Apparently it is now official – researchers at the University of Washington claim that women avoid careers in IT because they associate the field with reading science fiction books and watching Star Trek.
I wonder what would have happened if they had decorated the offices with Twilight posters.
Yeah, busy with paid work again.
SF Signal is starting a series of Mind Meld columns about the “Best of 2009”. My piece will run in a later installment. Personally I’m delighted to see such diversity.
Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s obituary for Rob Holdstock is now online at The Guardian.
Wheatland Press is looking to get 225 pre-orders for Polyphony 7 (otherwise it just won’t be worth going ahead with the project). See the blog sidebar for details.
It has not been a good week for people dying.
Despite having been around UK fandom for 25 years or so, I never got to know Rob Holdstock very well. I have, however, read many of his books, and I continue to maintain that Mythago Wood is one of the finest fantasy books ever written. On the few occasions our paths crossed he always struck me as a very amiable man. Today’s Guardian has a tribute to him. Obituaries will doubtless follow. E coli is a nasty little bug. My uncle had a serious infection earlier this year, but fortunately he survived. Rob was not so lucky. Best wishes to all of my friends who knew him much better than I did.
In contrast I never met Mike Penner at all, but his transition to Christine Daniels, and subsequent reversion back to Mike, while working as a sports writer at the LA Times made headlines the world over. Life in the media spotlight is never easy, especially when you are there for a reason that causes you to be a target for hatred and ridicule. If, as the LA police currently suspect, Penner’s death turns out to be a suicide, it will be by no means the first occasion on which person unhappy with their gender has taken their own life. A recent EU study found that around 30% of adult trans people surveyed had attempted suicide at least once.
Penner’s motivations are now beyond our ken, but if you would like to get some idea of the pressures on trans people I recommend this article by a relatively successful trans woman: concert pianist Sara Davis Buechner.
On a slightly happier note, Pink News reports that the Irish Green Party is to introduce trans rights legislation to the Dail shortly. It is about time. Ireland is rather behind most of Western Europe in this area. Finna Fail is apparently opposing the move on the grounds that, “some people may try to change their gender in order to seek more financial entitlements, such as welfare payments.” So, read what Ms. Buechner has to say about the life of people post-transition, and then tell me how many people you think will opt for a sex change in the hope of getting a few Euros a week more in welfare payments.
With 2009 drawing to a close, we are starting to put together the readings program for SF in SF for 2010. If you are a science fiction or fantasy author who will be in San Francisco at some point during next year, and would like to be considered for a slot in the program, please let me know. I will pass any inquiries on to Terry Bisson and Rina Weisman who are in charge of the program.
Over at The Guardian, Michael Moorcock is talking about writing a Doctor Who novel.
I’m working on my paper for ICFA next year and I have a question about terminology I’d like help with. As all knowledge is contained in the blogosphere I’m hoping that someone will have an answer for me.
The terms “sexual preference” and “sexual orientation” are generally understood to mean whether one is gay/lesbian, bi or straight. The object of one’s attraction can be assumed from one’s own sex.
However, in a trans context, particularly in a science-fictional trans context where sex changes are common, this gets more complicated. So I need a way of distinguishing the nature of one’s sexuality (i.e. is one G/L, B or straight) from the object of one’s attraction (i.e. is one attracted to men or women or both). “Bi”, I think, does duty is both cases. But if, say, a gay man becomes a lesbian woman, is that preserving sexual orientation or changing it? The person is still G/L, but the object of attraction has changed.
For the benefit of those thinking ahead, yes, I am trying to find words to explain the daftness of Steel Beach.
I should really be reading novels, but I have been distracted by the latest issue of the academic journal, Science Fiction Studies. It is a special issue on “Science Fiction and Sexuality”. Most of the material is fairly sense, but there’s also a symposium comprising a bunch of short essays (and in some cases rants) by well known writers and academics, including Nicola Griffith and Farah Mendlesohn. You can find that online here, together with the abstracts for the papers in this issue. Academics can be a dry lot at times, but they have wide-ranging interests. The paper titles include things like: “Technofetishism and the Uncanny Desires of A.S.F.R. (alt.sex.fetish.robots)” and “Kill the Bugger: Ender’s Game and the Question of Heteronormativity”.
