguese is probably on the way up. Urdu and Bengali are also interesting prospects, but if you live in India you may choose to write in English because India has a lot of different native languages. If your native tongue is Yoruba then you may well choose to write in English, because a lot of Nigerians speak it anyway and it gives you access to a wider market. Spinrad, I suspect, will view anyone writing in English as “Western-influenced” and therefore not really “Third World”.

The other reason, and you’ll get bored of my saying this soon, is that the English speaking world is woefully uninterested in translated fiction. That’s why some friends and I have started translation awards. Perhaps if Mr. Spinrad were to read the blog there regularly (and the excellent World SF News blog) he would become somewhat better informed. And if he’d like to help support the awards we may see a lot more translated fiction in the future.

Those of you who, like me, did not get to see Neil Gaiman’s appearance on CBS Sunday Morning can view that segment online here. They ended up not talking about the Hugos at all, but there are a number of scenes from Worldcon in Montreal. Mostly, of course, they went for people in weird costumes, but there are a few familiar faces. My friend Anne KG Murphy is briefly visible in the background busily keeping Neil’s life smooth and organized.

I’m closing down the main communications arrays for now. I’ll be in London tonight, and on an early-ish plane to San Francisco in the morning. In the meantime, Twitter will be the best place to find me.

You can all blame Nick Harkaway for this. He found it first.

For an explanation (as if you would be happy with anything so mundane), see the Daily Telegraph.

So, what’s the caption? This cries out for the LOLcat treatment.

Hey, did I hear someone say that there are no women writers in horror? Obviously whoever said that hasn’t been to Australia. I’ve just done a post over at SFAW for this year’s Australian Shadows Awards. The five nominees in the long fiction category include Deborah Biancotti, H.N. (Honey) Brown, and Kaaron Warren. The other categories have women in them too. Just sayin’…

P-Con should have been well and truly dead-dogged by now. There might still be a few people in the Porterhouse, but as the dead dog started at lunch time anyone who is left will be pretty horizontal by now, I think.

It sounds like Nick had a wonderful time, which makes me very happy, because it was partly my fault that he was there.

For my own part I have learned something very valuable: if you are going to record an audio report from a convention, make sure you have very good notes to hand, because once the recording goes live you won’t be able to remember anything about the convention. Proof of this fact can now be found here. I shall try to do better next time, Tony.

Because I will probably have forgotten by next year, here’s a reminder about the wi-fi in the Central. It does work, and it is free. The problem is activating it. With most hotel wi-fi you just connect, launch your browser and sign in. Eirecom, however, have managed to create a system where the sign-in process only works in Internet Explorer. The stupidity of this should be obvious to all, and now you have all been warned about just how dumb ISPs can be.

I wasn’t at the dead dog as I had to get back to Somerset and re-pack ready to head out to California. However, I did spend Sunday evening at the convention. Diane Duane and Peter Moorwood turned up, which was very nice, and a whole bunch of us headed out to dinner at a nearby Japanese restaurant. Good eating was had by all, despite the sad lack of unagi on the menu.

There was also some obscure tweetage and, because Irish people were present, discussion of religion. Ireland has, apparently, come a long way in the last 40+ years. I am reliably informed that back in the 1960s it was considered deeply shocking for a bishop to actually see a lady’s nightie. Obviously this was true if the lady was in it, but also the mere sight of such a risqué garment was liable to cause undue stress for episcopal persons. Sadly this proved far too much of a temptation to some dreadful sinners.

The things you learn at conventions…

This week is going to be very light on the blogging due to excessive travel. Here’s stuff I have been saving up while I have been in Ireland.

- In The Guardian Jon Ronson meets the boss of SETI.

- At Lambda Literary Cathy Camper tackles the Was Holmes Gay? question.

- In SF&F Elizabeth Hand explains why Jonathan Clements deserves a Nobel prize (though I think he’d be quite happy with a Hugo nomination – hint).

The morning began with a panel about gender genre bending. The panelists elected me moderator and I paid them back by asking them to define “genre”. Confusion inevitably followed. I have discovered that Laura Anne Gilman is allergic to the term “post-modernism”. This may be useful in the future.

