science fiction

The Defiant Agents — Andre Norton

Published on November 2, 2014Leave a comment

Cover of The Defiant Agents

The Defiant Agents
Andre Norton
222 pages
published in 1962

The danger with relying on Project Gutenberg for your reading is that you end up missing things, like in this case, where the first novel in a series, The Time Traders was available, but the sequel wasn’t and I only noticed once I had started to read this, the third in the series. Luckily the first chapter is all setup and infodumping, explaining how in Galactic Derelict time travel led to the discovery of a fully functioning alien spaceship, from the same aliens as see in the first novel and that in turn led to a warehouse full of navigation tapes. Those tapes were divided by lot ver various countries, including Soviet Russia and of course with the Cold War raging between the West and the USSR, spying is rife. As The Defiant Agents opens, one Soviet plant has manages to get his hands on the navigation tape for one of the most promising planets the west has in its possession, which means a crash expedition has to be launched to colonise it before the Russians do.

That crash expedition becomes literal when it turns out the Soviets are already there and have hunter/killer satellites in orbit, shooting down the expedition’s spaceship. Thanks to a bit of luck and a bit of skill the ship, though damaged, still manages to crash land on Topaz in such a way that their enemies think they’re dead. With the crew dead, the colonists, now less than forty, all volunteers from an Apache tribe, have to build a new home on a world with not just hostile nature to contend with, but also hostile humans as the Soviets who have poached the planet are still there. And it’s up to Travis Fox, once Time Travel Agent, to guide his people.

The Outskirter’s Secret — Rosemary Kirstein

Published on October 26, 2014Leave a comment

Cover of The Outskirter's Secret

The Outskirter’s Secret
Rosemary Kirstein
342 pages
published in 1992

The Outskirter’s Secret is the sequel to The Steerswoman, the second in what’s so far a four book, projected to be seven book series. Kirstein is one of those authors who’ve fallen between the cracks of the science fiction/fantasy field: incredibly loved by those who’ve read her books, but barely known outside that circle of aficionados. The trouble is, for all sort of reasons, she isn’t a fast writer; the first two books in the series were written in 1989 and 1992, the second two in 2003 and 2004, with the fifth scheduled for publishing next year. Perhaps. Which means that, because she’s never been the runaway bestseller kind of author, that her books slip out of print faster than they’re written and you have to luck into finding her books secondhand to be initiated into her cult once you’ve heard people like Jo Walton rave about her. Luckily these days there are ebooks.

The Steerswoman series is science fiction in what looks like a fantasy setting, complete with wizards, dragons and goblins, in which Rowan, the titular steerswoman through her curiosity and intelligence is driven to investigate the nature of her world. Steerswomen (as well as the occasional steerman) are members of what you may call a semi religious order bound to answer any question truthfully as long as in return their own questions are also answered in the same manner. In the first book, Rowan’s curiosity into a peculiar kind of worked blue stone she found made her into a target for a wizard conspiracy. She escaped and in The Outskirter’s Secret, together with her faithful companion Bel, an Outskirter herself, a member of one of the nomadic tribes living in the wildernesses beyond the civilised inner lands, sets out to track down the source of the blue stones, deep in the Outskirts.

Books read…

Benjanun Sriduangkaew apologises

Published on October 20, 20141 Comment

Benjanun Sriduangkaew/Requires Hate has broken her silence and apologies for her actions, first at Requires Hate:

Apologies aren’t easy to make. I’ll do my best and acknowledge that it’s not a magic word. First, I will say that I stand by the substance of most of what I’ve said on this blog. But not how I said it. I’ve gained a much better understanding of consequences and how people work, and the way I said much of what I said ignored the humanity of those on the receiving end. It’s a failure of empathy on my part. I make no excuses about this: I own up to what I said, and I own up that I conducted myself fantastically badly. I believed I was doing good and was punching up, and that my methods were perfectly fine weapons when in actuality they really weren’t. No excuses: many things in life can contribute to you conducting yourself one way or another, but generally you have your own agency.

And then at her new blog:

But I want, at least, some measure of a chance to explain myself. I’m not owed this chance. You aren’t obliged to read beyond the line. You don’t have to, at all. But please know that, if I’ve hurt you, I’m sorry.

I’m not one of the people who were attacked by Requires Hate or deceived by Benjanun Sriduangkaew — I doubt I’m on her radar — so it’s not up to me to say whether her apologies are good enough. But I hope they’re sincere and that this can be the start of healing the wounds these actions and those undertaken in defense or retaliation against her have created in science fiction fandom.

It strikes me that Nick Mamatas, by bringing the Requires Hate/Benjanun Sriduangkaew connection out in the open as he did, had it by the right end. Her real identity was an open secret before that, but only if you were in the loop. Mamatas made it impossible for Sriduangkaew to keep up the pretence and he cut down the whispering campaign against her off at the knees.

On a Red Station, Drifting — Aliette de Bodard

Published on October 19, 2014Leave a comment

Cover of On a Red Station, Drifting

On a Red Station, Drifting
Aliette de Bodard
116 pages
published in 2013

I wasn’t too impressed with the first story of Aliette de Bodard I read, when it was linked from Metafilter. I found the story, set in a Vietnamese or Vietnam inspired far future “too laboured, too trying to be interesting, but in the end it’s just another Orientalist allegory”. Which is somewhat ironic, as De Bodard is actually of Vietnamese descent… Can a writer be Orientalist if she’s actually writing from her own cultural background? That’s a question we’re going to come back to in discussing On a Red Station, Drifting as it’s at the heart of the problems I’ve had reading this book.

