Leon Trotsky once wrote, “Art, it is said, is not a mirror, but a hammer: it does not reflect, it shapes.” I suspect that this phenomenon is more intense in works of speculative fiction* than, say, spy thrillers. These stories are well-positioned to plumb and amplify the pressing issues and paranoias of their times; more to the point, they often offer high-concept utopian solutions, be they progressive or reactionary.
So I was amused to see the Guardian ask: Why are there so many new books about time-travelling lesbians?
In 2016, I sat down with my co-author Max Gladstone to write our novel This Is How You Lose the Time War, which follows two time-travelling female spies as they fall in love. That same year was also when I first heard people speaking earnestly and frequently about feeling as if they were in the wrong timeline, as the Brexit referendum results rolled in and Donald Trump was elected US president.
[…] But our novel is just one of several recent stories of queer women time-travelling. There is Kate Heartfield’s Nebula-nominated novella Alice Payne Arrives and its sequel Alice Payne Rides, which see two 18th-century women – lovers – become embroiled in a war. There are also Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade, Kate Mascarenhas’s The Psychology of Time Travel, Kelly Robson’s Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach and Annalee Newitz’s The Future of Another Timeline. […] I wrote to each of these authors in anticipation of this piece and it turns out we were all drafting our books in 2016.
The article is a quick and a good read. I haven’t picked up This Is How You Lose the Time War yet, but it’s near the top of my list. I did read two books last year that featured time-traveling lesbians, though, just chewing through a random pile of space opera.
This article reminded me of a fun piece on Doctor Who**, which found that the Doctor was significantly more likely to overthrow the government during the Thatcher era. More recently, interviews revealed that this was quite intentional:
[Script Editor] Cartmel said it was almost a job requirement to detest Thatcher.When asked by John Nathan-Turner, the producer, what he hoped to achieve in being the show’s script editor, he recalled: “My exact words were: I’d like to overthrow the government.
And right now, in the show’s thirty-eighth season, the Doctor is a woman for the first time.
I’ve touched on the alt-right attempts to ‘reclaim’ speculative fiction before; may their number of victories continue to be zero.
Open thread!
*I will once again not apologize for using this industry umbrella term, which refers fantasy, sci-fi, most horror, “weird”, magical realism, etc.
**Written by trans spec-fic author Charlie Jane Anders, incidentally.
Baud
Isn’t the better question, Why are there not more new books about time-travelling lesbians?
Major Major Major Major
Fun fact: Ben Aaronovitch, author of the jackal-recommended Rivers of London series, was a Doctor Who writer during the revolutionary Thatcher era.
@Baud: Some of us want to read books about time-traveling gay men, too :)
Incidentally does anybody have any recommendations there?
Yellowdog
@Major Major Major Major: There’s always The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold.
I can also recommend a romance between a gay failed mage and a gay werewolf in modern day San Francisco, but there’s no time travel.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
I remember back in 2014 the Sad Puppies (wtf kind of baby talk is this?) fucking up the Hugo awards for that year. Fucking Vox Day, what a name!
I have no idea what they think they can “reclaim”. The best and most timeless speculative fiction has always been progressive. Nothing (inherantly) wrong with dime store sci-fi stuff, but it won’t be remembered for years and won’t win awards. The best fiction in general will make you think
MattF
@Major Major Major Major: Gladstone’s Craft novels are definitely worth reading, although not on-topic.
VeniceRiley
Haven’t been reading enough SF lately – so this lesbian says thanks for the summer reading list I needed!
Been reading all the different histories of Anne Lister. Very interesting. Someone should write an SF novel with her as the time-travelling lesbian protagonist. I’m sure it would sell (at least 7K and counting in my fb fan group)
Offtopic – Just finished Summer Brennan’s The Oyster War. Excellent read about the history of oysters in America as it pertains to Drake’s Estero on Point Reyes in particular. I love it when history is a pageturner.
AThornton
Technically all lesbians are time-traveling lesbians. So are all gays, heterosexuals, metrosexuals, ammosexuals, transssexuals, & etc. We’re all traveling in time to the future and the damn brake pedal isn’t working. Thus, what they are really talking about is Going-Back-in-Time-Traveling Lesbians.
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
The casual racism and sexism of golden-age sci-fi, and also Heinlein. Before Le Guin got her grubby hands on things.
@AThornton: Also going-to-the-future-faster-than-one-second-per-second… or in the case of the books I read, put into stasis and then forgotten.
@Yellowdog: By all means.
hells littlest angel
Surely these were inspired by the original time-traveling lesbian — Barrack Obama.
mrmoshpotato
@hells littlest angel:
Careful there. Some RWNJ would take that for fact and claim he(she?) was running a child sex ring out of the Moon’s basement.
Major Major Major Major
@mrmoshpotato: When we all know it was Mars.