The “aliens in Dublin” panel was great fun. I had brought a costume — a cat mask. Between us Juliet, Laura, John Vaughan and I managed to talk complete nonsense for an entire hour.

A panel titled “Is the Internet Indispensable” cries out to be subverted by technology. Some of the best comments came from the online audience via Twitter, but pride of place should probably go to RF Long who noted: “what happens on the Internet stays on the Internet; forever”.

Closing ceremonies have happened. Nick proved a very popular Guest of Honour. Next year’s GoH will be the very wonderful Ian McDonald. Julian West won the Frank Darcy Award with a very funny drabble. I did not win anything in the auction, but I did bag a very splendid “Friend of P-Con” certificate for (ahem) “services rendered”.

I have filed an audio con report with Star Ship Sofa. For all I know it might be online already. I, however, am headed back to the bar.

The first day of P-Con has massed without major incident and with much amusement.

I did a panel about superheroes in fiction, largely on the strength of Karen Burnham’s excellent paper on the subject, and a very knowledgeable audience.

That was quickly followed by a panel on mentioning the unmentionable. Apparently you can get away with almost anything in fiction, though killing young children and dogs is still frowned upon. What is a problem, however, is covers. US publishers are apparently still very reluctant to put brown-skinned people on the cover; and all publishers are reluctant to put disabled people on the cover. You can, as Justine Larbalestier proved, do something about this. However, publishers are not always wrong about what people will buy. Sometimes there is a trade-off to be made between having the cover you want, and selling the book; and if you happen to have a book that you want to be read by the sort of people who might not buy it if it has the wrong sort of person on the cover…

Nick Harkaway’s Guest of Honour speech was a lot of fun, especially the bits of The Gone Away World that he read. I believe that I have film of it on the Flip, and hope to put it online in a week or two.

Clare, poor dear, has gone down with some sort of infection and is hiding in her room. I did, however, check with Nick, and can now reveal that what she was doing last night was making an extended phone call to people in Texas as part of the campaign to save the life of Linda Carty.

My final panel for the day was on international genre writers. I thought we spend rather too much time talking about translations and not enough time actually plugging people’s books. Also the audience was very small as we were up against a discussion of social networking. But we did cover a bunch of good issues.

I have gathered up my courage and entered the Frank Darcy Award contest for drabble-writing. Laura Anne Gilman has entered as well, and I expect her story to be much better than mine.

Thus far there has been no sign of Cthulhu cultists, possibly because Fluff and his minions are not here.

The travel went fine, as you may have seen on Twitter. Juliet McKenna was apparently much less fortunate, but I think she has made it. I shall get the story out of her tomorrow, but she is OK.

In the absence of Jules I managed to snag an invite to dinner with Bob Nielson, Colin Harvey and Mike Shevdon. Bob took us to a favorite Italian restaurant of his. I had Pizza Diavolo, primarily because the menu promised “spacy Italian salami”. Sadly I am not tripping out as a result, but it did taste good.

I had a nice chat with Nick Harkaway in the bar, but have not got to meet the famous Mrs. H. yet as civil rights campaigners don’t get holidays and she was on the phone doing something very important that I don’t know whether I can blog about.

The big problem is the hotel Internet, which doesn’t like Windows 7 very much and doesn’t like my email at all. (Very annoying as it worked last year.) I can get a web browser to work, but I don’t yet know if I can get Skype to work. More testing is required. If I can get Skype running I’ll be calling in a report to Star Ship Sofa on Sunday afternoon.

On the way over I finished reading Kaaron Warren’s Walking the Tree, which is a fascinating book that I need to write about. I have just started N.K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and a few chapters in I am very impressed. I can’t remember being this excited about a book for a long time.

Because the world keeps getting more weird, and religious bigots keep shooting themselves in the foot.

- First up a humiliating defeat for right-wing bishops as the House of Lords decides that the Church of England does not have the right to force all religions to hate gays.

- Then we have one of those lovely stories about gay-hating Republican politicians being caught frequenting gay bars. This time it is a California state senator who was a leading proponent of “Proposition H8″.

