Science Fiction

Much Better Trans Actress News

~ Cheryl

So yeah, as per yesterday, mostly Hollywood is pretty crap when it comes to trans characters. But what if one of the directors happens to be a trans woman herself.

Yesterday Netflix set a date of Friday June 5th for the Premier of Sense8, a new SF TV series from Lana & Andy Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski. The cast list looks every bit as diverse as that for Jupiter Ascending: Naveen Andrews, Daryl Hannah, Brian J. Smith, Tuppence Middleton, Aml Ameen, Freema Agyeman, Tena Desae, Doona Bae, Max Riemelt, Alfonso Herrera, Erendira Ibarra, Jamie Clayton, Miguel Silvestri and Terrence Mann.

Daryl Hannah needs no introduction. You should all remember Freema Agyeman as Martha Jones in Doctor Who. Tuppence Middleton was in Jupiter Ascending, and Doonae Bae was in Cloud Atlas. But the name that jumps out to me is Jamie Clayton. I believe that she’s playing the part of a young trans blogger. Guess I need to sign up for Netflix, though doubtless there will be some stupid reason why the show is not available in the UK.

#TeamLana #GirlsLikeUs

Trans History Update 2: An Ancient Greek Trans Man

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

My other update comes courtesy of a Twitter used called Snek who posted an extract from a work by Lucian of Samaosata. Lucian was a Greek writer who lived in what is modern day Turkey under the Roman Empire (2nd Century CE). He is probably best known to my readers as the author of True History, a work that is often cited as the first ever science fiction novel. It is certainly true that the book tells of voyages to other planets. However, Lucian was a satirist, and the book has more in common with Gulliver’s Travels than with the world of Verne and Wells. It is doubtful that Lucian intended it to be taken as serious scientific speculation.

While this might be Lucian’s most famous work, it is by no means his only one. Another book that he wrote is The Mimes of the Courtesans. This is a set of fictional reminiscences by hetairai — Greek high class sex workers — which again is a work of satire. The original English translation of the work was made in 1905 by HW & FG Fowler, who are more famous today for their magnificent book, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, which is still widely considered to be the ultimate English style guide. However, the Fowlers omitted several sections from their version, deeming them unsuitable for a modern audience. Snek quoted from a 1928 translation by someone only known as “ALH”. This includes the three missing sections, one of which is titled “The Lesbians”.

This short section features a conversation between a hetaira called Leaina and a young man called Clonarion. The lad has heard tell of a relationship between Leaina and a “wealthy lady from Lesbos” called Megilla. Leaina is somewhat embarrassed by the whole affair, but explains that Megilla prefers to be known as Megillos and identifies as a man. The story is called “The Lesbians” because Megillos and his wife, Demonassa, come from Lesbos, though Lucian would undoubtedly have been aware of Sappho and would have set the story there accordingly. However, reading the story, it is very clear that Megillos is someone whom we would identify as a trans man. You can read the whole thing here.

Obviously this is a work of fiction, not an historical report of an actual trans man. But it seems unlikely to me that Lucian would have come up with such a story had he not at least been aware of butch lesbians, and quite likely of trans men.

Attention Liverpool

~ Cheryl

On Monday March 23rd I will be giving a public lecture entitled, “Exploring Gender Fluidity Through Science Fiction and Fantasy” at Liverpool University. The event is sponsored by Flagship, the university’s LGBT lecture series, by the University Library (which has a fine special collection of SF&F works), and by the Science Fiction Foundation. To my astonishment, the talk is being introduced by the Vice Chancellor herself. (And she’s a professor of English, so I’d better be on my toes.) Details are as follows:

Date: Monday, March 23rd
Time: 5:30pm
Location: Lecture Theatre 6, Rendall Building, Cambridge Street, University of Liverpool

The flier for the event (PDF) is available here.

Update: To book a (free) place please go here. (Space may be limited.)

Like I said, it is a public event. I hope to see some of you there.

The Powell Brothers Do Fringe

~ Cheryl

I have been very remiss about posting BristolCon Fringe podcasts over the past few months. First there was Worldcon and Eurocon, then my mum being ill, then BristolCon itself, and soon after Christmas. It was not a good time. But I do need to get caught up because we have some really good material, starting with the December event. That featured Huw and Gareth Powell. Huw read from his middle grade book, Spacejackers, which is a rip-roaring adventure about Space Pirates. Gareth read from his latest (and now available) novel, Macaque Attack. This is the final book in the Ack-Ack Macaque series, so do take this last opportunity to hear the monkey being all violent and sweary. We totally earned that Explicit tag on iTunes, thank you, Gareth.