Frankensteinbeck
Lesbians are in an unusual cultural position, or at least, theoretical fictional lesbians are in an unusual cultural position. There is a weak but widespread cultural assumption that straight men think lesbians are sexy, so they get much less pushback than gay men. Much, much less pushback. Because of that there are a lot more openly bi- women than men, on top of actual lesbians, so there’s a considerable population of people who feel represented and aren’t used to it. Mainstream entertainment has been obsessively focused on relationships that amount to the woman being the man’s prize, and we have a growing cultural revulsion for unhealthy (and criminal) ways men treat women sexually. Lesbians get to side-step all of that. Anyone who’s willing to go as far as to put two girls into the relationship can depict stuff like power imbalances or casual sex that would be creepy as Hell with a hetero relationship, but it will mostly be taken as romantic, hot, or merely cleverly interesting. Lesbians are very much the big thing in out-of-the-mainstream storytelling, and mainstream storytelling that wants to be a bit daring.
Given the decades, centuries, millennia of erasure they’ve dealt with, I wish them well with any representation they can get, and I wish this translated better into their relationships being accepted in real life.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
Ah. Never read any of that stuff. I’m pretty sure I used an essay or something by Le Guin in a Freshman college writing course for a paper. I know she is not a fan of fanfiction
Mathguy
Interesting that Gladstone was co-author of that book (which I had not heard of). His latest, Empress of Forever, features a main character that is a sort of time traveler (a simulation of the title character–you’ll need to read it to make sense out of that) and a lesbian. 90% through it, and it’s a fun read. His Craft novels are excellent.
rikyrah
I have always loved time travel – whether in movies or tv shows
The ‘ what if’ can be fascinating.
But, my ultimate feeling about it can be stated by the character of Rufus from the show, Timeless, when told he would have to be the pilot for the time machine:
” I am Black….there is literally NO place in American history where that would be awesome for me.”
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Here’s a good Le Guin novella (The New Atlantis), free online.
@Frankensteinbeck: Importantly, the writers in this article are (I believe) all queer women. Representation matters, but #ownvoices usually results in a richer exploration of the topic.
ruemara
I’m pretty ok with time traveling lesbians. In fact, I support time traveling lesbians as a science goal. It might resolve a few… um… historical difficulties since lesbians get shit done.
Ladyraxterinok
@VeniceRiley: Thank you for mentioning Ann Lister. I had not known of her before. She seems to have been a very interesting woman.
Mathguy
@Major Major Major Major: It’s painful to go back and read some of the old sci-fi stuff and its casual rank stupidity.
mrmoshpotato
@ruemara: OT – how was your interview?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I used to read a lot of speculative fiction in my late elementary through high school years. LOTR, The Earthsea Trilogy (it was just a trilogy back then), Narnia, The Chronicles of Prydain…those were the starting point and upon reflection probably the best. Also read some of the Dune series but gave up on (I think) book 3. Tried Foundation by Isaac Asimov but was way to young to get it. I’ve revisited some as a full fledged adult – it’s amazing how slight a book The Witch and the Wardrobe turned out to be as an adult. The Lloyd Alexander ones held up OK but the best of the lot is probably the Earthsea Trilogy, which were wise beyond the years of the young adult audience they were supposedly intended for. Since HS I haven’t read much of it except for the Harry Potter series. Until…I’ve just started Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay. I liked The Last Light of the Sun, which I read a few years back and is the only book of his I’ve read so far. He seems pretty close to if not top shelf as speculative fiction authors go. I read some terrible books back in the day that I thought were good but were…not. I’m enjoying the Expanse on Amazon Prime so I will give those books a try too. Features a lesbian couple, though so far no time travel, and if that comes into play later PLEASE, I BEG OF YOU, DO NOT SPOIL IT FOR ME.
VeniceRiley
@Ladyraxterinok: Anne Lister is a poster child of erasure of lesbians from history. The old “you can’t do anything that promotes homosexuality” laws in the UK meant that her now publicly owned estate at Shibden Hall wasn’t even allowed to feature her! Remarkable considering the fact that she’s largely responsible for a great many of the improvements to the property that make it special. I’m now following all her historians on social media. Helena Whitbread deserves special credit for finding and beginning the decoding of her diaries over 2 decades ago now. That work continues to this day. They’ve digitized them all and put them up online, and people are pitching in to get it all done. And good luck to them trying to read her illegible microscopic scrawl.
debit
@Major Major Major Major: You need to pitch this idea to Chuck Tingle.
Major Major Major Major
@debit: Oh lord.
West of the Rockies
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Conservative speculative fiction is sort of like conservative comedy: mean-spirited and unimaginative… Not a lot of successes (or any).
FlipYrWhig
It could also be related to J. Halberstam’s influential idea of “queer time”: big in critical theory and lit-crit circles since about 2005.
debit
@Major Major Major Major: I’m so sorry. I regretted my impulse as soon as I hit post.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
I’ll check that out!
@Frankensteinbeck:
Your comment reminded me of the “debate” going on right now on Tumblr. There’s a vocal group on that site, called “antis”, who criticize anyone who likes or sympathizes with problematic villains. Their opponents call this “purity culture” and enjoy reading/viewing etc problematic themes such as power imbalances in relationships or getting inside a murderer’s head for example.
