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People don't just say "I'm going to avoid female authors." It's just that somehow (preconscious preference, friends feeding them mostly books by men, spaces they're in mostly talking about books by men, etc) they end up avoiding female authors and then when it's pointed out they confabulate reasons why.
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Aug 14, 2021 16:50
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Put differently, if you find out one day that your car drifts left, the way to get where you're going isn't to take your hands off the wheel and say "I have no preference in direction, I just go where this car takes me." You need to steer right.
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Aug 14, 2021 16:52
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Doctor Jeep posted:Frances Hardinge's books are YA but great despite it. DWJ's books were marketed as kids books/YA-before-YA-was-a-thing too. Don't let publishing categories put you off; Sturgeon's Law applies to all of them.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:01
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Try THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST by Claire North. It's an espionage thriller about people who start over at the beginning of their lives when they die. It takes the consequences very seriously and thoughtfully and nails the fundamental conspiracies and conflicts that would emerge from having these kind of people in the world. It's sort of like if PRIMER were a secret society.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:04
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General Battuta posted:Try THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST by Claire North. It's an espionage thriller about people who start over at the beginning of their lives when they die. It takes the consequences very seriously and thoughtfully and nails the fundamental conspiracies and conflicts that would emerge from having these kind of people in the world. It's sort of like if PRIMER were a secret society. I recently read The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell and got similar vibes from it. Really liked it, too. I realize not a woman author for the current conversation, sorry 
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Aug 14, 2021 17:06
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General Battuta posted:Try THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST by Claire North. It's an espionage thriller about people who start over at the beginning of their lives when they die. It takes the consequences very seriously and thoughtfully and nails the fundamental conspiracies and conflicts that would emerge from having these kind of people in the world. It's sort of like if PRIMER were a secret society. This was good although it seemed it should either have been a short story or a trilogy.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:10
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BananaNutkins posted:This is a tangent and I'm not spoiling for a fight, but isn't it sexist and presumptive to suggest to someone to read more female authors? I don't care what race or gender produced the words I read. It's never been a factor in what I choose to read. lol this sucks dude
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Aug 14, 2021 17:12
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General Battuta posted:People don't just say "I'm going to avoid female authors." It's just that somehow (preconscious preference, friends feeding them mostly books by men, spaces they're in mostly talking about books by men, etc) they end up avoiding female authors and then when it's pointed out they confabulate reasons why. I will admit to having had the preconscious preference thing for a bit when I started reading regularly again in College. I had read maybe 20 or so genre books, and came across one that sounded interesting at the library, a Robin Hobb book, and caught myself dismissively thinking "ah, a woman author" and then thought wait, what the gently caress? And realized I had been doing it completely without thought. I immediately grabbed it and a CJ Cherryh book and felt like the biggest tool on the planet when they inevitably ended up being great books. It doesn't even make sense, because as a kid/teenager I read like 30 Agatha Christie novels. I am still ashamed by it every once in a while.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:33
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got about halfway through the goblin king but i think i'm probably done. i liked it at first but it has become boring. it's very focused on the political happenings of the world, and i think to demonstrate how out of his depth maia (the goblin emperor) is, it throws countless characters with long yet similar names at you every chapter and yet nothing really happens. i'm sure it picks up past the halfway point but oh well. i thought it might be good because of high review ratings but i think fantasy books just have inflated ratings in general.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:49
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The connection between aggregrate rating and good is much more tenuous than that imo
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Aug 14, 2021 17:52
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This is about the only place I even hear anything about women genre writers. Publicity and word of mouth seem pretty important, and it seems like they just don't get much spotlight. If someone has a good resource to rectify that I'm all ears, but just saying read women author's isn't that helpful imo.
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Aug 14, 2021 17:54
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shirunei posted:This is about the only place I even hear anything about women genre writers. Publicity and word of mouth seem pretty important, and it seems like they just don't get much spotlight. If someone has a good resource to rectify that I'm all ears, but just saying read women author's isn't that helpful imo. Did you find the specific recommendation for a book to start with unhelpful?
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Aug 14, 2021 17:56
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cptn_dr posted:I enjoyed Hench a whole lot. It starts out as sort of a Superhero-based parody of the gig economy before moving into the whole "how do you measure the impact of superheroes on normal people's lives" thing, but then it goes above and beyond that and gets into some surprisingly raw and insightful stuff. In the spirit of our current discussion of women authors, I just wanted to second this - really enjoyed Hench. Also, for those who liked There Is No Antimemetics Division (I did too) and more generally for those who like paranoid modern Cthulhu genre fiction, Caitlin Kiernan’s Tinfoil Dossier trilogy is worth a read.
