Top 10 Blog Posts for December 2013
Happy New Year! Here’s the list: 10. Why I Stopped Paying Attention to Feedburner Subscriber Numbers 9. The Diversity Pledge: Crunching My Numbers for 2013 8. Draft Post Bingo: What should I finish? You Decide! 7. Draft Post Bingo Winners: What I’ll Be Finishing Next 6. Crowdfunding Links of the Week: Kaleidoscope (a Diverse YA Antho) & War Stories (a MilSF Antho) 5. Star Trek: a Worf TV Show? (Some Thoughts) 4. Diversity is Not a Selfie (or, Amazing Stories + Felicity Savage = Here We Go Again) 3. Top 10 Science Fiction and Fantasy Anime Movies 2. Movie Review: Riddick (2013)(or, I’m Going to Mega Rant Now) 1. The Vigilante in American Mythology (Brief Thoughts) #monthofjoy Wee!
The Diversity Pledge: Crunching My Numbers for 2013
I think this is the first time I’ve seriously looked at my reading numbers. And now I’m going to share them with the world. The list only includes novels, collections, and narrative non-fiction. I have not factored in multiple books by the same author. Here’s the author list: Gareth L. Powell Myke Cole Christopher Barzak Nir Yaniv Brian McClellan Paul Cornell Michael R. Underwood Michael J. Martinez Nick Mamatas Wes Chu Doug Lain Richard Phillips Mike Resnick James Anthony Froude Stephen N. Cobham Michel Maxwell Philip C.L.R. James Edgar Mittelholzer Roger Mais George Lamming V.S. Naipaul Kim Stanley Robinson John Scalzi Saladin Ahmed Brandon Sanderson Jay Lake Max Gladstone Chuck Wendig Karen Lord Merle Hodge Caryl Phillips Dionne Brand Erna Brodber Mary Seacole Evie Manieri Linda Nagata Nalo Hopkinson Rhiannon Held Lauren Beukes Yoon Ha Lee Ruth Frances Long Emma Newman Cassandra Rose Clarke Ann Leckie Cherie Priest Jean Rhys Beryl Gilroy Suzanne Collins Mira Grant Lois McMaster Bujold Nancy Kress Aliette de Bodard Zen Cho Mur Lafferty Stina Leicht Here are the percentages w/ commentary: Gender Male (50.9%) Female (49.1%) I’m actually surprised with this. While I make an effort to maintain gender parity for The Skiffy and Fanty Show, that same effort does not apply to my academic work. There, I’m concerned with a tradition of literature, which is historically male-centric. But apparently even my PhD project is fairly equal in terms of gender. In any case, I’m happy. I wanted to get close to 50/50, and so I have. A+ Diversity White (61.82%) Non-White (38.18%) I’m uncomfortable with this category for two reasons: 1) I don’t like the idea that there are two groups (white and non-white); 2) I don’t know how to get around that without making completely idiotic assumptions about other people’s race. But this is the only way I have to measure racial diversity, and so I have to use it. If anyone has a better idea, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. I also wanted to include a note about LGBT authors here, but I realized that I’d have to go digging around to figure who is who. And, well, it’s really none of my business. It wasn’t something I intentionally selected for this year, though I certainly would like to read more works by LGBT authors. In any case, I’m not dissatisfied with these numbers. They’re not as bad as they could be, and they could certainly be better, but considering that I didn’t actually try, I’m genuinely pleased that nearly 40% of my reading came from people of color. U.S./U.K. (65.46%) Elsewhere (34.54%)(includes expatriates) This doesn’t surprise me at all. Since my field of research is Caribbean literature, a good chunk of what I read this year would have to be from elsewhere on the planet. In 2014, that number is going to look very different indeed thanks to the World SF Tour. If I had more time, I’d break these numbers down by region (the Caribbean, continental Europe, etc.). For now, I’ll settle for the above. ———————————————- And that’s that. How about you? Leave your numbers below!
Self-Published Books vs. Literary Awards: A Logistical Problem?