My position is that that depicting these things in a story is fine so long as your primary viewpoint character is the victim, you don’t try to justify the antagonist’s actions, and the issue is treated with respect and sensitivity
AThornton
@Major Major Major Major:
Not time travel but fantasy: overtly gay characters are an integral part of the story in Mercedes Lackey’s Vanyel trilogy. I’m pretty it was the first mainstream speculative fiction work to do so.
TomatoQueen
*hears a whispery, screechy sound. Why, there you are, Harlan. Oh and you too, Mr Brunner. Keep spinning.*
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Come on, that’s silly. Lots of great books are written from the POV of bad people. I just read the SF classic The Demolished Man, which is largely from a murderous business mogul’s POV, and I thought it was excellent.
Then there’s the classic example, Lolita.
@West of the Rockies: Peter F. Hamilton writes sorta neoliberal sci-fi (capitalists in spaaace), some of that’s pretty fun.
debit
@AThornton: Biting my lip.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Speaking of Thatcher-era Doctor Who, enjoy some delightfully outdated intro themes:
1980-1985
1986
1987
rikyrah
@ruemara:
Maybe I missed it, but, are you ok with telling us how the citizenship interview went?
AThornton
@debit:
I’ve heard praise, I’ve heard negativity. Some guys like it. Some guys don’t.
And I was wrong. “Ethan of Athos” was published in 1986, three years before.
clay
I’m about a third of the way through The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O., by Neal Stephenson and Nicole Galland, which definitely features a time-traveling woman. However, it is unknown at this point whether she is also a lesbian.
I did just read a section where she goes back to Puritan-era Massachusetts and drives men wild by walking around without a corset under her clothes. She quickly discovers she can take advantage of this.
debit
@AThornton: To her credit it was probably very daring for the time. And hey, I can’t point fingers at anyone’s taste. I mean, I know of Chuck Tingle.
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: The Doctor Who theme song is one of the very first pieces of popular electronic music, actually!
Synthesizers have a queer history too! Composer Wendy Carlos, who scored A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Tron, was among the first openly trans public figures, as well as an early electronic music pioneer. Her 1968 Moog album Switched-On Bach hit #1. It might not seem like much today, but that album was a BFD.
Major Major Major Major
@clay: I like Grainne, and the extremely lengthy digression into Old Norse poetry, but found the book overall kind of underwhelming.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
Bi-women on top of lesbians. Sounds like fun.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Major Major Major Major: My favourite album so far this year, The Furnaces of Palingenesia by Deathspell Omega, is a concept album about fascism, told from the perspective of a fascist. It is not remotely sympathetic to fascism, with passages like:
And:
And:
Giving it away.
(Warning to non-metal listeners: it’s really, really heavy. Even non-metal listeners can probably enjoy the lyrics, though. I also recommend reading their latest interview for Bardo Methodology, where they explain a lot of the influences and reasoning behind the album and their artistic choices overall.)
It’s possible to use a villain’s perspective to deconstruct the villain’s viewpoint, if done skilfully enough.
clay
@Major Major Major Major: It does seem a bit slight for Stephenson. At least, so far.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
Well, I did say primary. A good writer should portray events from a villain’s perspective as well, but there needs to be a balance. And I know what you mean, but a writer has to be really careful when dealing with touchy subjects such as rape or pedophilia, like with Lolita.
Something in the narrative has to suggest that the actions of a character are horrific and wrong. And it can’t be voyeuristic.
I follow a blog on Tumblr that reviews the old Archie Sonic comic. A writer by the name of Ken Penders, who worked on the book for over 10 years, consistently wrote the adults, especially fathers, as always being in the right, no matter what they did. For reasons.
In the best light possible, it could be argued that Penders was trying to do a flawed portrayal but it just didn’t work out because the father character(s) never got punished or flack for the things they said and did. IOW, the narrative would bend over backwards to justify the problematic characters.
This same writer has made a complete jackass of himself on Twitter recently, letting his sexism show through.
Sometimes, a person’s writings can reveal who they are on the inside. Obviously not always and I would never suggest mystery writers are murderers or something
yellowdog
@Major Major Major Major: The Sumage Solution by G. L. Carriger. One of her other books (Competence, #3 in the Custard Protocol series) also features a rather stalker-ish lesbian were-lion. You really can’t blame a lion for being stalkerish.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: The narrative can suggest the narrator’s actions are wrong simply by making their hypocrisy and/or monstrousness explicit and obvious. I’ll acknowledge that Lolita has a misaimed fandom, and, for that matter, not everyone got Deathspell Omega’s anti-authoritarian intentions until the Bardo Methodology interview went up, but anyone who reads either work closely should be able to tell they’re not endorsing their narrators’ perspectives.
(Also, I think the confusion over Deathspell Omega’s intentions may have had less to do with unclear writing and more to do with the fact that the core of the band and their presumed vocalist, who doesn’t write their music or lyrics, have, shall we say, very different political perspectives. The band themselves allude to this in the interview, though they have a long, proud tradition of not identifying any of their members, and they’ve carried that on here.)