The event is hosted by Joanne Hall. Sound quality is not as good as I would like because there was some background clicking that I had to remove and it was just irregular enough for me to not be able to use Levelator without making things much worse. Next up, when I get the time, will be Emma & Pete Newman. And of course we have the February Fringe event happening next Monday (16th). That will feature John Hawkes-Reed (hopefully with programmable steam war elephants), and the rootin’ tootin’ Wild West genius of Stark Holborn.

Here ‘s Huw:

And Gareth:

And the Q&A:

Farewell Borderlands

~ Cheryl ~ 5 Comments

The February Locus arrived in my inbox today. Most year’s that a happy thing, because I get to see a whole bunch of authors squeeing happily about getting their books and stories into the Recommended Reading List (some of which I may have had a part in making happen). This year, however, the issue brought some very sad news: Borderlands Books in San Francisco is to close. I spent a fair amount of money in that store when I was able to visit the Bay Area. I’ve been to events there. And of course Borderlands are the usual booksellers for SF in SF. Alan and Jude are great people, and I’m very sad for them. It is, of course, galling to see yet another independent bookstore go under because they can’t compete with Amazon. There were few enough specialist science fiction bookstores left in the world. Now there is one fewer.

In Which I Destroy Feminist Science Fiction

~ Cheryl

I have been boring you on Twitter for days now about the Queers Destroy Science Fiction Kickstarter, but I’m going to mention it again because I can reveal that I have a part in it.

You may remember that last year for the Women Destroy Science Fiction Kickstarter they asked various people to write personal essays to entertain visitors to the campaign website. I wrote one of those, and as the campaign hit the necessary stretch goals my essay got included in the final book.

Well, for #QDSF Wendy Wagner kindly asked me to contribute another essay. That went online today. Given the title of the book, I felt that it was only fair that I should actually destroy something, so I have trained my queer pink laser canon on a classic text of Feminist Science Fiction, The Female Man by Joanna Russ. If you want to know what I said, go here.

Of course this does mean that I have been kicking TERFs twice in one day. That was a coincidence. Or maybe it is something I do every day, but not as publicly. Anyway, enjoy.

And while you are there, please consider backing the campaign. I’m pretty sure that the stretch goal for including the essays in the final book has been met, but I have this flash fiction story that I’d really love to submit to Queers Destroy Fantasy, should that be open to submissions, and for that book to happen we have quite a way to go.

Apex World SF #4

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

I have received a press release about the 4th volume of the Apex Book of World SF. This one will be edited by Mahvesh Murad who is from from Karachi in Pakistan. Lavie Tidhar is staying on as series editor. Mahvesh already has a fine reputation online, mainly as a reviewer and podcaster. I’m sure she’ll do a great job.

We don’t have a full ToC yet, but the following authors are definitely signed up: S.P. Somtow, Kaaron Warren, Aliette de Bodard, Zoran Živković, Lauren Beukes, Hannu Rajaniemi, Nnedi Okorafor, Andrzej Sapkowski, Karin Tidbeck. That sounds absolutely awesome to me. I’m looking forward to the book.

Buy A Castle In Spain

~ Cheryl

Well, not precisely. Castles in Spain is the name of a new anthology, currently being crowdfunded, that will feature English language translations (and the original Spanish*) of some of the very best of Spanish science fiction, fantasy and horror. It is being edited by Mariano Villareal, who is responsible for the Terra Nova series of anthologies, and the translation team is being headed by Sue Burke. I’ve met Sue at conventions before. She’s a very fine translator and I’m sure that she and Mariano will do a brilliant job.

The current contents list is mainly male, but that’s because Spanish SF&F, like most other countries, has been fairly male-dominated in the past. There are stretch goals for additional stories, and hopefully these will allow Mariano and Sue to add more women writers to the book.

Of course for that to happen we all need to back the campaign. You can do so here.

By the way, the Spanish language title of the book is Castillos en el aire, which of course translates as Castles in the Air. I think I prefer that, though I am now earwormed by Don McLean.

* Paper copies appear to be English or Spanish only, but the ebooks will be bilingual.

Jalada Does Afrofuturism

~ Cheryl

Jalada, a pan-African literary magazine, has published a new issue devoted to Afrofuturism. There are a few big names in there, such as Sofia Samatar, Nnedi Okorafor and Ytasha Womack, but there are lots of names unfamiliar to me. I’m expecting to discover a wealth of great writers. You can find the issue here.