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Aug 14, 2021 18:00
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Kalman posted:In the spirit of our current discussion of women authors, I just wanted to second this - really enjoyed Hench. yeah i need to check out more of their work, i came across Tidal Forces and it was really interesting
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Aug 14, 2021 18:02
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shirunei posted:This is about the only place I even hear anything about women genre writers. Publicity and word of mouth seem pretty important, and it seems like they just don't get much spotlight. If someone has a good resource to rectify that I'm all ears, but just saying read women author's isn't that helpful imo. Anyway my recommendation to the previous secondary-world-fantasy guy is Jade City by Fonda Lee, which is only kind of a secondary world but I like the series
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Aug 14, 2021 18:03
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General Battuta posted:Try THE FIRST FIFTEEN LIVES OF HARRY AUGUST by Claire North. It's an espionage thriller about people who start over at the beginning of their lives when they die. It takes the consequences very seriously and thoughtfully and nails the fundamental conspiracies and conflicts that would emerge from having these kind of people in the world. It's sort of like if PRIMER were a secret society. Haven't read anything else from CN because the blurbs didn't interest me, but Harry August is really good. No clunky dialogue that I can remember, no eye-rolling parts, a nice solid (and I don't mean that as in "middling") SF spy/crime novel with an interesting premise.
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Aug 14, 2021 18:18
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I've read pretty much all of the Nebula and Hugo finalists this year and figured I could go a little more in-depth if folks want more specific recommendations/ideas of what the nominated books are about. 2021 Hugo Best Novels Black Sun, Rebecca Roanhorse (Gallery / Saga Press / Solaris) Fantasy. This is a secondary-world inspired by pre-Columbian Exchange cultures of our world. The main characters are a sort of magical siren-woman who is an alcoholic boat captain and a blind man who is the vessel for a god. There's a lot of political/cosmic/religious conflict all wrapped together. (I enjoyed this one and will be getting the sequel when it comes out.) The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit) Fantasy. New York City is sentient and some people need to come together to defend it from an ancient evil? (I have not personally read this one but I've read other stuff by Jemisin and am sure it's solid. I have seen some people say it might not be as compelling if you're especially averse to the 'New York is the best city in the world!' sentiment, though.) Harrow The Ninth, Tamsyn Muir (Tor.com) Sci fi (but with magic?). Lesbian Necromancer in Space listens to God tell bad dad jokes while killing entire planets for him as she loses her mind. Things get wild. (I love this series. A lot of people do, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. You have to read the first book, Gideon the Ninth, before this or it will be even more confusing than it already is -- but it's confusing for a very specific reason.) Network Effect, Martha Wells (Tor.com) Sci fi. Our good buddy Murderbot investigates a mystery on an abandoned (or maybe not) planet while trying to rescue some of its human Piranesi, Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury) Fantasy. A person called Piranesi lives in a mysterious building with infinite rooms and endless branching corridors lined with strange statues. The house has flooded rooms and tides that flow through it regularly. There is one other person around, but the more Piranesi explores, the less seems to add up about this visitor and Piranesi's own past. (Clarke also wrote Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and this is an easy recommendation if you liked that -- it's also MUCH shorter! Just a fantastic, evocative book.) The Relentless Moon, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor Books / Solaris) Sci fi. Third in the Lady Astronaut series. There's climate disaster on Earth and political turmoil as efforts are being made to colonize the Moon and Mars. (I have not read this series but I've been meaning to. Kowal is pretty well respected in the field and just finished a few years serving as the president of SFWA.) Nebula Best Novels (There's a lot of overlap with the Hugos so I'll skip those) Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, published by Del Rey and Jo Fletcher Horror. A 1930s Mexico City socialite gets a concerning letter from her cousin, who now lives in a creepy old mansion on top of a mountain with her new husband and his family. She goes to investigate and quickly realizes something is terribly wrong, besides the fact that her new in-laws are racist pro-eugenics British ex-pats. (Do you like mushrooms? This has mushrooms. A really neat, modern take on the gothic genre that hits a lot of classic notes while keeping things fresh.) The Midnight Bargain by C. L. Polk, published by Erewhon (NOTE: Polk is non-binary! There were people reporting the Nebula Best Novel slate as being all-women, but they are not a woman) Fantasy. A sorceress dreads when she'll be forced to marry and her powers will be forcibly cut off. Marriage season is coming up and drama ensues. (I haven't read this, but a lot of people have described it as like a Jane Austen novel in setting and themes -- but with, y'know, magic as a main point of tension. I've read one of Polk's other books and if you like the idea of an Austen-ian fantasy/romance, it's what you'll get.) Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, published by Bloomsbury US and Bloomsbury UK The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin, published by Orbit US and Orbit UK Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse, published by Saga and Solaris Winner: Network Effect by Martha Wells, published by Tordotcom
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Aug 14, 2021 19:00
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Piranesi is so so so good. I personally thought it was miles above the rest of the slate. The City We Became on the other hand is a really bad book that would not have received the attention it did if it had a different author.