If we restrict the techniques a work of art can use, then we’re restricting art itself. I’m not in favour of that. I think it’s fine to say art should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, but I’m not fine with saying art should shy away from using specific techniques to do so.
There are plenty of defensible ways to use a villain’s perspective to condemn the villain. I’m intrigued by such artistic paradoxes, in fact.
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Why? Some people (not me, fwiw) like unflinching portrayals of darkness.
To unite some disparate threads, I recently found this conversation with Neal Stephenson where he talks about how he doesn’t really subscribe to a lot of the ideas his works may seem to advocate.
Betty Cracker
@VeniceRiley: I’d never heard of Lister until I stumbled upon the excellent HBO series she inspired: “Gentleman Jack.”
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
Oh you’re preaching to the choir on synth music = D
I’ve always loved the sound of synth music. It’s interesting that that album hit #1 in 1968. Synth music is more commonly associated with the late 70s and 80s. I’m sure being openly trans wasn’t very fun, especially then : (
I do remember reading that the 60s DW theme was made using a synthesizer.
LibraryGuy
@TomatoQueen: Thank you, I heard that too!
Brachiator
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Why?
Why not?
I read a lot more nonfiction these days, especially history, but I find myself surprised, maybe even saddened, at how puerile a lot of thinking about fiction has become.
I’ve heard people insist that books, tv shows and movies must give you characters you can root for. And main characters must have a “redemption arc.” And I personally know people who avoid any movie that doesn’t have an unambiguously happy ending, because they do not go to movies to feel bad.
I guess some people want simple-minded morality tales. And this includes fools who need dumb stories where a white man rises triumphant at the end.
But good and Interesting stories never have worked this way.
low-tech cyclist
@Major Major Major Major:
I read it maybe a year ago, and it just didn’t hang together really. A lot of people from different eras wind up getting employed in more or less the drudgery of maintaining their time travel system, if I recall correctly, and after a point it just stopped being believable that they’d all keep their noses to the grindstone, just for the privilege of being in the 21st century that they couldn’t actually go out and enjoy. (Am I remembering it correctly?)
And it didn’t really seem to be going anywhere: I gather it’s the first book in a trilogy or series, but I won’t be reading the sequels. Judging from the early going, the idea had potential, but the authors lost their way somewhere.
jl
I want a book on super intelligent time traveling tardigrades with digits on their manipulating limbs that make our opposable thumbs look like BS. And when they travel back to now, their astonished reaction to what they were in the ‘before times’.
And why does the BJ spell check not recognize ‘opposable’? Most BJ commenters have them, right? Or it assumes we wouldn’t know anything about that so we don’t need that word? Or maybe I am too dense to properly check my spelling against the online dictionary?
NotMax
As far as I remember from back when, while James Tiptree, Jr. never overtly embraced the label of lesbian, there’s a wide and eclectic range of sexuality (both apparent and suggested) in many of her works. Someone in the SF field once described her (unaware she was a she) as a super macho feminist writer.
@Major Major Major Major
Well, there’s one episode of El Ministerio de Tiempo (Netflix) which includes a subplot involving two guys who become stuck in the Ice Age together for much longer than intended while the time traveling facility is shut down for security reasons.
debit
@jl: Maybe we’re all secret tardigrades. From the future.
Villago Delenda Est
Just be a good storyteller, and everything else falls into place.
Major Major Major Major
@jl:
We have a spell check? Other than the little icon above the comment box that doesn’t do anything for me?
@low-tech cyclist:
IIRC they ran the risk of being unmade, or some other horrible consequence of rampaging idiot vikings like the undoing of modernity.
Another Scott
OT: Re: the football discussion yesterday. Wondermark‘s take.
rofl.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Yep — if you misspell a word in a comment or post, you get a red line (or at least, I do). The WP dictionary is crappy, though — it doesn’t recognize many actual words (causing the user who lacks confidence to needlessly double-check) and flags closed-form compound words that have been established for ages.
Brachiator
@NotMax:
Perhaps the most inaccurate assertion about Tiptree.
And I like some of Silverberg’s work. But this was bad. Real bad.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Brachiator:
Well, I mean to be fair, a lot of people use entertainment as an escape from their dreary lives in the real world, where every day the world seems to edge closer and closer to collapse.
As for why a story should portray a villain’s actions/ideology as horrific (if they are/it is)? Because you don’t want to be seen as endorsing those actions/ideology.
As others upthread have noted, you can show a villain as being wrong/evil by showcasing their hypocrisy for example. Or the consequences of their actions/ideology.
@Major Major Major Major:
^ that may also answer your similar question
NotMax
@ajor Major Major Major
Yes it was a BFD, and granted an imprimatur of respectability to the synthesizer which it had up until then lacked.
Trivia: First popular song to show up on the hit parade which incorporated an electronic music-like effect (although it is achieved mechanically rather than instrumentally) was The Big Hurt in 1959, when it reached #3 on the Billboard chart.