- Not to be outdone, a Vatican chorister has been sacked for running a gay prostitution ring. Nice to see your boys setting a good example, Mr. Pope.

- Meanwhile South Carolina is compiling a register of people plotting to overthrow the US government. Several amusing Discordians appear to have registered, but no sign of Sarah Palin as yet.

- Back with sanity, Nick Harkaway is plugging a fundraiser anthology helping victims of the Haiti earthquake.

- And finally, one of the cutest things I have read in a long time: Georgia Roberson writes a letter to Dr. Seuss.

The nice folks who run Crossed Genres have started a new blog. It is called Science in My Fiction, and it is dedicated to discussing interesting science that might make for good stories. The excellent Peggy Kolm is going to guest blog. Read it here.

Because I should be packing for P-Con and doing the day job.

- An interesting statement by Christopher Handley’s lawyer on the subject of obscenity and manga, and why they chose to plead guilty.

- A great article on fear being the enemy of gender equality (thanks Nnedi!).

- A suggestion that the iPad is the Wii of the tablet market. Actually the thing I found most interesting about this is that if you go into a computer games shop in the UK all of the effort goes into selling XBox and PS3 games, with the Wii stuff hidden away in a small corner. That’s odd if Wii is easily the top-selling console. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be buying an iPad until it has the eye-friendly Kindle-style screen. The iPhone hurts my eyes quite enough.

- Peter Tennant of Black Static takes the opportunity to show that not all male horror fans are sexist. Nice piece of PR by TTA Press there, which is another reason why it is important to apologize well.

The P-Con programme is now online here. The HTML looks a bit wonky, but hopefully you can make it out. I appear to have the panels I expected. I shall be busy.

We are off around the world.

- Justine Larbalestier has guest post by a writer who is an Australian Aboriginal.

- Joe Gordon notes that the fabulous comic creator, Asia Alfasi, along with the equally talented Daryl Cunningham, is being interviewed on BBC Radio Scotland.

- World SF News interviews Brazilian writer, Jacques Barcia.

- And Fábio Fernandes talks about portrayals of Brazil in science fiction.

- The Guardian has news of an interesting Japanese take on contemporary politics.

The manga stars former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, may his mane ever ripple. Portrayed by author Hideki Owada as Japan’s last action hero, Koizumi settles matters of international diplomacy with slavering, corrupt world leaders from Kim Jong-Il to “Papa Bush” over histrionic, blood-spattered sessions of the ancient game of mahjong…

- Finally back to Australia with the good news that a Malaysian trans woman has been granted political asylum because of the persecution she faced back home. (By the way, if any Australian readers know Jenni Millbank, tell her to talk to the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco, who do a lot of good work in this sort of area.)

I’m late in talking about this, partially as I’ve been busy with other stuff, and partially because I was too angry to be coherent. Hopefully I have calmed down a little now.

The State of Utah is introducing a new law that will make women liable to face murder charges if they suffer a miscarriage.

Yes, you did read that correctly. There you are, utterly distraught over having lost your baby, and instead of being comforted you find yourself up in court on a murder charge. It is the sort of thing that could only happen in some imagined dystopia such as the world of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, or the various violent patriarchies with which Sheri Tepper fills her books.

In fairness to the Utah lawmakers, what they are trying to do is address an issue about an abortion. In theory the law is there to deal with women who try to induce a miscarriage because they can’t get an abortion legally. The example given in the story I linked to is pretty horrible. But regardless of of your views on abortion this law will be a disaster, because the potential for misuse is enormous.

Consider what happens in rape trials. In theory a rape trial is all about proving whether a man is guilty of rape. In practice all to often it comes down to a woman having to prove that she is innocent of having had sex willingly. The mere fact that intercourse took place is taken as evidence of her guilt.

The same is going to happen here. The fact of a miscarriage will be taken as evidence that the woman is guilty of failing to look after her baby properly, and it will be up to her to prove her innocence. You say you fell down stairs, madam. How are we to know that you didn’t do that deliberately? You caught an unpleasant illness? Well surely you should have been at home taking care of yourself and the baby, not at work where you would be at risk. Your partner beat you up? Are you sure that you didn’t provoke him deliberately?