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Aug 14, 2021 19:08
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shirunei posted:This is about the only place I even hear anything about women genre writers. Publicity and word of mouth seem pretty important, and it seems like they just don't get much spotlight. If someone has a good resource to rectify that I'm all ears, but just saying read women author's isn't that helpful imo. The tor.com blog does a decent job of covering diverse authors if you can put up with their awful insistence on also blogging about movies and tv shows. James Davis Nicoll also covers a lot of diverse stuff (and on tor) It's defunct now but the archives at Emerald City covered a LOT of weird interesting diverse authors And finally asking in here for diversity gets a bunch of recs! What do you want?
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Aug 14, 2021 19:12
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quote:Fantasy. This is a secondary-world inspired by pre-Columbian Exchange cultures of our world. The main characters are a sort of magical siren-woman who is an alcoholic boat captain and a blind man who is the vessel for a god. There's a lot of political/cosmic/religious conflict all wrapped together. (I enjoyed this one and will be getting the sequel when it comes out.) Fantasy authors need to stop doing this. It’s a tired and offensive trope. Not calling you out specifically it just frustrates me to see it.
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Aug 14, 2021 19:12
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BurningBeard posted:Fantasy authors need to stop doing this. It’s a tired and offensive trope. Not calling you out specifically it just frustrates me to see it. Offensive?
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Aug 14, 2021 19:15
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Quite. I’ll spare the thread an essay about depictions of blind people in popular culture as either helpless, superpowered, or spiritual vessels.
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Aug 14, 2021 19:18
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I'm losing my eyesight and have yet to become superpowered in any way and it frustrates me too tbh. Blindness as a metaphor is all very well but it's tiresome sometimes.
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Aug 14, 2021 19:27
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BurningBeard posted:Fantasy authors need to stop doing this. It’s a tired and offensive trope. Not calling you out specifically it just frustrates me to see it. I absolutely agree with you. I try to keep an eye out for stuff that's abelist like that and it did give me pause at first, but I think this one is maybe a bit different for a few reasons (spoilers): He's temporarily blinded in order to become a vessel. As soon as he opens his eyes at the end of the book, the god's power is able to manifest, so it was more that his eyes being closed kept it contained, and it's not exactly an "oh the disabled are inherently magical" thing like other questionable stuff I've seen? I can see how that might still be too close to the bad uses of the trope to be comfortable, though. Roanhorse has said that she consulted blind folks to get his sections accurate and had sensitivity readers involved as well. Not saying you can't still gently caress up even with making those considerations, of course. BurningBeard posted:Quite. I’ll spare the thread an essay about depictions of blind people in popular culture as either helpless, superpowered, or spiritual vessels. DurianGray fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 19:38
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ShutteredIn posted:lol this sucks dude I don't buy into the subconscious bias thing. This is an opinion I hold, and I usually get a temp ban when I mention it, which is messed up, because instead of being silenced and put in time out we could have a rational discussion where you support your argument and I support mine. I've sold short stories to pro markets as both a woman and a man. Selling as a woman was easier, although the sample size of submitted stories sold is admittedly far to small for me to make any scientific judgements about bias in the industry. 3/4ths of my writing group are female. I graduated from a writing masters program where 80% of the students were female and made a lot of contacts there. I get book recs from friends I made there, my writing group,from SA, from browsing book covers. So no, I don't take into account the author's background unless it's relevant to what I'm reading. Like, if you were a Somalian pirate or a Indonesian wooden train operator and you wrote a book about it, I'd definitely be interested. But I don't need to know your gender or race. Especially if I'm reading a slush pile, I only care about finding things that inspire and excite me. Nowadays when I write, I only submit to magazines that have blind submissions, where all identifying information is stripped from the manuscript. If I was running my own magazine, that's the way I'd do it. That way if Stephen King sends you a crap story, it gets rejected, and if an unknown sends in a fantastic story, it gets accepted. Doing it any other way is like some weird Harrison Bergeron-esque equality of outcome not equality of opportunity thing. There are actually more opportunities for marginalized groups in publishing than there are for non-marginalized groups. This is not an opinion, but an easily proven fact. All the pro markets have limited demographic submission windows multiple times per year, which means those groups have more opportunities to submit, during which time non-marginalized groups sit on their hands. I'm not saying there aren't people in the industry who are racist, but honestly, publishing and academia are not very easy places for racists to hide. I have no problem with it if you want