Amir Khalid
The opening match of the English Premier League season is under way, and Liverpool are leading newly promoted visitors Norwich City 3-0.
Oh dear. Liverpool keeper Alisson has come off injured. New signing Adrian San Miguel is on for him.
ETA: Divock makes it four.
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: not especially. Most of the reasons you listed involve readers and critics responding stupidly to something, which should not be the artist’s problem.
Martin
@Betty Cracker: That’s your system or browser spellcheck. Google uses a 3rd party one, Safari on the Mac and iOS uses the OS one. Not sure about on Windows.
Chris
@Major Major Major Major:
I still think John Rogers got this exactly right:
“The single, unpleasant truth is that most people, particularly criminals, are not complex. They are shallow, greedy sons of bitches to whom we attribute genius planning or complex motivations in order to maintain a false sense of order in our universe.”
This was written years before President Trump, too.
rikyrah
Under Trump admin., discrimination complaints and firing of disabled federal workers rise.
The government fired 2,626 disabled employees in 2017, a 24% increase over 2016, according to documents from the EEOC obtained by @NBCNews. https://t.co/IzUDZFGrS2
— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 9, 2019
NotMax
@Martin
It probably has since been fixed but Microsoft Word used to gag on the word spellcheck.
ruemara
Hey, for all who’ve asked, I passed my interview and could be a citizen as soon as the end of this month. If not then, by the end of September. So mille grazie to Juicers, because I couldn’t have done it without your help.
I’ve been trying to process my emotions about the whole thing.
debit
@Major Major Major Major: There are some hazards in the YA community, as I understand it. There is a very vocal contingent who conflate a character’s outlook or beliefs with the author’s. It’s driven a few authors out of the genre entirely.
Major Major Major Major
@Chris: the main character in The Demolished Man is an absolute idiot brute, clever in his own way I suppose, great book.
Major Major Major Major
@debit: authors are getting chased out of YA for inane reasons and it’s a big problem IMO. The tumblr-style discourse Goku mentioned has way too much sway there, and it’s all behind a “won’t somebody think of the children!” veneer which, like, come on.
Mary G
McSweeney’s had a great essay in February 2018 about the FYFNYT:
IN ORDER TO KEEP OUR EDITORIAL PAGE COMPLETELY BALANCED, WE ARE HIRING MORE DIPSHITS
They called it.
Brachiator
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
That’s one use or abuse of fiction, I guess. But I have no use for the idea that fiction absolutely must be nothing more than escapist amusement. Turn off your brain popcorn movies and TV shows. Reeks of desperation and denial.
It’s just dumb to believe that fictional depiction of something horrific equals endorsement.
On a less controversial level, the creator of the SF series “Babylon 5” is an atheist, but included deeply religious characters in his fictional universe because it made dramatic sense. Some of the best episodes were about the nature of faith, with some interesting explorations about how human religion might evolve in the future.
Tony Jay
@Amir Khalid:
Welcome back to the Premier League, Delia.
Fair Economist
@rikyrah:
I’m so surprised :-\
debit
@Major Major Major Major: Seriously. I read whatever I wanted to as a child, which lead to some odd moments (asked my dad “What’s a pubic hair?”).
Amir Khalid
@Martin:
Spellcheck and autocorrect are of the devil. I have mistrusted them since the beginning, when spellcheck kept telling my colleague Kenneth Teh he was spelling his name wrong. I prefer to rely on my own abilities.
Brachiator
@ruemara:
Sincere and hearty congratulations!
Amir Khalid
@Tony Jay:
Shame about Alisson twisting his ankle, though.
Sister Golden Bear
This lesbian also thanks you for a new reading list!
Full service blog indeed.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Eye due two.
:)
2liberal
there’s a lot of scifi books about lesbian starship captains also
humboldtblue
@Amir Khalid:
Wondeful in attack, suffocatng in the press accomodatng in defense and a gimpy Alison.
Great start.
Origi looks fantastic, Mo looks like it’s a 35-goal season and Firmino is simply irreplaceable in Klopp’s system.
Another Scott
@ruemara: Excellent! Thank you for joining us!
Cheers,
Scott.
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara: wow! Congrats!!!
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
I think that The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination still hold up as major works of SF.
I thought that someone was working on a TV or movie adaptation of one or both works, but haven’t heard much about this lately.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
It is in the Penders example I gave you. Granted that comic was actually meant for children originally, but this is the same dude who literally implied sex happened between two teenage characters, one of whom was an imposter. Ick.
Let me give you an admittedly extreme example of what I’m talking about.
An author writes a short story where a woman is raped near a night club she was clubbing at. She calls the police and two detectives are sent to meet with her. Both are men. They take her down to the station to be interviewed.
From the get go she is treated like a suspect. After she explains what happened to her, one of the detectives tries to convince her that the rape never happened and that she hallucinated the entire thing. The other slut-shames her for the clothes she was wearing, implying it was her fault the rapist targeted her, not to mention that she’s merely a prostitute who got what was coming to her.