The reason I bought On a Red Station, Drifting, after that rough start I had with de Bodard was because she was nominated for the novelette Hugo and I discovered that her nominated story, The Waiting Stars, was “an excellent slice of Banksian space opera, a story of love, family and two incompatible views of the world”. On a Red Station, Drifting promised to be more of the same. It’s set in the same universe as The Waiting Stars, where the Dai Viet Empire ruling the stars makes a welcome retrieve from the usual Roman Empire model. At the time of this novel however it’s in trouble, with a weak emperor on the throne and rebel warlords springing up and taking over star systems.

Does a Bee care?

Published on October 16, 20141 Comment

Requires Hate is an abrasive blogger from Thailand who made her name pointing out and critiquing the racism, sexism and orientalism found in science fiction and fantasy, often going after supposedly liberal writers. In the best of circumstances being accused of these things can lead to a defensive response and Requires Hate could be rather aggressive in her criticism. Case in point: her review of Tricia Sullivan’s Double Vision:

It’s a white woman who, through a fictional black woman as her mouthpiece, is describing Japanese men as “little robotic bulls” (the idea of East Asians being robotic itself echoing offensive stereotypes) and “like little Nazis”: not necessarily the comparison that’d first leap to mind when you are describing people who move like robots or even like soldiers at a drill. Later on, after hearing about the sexual assault (perhaps in an attempt to make light of things and make the survivor feel better), Cookie’s friend Gloria idly asks whether it’s true what they say about Asian men’s penis sizes.

And this was for a writer she actually liked at the time. With writers she didn’t, she could be far more biting, if not downright nasty, as with her posts on Cindy Pon’s novels. Furthermore, under her Livejournal persona, Winterfox, she was also accused of bullying and harassment. In short, she made a lot of enemies before she disappeared late last year as it seemed she’d lost the will to blog.

Benjanun Sriduangkaew is a science fiction writer from Thailand who started getting published in 2012, got a fair few excellent short stories published, enough to get her nominated the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer this year. Like any other new writer, she’s active online, on twitter and her blog, which is light and happy and nice and more than a bit twee. You can understand why the moment she got any attention, rumours started that she and Requires Hate were the same person. These rumours apparantly started to intensify around the Worlcon, though the first time I became aware of them was early September, when it was mentioned in the comments at James Nicoll’s blog. Glad I didn’t comment back then so I look smart now, as I was sure it was just stupid to think two people could be the same just because they were from the same neck of the woods and active in sf/fantasy.

Because it turned out to be true this time, as Nick Mamatas officially revealed that yes, Sriduankaew had been blogging as Requires Hate/Winterfox:

Anyway, Benjanun Sriduangkaew used to blog under the name Requires Only That You Hate. I like Bees’s writing, I liked the RotyH blog, and I’ve known (without exact confirmation, but Bees had a contracted story in PHANTASM JAPAN) for quite a while. I suppose I am most interested in the reactions of the people who were yelling that to even suggest that Bees and RH were the same person was racist, which should be hilarious.

All of which would only be mildly interesting if not for the enemies RH/Winterfox had made as a blogger. Because allegedly some of those had been waging a whisper campaign against her, revealing her true identity to her editors and other influential people to try and derail her career. Mostly it’s been done behind the scenes, but at least one author publically called on her readers to write to Sriduankaew’s editors. This sort of doxxing, revealing of real life identities, is one of the worst crimes you think of in many online communities, if only because it’s so often used against people with good reason to be anonymous or pseudonymous. I may have the privilege not to have to worry about keeping my online and offline lives separate, many people don’t.

On the other hand, as has been argued forcefully in James Nicoll’s thread on the news, what’s so wrong in making people aware that sweet butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth Sriduankaew is actually a notorious online bully and abuser? Somebody who’s been careful to not reveal her past, who in fact has been busy memoryholing it?

Which is the biggest problem in getting to the truth of this. So much of what happened has now devolved into he said/she said territory, what with the deletion of posts and comments as well as the general entropy of the internet. None of the people claiming to know the truth are impartial and what’s abuse to one party are just forcefully expressed opinions to the other. What’s more, there are good people on both sides; this isn’t a GamersGate situation or a Vox Day inspired witch hunt. Some of these people genuinely believe that RH was fighting the good fight against racism and orientalism, perhaps a bit abrasive in how she went out it, while others believe that she just used this as a shield to attack women of colour she disliked. The point is, it’s almost impossible for an outsider to find out the truth and at this point it really doesn’t like much like there are any high minded motives behind this fight anymore.

No, this is a good old fashioned fannish feud, where the original cause for the feud are not so much forgotten as irrelevant at this point. People have been hurt and upset on both sides and have caused hurt and upset themselves. Neither side is innocent.

For me personally, I’m going to try and stay out of this fight because I’m far from sure it would solve anything to come down on one side or the other. I like Sriduankaew’s writing, but I also think it would credit her if she was to break her silence and make it official that yes, she was Requires Hate, to be honest about her history. It would credit her enemies to stop trying to ruin her career, or, at the very least be open about believing she’s a toxic influence on science fiction. Don’t keep it festering in the shadows.