to run limited demographic windows for your magazine or to select your own reading material however you want to, but I do take offense when someone says I need to read more female or lgbtq authors and implies that I'm racist/sexist for choosing the books I read with a different selection criteria than "does the pitch grab me" and " do people I respect recommend it to me". Anyway, I don't see why any of what I said "sucks." You'll have to elaborate, because I'm open to learning and having my mind changed. Maybe we can have a thread for debates like that so we don't derail this one. But most likely, someone has already complained to the mods that I have opinions they don't like and I'll be banned and you can talk and I can't respond, and then no one will have learned anything. General Batutta explained his opinion. I respect that, even if I don't agree with it. But just saying my opinion sucks is lazy and not productive except to virtue signal. MartingaleJack fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Aug 14, 2021 |
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Aug 14, 2021 20:44
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e: Wait, I misread that.
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Aug 14, 2021 20:53
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StrixNebulosa posted:e: Wait, I misread that. Typing on a phone, sorry. I was trying to keep it all in one post so as not to derail further.
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Aug 14, 2021 20:55
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shirunei posted:This is about the only place I even hear anything about women genre writers. Publicity and word of mouth seem pretty important, and it seems like they just don't get much spotlight. If someone has a good resource to rectify that I'm all ears, but just saying read women author's isn't that helpful imo. i mean, where do you normally hear about genre writers 8 of the last 10 best novel hugo winners were women I'm not saying genre publishing isn't a Good Old Boys club anymore (it still is a lot of the time!) but i don't think women authors are like, unknown somehow
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Aug 14, 2021 21:00
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Ha ha wow.
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Aug 14, 2021 21:01
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Whether you care about representation in genre fiction, or not, go read Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots. It’s such a smart and well-written book. Not at all what I expected going in.
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Aug 14, 2021 21:04
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Trying this again now that I'm on a computer and not in a car.BananaNutkins posted:I'm not going out of my way to read a book because someone claims to be some intersectional race/gender/culture combo. I don't see why that should matter. If a book is good, it's good regardless what sentient being created. I'd read a book written by AI if it was quality. I make my reading choices based on recommendations and then on reading the inset and back cover to see if the world, characters, and premise sound cool. Because books are written by human (so far) authors who bring their own backgrounds and prejudices and world views into what they write. The worlds they imagine are a reflection of their experiences. If you're reading speculative sci-fi written by ONLY old white men with sexist attitudes, you wind up with white, sexist futures. This isn't to say that an author can't push themselves to write more diverse settings, e.g. Walter Jon Williams, but my ultimate point is that nothing is written in a vacuum. So - not to virtue signal and be all "and that's why you HAVE to read stuff by women", but instead - as a reader, wouldn't you want a variety of books from a variety of viewpoints so you get more cool stuff to think about? Food is an imperfect analogy, but instead of eating just white bread for my sandwiches, I want to try sourdough and olive and wheat and all of them. From a social standpoint this is also a great and healthy thing to do as it fosters curiosity and empathy for other viewpoints, which in turn can lead to pushing back against racism in the real world. This isn't a direct line - reading CJ Cherryh is not going to turn you into a raging feminist - but it is a starting point. BananaNutkins posted:I don't buy into the subconscious bias thing. This is an opinion I hold, and I usually get a temp ban when I mention it, which is messed up, because instead of being silenced and put in time out we could have a rational discussion where you support your argument and I support mine. The post you were probated for - I went and reread it - and uhhhhhhh. You weren't being silenced for "opinions other posters don't like".
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Aug 14, 2021 21:06
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I was pretty unimpressed by the Roanhorse books on the Navajo Rez post-apocalypse, they felt like an RPG campaign. Intrigued by the new one though. Relentless Moon is great, it’s a locked room mystery on a 60s tech lunar colony so those who think they would like that sort of thing will be right. I’m very interested by Moreno-Garcia’s book, I thought her last one was a bit by the numbers (naive but plucky young girl and the dark and mysterious man of mystery…does she like him? Is he too…dangerous????) but the setting of post-revolution Mexico was so interesting and the connection to the myths of Mexico was novel enough that it made up for it
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Aug 14, 2021 21:11
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instead of participating in this dicussion, I'm just going to recommend She Who Became The Sun (Radiant Emperor 01) by Shelley Parker-chan again because it's just a very good book.
