Wis[s]e Words

Ancillary Justice — Ann Leckie

Published on February 9, 2014Leave a comment

Cover of Ancillary Justice

Ancillary Justice
Ann Leckie
385 pages
published in 2013

It’s funny how you don’t notice how ingrained gender is until you get your nose rubbed in it. In Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie makes it clear by the third page that when her protagonist Breq uses “she” and “her” she uses it as a neutral pronoun, yet unless I paid close attention or Leckie explicitly outed a character as male, I kept thinking of every character she meets as female. That’s I think a response more readers will have, as we’re just not used to thinking of the female form as universal; traditonally it has always been “he” or “him”, or something like singular “they” for those of us aware that the male isn’t actually universal. It may seem like a too clever writing trick, a clumpsy attempt at showing the reader the gender assumptions build into the very language we use, but I don’t think this is actually what Leckie had in mind. What it does instead is establishing the fundamental strangeness of Breq herself even before we learn she’s the last remaining component of a thousands years old warship’s AI.

That consistent use of “she” and “her” foregrounds the difference of the Radchaai culture Breq comes from. It’s a bit of unexplained strangeness that tells a lot about their society, culture and history, most importantly that the Radchaai are inherently matriarchal in the same way most if not all actually existing human societies are patriarchal. But there’s more going on with Breq’s gender blindness, as other Radchaai seem to have far less trouble differiating between men and women, even if they use the same pronouns for both. Meanwhile Breq not only has pronoun troubles, she also has trouble remembering which secondary sexual characteristics are male and which are female. It’s this that singles her out as not quite human.

A fair point, well made

Published on February 8, 2014Leave a comment

Over at Mighty Mighty Godking, John Seavey raves about the new Ms Marvel and how it’s a really great comic. As you know Bob, the new Ms Marvel is a Pakistani-American Muslim teenage girl, first time a Muslim hero has had her own Marvel comics and as such has been a Big Deal before the first issue came out. Seavey is at pains to point out that despite its “worthiness”, Ms Marvel is a great comic in its own right. This annoys one commenter to go on a bit of a rant how it’s never allowed to just enjoy seeing somebody like you in comics

I bring this up because I have actually had straight people bitch me out for telling them that I like a book or a movie JUST BECAUSE it has queer characters. They get so incredibly offended by this, the idea that I might derive enjoyment from nothing more than seeing myself existing in the world of fiction, this blessing that they’ve taken for granted all their lives.

So I wouldn’t actually be bothered if Ms Marvel sucked. It’s THERE, in the midst of a sea of white, white, white superhero books. Its mere existence is heroic. If nasty little white fanboys have an issue with that, maybe they shouldn’t have created the problem in the first place.

Comics have always had a problem with showing heroes other than straight, white males, something that has been slowly changing. Because so many of the attempts to change this, to showcase somebody else for a change were godawful, done by well intentioned but clueless white men and because that meant any “minority” book is judged extra harshly by fans, I can understand why Seavey felt the need to emphasis that Ms Marvel first and foremost was a good comic. But I understand tickstander’s irritation even better. There are so few heroes of colour or queer heroes or even heroines that even get their own titles and when they do they largely get ignored or written off as “politically correct”; certain “fans” do seem to hate these titles just for existing.

Truth is, a greater diversity can only help comics and attempts like Ms. Marvel should be applauded for just existing. What helps is that the writer, G. Willow Wilson is herself Muslim, though through conversion, so has some sympathy and experience with what she writes about.

Two years, three months

Published on February 7, 2014Leave a comment

For some reason it’s doing the shopping that gets me a lot, walking through the supermarket getting stuff for the weekend, nobody to take into consideration but the cats and myself. It’s been two years and three months since I last had to shop for anybody but me, and actually the two years before that saw me not needing to more often than not too. Sometimes that gets to me and I feel myself getting maudlin over by the sausage rolls.

Sandra’s toothbrushes are still in the cup on top of the sink in our bathroom. “Our” bathroom; I still find myself talking that way, or mentioning Sandra and then having to decide about to explain or keep sthum about the whole dead wife thing to coworkers when you’re just talking about Devon or whatever.

Keepsakes and reminders of her are everywhere of course, but you slowly see the character of our house change now she’s no longer here to put her stamp on it. It’s half in stasis, half turning into a slightly bigger version of my old student flat. I keep oscillating between wanting to keep everything as it was and wanting to change everything, in the end doing neither but letting entropy do its work for me.

To be honest, I’ve been running in stationary myself as well. The days go by and things change, but I’m just going along with the flow, no clear goals in mind. Living with somebody for so long, having been so focused on getting Sand better for the last five years, then having all that effort be for nothing, these past two years just have left me goalless. Living alone again after so long isn’t getting any easier. Not even after two years.

Plague Ship — Andre Norton

Published on February 6, 2014Leave a comment

Cover of Plague Ship

Plague Ship
Andre Norton
192 pages
published in 1956

Hold on to your tail fins, space fans. This retro rocket boosted tale is sure to knock you out of your orbit. Oy, did this very fifties future slang get old fast in Plague Ship. This is another of Norton’s books at Project Gutenberg and mildly irritating as its language occasionally was, it was also the perfect kind of light adventure science fiction to be read in small snatches on my phone, while getting coffee at work.

Plague Ship is the second in Norton’s Solar Queen series, about the adventures of the crew of the ship the series is named after, free traders trying to eke out a living making the kind of trading deals the big companies can’t. The Solar Queen is literally a huge rocket ship, complete with humongous fifties tail fins to land on. Amongst its crew is Dane Thorson, Cargo-master-apprentice and our hero, prone to saying things like “rest easy on your fins” and “right up the rockets” and all other sorts of horrid expressions you have to read around.

Cartoonists urge Angoulême to drop Sodastream

Published on February 5, 2014Leave a comment

Dozens of well known cartoonists, including Joe Sacco, Tardi and Baru have signed an open lettre urging the Angoulême Comics Festival to drop Sodastream as a sponsor:

We, cartoonists, illustrators and authors from all countries, are surprised, disappointed and angry to find out that SodaStream is an official sponsor of the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

As you must know, SodaStream is the target of an international boycott call for its contribution to the colonization of Palestinian land, due to its factory in the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, its exploitation of Palestinian workers, and its theft of Palestinian resources, in violation of international law and contravening international principles of human rights.

Angoulême has had an important role in the appreciation of comics as an art form for over 40 years. It would be sad if SodaStream were able to use this event to whitewash their crimes.

We ask you to cut all ties between the Festival and this shameful company.

Sincerely,

This fight against Sodastream, for having established a plant in a Israeli settlement on stolen Palestian land in the West Bank, a plant Sodastream itself has admitted was a mistake, is just one small battle in the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) struggle against the Israeli Apartheid State. It’s similar in fact to that long struggle against South African Apartheid in the seventies and eighties and hopefully it can lead to similar results. Certainly the Israeli government fears the movement:

The movement’s economic impact is also becoming evident. The recent decision by the $200 billion Dutch pension fund PGGM to divest from the five largest Israeli banks because of their involvement in occupied Palestinian territory has sent shock waves through the Israeli establishment.

To underscore the “existential” danger that B.D.S. poses, Israel and its lobby groups often invoke the smear of anti-Semitism, despite the unequivocal, consistent position of the movement against all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism. This unfounded allegation is intended to intimidate into silence those who criticize Israel and to conflate such criticism with anti-Jewish racism.

Getting Angoulême to drop Sodastream sponsorship, though welcome, is of course not going to change Israeli policies but seeing conservative pension funds start to drop Israeli investments, as much out of conviction as for legal concerns, that’s a game changer.