Clearly, this is bothering me way too much.

[feuervogel]

From past experience with the obsessive part of my brain, letting out whatever I'm obsessing on makes it go away, so here it goes, and I hope it works.

This whole "you don't know what science fiction is, you silly girl" thing is keeping me from concentrating on the book I'm reading, which isn't actually science fiction, of course, because the writer doesn't do anything interesting with the technology, and what he does is just mundane FTL stuff, and nobody has tons of implants and body mods, and I don't think this David Drake fellow really wants to write science fiction, anyway. It could really just be set in the Age of Sail and be better for it. And aside from that, his Hammer's Slammers books could just as easily be set in Vietnam for all the same reasons (mundane technology, no mods).

And all those Vorkosigan books by that Bujold woman. They ought to just be set in Imperial Prussia or Czarist Russia for all they interact with the technology (which is just a bunch of mundane stuff, really, wormholes and uterine replicators, yawn).

Let's not forget CJ Cherryh. I don't think she really wants to write science fiction. She could set Foreigner and its successors in colonial Africa or the Afghan/Pakistan region, since there's not really any technology beyond mundane FTL ships. And Mospheira is just like Earth! The colonists even set up ski slopes on the tallest mountain and have pizza joints. And the Alliance-Union books could just as well be set in the Age of Sail, though the azi are kind of an interesting thing with the psychological programming & genetic engineering.

Then there's Ursula LeGuin. Sure, she invented the ansible, but there's nothing particularly whiz-bang done with it, just mundane things like FTL communication and encouraging people to join the Ekumen via conference call.

At least my non-science-fiction book is in some damn good company with other not-really-science-fiction writers.

Comments

[luckykitty.livejournal.com]

I totally understand this getting under your skin, but by your very examples you've proved he's wrong that this book isn't sf.

I say this as someone who's had this very reaction and will probably have it again and again. Every time I've tried to "argue my case" or let myself get really worked up it's been completely a waste of my time for various different reasons. The best thing I've learned to do is put it aside, deal with the negative emotions that come out of it (for me, usually depression instead of anger), and either discard it entirely or come back later with a cooler head.

If you don't think you'll get any worth out of what he's saying even later, delete his crit, block his email address to prevent yourself from further replying, and do other fun stuff. If you are having trouble writing/reading, just absorb--go have a drink, watch a movie (Fright Night was really fun!), take long walks, work on a short story. Do anything else, until the feeling subsides, and especially don't look at your book and worry over it. And then later, come back, polish your book and keep moving.

The best way to respond to something like this is to succeed where they think you will fail.

[feuervogel]

Ben downloaded the live action Space Battleship Yamato movie from last year, or I could play more video games...

[luckykitty.livejournal.com]

Both sound fun!!! Ha ha, last night I was cranky and all like Oh yeah I'm totally going to go stab some shit in AC:B except I was in the stupid flying mission and died a ton of times and that didn't help. Clearly, when in a mood, thou shalt only play challenging in a fun way games not games that make you want to stab something in real life :P

[feuervogel]

Dynasty Warriors games are great for when you just want to mow down hordes of mooks in your path. I've been playing the most recent Gundam version, and it's so much fun. Well, the challenge missions aren't exactly fun; they're alternatingly tedious and frustrating. The normal ones, yeah. Put anyone into my most powered-up mech, send them out to splode shit, it's all good.

[steuard.livejournal.com]

Seriously, the person who made those comments is just a typical example of a fairly common variety of sci-fi purist fan. Now that you know they're out there, you'll see them all over. They were well represented in the comments on the recent NPR "Top 100 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books/Series" list, for example: probably 10-20% of the comments were from people lamenting how fantasy and other terrible things have infringed on True Sci-Fi(TM). They (unknowingly) made me feel a bit awkward and embarrassed at my first local con, too: after the fifth person in a panel audience spoke up to lament how fantasy and the supernatural were sucking the life out of SF, I realized I was wearing a Tolkien-related shirt.

But you know what? Just because they're dogmatic about their definitions doesn't mean that they're right. They're welcome to their own preferences, and we're welcome to entirely disregard their attempts to hijack the entire genre and force it into their own image. Twerps.

[feuervogel]

I'm familiar with the girl cooties argument (fantasy is for girls, therefore fantasy gets its girl cooties all over the genre, and even girl SF writers don't write "real" SF because they write about "soft" topics like sociology and get their girl cooties all over the genre). I just didn't expect to find it in my inbox.

The "inappropriately westernized Muslims" line really sticks in my craw, too. I suppose my Pakistani friend on twitter who loves German football and MotoGP is a figment of my imagination, and the Bangladeshi guy who loves cricket and German football, and the Egyptian woman who loves German football, and the entire countries of Turkey and Indonesia...

[steuard.livejournal.com]

I hadn't really heard the "girl cooties" argument before; that didn't seem to be much a part of what the hard-SF purists at our local cons were on about (at least not openly). I don't doubt that it's out there, but it's even sillier than the "stick to hard science" insistence as far as I'm concerned. (What about Tolkien is "for girls" more than "for boys", for instance? And how is Foundation not about sociology? Maybe I'm not understanding even their feeble attempts at logic since I'm just hearing about them secondhand.)

As for westernised Muslims, I can see someone making that argument about a lot of groups in a lot of sci-fi. (I remember someone pointing out that the Firefly universe with its English/Chinese bilingual culture sure didn't have many Asians in it, though that's not quite the same thing.) It's not much of a stretch to imagine a future where Western culture has continued its historical spread, after all. Apparently this person would like to see more stories that don't follow that trend. Apparently you don't happen to have written one. Too bad for them.

[feuervogel]

http://sff.net/paradise/girlcooties.htm is the Girl Cooties Theory of Literature, though her genre rant may be more apropos.

Firefly really ought to have shown a lot more Chinese people, since everyone spoke (really bad) Chinese, and they were kind of the US of the future. My future space Germany is full of Turks (though lacking in Africans, mainly because I just don't know enough about them and don't want to screw it up, so I gave a side character a Ghanaian name from a footballer) because, hey, the industrial parts of Germany (the Ruhrgebiet) and Berlin are *full* of Turkish immigrants and their descendants. Any future Germany is going to have Turks in it, especially one started as an interstellar expansion of a manufacturing company.

But I don't actually *want* to have the future space people completely Americanized, because I'm sick of reading about Americans in space. Do I believe that all Muslims are a monolith, and that every one of them believes that women must wear at least hijab and niqab if possible, or that gay people must be put to death? Good lord no, because I've read Muslim bloggers who don't believe that! Aside from that, thinking that any group is a monolith is just plain wrong.

I purposefully made one female character a hijabi, because I didn't want to impose my beliefs on them (and there are compelling feminist arguments both for and against hijab). The women of Saudi Arabia are demanding the right to drive cars, and these badass Muslim women would take offense at the notion that they're "Westernized." There are active movements in many predominantly Muslim countries where people are fighting for their basic human rights. I don't think it's "inappropriate Westernization" to imagine a positive future where they've won and defeated fundamentalism.

And Egyptian Muslim feminist Mona Eltawahy lists some kick-ass Muslim feminist heroines going back to the 7th century.

I did the research. He didn't. What he did was say "your black character is too white" because he doesn't listen to rap and wear saggy pants.

[amakarie.livejournal.com]

There are elitists in every genre. :/