And if you are thinking “this won’t happen”, think again. Because Iowa has a very similar law in operation, and such cases are already happening.

In related news, Mercedes Allen has a story from New Orleans about about an 1805 law against “unnatural copulation” that is being used to label prostitutes as “sex offenders” and place them under the same legal restrictions created to control pedophiles. Oddly enough it is only women who are targeted in this way. The men who take part in, and indeed pay for, these “unnatural” acts get off without charges.

Ahem.

I objected to Jason Sanford’s podcast about the fanzine Hugos because it went straight from lauding Ansible and File 770 as great paper fanzines to claiming that Electric Velocipede was the first Hugo winner to be published primarily online. I was annoyed mainly because I had spent much of the day on Maura McHugh’s complaint about SFX ignoring women horror writers, and Jason’s podcast appeared to do the same sort of thing.

I do not claim (and hopefully never have claimed) that Emerald City was the first fanzine to have any online presence. Indeed, as Colin Hinz rightly pointed out, Ansible was available online long before I started Emerald City. I should also note that Teresa Nielsen Hayden was nominated for Best Fan Writer in 1991, as I understand it on the strength of writing she did in newsgroups.

There was a huge amount of hair-splitting that went on when I was running Emerald City regarding what was an acceptable online presence and what wasn’t, and basically that boiled down to anything Dave did online was OK, and anything I did wasn’t. (Dave, bless him, declined to get involved in this nonsense.) And that tells us something important about “format wars”. When it comes down to it, they are often not about formats at all. They are also about who is considered “part of our community” and who isn’t.

Anyway, I’m pleased to see Mike Glyer lauding Dave Langford as a great Hero of the Online Revolution. After all, Mike was firmly against the changes in the Hugo Award rules that made it explicit (rather than implicit) that ‘zines like Star Ship Sofa were eligible in Best Fanzine. In a post worthy of Faux News, Mike raised the specter of the fanzine Hugo being overrun by hordes of slavering, ignorant web readers who would put io9.com, SyFy.com and Tor.com onto the fanzine ballot. Hopefully, if Star Ship Sofa does make it onto the ballot, Mike will be too relieved to object.

If you are looking for information from Chile or ways to help the relief effort, I’d like to recommend Gabriel Rodríguez. He’s the artist for the fabulous comic, Locke and Key, scripted by Joe Hill, and he lives in Chile. He has posted today about the situation, including a bunch of links to relevant charities.

Deep breath, here we go.

On Friday (5th) I head off to Dublin for P-Con, returning on Monday (8th).

The following Wednesday (10th) I’m off to London where I’m staying with the Clutes overnight in preparation for an early morning flight to San Francisco on the Thursday (11th).

Kevin’s stuck in Portland on a training course, so I’ll need to find my own way to our sadly neglected apartment. Fortunately BART will take me most of the way, and there are cabs available at Fremont BART. Then I’ll need to get a bus to the shops as there’ll be no fresh food at home.

I was hoping to get to Nova Albion over the weekend, but Kevin has the van. Also there’s an SFSFC Board Meeting on Saturday (13th).

Kevin should be back on Sunday night (14th), so we ought to be able to make BASFA on the Monday (15th), but early Tuesday morning (16th) I’m off to Orlando for ICFA where I will finally get to present my paper on trans characters in science fiction and fantasy.

I’ll be back in the Bay Area on the following Monday (22nd). Sleep may follow.

Hmm, what have we got for you today?

- “Bring me the head of Amenhotep III!” Or maybe not. It is 2.5 meters tall and made of solid granite. I’m not sure there is room on the patio. Those Egyptians sure did do BIG.

- “The name’s Dare, Dan Dare.” PS Publishing announces a tribute to the great Frank Hampton, creator of many a British schoolboy’s (and schoolgirl’s) dreams. That looks like a must-buy book.

- Time on women’s ski jumping, including IOC member, Dick Pound, trying his best to sound like a Chicago Crime Boss. (hat tip: Zoe Brain)