Science Fiction

Biology Is Not Faith-Based

~ Cheryl ~ 13 Comments

There’s an awful lot of fairly crass sexism and misogyny going on in my corner of the Internet these days, and equally a lot of very capable people debunking it. I’ve largely stayed out of it because other people are doing a perfectly good job without me. Anyway, it doesn’t take a lot of effort to debunk the “women are naturally inferior” argument. Where I do want to stick my oar in is to caution against using the same type of faith-based biology to argue that men and women are in fact identical. Specifically I saw someone tweet that if you did brain scans of men and women you would not be able to tell the difference. Tweets are, of necessity, devoid of subtlety, so I don’t want to call anyone out, but I do want to explain why that sort of argument worries me.

Firstly I think it is probably factually wrong. I’m not a neuroscientist myself, but do take an interest in brain science and I’m pretty sure that a trained professional in that field would stand a good chance of telling a scan of a male brain from a scan of a female one, in much the same way as a trained medical professional can tell a male skeleton from a female skeleton.

Secondly, medical science is slowly coming to the realization that there are important differences in the way that male and female bodies respond to treatment. It is crucially important for women’s health that these differences are recognized and studied. Insisting that we are “all the same” will tend to result in medical treatment defaulting to the current social norm, which means favoring males over females (see here for some of the issues).

And finally, this is the sort of thing that leads to transphobia. The idea that men and women are identical in all respects except possession or not of ovaries was a major factor in causing second wave feminists to insist that trans people could not possibly exist.

When people attack the idea of gender-based brain difference they often quote Cordelia Fine. But Fine doesn’t say that there are no physical differences. Some of the studies that purport to identify differences are highly dodgy, but much more importantly the arguments that extrapolate from real or supposed differences in brain structure to differences is abilities and behavior are, at best, bad science, and at worst pure snake oil.

The thing about human beings is that they come in all shapes and sizes. Some of us are better at some things than others. Some of this is biological, and some of it down to cultural influences. What isn’t true is that all of Group X are naturally better than all of Group Y because of their characteristic, Z. People are people, and no one should be assumed inferior because of their gender, ethnicity, sexuality and so on.

Besides, most of you, dear readers, also read science fiction. Even if we never encounter sentient aliens, it seems increasingly likely that we will soon be able to make people that are, in biological terms, a different species from us. Those people will still be people, and our understanding of “human” rights will have to evolve to cope with that.

Farewell, World SF

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday Lavie Tidhar announced that the World SF Blog that he and Charles Tan had run so successfully is closing down. There is a final post here. While I will definitely miss the blog, I know how much work these things take and understand completely why Lavie and Charles need to go on to other things. My thanks to them both for a job well done.

Charles will be one of my guests when Small Blue Planet visits the Philippines shortly. So if you want to know what he’s up to, do listen in. Lavie, of course, has a new book out.

For those of you looking for news of the SF&F scene outside of the English-speaking world, Europa SF provides an excellent window onto the European scene. For fiction, International Speculative Fiction is doing very well. You should also check out Indian SF. I’m sure that there are many other good sites. If you have some you want to recommend, please do so in comments.

That’s The Way To Do It!

~ Cheryl

Mr. Punch dealt with people who annoyed him by whacking them over the head with his stick. These days, violence of that sort is frowned upon, but you can still whack annoying people over the head metaphorically by doing good work. The response to an appalling racist diatribe by one maverick SFWA member last week was a spontaneous fund raising drive for the Carl Brandon Society and related causes that raised just short of $17,000.

WHACK!

That’s the way to do it! 🙂

Well done, science fiction and fantasy community.

The SFWA Thing

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I’ve kept meaning to post about this, but it all blew up while I was in Canada and I’ve been in catch-up mode ever since. Today I’m starting to see light at the end of the tunnel, and we have a whole new raft of outrage, so I guess it is time.

I should note here that I am an ex-SFWA member. I joined as soon as I thought I was eligible, because I think SFWA is a useful organization and the more eligible people who join the better. I quickly found out, however, that SFWA regarded its Associate and Affiliate members as a source of cash and little else, so I walked away. When John Scalzi and friends took over I figured that I should re-join as things would get better, but I was told that you can’t simply re-activate your membership. You have to apply again from scratch. Because having been accepted as a member in the past is not sufficient proof that you qualify now. So I walked away again, and am unlikely to join until I can do so as a full member.