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Aug 14, 2021 21:17
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Since this sad little bozo hates probes so much maybe he should get a perma instead.
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Aug 14, 2021 21:18
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Excluding discussions about the latest movies and tv-series, female SFF author's work is brought up and discussed more than SFF male author's work in the SFL Archives in a 4:3 ratio; this is one of the reasons the SFL Archives readthrough has been good and endurable vs torturous. The latest really good sounding pre-2000's SFF stories written by female SFF authors brought up in the SFL Archives are THE GREEN RIDER and HALFWAY HUMAN and of course 1992's AMMONITE. While not written by a female author, EXPENDABLE has a good slow-burn premise which I would spoil beyond saying "A corrupt Starfleet really (enragingly) bought into the Redshirt concept."
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Aug 14, 2021 21:19
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ShutteredIn posted:lol this sucks dude packetmantis posted:Ha ha wow. I enjoyed reading BN’s posts even if I disagree with them because they’re actually engaging and they have a perspective that I’m interested in as a practicing author. The dumbass CSPAM “look how good my opinions are” stuff is what sucks. Personally I look for stuff that’s not “same old”, and I tend to find that more often when reading authors from different backgrounds because they’re drawing on different traditions. Thus, Moreno-Garcia, etc.
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Aug 14, 2021 21:21
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quantumfoam posted:Excluding discussions about the latest movies and tv-series, female SFF author's work is brought up and discussed more than SFF male author's work in the SFL Archives in a 4:3 ratio; this is one of the reasons the SFL Archives readthrough has been good and endurable vs torturous. Kristen Britain wrote The Green Rider series, and it's getting a book this year(!) I haven't read the series, but drat, nice to see stuff from the 90s still going: https://kristenbritain.com/?page_id=753 Carolyn Ives Gilman wrote Halfway Human, which I hadn't heard of, and woah: "Her first novel, Halfway Human, was a new entry into the genre of Gender Science Fiction, portraying a world in which humans have three genders: male, female, and neuter. It has been called "one of the most compelling explorations of gender and power in recent SF"[6] and compared favorably to the work of Ursula K. Le Guin." She also wrote three more books in that series, one as recently as 2015!
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Aug 14, 2021 21:21
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quantumfoam posted:Excluding discussions about the latest movies and tv-series, female SFF author's work is brought up and discussed more than SFF male author's work in the SFL Archives in a 4:3 ratio; did you do a spreadsheet i'm not being sardonic i'd like to see it if you did
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Aug 14, 2021 21:24
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quote:I don't buy into the subconscious bias thing. This is an opinion I hold, and I usually get a temp ban when I mention it, which is messed up, because instead of being silenced and put in time out we could have a rational discussion where you support your argument and I support mine. Implicit bias is how lazy stereotypes are created, such as the spiritually gifted blind character I just complained about a few posts up. You can choose not to believe in it, and that is absolutely your right, but I’d gently suggest that you are unwilling to push beyond an artificially imposed constraint. Totally not trying to pile on, I understand where you’re coming from, but as a marginalized person myself, I experience in technicolor implicit bias in people’s decision making, words, and actions on a daily basis. People are going to pop off at you for saying something like this because you’re expressing a viewpoint that runs counter to their lived experiences. quote:There are actually more opportunities for marginalized groups in publishing than there are for non-marginalized groups. This is not an opinion, but an easily proven fact. All the pro markets have limited demographic submission windows multiple times per year, which means those groups have more opportunities to submit, during which time non-marginalized groups sit on their hands. I’m so with you when it comes to respecting work solely on its merits, but my lived experience, as well as the lived experiences of other marginalized people stand in contrast to that naive belief. Basically what you’re saying is that your narrowly defined metric of quality is all that matters, which, well, doesn’t make you misogynist or racist, but it does mean you’re wearing blinders that you can remove at any time. That’s ultimately your call.
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Aug 14, 2021 21:25
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buffalo all day posted:The dumbass CSPAM “look how good my opinions are” stuff is what sucks. It's really telling that you think that's what that was instead of groaning at yet more of the heaps of garbage marginalized people have to deal with every day of their loving lives.
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Aug 14, 2021 21:28
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