Link of the Week: Aliette de Bodard on #DiversityinSFF and Writing About Other Cultures
If you don’t already follow Aliette de Bodard’s excellent blog, I recommend you do so immediately. When she’s not talking about her amazing writing, she’s usually talking about something equally fascinating. And that’s what she’s been up to today! Over on her blog, she has a wonderful post about other cultures, diversity in SFF, and a few other interesting things. Go check it out!
Writing Question: Best Method for Introducing People of Color?
I’m currently writing a relatively far future military SF novel (or revolutionary military SF, since it involves revolution). One thing that I want to indicate about this future and its wide-reaching human empire is its relative inclusiveness. Race is not as much an issue there as it is today, which means that the cast of characters I intend to show will embody a mixed world. To make that clear in the story, I feel as though I need to identify several characters by their race (or everyone by their race, really). But I don’t want to in part because I really don’t know how to go about doing so without essentializing or reducing characters to their race (or even identifying them by something that I personally feel has no say on one’s character). What exactly is the best method for introducing the race of a character (any race)? I honestly don’t know…and I’d much rather have an idea on how to go about it before shoving my foot in my mouth. The comments are yours.
Movie Review: Riddick (2013) (or, I’m Going to Mega Rant Now)
Spoiler alert: Technically, I’m going to spoil this movie for you. Not all of it, mind, but enough of it that you’ll know the major plot elements and what not. I say “technically” because nothing in this movie is all that surprising, except that it’s horribly disappointing for any Riddick fan. You already know the basic story; you just don’t know the new characters. What follows is not a review in the traditional sense. There’s no “structure” here. I have so much to say about this movie that I’ve decided to rant my way through many of the things that I either enjoyed or hated with a passion. So what you’ll see below is a collection of thoughts, organized by titled sections. You don’t have to read it all if you don’t want to — pick and choose as you see fit. OK. Let’s get to it. —————————————————————– I’ve seen quite a few films this year, but Riddick (2013) is the only one I’d give a Prometheus Award to. What’s a Prometheus Award? Basically, this award should be given to every sequel or prodigal return which does everything wrong despite having every opportunity to get it very right. Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (from which the award would derive its name) is the epitome of failing to meet expectations. You can find out why I think that here and here. The premise of Riddick is this: At some point after becoming Lord Marshall of the Necromongers, a reluctant-leader Riddick decides to hunt down his homeworld, Furya, which only Vaako knows about because the previous Lord Marshall deleted all the maps (except there were maps in The Chronicles of Riddick, so whatevs). After convincing Vaako that he can have the throne all to himself if he’ll just take Riddick to what remains of Furya, they head off into the night. Riddick is betrayed by Vaako’s men and left to die on a sulfur tomb planet (not Furya). But it’s Riddick, so he survives. While trying to survive on this hostile world (full of aliens and things), Riddick steals a strange dog-like creature puppy, raises it as his own, and then heads off to better pastures, where he discovers a mercenary supply outpost. And then things fall apart. Some super rainstorm is coming, and Riddick, for some reason, knows it means trouble (alien monsters!) and decides to trigger the emergency beacon at the outpost, set some traps, and then get off world. Murder ensues. There you go. Now for my thoughts: Logical Gap #1: Riddick is Two Different People Inside His Own Head Early in the film, Riddick tells us that he’s been stuck on this sulfur tomb planet from hell because he essentially lost his animalistic instinct (or, in normal people terms, he got soft). So he resolves himself, via internal monologue, to rediscover his animal instinct so he won’t get stabbed in the back again. OK. Good so far. Sounds fine to me. Oh, wait, no. So what Riddick’s mind actually meant when he said that was this: I want to get my animal instinct back, but really I’m just going to do what I’ve done since the end of Pitch Black and make attachments to other living things even though I just said doing so will get me killed. Basically, Twohy sets up this perfectly acceptable narrative about Riddick’s desire to return to his old ways, but then ignores it completely. We never expected the character to keep his power as Lord Marshall anyway, so having Riddick return to his roots as a slick-shit killer (Toombs!) make total sense. Only that’s not what actually happens. Instead, Riddick’s first act is capturing a crazy-ear dog puppy to use as a guinea pig, but since the thing is so damned cute, he just has to raise it