I am mildly annoyed that if I had been able to attend ICFA last year my paper from there might have had a chance to be in this issue, but at least I should get a chance to present it next year.
Yesterday’s trip into San Francisco went very well. Kevin and I picked up a lot of good books and some good food, and had a lovely evening with friends.
Mary Robinette Kowal managed to turn up for the pre-reading dinner event before having to rush off into the Mission for Writers with Drinks. We went to a very nice Chinese restaurant called Henry’s Hunan just off 2nd where we ate very well for $14 each. The very low price was in part due to us ordering fewer entrees than we had diners and sharing, but even so we all had plenty to eat. Mary demonstrated her awesome organizational abilities by handling the ordering and payment with an ease I have rarely seen at a big group meal.
This SF in SF was special because yesterday was Rina Weisman’s birthday. The reading series is very much her creation and I’m in awe of how hard she works to make it happen. I was delighted to see that we had a full house for the event.
The first reader was S.G. (Scott) Browne who I had seen briefly on the zombie panel at World Fantasy but otherwise didn’t know. His novel, Breathers, is very funny. It also does something very interesting with zombies. By writing the book from the point of view of a zombie, and making his zombies sentient, Browne has found a good way of writing about social discrimination issues without having to negotiate the minefield of talking about actual minority groups. I was impressed, and bought the book on the strength of the reading.
Jeff VanderMeer read from Finch rather than Booklife, though we did talk about the latter during the Q&A. Jeff made a point of assuring us that the grey caps are not intelligent fungi, they just use fungal technology. I would tell you more, but that might be a spoiler for Finch, which you should read.
I got to talk to Jeff quite a bit and I’m pleased to discover that he has a very interesting project lined up that I can’t talk to you about yet. It will be awesome, I promise. He also mentioned the possibility that there might be another Ambergris book after all. I hope so, because the idea he floated is just the book I thought needed to be written after I had finished Finch.
I also got to chat with Andrew Wheeler, who is in San Francisco on business, and Jeff Prucher, the creator of the awesome (and Hugo-winning) Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction.
Fellow hamtrax survivor, Kevin Roche, was also at the reading. He and his husband, Andy Trembley, had taken a room in the Marriott for the night, and after the reading all trooped off to the View Bar with Jeff in tow. I know it is an expensive bar, but the views of the city really are awesome and that makes it a great place to take visitors to The City.
If you like science fiction, that is. Kevin and I will be at SF in SF, where Jeff VanderMeer is the headline act. Other people will be at Writers with Drinks, where Mary Robinette Kowal is a star attraction.
Need clones.
Kevin and I are still struggling through the hamthrax infection. I’m now reasonably functional, but my head is still full of gunk and I’m finding it hard to concentrate on anything. In lieu of intelligent and incisive commentary, here are so links to people who are providing such so that I don’t have to.
The Write Fantastic event in Bristol today was attended by a small but very select group of people not entirely restricted to me. Indeed, there were more people in the audience than there were writers, so by normal convention rules we could have the event.
They are funny things, signings. Sometimes you get loads of people, sometimes hardly any. Writers, for very many reasons, have to have very thick skins. But we did have a lovely chat, and afterward a small group of us had a very nice late lunch at a Turkish restaurant called Öz. My apologies to Juliet for the fact that I spent a lot of time talking to Chaz and Keri about World Fantasy.
I have bought the graphic novel version of Paul Cornell & Tim Kirk’s Captain Britain & MI13: Vampire State and in view of the up-coming November celebrations insisted on showing everyone the House of Commons scene. I also picked up the latest Fables collection which I have been reading and is very good.
Ashok Banker has apparently unleashed one with this no-holds-barred interview at World SF News. Vandana Singh is wonderful in response, and entirely separately Anil Menon is brilliant with statistics.
Via the Solaris blog, I am reminded that Saturday will be Write Fantastic Day at Forbidden Planet in Bristol. The signing will feature Juliet E. McKenna, Stan Nicholls, Chaz Brenchley and Kari Sperring. I’m planning to pop along too. Festivities begin at 1:00pm.