Others, such as her friends and family, say similar things. Literally everyone she comes in contact with says so. She eventually concludes that it was her fault and that she got what she deserved. Later she ends up in a happy romantic relationship with her rapist and understands the “evils” of feminism. The end.
Pretty horrible, right? That’s the narrative bending over backwards to shame the female character and justify rape.
Baud
@ruemara:
Yes! Another Baud! voter!
J R in WV
@Frankensteinbeck:
Watch it, bub! ;-)
I just did finish reading a book about an urban lesbian blood witch who was having an illegal affair with a female demon… Bloodbath…(Harrietta Lee Book 2)
It’s a little grim, conspiracy inside a conspiracy, little bit of racy stuff too, but interesting. Short too, a little bit. I like them really loooong if
possible. I’ve been doing e-books, which is what this was.
Tony Jay
@Amir Khalid:
Very much. If rather he did it at this end of the season, though. Fingers crossed its nothing serious.
debit
@ruemara: Congrats!
humboldtblue
@ruemara:
Welcome, I am so very sorry it will happen under this adminustration. Please forgive us.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@ruemara:
Awesome! Congrats!
Amir Khalid
@ruemara:
Congratulations.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: my only complaint about Stars is the same as everybody else’s: if only they’d cut the (offscreen at least) rape.
Foyle also being a hulking idiot, though, this isn’t too out of character, nor is it glorified.
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Yes, but mostly because it sounds downright bad. Incidentally this is not too different from the ending of 1984.
NotMax
@J R in WV
Specific context long forgotten but once got a bring tears to the eyes laughing response from the gaming group during an RPG campaign by bringing up a line entirely apropos to the situation at hand about “riding the short succubus.”
rikyrah
@ruemara:
When it happens, tell us, so that we can throw you a BJ CyberParty.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: snrk
ThresherK
@rikyrah: I cannot come up with the name, but at least one smart comic has mentioned how white men love the idea of time-traveling backwards for much the same reason.
L85NJGT
Wilmer is going to blow the lid off of Area 51, so we’ve got that going for us…
Sab
@ruemara: Yay for us! We need you here.
CaseyL
@low-tech cyclist: @clay:
Hey! I loved that book! :)
Seriously, though: I adored it, precisely because it was so whack. Loved the Vikings taking to modern day shopping sprees.
Granted, some of the sections were tedious. I just skipped those.
If there are more in the series, I’m all for ’em.
Litlebritdifrnt
Dr. Who has famously introduced “new” aspects of the world to mainstream TV. Captain Jack (John Barrowman) famously became a character to transcend two doctors (Eccleston and Tennant)and of course became the central character in the spinoff “Torchwood” which unashamedly featured Jack’s relationships with male partners. Capaldi’s final companion was a lesbian (Bill was her name I think), the producers have never been afraid to throw caution to the wind and put these themes into a supposed kids show.
NotMax
@ Major Major Major Major
Got bonus experience points for it from the GM, too.
@ruemara
Welcome aboard.
(checks schedule) Your day to dust the country is October 29, 2057. ;)
mrmoshpotato
@ruemara: Good to hear! ?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
Yes, it is similar to Winston’s fate in 1984. But the difference is that we followed Winston’s POV throughout the entire book and we sympathize with him. We know in the end that he was ultimately right.
I just think that overall context of a story is super important. I don’t mean to say that merely depicting something immoral is equivalent to endorsement. You know what I mean?
BTW, tell Samwise happy birthday!
J R in WV
@ruemara:
Woah, congratulations!! No surprise, you’re a sharp jackal, but still, such good news, since you worked hard and invested a lot into it.
ruemara
@humboldtblue: That’s about where I’m at along with a few other things this dredges up. But no matter, it’s the right thing to do and that’s the most important thing.
Amir Khalid
Liverpool are knocking hard on Norwich’s door for a fifth. To their credit Norwich haven’t folded: they’re well-organised in defence and look dangerous in attack. On this form, I think they’ll stay up.
ETA: Norwich keeper Tim Krul has been fantastic.
Mary G
@ruemara: That is wonderful news! Seems fast, though prolly not to you. Welcome! Another anybody-but-Trump voter to help reclaim America.
schrodingers_cat
@ruemara:Congratulations!!! Didn’t they give you ad date for your swearing in? How long did take from the time you sent in your application?
SiubhanDuinne
@ruemara:
That’s exciting and wonderful news! Normally I wouldn’t dare speak on behalf of other jackals, but in this case I feel safe in saying that every one of your (US) BJ friends welcomes you heartily as a fellow citizen. Congratulations, ruemara!
Amir Khalid
Teemo Pukki pulls one back for Norwich. They have earned it.
humboldtblue
@Amir Khalid:
Yup, they missed two golden chances first half. But the Liverpool offense looks lovely.
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: of course context matters, but the arguments you’re describing seem to be, “oh well we can’t have artists making challenging works because readers (not I, the haver of this opinion, of course) are weak-willed idiots.”
And will do!