Having said all that, I still believe that SFWA is a good thing, and the more good people who are eligible to join who play an active role the better. I agree with Tempest that we want a SFWA that is the best it can be.

I’d also like to agree with Lavie Tidhar and call for a more international SFWA. However, I understand the practical problems on the road to that goal. SFWA is not (whatever some people might claim) an organization for American writers; it is an organization for writers who do business in America. It has that restriction because the legal framework in which writers do business in the USA is different from that that obtains in the UK, different again from that in Australia, and so on. To become truly international, SFWA would have to develop skills in the business environments of every country, and that is a major undertaking.

Before SFWA can even start to tackle that sort of project, however, it needs to put its own house in order. That too will be hard, at least in part because, like so much in our community, it is dependent on the work of volunteers. It is also plagued by culture wars. Some of those people who have been members for years and remember it being a club for white boys are having difficulty coming to terms with a world in which women, people of color, QUILTBAG folk and so on expect to be members in equal standing.

Long term, however, SFWA has to be a professional organization. It can’t be that if its newsletter gives a platform for two people to do a bad impression of Statler and Waldorf, abusing everyone else in the community (some of you may remember that I had my own run-in with Resnick & Malzberg a couple of years ago). And it can’t be that if it is continually finding itself in the news, not for fulfilling its stated purpose, but for providing a platform whose views would be politically conservative in the 19th Century, let alone the 21st. The past couple of weeks have provided more bad press for science fiction than I can remember in a long time, because time and again I have seen articles in mainstream media outlets explaining how the genre is a bastion of sexist old men. After today that will be amended to sexist and racist old men.

The good news is that Newton was right: to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The louder and more repulsive the conservatives become, the more likely it will be that people fight back. I have been very heartened, over the last couple of weeks, by the number of blog posts I have seen by women writers saying that they are not going to sit back and be treated with contempt any longer. Furthermore, after today’s latest outrage, John Scalzi has been raising money for the Carl Brandon Society, by offering to match donations up to a total of $1000. Other people have offered to add their own matching payments, or match bands above $1000. This is delightful.

With any luck we’ll get into the news for doing something good for a change.

The Guardian Goes Down Under

~ Cheryl

I’ve been noting a lot of Australian political news on the Guardian website of late, presumably heralding a big push into that market. And now they have made a play for that culture that David Gower jokingly suggested that they don’t have. (Sledging, Lord Gower? Surely not!) Yes, there is a article in The Guardian about one of the finest aspects of Australian culture: their thriving science fiction, fantasy and horror scene. Jonathan Strahan is interviewed. As indeed is this mouthy, feminist called Cheryl Morgan. Should you wish to see what awful things I have said, go here.

ISF #4 Is Live

~ Cheryl

ISF #4Issue #4 of International Speculative Fiction is now available. Includes stories by Zoran Živković, Ken Liu and S.P. Somtow. There is also an interview with Zoran. Sean Wright reviews Filipina writer, Eliza Victoria, which is very useful as Small Blue Planet will be off to the Philippines next month. There’s lot of other good content too. And it is all free. To download a copy on your preferred format, go here.

Ã…con Meanders On

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

What’s new since yesterday? Oh yes, there was sushi. There was also a room party. Someone brought a bottle of Jura Prophecy. I can’t imagine who that might have been. It seemed to go down very well. Otto revealed a new skill: expert cake maker. He should do that more often.

After way to much whisky and sparkling pink stuff I had to get up early again this morning for another tour. This time I got the clocks right and managed to inhale a reasonable quantity of breakfast. This is just as well, because the alcohol started early.

We were visiting Smakbyn, a new enterprise set up by top Finnish chef, Mikael Björklund. Although the venue will feature a top quality restaurant, Björklund isn’t in Ã…land just to cook. He wants to start from scratch. He and his wife have purchased a distillery which specializes in apple-based beverages. They plan to start smoking their own meats and fish, making their own cheese and honey, and so on. Ã…land is a fine agricultural location, and therefore an excellent place for such a venture.