Yesterday’s post at Biology in Science Fiction picks up the topic of life on the moons of the outer planets. Peggy chooses to concentrate on Jupiter’s moon, Europa, which sadly seems a little hostile. I’m waiting with interest to see what she makes of The Quiet War.
The most recent post on World SF News is all about comics artist Leonardo M. Giron from Manila who is currently illustrating a Richard Calder story for Murky Depths. This reminds me that I am overdue a post about this fine little magazine. It is primarily, horror, so not to everyone’s tastes, but it has excellent contributors, is very well put together, and Terry Martin works harder than anyone I know at going to conventions and promoting his product.
I am expecting to have a few sample copies of Murky Depths to give out to people at World Fantasy. I’m especially interested in people who might help distribute the magazine in the USA.
The news arrived in email today that British SF magazine, Death Ray and its younger sister publication, Filmstar, have become victims of “harsh economic circumstances”. The press release from Blackfish Publishing MD Matt Bielby suggests that he hopes a buyer might be found, but obviously those same circumstances suggest that will be difficult.
Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall has, as expected, won this year’s Booker Prize. The novel, which was described by Adam Roberts as being like an epic fantasy without any actual dragons and the like in it, is a 600-page saga of ambition and double-dealing set in Tudor England. Rather as I expected, the book is already being decried as “genre”. In The Independent, Chris Schuler says:
Novelists should be engaging with the issues of the day – like Balzac, Dickens and George Eliot did – not indulging in high-class escapism.
The irony is, of course, that much speculative fiction deals very much with the issues of the day, and often does so far more effectively because it is set in an alternate world, allowing the author to concentrate on the actual issues without getting sidetracked by people’s entrenched views of the rights and wrongs of the individuals, countries, etc. involved. But speculative fiction is also “genre” so I doubt that Schuler is likely to ever try reading it, or to understand what the author is doing if he did.
Because I was away for a day and half and have been busy on World Fantasy business today, here are some quick links.
The first one is probably unnecessary because I believe that Neil tweeted about it, but Jenny Turner has an excellent article about The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the Guardian Book Blog.
Also in The Guardian, Alison Flood reviews The Worm Ouroboros and asks for recommendations for further fantasy reading. Go and encourage her to read Gene Wolfe, please.
And finally, Timmi Duchamp quotes from Brian Attebery’s acceptance speech for the 2009 Pilgrim Award – some questions all critics should ask themselves.
Over at Time Lev Grossman talks to Iain Banks (and Iain M Banks) about Transition, The Culture and other things. I’m kind of surprised that the discussion of fantasy didn’t mention Inversions, because I have seen at least one review where the poor reviewer thought it was a fantasy novel. However, the question that many people will focus in on is the one about Banksy’s mountaineering exploits at the 1987 Worldcon. And that question got me all pathetically excited because it sounds like Grossman first heard the story when he was listening to the interview that I did with Neil Gaiman at Worldcon.
(No, of course I didn’t get a name check. Don’t be silly. But I am now even more pleased that Neil chose to tell the whole Brighton Metropole story.)
Those of you who read Kim Stanley Robinson’s tirade against the Booker Prize (reported here) may remember that he chastised the Booker jury for being interested mainly in historical fiction. Following this thread, Jerome de Groot has an interesting post up at The Guardian about the popularity of historical fiction with the Literati. This caught my eye:
Sometime during the later 20th century, though, historical writing became marginalised. Writers thought writing about history was something only romance novelists did, and studiously avoided anything that looked like genre fiction; the ghosts of Georgette Heyer, Catherine Cookson and Jean Plaidy loomed large. Historical writing became associated with military history – like those novels written by Bernard Cornwell, Patrick O’Brian, CS Forester – or conspiracy thrillers. Literary novelists disdained such practice, preferring to see themselves as apart from genre fiction writers.
So not that long ago historical fiction was “genre”, and presumably only read by strange people who go to re-enactment events and dress up in costumes. Now it dominates the Booker. Strange how fashions change.