New Fafnir Published

~ Cheryl

A new issue of Fafnir, the Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research, is now available online. I shall definitely be having a read as there is no way I can resist an article whose abstract begins thus:

In this article, I argue both Margaret Atwood in Handmaid’s Tale and Sheri S. Tepper in Gate to Women’s Country use the same three ‘women type’ characters to explore ideal female gender roles and their relationship to society. Further, I argue that both authors use these characters as part of their bigger rhetorical engagement with the American gender essentialist political movements of 1980s.

It is written by a man too. This will be interesting.

There is also an essay celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sun Ra. So gender politics and Afrofuturism (and jazz). What’s not to like?

Words Without Borders Does Alt-History

~ Cheryl

Words Without Borders, a very fine online literary magazine, has devoted their January 2015 issue to Uchronia (that’s alternate histories to most of us). As is their wont, WWB has gathered together some of the best authors around the world, and provided translations. You can find the issue here. And here’s some idea of what you can look forward to.

From Mexico, Otra Vuelta de Tuerca prizewinner Bef pictures a face-off between Maximilian I and the digital ghost of Benito Juárez.

From Sweden, Crawford Award-winning novelist Karin Tidbeck investigates an otherworldly cause for the disappearance of a town.

And Italian writer Aldo Nove takes a fresh look at the life of St. Francis of Assisi.

The issue also features work by Jorge Baradit (Chile), Hernán Vanoli (Argentina), Xavier Mauméjean (France), Gerson Lodi-Ribeiro (Brazil), and Jorge Eduardo Benavides (Peru). The French story is translated by Edward Gauvin who is a past winner of the SF&F Translation Award.

And it is all free. Go read. Fabulous authors, most of whom you will never have heard of before. Plus Karin Tidbeck who is literally* made of awesomesauce.

* Modern usage of “literally”, not to be taken literally.

Hola Hispacon

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

Spain’s annual SF convention is taking place in Barcelona this weekend. The Guests of Honor are: Christopher Priest, Ian Watson, Aliette de Bodard, Nina Allan, Karin Tidbeck, Félix J. Palma. I’ll be interested to hear reports of it, as I’m hoping to be at the Eurocon in Barcelona in 2016. More immediately, however, I would love to be on one programme item. It is about Alucinadas, the first ever women-only science fiction anthology in Spanish. Many of the contributors come from Latin America, including Angélica Gorodischer. You can read more about the project (in English) on the very fine Sense of Wonder blog. There is also a brief note (in Spanish) on Amazing Stories. (And kudos to Steve for having a whole Spanish language section these days.)

William Gibson at Toppings

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Yesterday evening I headed into Bath to see William Gibson at Toppings. It was a very interesting evening, and I’m certainly looking forward to reading The Peripheral. Unfortunately it is also Locus Recommended Reading List season, and as anything by Bill is going to be on the list by default I really need to think diversity and read other books first.

Still, some of you will be interested to know what The Peripheral is like, so here as a few comments. The most important thing to note is that, unlike the Blue Ant series, this book is set in the future. The real future, not an unevenly distributed present. It includes smart phone systems that are embedded in the body, and distributed rather than being a single lump of tech. The other thing I got from the reading is that it is going to be quite funny. Here are a couple of quotes:

You’re a publicist, she’s a celebrity. That’s interspecies.

She smiled, displaying teeth whose placement might well have been decided by a committee.

Bill is still clearly very much interested in PR, but he appears to be taking a lighter and more sarcastic view of the whole thing, at least from the bits of the book I heard.

There was also a Q&A session. I asked him a follow-on question from the Start the Week show he did on Tuesday. He talked about how he expected that people from around the time of The Peripheral will look back on our era with as much disgust as we look back on the Victorians. Asking him what about us might seem so disgusting in the wake of the Ferguson verdict was, of course, a no-brainer, but I asked him anyway and he gave exactly the sort of answer I was hoping for. He said that, given much of what disgusts us about the Victorians are things they were very proud of, what will disgust future humanity about our era won’t just be things like destroying the environment, it will also be some of the things that we do that we think are wonderful.

On the subject of social media, Bill said he expected it to fade away as we become more connected, presumably because we’ll always be able to check in on what each other is doing, rather than needing a platform to do so. I’m less convinced about that, because the whole point of things like Facebook is to create a walled garden that users think is the entire internet. That people buy into this, despite the far greater risks, suggests that we’ll always be prey to such marketing ploys.