Mary G
Great thread from NBC reporter on the ground in Mississippi:
NotMax
As it’s a freewheeling thread, a minor tale of NotMax’s NY adventure:
Trip to the local supermarket to pick up several things to bring back which cannot readily (or at all) find here. One such happened to be on a shelf with a large (like 10 inches wide and 8 inches high) handwritten sign attached announcing “Special! 2/$1.00.” Color of the sign and the writing matched other signs throughout the market.
I always keep a close eye on the monitor at the checkout counter anyway, so noticed right away when it rang up for $4.49. Did apologize to the person behind me in line for holding them up while the cashier trekked to the shelf, brought back the sign and called a manager to do her magic with the register to correct it. Always wonder how many people don’t bother looking and get hornswoggled on the pricing.
Betty Cracker
@Martin: Are you sure? Even if I’m signed in as an admin? I could swear I’ve noticed quirkiness to the spell check function that only occurs when I use WP…
Major Major Major Major
@Betty Cracker: I’m on a mac and get the system spellchecker in Safari. Don’t use BJ on Chrome so idk. And I get iOS system spellcheck on my phone.
Betty Cracker
@ruemara: Excellent news. We need as many good Americans as we can get to help us outweigh the bad!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
Hmm. I suppose I see what you mean. I guess what I’m really against are authors trying to promote toxic ideologies such as white supremacy through their writing; as in “these fascist guys are the REAL heroes not those evil degenerates who promote the homosexual agenda”
clay
@ThresherK:
That was Louis CK. It’s a good bit, despite his personal bad behavior.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Well, in this case the problem sounds more like the message the storytelling techniques are used to endorse (whether intentionally or not), rather than the techniques themselves.
Moreover, that outline does sound bad, but the storytelling techniques can do a lot one way or the other to suggest whether the ending should be seen as happy or not. There can be, for lack of a better term, signposts along the way to suggest that the story is a deconstruction of the society it’s depicting, playing it for horror. Such a story wouldn’t be a work I’d recommend to survivors of sexual assault, of course, but if done right, it could be an effective sort of reductio ad absurdum of our society’s rape culture that might show how screwed up it is to readers who otherwise might not have considered it.
One potential way to emphasise this might be to use vivid, descriptive language to describe the traumas the character suffers in detail, and then use extremely plain language to describe the ending (since M⁴ mentioned Nineteen Eighty-Four, “He loved Big Brother” would be your style guide here), as though the protagonist has essentially had all genuine feeling and enjoyment of life stripped from her and been turned into a Stepford Wife. This wouldn’t be sufficient by itself (and it probably wouldn’t be a particularly realistic portrayal of how many survivors would react in reality), but it’s one technique an author might use to play such an ending for horror, and/or to deconstruct/satirise society’s perception of survivors.
However, it’s a complex minefield that would have to be navigated very carefully, and there are certainly other ways to wind up with a similar version of the same message that would be much less open to misinterpretation. So yeah, I’m inclined to agree with M⁴ overall.
@ruemara: …also, congrats! missed this earlier, somehow.
humboldtblue
@Amir Khalid:
Salah has scored in all three opening-day matches he has played for the Reds.
Origi became the 13th player in Liverpool history to have scored a goal on each day of the week.
jl
@debit: ” Maybe we’re all secret tardigrades. From the future. ”
I was kind of hoping that you average tardigrade held more promise for the future.
But… maybe…. we’re the best they can do?
J R in WV
ASked about recommendations..
I just started a book called “Ragged Alice”, by Gareth Powell which appears to be about a British senior Law Enforcement Officer named Holly Craig.
She appears to have some sort of ability which hasn’t yet been fully described, but is able to sense something from murder victims. She’s in charge of, so far, a double murder, and the second victim appears to have killed the first victim, in a remote British village… she’s arranged a small task force to look into things.
The young woman at her hotel has a glass eye, which was her grandfather’s, and tells Holly it has seen things, strange things. Then she shakes her head and asks Holly “Do you want ice in, then?” for a second time. Quite odd, lots of odd going to go on, I think…
I’m quite enjoying the read so far, so recommended, if you like strange murder mysteries with powers.
Major Major Major Major
@(((CassandraLeo))): Very well-put, thank you for taking the time to articulate my point :P
J R in WV
@ruemara:
Yeah, well, about Trump. He won’t last that long, you’re healthy and young and will outast him by decades!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
@(((CassandraLeo))):
I think that’s actually what I was trying to say all this time. Thank you!
oatler.
Ian Wallace wrote some pretty convoluted time-travel SF, as did Gene Wolfe in his “Urth of the New Sun”. I’ve also enjoyed the supernatural stuff, like “Tom’s Midnight Garden” and “The Amazing Mr Blunden”.
ruemara
@J R in WV: Trump is really a mild symptom of a much greater disease.
Major Major Major Major
karen marie
@Mathguy: What’s even worse is current sci-fi that is blatantly misogynist, homophobic and racist. There’s a lot of it. It frustrates me to have to wade through it in my search for those rare gems.