Our tasting concentrated on the alcohol. We were served a number of beverages, starting with apple wine and working up through various liqueurs to a Calvados-like spirit. Given that I am from Somerset, I’m pretty hard to please when it comes to apple-based beverages, and several of the drinks didn’t pass muster when compared to equivalent French offerings. However, the apple wine was very nice and did, as advertised, go very well with cheese. I’d like to try it with a proper cheddar rather that the wussy equivalent made here. The star of the show, however, was Appleaud, an apple-based liqueur that tastes exactly like liquid apple pie. I need to get a bottle or two before I go home.

Back at the hotel, we dived straight into the academic session. Merja and Mika were their usual thoughtful and entertaining selves. Merja gave a fascinating paper about the temporal structure of Ted Chiang’s “The Story of Your Life” while Mika continued to expound on semiotics and the multifarious ways in which stories are adapted and evolved through modern media. Sadly he didn’t have time for the whole of his six-part theory of orcish evolution, but we got the general idea. I’m longing to see the theoretical framework he’s been developing for this PhD melded with fan studies to look at the way in which different representations of well-loved characters vie for authenticity.

Tricia’s GoH speech is due up soon, so I’ll head back down for that. It is a gorgeous spring day here today, though, and the temptation to sit down by the water with some cheese, bread and a bottle of white wine is very strong.

Me Elsewhere – Feminist SF at For Books’ Sake

~ Cheryl

I have a new article up at the For Books’ Sake blog. They originally asked me to list 10 top women SF writers. I rather stretched that, and even so all of the comments I’ve got are about (very fine) writers who I chose to leave out. I’m sure that you folks can think of even more. Why not pop over there and add some more suggestions.

Woman’s Hour on SF – A Train Wreck

~ Cheryl ~ 6 Comments

Well, that was dreadful: a self-fulfilling prophecy full of misinformation.

I suspect that today’s Woman’s Hour feature on science fiction was doomed from the start, because the initial assumption of the piece appears to have been that SF is only for boys and therefore it is necessary to get a man into the studio to explain to women how they are portrayed in SF.

Dean Conrad is an academic specializing in movies. He may well be very good at what he does, but as far as this feature is concerned he had a major drawback: he presents science fiction as something that only happens in the movies. As I feared when I first heard about the feature, his thesis can be summed up as “there was Ripley, and now there’s Prometheus“. So science fiction only happens in the movies of Ridley Scott.

Conrad explains this by saying that SF movies are now ferociously expensive to produce, so Hollywood studios have decided to protect their investment by ensuring that their films only appeal to 50% of their intended audience. Well, he didn’t actually say that, but a little judicious rewording explains just how ludicrous the idea is. Which, of course, is not a barrier to Hollywood executives believing it.

In search of “balance” Woman’s Hour brought on Dr Christine Cornea of from the University of East Anglia. She widened the discussion to the extent that now we were asked to believe that science fiction is something that only happens in movies and TV. Dr Cornea wanted to talk about Starbuck. Woman’s Hour, understandably, wanted to talk about Doctor Who, a show in which the role of women as merely sidekicks has been integral to the very structure from the start.

I’m going to take a brief detour here for the benefit of my friends at The Women’s Room. When the BBC wants an “expert” on science fiction they often get someone who only knows about film and TV. This is because it has been very difficult in the UK to get an academic job looking at SF unless you work in film, TV, video games or some other such medium. Science fiction in books is deemed unworthy by British universities. There are some very good SF academics — Andrew Butler, Mark Bould, Roger Luckhurst, for example — who could write about books, but have to work in film to get jobs. Others, such as Adam Roberts and Farah Mendlesohn, have wormed their way through academic back doors. My knowledge of this is a bit out of date as I haven’t been to a Foundation conference in years. Hopefully Farah can correct me if things are changing.