Another really interesting answer he gave was in response to a question about AIs. This is what he said:

Our idea of artificial intelligence may turn out to be like the flying cars of the 1940s

Science fiction authors, please take note.

Finally, Bill was asked if The Peripheral was going to be the first book of a trilogy. He said he hoped not, and in particular he hoped that it would not become one of those works of art whose value was diminished by its sequels. Yes, he was talking about The Matrix. Sorry Lana.

Historical Fantasy Comes to Bristol

~ Cheryl

Historical Fantasy
Next week (Wed. Nov. 12th) at Foyles in Bristol there will be a major event on the subject of the links between historical fiction and fantasy.

One of the guest authors on the panel will be the fabulous Juliet E. McKenna who is, of course, published by Wizard’s Tower.

Alongside Juliet will be Jack Wolf, author of the fabulous The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones, and Helen Hollick, who has written Arthurian and Pirate-themed novels. The whole thing has been put together by Bristol author, Lucienne Boyce, who is best known to me as a local historian but who has also written a novel, To the Fair Land, which tells of a voyage to the mythical land of Terra Australis.

Obviously such a collection of brilliant novelists needs to be kept well in hand, and that means they need someone to chair the event. That would be, er, me…

The event is free to attend, so I hope I’ll see a bunch of Bristol-based people there. For those of you who are not able to get to Bristol, Juliet and Lucienne will be joining me in the Ujima studio to preview the event and talk about their writing. For further details, see here.

Holdfast Does Diversity (includes me)

~ Cheryl

Issue 4 of Holdfast Magazine went online today. This is a diversity special. It includes awesome stuff like an interview with Stephanie Saulter, an Afrofuturism playlist, a letter to Octavia Butler, and even a contribution from me.

My article is titled, “There’s More To Me Than Crisis And Tragedy”, and it is all about how trans characters in books, even when authors make a determined effort to get things right, can still manage to portray trans people in something of a negative light. Of course given where we are starting from — either being ignored of laughed at — any attempt at a respectful representation is to be welcomed. But I do think that authors can do better, and I hope that they will. You can read the article here.

I suspect that one or two people reading that will think I’ve lost my mind, because all they will remember of Triton is the character of Bron. If you are in that group, I’d like to remind you that Sam is a trans character too. As I recall, Chip was living downstairs from a gender clinic when he wrote that book. He will have seen the full spectrum of patients, both good and bad.

It also occurs to me that I should have made mention of Sandra MacDonald’s lovely collection, Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories. Diana is definitely a trans character who gets to do more than suffer.

Destruction Goes Rainbow

~ Cheryl

Yes folks, it is time to Destroy Science Fiction again. This time the fine folks at Lightspeed want Queers to do the job. Goodness only knows what the Dudebros are going to make of that.

I guess I’d better try to think of a story idea, though actually I need to finish the story for Accessing the Future first.

Anyway, if you are interested in submitting to Queers Destroy Science Fiction, the guidelines are here. And keep a lookout for the crowdfunding campaign, because if they get enough money they are going to queer fantasy and horror too.

Coming Soon in That London: Nigerian Fantasy, Arabic SF

~ Cheryl

Geoff Ryman has alerted me to an event featuring top Nigerian fantasy writer, Okey Ndibe. It is taking place on Saturday at Book & Kitchen. Details are as follows:

Saturday 1st November, 2014
4.00 pm
at BOOK AND KITCHEN
31 All Saints Road
London W11
near Ladbroke Grove tube, parallel to Portobello Road

Mr Ndibe was editor under Chinua Achebe of the Journal African Commentary. He is a regularly published essayist and journalist. He co-edited Writers, Writing on Conflicts and Wars in Africa (Adonis Abbey, 2009). His first novel, Arrows Of Rain is a powerful story of injustice in an fictitious African society, the role of storytellers and journalists and much else besides. Foreign Gods Inc. is similalry multi-layered novel about Nigeria, its religions, and its relationship to itself and the West.

Looking slightly further ahead, I have email from Yasmin Khan about the forthcoming event on Arabic SF at the Science Musuem. The speakers will include top journalist, Samira Ahmed and Saudi author, Yasser Bahjat, whom you all should know, plus three names who are new to me. Hassan Abdulrazzak is an Iraqi novelist and biologist who is turning his hand to SF; Ehsan Masood is a science journalist who has worked for New Scientist and Nature; and Larissa Sansour is a Palestinian filmmaker. Further details here.