Back in August, The Guardian posted a column by Liz Bury entitled “Why is self-publishing still scorned by literary awards?” The article doesn’t exactly make an argument about the apparent snubbing of SPed books in the literary awards circuit, but Bury does essentially imply in the body of the article that the inability of these awards to address the widespread consumption of SPed books will not work on their favor. I’m not sure that’s true either, to be honest. These same literary awards are just as relevant as they were before SPing became normal (lots of relevance or no relevance whatsoever — depends on your view). I, however, have a different perspective on this problem. As a podcaster (The Skiffy and Fanty Show) and blogger, I get a lot of requests for reviews, interviews, guest posts, and so on. On the blog, I’m a little more lenient when it comes to everything but reviews. But the podcast is an entirely different matter. Throughout the year, we have maybe 25-26 slots for proper interviews, and perhaps another 25-26 slots for discussion episodes. With the addition of a steady blog for the podcast, that jumps the number from 50ish slots to about 100. One hundred slots for tens of thousands of SF/F authors. Understandably, we’re extremely selective on the show. We have to be. There aren’t enough slots for everyone, so we have to think hard about who we want to interview, what we want to talk about on the show, and so on and so forth. Inevitably, that means we tend to avoid self-published books; for me, it’s for the same reason as always: how exactly are we to wade through the drivel to find those good SPed books? This is a similar problem, I imagine, for the literary awards circuit. Granted, there may be a bigger agenda in place there, but they must be aware of the impossibly large field of published works out there, and so they make the decision, like us at The Skiffy and Fanty Show, to cut that field down to a more stable pool. There’s crap in traditional publishing, too, but my experience has always been that it’s much easier to find good things in traditional publishing, whereas the inverse is still true in the self-publishing world. There’s also another question here: cost. On the podcast, it costs us nothing (mostly) to interview or host authors of any sort. Even when there are costs, they are astronomically low and infrequent (a couple bucks here or there). But the literary award circuit has to hire judges, whom they sometimes (or usually) pay. Even if they’re not paying those judges, the request for their time is high, since they have to read dozens of books or short stories, etc. If you open the field further, you can imagine how much time (or money) would be lost just on going through the onslaught of TPed and SPed books sent their way. Let’s also assume that there might be a way to get around that by narrowing the field with various new criteria. In the end, those criteria will be flawed and, in some cases, controversial. They’re not going to base things on sales, since popularity is never an indicator of quality anyway. Personally, I can’t imagine any valid criteria that would weed out the trash from the legitimately quality books. In the end, it just makes more sense to cut the field in half. In a game of numbers, the easiest criteria is the one that makes the job a lot easier. But there’s also one more question I have: why would SPed authors want to win these awards anyway? The field is large enough that they could easily create equally valid awards just for SPed books. And if they did that, it might make the task of including SPed books easier, since you could use those other awards as a mandatory criterion for the selection process: if your book was nominated for X award, it is eligible for Y award. It may not be the best criteria, but it’s a start. In any case, the point is this: it’s a numbers game. It’s a logistical problem. There are just too many damned books out there just in the traditional publishing world alone. Expecting these awards to toss out their arbitrary standards to include another massive pool of literature seems counter-productive to me. You won’t end up with a better awards system, but an overburdened one. And you may end up doing more damage than would happen if one were to leave it alone. That’s my two cents. What about you?