Anyway, Dr. Cornea tried bravely to fly the flag for women, but didn’t do very well. She struggled a lot trying to articulate the idea that a “strong woman” does not mean a leather-clad, boobalicious bimbo who acts like a man. And of course she was stuck in a film and TV mindset, so she ended up explaining how all science fiction was written by men, for men.

Of course this is nonsense. There are plenty of great women writers (and readers) of science fiction out there. But they tend to be confined to books. Once you get to film and TV, women get excluded. You can see the divide very clearly if you compare the fiction and drama categories of this year’s Hugos.

It makes me very sad and angry to hear a supposed women’s program on national radio claim that there are no prominent women in science fiction, and to back up their claim by deliberately excluding those women who are doing wonderful work in the field. It is especially annoying in the week in which Kameron Hurley’s wonderful God’s War finally achieves UK publication. Nyx is not just the toughest female character I’ve ever encountered in SF; she’s tougher than almost all of the male characters I’ve encountered.

Ah well, at least I have my own radio show, where I can showcase fine women science fiction writers. Here, go and have a listen to this.

Update: I forgot to note that there are lots of fine male writers who do good female characters in books, but with a few honorable exceptions (hi Neil!) they tend not to end up doing TV and films either.

Update 2: Farah has reminded me that the study of science fiction has always been an interdisciplinary affair. It is good that people who got their start in areas other than Literature get involved. Persuading the BBC to call on people who are not literature or film studies experts will be harder, but as I expected the field is changing. Farah tells me she thinks she’s the first UK academic who specializes in SF literature to be made a full professor, and in her department 6 of the staff have SF research experience. (Note to Americans, “professor” has a specific meaning in the UK, not all university lecturers can call themselves professors.) The upshot of all this is that these days there’s no excuse for having “experts” on science fiction who can’t see beyond film and TV.

The Future of Gender

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

A few weeks ago the feminist website, Autostraddle, announced that they were looking for trans women to write for them. I’m always happy to bring good science fiction to a new audience, so I pitched them an article about the future of gender, as seen by SF writers. I’m delighted to report that they liked the idea, and the article is now online.

If you are a regular reader, there’s probably not a lot new there, but the material is structured in a different way. From working with Jon Turney I’ve noticed that in the futurology business people do talk about the future of gender. Typically those people are cis males. This concerns me, and I’d like to offer a different viewpoint.

Plus, of course, it will hopefully encourage people to buy some good books.

What isn’t in the article, but I strongly recommend, is Pat Cadigan’s Hugo-nominated short story, “The Girl Thing Who Went Out For Sushi”. On the surface it is about people who get body modifications in order to live more easily on and around the outer planets, but it is clear from the language used that Pat is basing her ideas on genderqueer people. I understand she’s working on a novel based on the story. I’m really looking forward to that.

One of the most interesting aspects of Pat’s story is that humanity’s obsession with binaries is a result of our two-legged, two-armed, two-eyed nature. She suggests that adopting other body forms might lead to more flexible political attitudes. I seem to recall there being something similar going on with the Moties in Niven & Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye. I have no idea whether that makes sense or not, but it is interesting speculation and that makes it good science fiction. Eight legs good, two legs bad, as they say on the moons of Jupiter.

Woman’s Hour Investigates SF

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Thanks to one of my readers, I can let you know about this coming Friday’s edition of the Radio 4 show, Woman’s Hour, in which they will be asking, “What’s happened to the tough women in science fiction?”

Knowing the BBC, this could go any way. It might just be a couple of minor celebrities saying that once there was Ripley and now there isn’t. Alternatively they could have Farah Mendlesohn on the show again, presumably having to explain that she’s still alive.

Then again, the UK edition of God’s War is due out on Thursday. Has the BBC discovered Nyx? Goddess, I hope so.

Anyway, I shall listen in and see what they say. If anyone knows any more about it, do let me know.

Small Blue Planet: France

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

C’est animé? C’est vivant? Je ne sais pas. La traduction, elle est difficile.

Especially when you are as bad at languages as I am.

Thankfully my guests on Small Blue Planet are very good at English. Many thanks to Mélanie Fazi and Lionel Davoust for their wonderful tour of French science fiction and fantasy. Also thanks as ever to our wonderful producer, Karen Burnham, and to Kevin for being the emergency holographic sound recordist.