Follow-Up Thought on Steampunk

~ Cheryl

On the steampunk panel at BristolCon we had to make a point of saying that the fiction we wrote critiqued the class system rather than taking it as a given. I figured that was an end to it. But today Jeff VanderMeer tweeted a link to this HuffPo article on steampunk by his Steampunk User’s Manual collaborator, Desirina Boskovich. The article is titled, “7 Reasons Why Steampunk Is Totally ‘Now'”, which sounds horribly Buzzfeed-like but I read it. When I got to point 5 I had a *headsmack* moment.

You see, point 5 is “It’s class conscious”. That’s important. I’m as fond of settings such as The Culture as the next SF reader, but the thing about The Culture is that it is supposedly classless. Now there’s a long conversation to be had about how a post-scarcity society will simply find a means other than wealth to indicate social class. Even in today’s Britain, wealth is no guarantee of status. But the point is that if you set your science fiction in a far future that has a classless society then your books can’t critique the idea of social class. However, because steampunk is set in an era in which massive class distinctions existed, it is very easy to write stories that critique such a set-up.

So there’s your argument: if you want to write science fiction that critiques a massively unequal society (and Goddess knows we need that right now), choose a setting that has such a society; choose steampunk.

Bristol Panel Requests

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

BristolCon starts tomorrow evening. I’ll be moderating two panels on Saturday, as follows:

Music in my Writing: Music might be even harder to write about than Sex or Death, and yet it’s a really important part of the process for most writers. Many authors write to music or put together soundtracks of their own books. How does music seep into and influence our work? — with Gunnar Roxen, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Kim Lakin-Smith, Sarah Ash.

Steampunk and the Class System: Does steampunk ignore what goes on below stairs? Is it all top hats and parasols, or should we be looking more at the dark underbelly of industrialisation and Empire? — with Robert Harkess, Scott Lewis, Roz Clarke, Adrian Tchaikovsky.

If you have any burning questions you would like put to one or other of the panels, I’ll try to find time to raise them, but what I’d really like are as follows:

1. Recommendations of the best author playlists that you have found in books you have read.

2. Recommendations of the best anti-Imperialist steampunk story you have read.

Michel Faber in Bath

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Last night I popped over to Bath to see Michel Faber who had an event at Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. For those not in the know, Faber was born in the Netherlands, raised in Australia, and now lives in Scotland. He’s a highly respected writer of literary fiction, and would probably have been a Booker finalist by now were it not for his Dutch nationality. However, his last novel, Under the Skin, is about an alien visitor to Earth who kidnaps humans and sends them back to her planet. His latest novel, The Book of Strange New Things, is about a Christian missionary who is sent to an alien planet.

With such a record, it is inevitable that Faber gets asked whether his work is — *gasp* — science fiction. Unlike a certain Canadian author whom we might mention, he’s perfectly happy with this. He also has a pretty decent knowledge of SF history, having read a lot of it during his teenage years in Melbourne. However, he’s pretty clear that what he is writing is LitFic. The primary subject of his new book is the relationship between Peter, the missionary, and his wife, Beatrice, whom he has to leave behind on Earth. Sending Peter to another planet creates a degree of separation that isn’t possible on Earth with modern communication and air travel. Also it isn’t clear how much worldbuilding Faber has done. He noted that he hadn’t thought to create an ecosystem for his alien planet until his wife pointed out that it was daft not having one.

That said, Faber clearly has thought about a number of issues. I asked him about the theological issue posed by alien life, and he said that is in the book. He mentioned that his aliens, the Oasans, are more like a bee colony than individuals. He acknowledged the existence of colonial themes in the book. And he made a point of how the human mission to the Oasan world was very carefully selected to ensure that its members would get on well together. He felt that the fractiousness of so many space missions in SF tests his suspension of disbelief. I recommended that he read Joanna Russ’s We Who Are About To…, which speaks to exactly that frustration.

So I am looking forward to reading the book. I can’t spend too much time on it before BristolCon, but I read the first couple of chapters on the way home last night and boy that guy can write.

I note also that Faber’s wife, Eva, died of cancer in July. He was nursing her while writing this book, so I suspect a lot of very emotional content will have seeped into the story. Towards the end of the evening Faber read a number of exceptionally moving poems about losing someone close to you. I managed to get through that without turning into a blubbering heap. I do hope that Canongate publishes them at some point.