Speculation Station: Worlds Without Gunpowder
Liz Bourke foisted this question upon me on Twitter using her profound ability of psychic suggestion and the promise of free alcohol.[1] The question is this: what would the world look like if gunpowder had never been discovered? First, a few caveats: I’m only going to consider worlds like our own in which the materials for gunpowder exist. I feel inadequate to the task of arguing the science involved in imagining the absence of gunpowder materials. I’m only going to consider worlds like our own in which the inhabitants didn’t discover gunpowder until much later — up to about when the early modern period began. I find it unlikely that gunpowder would go undiscovered indefinitely. Due to my limited knowledge of other gunpowder-using cultures, most of what I will say below will come from a largely Western perspective. It will likely be somewhat reductive primarily because I can’t write a 200-page book about the subject and expect anyone to read it. However, if you can shine some light on how the above question might have affected different cultures before (or after?) colonization or contact w/ other cultures, please write a post in response. I don’t have that expertise, and so I will refrain from making too many assumptions. My understanding of gunpowder is that it was discovered by the Chinese sometime between the 9th and 11th centuries (the Tang and Song Dynasties, respectively). Its explosive potential, however, wasn’t fully realized until many centuries later — somewhere around the 13th century in China. The rest of the world more less caught on after the powder’s discovery, using it eventually to make weapons at roughly the same time as the Chinese.[2] Between the 15th and 17th centuries, the formula was perfected and put to use in weaponry on a wide scale.[3] But if a world were to exist where gunpowder did not get discovered by the Chinese (or anyone) in the 9th/11th century and did not change the course of history until some centuries after the 200 year period mentioned above, wouldn’t the world we know now be a drastically different place? Obviously. For one, the course of warfare would have to change considerably to meet the demands of battle. More advanced form of crossbows would likely fill the gap as medieval technicians created better ways to load and fire bolts. I suspect we’d see widespread use of ballistas and crossbows with the ability to fire multiple shots before the need for reloading. Some of these weapons already existed in the day, but they were inefficient and were eventually supplanted by better forms of weaponry (the musket, cannons, etc.). The Chinese, for example, had a repeater crossbow as early as the 4th century BC, and the Greeks had designed a repeating ballista in the century afterwards. These devices were certainly difficult to create and expensive, but without the explosive power of gunpowder, the need for more accurate, efficient, and speedy forms of these devices would become necessary.[6] Over time, the adaptations of warfare would include changes in armor, greater use of castle defenses, and perhaps the development of other forms of explosives or flammable liquids for use in catapults and other siege machines. Personally, I like the idea of Greek fire becoming a common tool used in warfare, though this would eventually become less useful over time as everyone began to prep their defenses against such things. While I’m no expert on medieval sea warfare, I imagine the absence of gunpowder-based cannons would mean greater need for well-trained soldiers on the decks of ships and a frequent use of flammables either in the trapping of enemy ships or as a matter of the boat siege process. In my mind, I imagine balanced crews of soldiers, sailors, and chemical experts, each in place in just the right numbers to combat the onslaught of chemicals and soldiers trying to crash or take over enemy ships full of supplies or ground troops. And don’t forget the crossbows and ballistas. A ballista whose tip contains a pouch of flammable liquid could be launched through the wooden hull of an enemy ship, and fire-tipped bolts or arrows could be used to light the enemy ship on fire. In a weird way, I just imagine warfare to be a more violent, flammable, terrifying endeavor, such that it might actually be against the better judgment of monarchic leaders to consistently wage war against their enemies. At some point, the cost would become too great to constantly grab for territory. The more interesting part, for me, is the impact all of this would have on the colonization of the Americas.[7] Because muskets and cannons were such a strategic advantage for the Europeans who eventually took the Americas for themselves, it is curious to think about the ability of the Native Americans to actually combat the invasion. Though Native American weapons would have to adapt to the needs of warfare, there wouldn’t be as large a difference in terms of the technology between European projectiles and Native American ones. The Europeans could certainly outmatch Native American warriors in terms of firing range and speed, but I wonder if they would still have the advantage in hand to hand combat or in dealing with guerrilla tactics, particularly with reduced ability to deploy explosives at long distances (cannons, etc.). In particular, I imagine the Europeans would have kept to their armor-based marching style, which might work in a frontal assault, but against a non-traditional fighting force, such as that deployed by Native Americans at various stages of the conflict in our own world, I don’t think it would help in the long term. Unfortunately, I still think the Europeans would come out on top, but that’s largely because the inevitable bio-warfare would become a center piece. There’s nothing to be done about the introduction of smallpox and other diseases into the Americans that the Native Americans simply hadn’t survived yet. And I imagine the Europeans would eventually figure out, as they did
Infographic: Space Travel, Then and Now
I haven’t checked the validity of the claims in the image (which I got here), but it’s interesting nonetheless. Enjoy:
Video Found: Bohemian Rhapsody, Star Wars Style
The best part: Emperor Palpatine busting out a guitar solo using force lightning.