Along the way we talk about French conventions, the best award trophy in the world, how the UK came to be a fundamentalist Mormon state, Brian Stableford’s amazing translation work, and some of the best SF&F writers working in French today.

As ever, the podcast is available via the Locus Roundtable.

Adventure Rocketship is Agogo

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Many moons ago now I remember having lunch in Bristol with Jonathan Wright, a senior book reviewer for SFX. He was planning on launching a science fiction magazine, and wanted my advice. I’m not sure that my experiences with Salon Futura were at all helpful to him, but I didn’t manage to put him off, and the fruits of his labors will shortly be available to the public. My ARC arrived yesterday, and I’m looking forward to reading it.

I should note at this point that whatever advice I gave did not extend to titles. The snootier parts of fandom are going to get no further than Adventure Rocketship. Or, if they are brave enough to look further, they will bale when they find that issue #1 is titled “Let’s All Go To The Science Fiction Disco”. Doing so, however, would cause them to miss out on some very interesting material.

Let’s start with that title. The theme of the issue is the intersection between science fiction and music. That’s a challenging subject, because right now there is a very fine line dividing history and nostalgia. A number of recent BBC documentaries have fallen squarely on the wrong side of that divide, and while I’m happy to wallow in fond memories of David Bowie, Mott the Hoople and Roxy Music, I suspect that the jury is still considering their legacy.

The benefits of doing this sort of thing in a magazine are that you have time and space to consider issues properly, that you can’t be tempted to use lots of video clips, and that you can’t afford lengthy interviews with aging rock stars. You can, of course, have interviews with science fiction writers, which I suspect is more interesting.

Jonathan’s contributions to the issue include interviews with Michael Moorcock and China Miéville (the latter about his music-themed debut novel, King Rat). Sam Jordison interviews Mick Farren, who genuinely does bestraddle both music and SF. There are serious essays too, including Anne C. Perry making a bid to rescue the reputation of Alan Parsons’ soundtrack for the Ladyhawke movie (which I’m now going to have to watch again), and N.K. Jemisin asking “How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?”. There’s fiction, with new, music-themed stories from writers such as Liz Williams, Lavie Tidhar and Tim Maughan. And there’s a big list of SF-influenced albums in the back, by no means all of which I own. Yet.

There’s a lot of material to sift through. Heck, it has been produced as a paperback book, it is so long (200 pages). I haven’t mentioned the contributions by Jason Heller or Jon Courtenay Grimwood yet. I’m not in there, though if I had any idea how to get an interview with Natasha Khan I might have been. There are plenty of things you could buy the magazine for. As far as I’m concerned, I’d happily shell out to read Minister Faust writing about the Mothership Connection. The rest is just a bonus.

I’ve just got email from Danie Ware announcing launch events for the magazine at the London Forbidden Planet on May 16th, and at the Bristol store on May 18th. I hope to see some of you at the latter.

Update: Jonathan’s job title at SFX corrected, with apologies to all concerned.

Zambia’s Space Program Need’s You – RT

~ Cheryl

Here’s some info on a Kickstarter project I have backed that is getting down to the wire:

Afronauts is a short film that follows a group of ragtag Zambian exiles trying to beat America to the moon on the night of the moon landing in 1969! It stars famous albino model Diandra Forrest, Yolonda Ross from HBO’s Treme, and is directed by Frances Bodomo (whose last film Boneshaker premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival). It is also based on a true story, partly funded by the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and backed by a powerhouse creative team. We’re very excited about it!

Time is running out on our Kickstarter and without your help we just have a lot of pretty images on a hard drive. If 500 people can donate $10 by the end of the week, we will be able to pay our crew, pay for sound/music, color correct the film, and submit to film festivals like Sundance, Tribeca, and Cannes. Your contribution to the Kickstarter makes you a part of the Afronauts family and you will receive fun behind-the-scenes updates starting in May!

Personally I recommend the $25 level, which gets you a digital copy of the film. You can pledge here. And yes, it really is based on a true story.