I’m delighted with this thread. It’s given me a lot of good leads for future reads. Thanks, kids!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
That kitty looks like it’s having a good time = D
Considering getting one for Samwise? : p
dlwchico
I don’t think it was mentioned in the article, but I think Jo Walton’s My Real Children might qualify for the time traveling lesbian’s list. Even if not, I enjoyed it quite a bit and recommend it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@ruemara: Congrats and welcome.
Major Major Major Major
@karen marie: check out the other recommended reading threads if you haven’t already! Lots of great stuff. https://www.balloon-juice.com/category/books-and-music/books/recommended-reading/
KSinMA
@ruemara: That’s great! Congratulations!
J R in WV
@ruemara:
Well, true.
I was trying to be optimistic and uplifting… cheerful, even!
different-church-lady
I don’t know what the hell is going on with YouTube, but more and more Trump-pushing ads and videos have been pushed my way, and today some innocent, unpolitical music video was bookended by two horror-pieces from the NRA itself.
Wrote them “feedback”, and I ain’t a feedback kind of person. There’s utterly NOTHING in my YouTube history that could logically lead the algorithms to target me with this garbage. Steve Martin + Saturn V launches + how use the alpha channel in Photoshop = GUN HUMPING?!?
The Lodger
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: This may be late, but Wendy Carlos didn’t reveal her gender reassignment surgery till 1979, 11 years after releasing Switched-On Bach. Still not an easy time to go through that experience.
jl
@Major Major Major Major: Cat seems to like it. So, anything that helps out with a cat bath is a boon to humankind.
Except Valentina Lord is a Martian. Is that an Earth cat or a Martian cat? Might make a difference, you never know.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@Major Major Major Major: @??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: No problem, and thanks to both of you as well.
@different-church-lady: There’s a menu you can click on recommended videos (probably a hamburger menu or a … button) that has a “not interested” option, which might help reduce the prevalence of such videos in your recommended feed. I don’t blame you for writing a complaint to YouTube, though. Their algorithm shouldn’t be recommending videos like that, especially to people with essentially apolitical viewing, and the fact that it’s happening is alarming.
Almost all of the stuff I watch on YT is either late-night comedy, MSNBC, or gaming, so thankfully, I’ve yet to have that crap show up in my recommended list. Almost all of my recommended videos are basically in the same categories, though I rarely end up watching anything that isn’t already in my subscriptions feed, just because that already provides me with way more than I have time to watch.
If awful advertisements like that keep showing up, might be time to start blocking ads. (I recommend using an ad-blocker anyway; a lot of ads contain malicious code. You can allow “unobtrusive” ads with extensions like Ad-Block Plus if you don’t want to deprive sites of all revenue.)
different-church-lady
@(((CassandraLeo))): Thanks for the tips. I paused the second NRA video on sight and came here straight away to vent. After your comment I went back and saw a little i in a circle, which lead to a “Why this ad?” box, and a way to flag it. I hit “Inappropriate” and would have liked to have added, “…with extreme prejudice.”
Bill Arnold
To Major Major Major Major; have you read Rule 34 (C. Stross)? (Link to his crib sheet, warning spoilers). I did not realize until he pointed it out that no characters excepting the psychopath were heteronormative, and “he” was pretty weird.
(((CassandraLeo)))
@different-church-lady: No problem. Good to know about the “inappropriate ad” feature too!
Bill Arnold
@Amir Khalid:
Autocorrect is of the devil, or at least of Chaos.
Checking one’s spells is, however, often helpful. (E.g. target selector missing, default context root [all humanity]. Bad!!!)
Seriously, a spell-checker with the ability to add words to the dictionary can helpfully supplement proofreading.
ThresherK
@clay: Thanks for the sourcing.
NotMax
@Bill Arnold
Nasty, spoiled offspring of Hexadecimal.
:)
Villago Delenda Est
@ruemara: Piling on with congratulations and welcome aboards.
We DO need more citizens like you. Very much.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bill Arnold: The great thing about Rule 34 is that half way through you find out what the motive for the gruesome murders in the first half is.
In my case, the response was a shrug of the shoulders and a “So? I’m not seeing a problem here…”
Marigold
Late to the thread, but thank you for these Recommended Reading posts. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve tried so far, and I keep adding to my to-be-read list!
Also congratulations, ruemara!
Denali
@Ruemara,
Congratulations! This is wonderful news! I’ll be at the party!
Major Major Major Major
@Marigold: you’re welcome, thanks for reading!
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Major Major Major Major: SM Stirling:
Comrade Scrutinizer
@J R in WV: If only Trump was the problem rather than a symptom, that might be comforting.
karen marie
@clay: What the hell is a “contemporary commercial novelist”? That’s how Nicole Galland is described on the Amazon page for D.O.D.O.
karen marie
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks!
I hate when I kill a thread like this. It happens so often! It’s the hazard of being a west coast reader of an east coast blog.
PaulWartenberg
I can’t write time travel lesbian fiction because I’ve never time traveled before, I don’t have the experience.
Should we all collaborate on such a novel? I call dibs on the chapters involving the years 1987 through 1999.