Introducing Aethernet

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Something else that was launched at Eastercon is Aethernet, a brand new fiction magazine edited by Barbara Ballantyne. It is somewhat different from the likes of Clarkesworld, Lightspeed et al in that it will contain only serial fiction, not stand alone short stories. The writers who have signed up for the initial issue are Chris Beckett, Juliet E McKenna, Philip Palmer, Adrian Tchaikovsky and Ian Whates. The magazine is available as an epub, mobi or PDF, and from the sample issue I have seen looks nicely put together. Individual issues cost £3, but you’ll probably want to pay £20 for the full first year’s subscription. After all, what’s the point in buying just part of several serialized works? You can find out more about the magazine, and buy your subscriptions, at their website. Juliet has more information about it here.

Fairy Tale Retellings

~ Cheryl ~ 11 Comments

On Tuesday Patrick Ness will be reading from his new novel, The Crane Wife, at Mr. B’s in Bath. I’m reading the book at the moment and it is excellent thus far. I’m afraid the event is sold out, but I’d like your participation all the same. Patrick’s book is a retelling of a Japanese fairy tale. The subject of retellings is likely to come up during the evening, and I’d like to be able to recommend some interesting ones. Without putting in a huge amount of effort I have come up with the following list:

  • Beauty – Sheri S. Tepper (Sleeping Beauty)
  • Deathless – Catherynne M. Valente (Koschei the Deathless)
  • Six Gun Snow White – Catherynne M. Valente (Snow White)
  • Rose Daughter – Robin McKinley (Beauty & The Beast)
  • “The Company of Wolves” – Angela Carter (Red Riding Hood)
  • Fitcher’s Brides – Gregory Frost (Bluebeard)
  • Ash – Malinda Lo (Cinderella)
  • Thomas the Rhymer – Ellen Kushner (Thomas the Rhymer)
  • Tender Morsels – Margo Lanagan (Snow White & Rose Red)
  • and, of course, Fables – Bill Willingham & Mark Buckingham (everything)

Please let me know if I have forgotten anything important.

Science Fiction and Innovation

~ Cheryl

Jon Turney’s working paper on the impact of science fiction on technology is now available from the sponsors, NESTA. There is also a complimentary paper from some folks at Sussex University available here.

Jon blogs about the paper here. Despite his kind comments, I should note that the words in the paper are almost entirely his and I can take no credit for all of the smart stuff therein. I am, however, very proud to have helped his thinking along the way, and to have made it possible for a bunch of my smart friends to provide their own input.

There has been some reaction to the paper online. It was mentioned in The Guardian, and science writer Holly Cave has a thoughtful response.

If only a few more people were prepared to pay decent money for projects that are even half as much fun.

Busy Week

~ Cheryl

Sorry about the lack of bloggage recently. Yesterday and much of today are being taken up with an urgent piece of work for the day job. It makes me money, and nothing else I do does, so I have to give it priority.

Tonight I’m off to Bristol for Curtains for Feminism?, an event put on by the all-woman Hecate Theatre Company which asks, “What should theatre for women really be about?” It sounds fun anyway, but in addition I’ll be interviewing the company’s Artistic Director, Hannah-Marie Chidwick, live on Ujima Radio.

Also on tomorrow’s show I’ll be talking about designer babies with debut SF writer, Stephanie Saulter. Her novel, Gemsigns, is launching at Eastercon, but if you happen to be in Bristol we’ll be leaving some signed copies in Foyles and Blackwells tomorrow afternoon.

Thursday is also an exciting day as it will see the publication of the study on the impact of science fiction on technology by Jon Turney that I helped with. Jon talks about it here.

And after that it is Easter, so all of the UK will shut down for four days and I’ll have a chance to get on with some book production.

More Visibility Numbers

~ Cheryl

Over at Neth Space there’s a bit more information on the question of who gets reviewed. Neth gets sent books to review, and for the last 6 months those broke down as 70% books by men, 30% by women. For paper books, which you might suspect the publishers value more, the numbers are 75% male, 25% female. It is a useful reminder that the issue of visibility permeates every part of the industry. Kudos, therefore, to Ricky L. Brown at Amazing Stories for making a determined effort to find SF by women to read.