as his own. And so begins Riddick’s version of A Boy and His Dog. None of this would be a problem, except that Riddick’s internal monologue tells us that’s exactly what he won’t do. So is it that Riddick is confused about his own terminology, or are we supposed to assume that Riddick’s own mind is an unreliable narrator? This is one of many logical inconsistencies in the film… Emotional Buttons Not Pushed Properly On the subject of A Boy and His Dog, it became clear to me that the dog critter thing was destined to die, and the film gives its mercenary characters numerous opportunities to do so. We’re supposed to feel suspense as the dog gets closer and closer to what is obviously set to be his death, but not because we feel for the dog (the only character worth caring about, honestly), but because it’s supposed to do something to Riddick. The problem? Riddick has his little 15-second “I is sad about dead friend” moment, but afterwards he returns to his old self. When he threatens Santana with death, we’re supposed to think it has something to do with the fact that Santana shot the dog in the head, but the dialogue is so stilted that there’s no way for us to separate “this moment” from any other moment in Riddick’s life. He always threatens death and then kills some character we’re all not supposed to like anyway, but the reason we don’t like Santana is the same reason everyone else doesn’t like him: he’s a piece of shit. Riddick knows this before Santana kills his dog, so what should have been a great opportunity for Riddick to go a little off the rails with crazy “you killed my dog, so I’m going to cut off half your face before I kill you” talk, he just says “you die in the first 5 seconds,” giving other characters the opportunity to say “that was 5 seconds” after Riddick does kill Santana. Basically, what we know about Riddick from the previous two films disappears in these moments. We know he’s not just a slick-shit killer (Toombs!). He also has a kind of heart buried in all that
Conventions: The Simple, Step-by-Step Approach for Handling Disability at Cons
I posted a truncated version of this on Rose Lemberg’s post about some of accessibility problems at Worldcon this year. Apparently one of the Worldcon staff members thought blaming people with disabilities was a better idea than simply saying “yeah, we screwed that up and we’re sorry and here’s how we’re going to fix it.” Well, I’ve got an idea for how to fix it. It’s called the Simple, Step-by-Step Approach for Handling Disability at Cons for Convention Staff (or Sad Cocos for short). It goes something like this: Send emails and notices to all attendees requesting anyone with mobility issues to contact you. Send those notices again shortly before the convention (a week ahead, perhaps) just in case the first message didn’t arrive. Keep a list of all equipment requirements for various panels and events at the con. You should know where things need to be and when so you can properly coordinate. Before the convention starts, go through all of the areas where attendees are allowed to go. If any areas are not accessible, fix it right away. Make sure you have enough ramps based on past attendance (I would say three is a bare minimum, but I could be really wrong there) Tell your registration staff to be mindful of people with mobility issues. They should check names against panelist rosters when folks come to register to make sure everything is covered. I wouldn’t recommend drawing attention to anything (this is where folks who actually have disabilities should jump in with an opinion — please!) If someone comes to the registration desk who is on a panel and has mobility issues, the staff should double check that ramps and what not are pegged to go to X location at Y time. If you didn’t know that this individual needed ramps, you should make a note of it on your schedule and update relevant staff about the change right away. If for some reason you don’t have enough ramps at a given time, consider getting another (if possible) OR finding a way to maintain that individual’s dignity without making everyone aware that there’s a ramp issue (perhaps move all of the tables to floor level between panels or something). If someone complains about mobility problems at your con, you should contact them for specifics, apologize, and tell them you will try to fix it next time. Don’t argue about it. Don’t blame them for not getting in touch. You’re in charge of the damned event, so it’s up to you to make sure everything is accessible. That’s it. Seems pretty simple, no? Note: it seems as if Worldcon stopped somewhere around step 3.
Video Found: Venator Class Star Destroy (made with Legos)
There’s nothing one can say about how awesome this is…so just enjoy it!
Link of the Week: “Conventions and Authors” by Tobias S. Buckell
Over at his blog, author Tobias Buckell (Crystal Rain, Ragamuffin, Sly Mongoose, Arctic Rising, The Apocalypse Ocean…and a lot more) talks about his experiences at Worldcon, his thoughts on how cons work for him as a professional writer, and so much more. It’s my favorite post-Worldcon post thus far this year, so anyone interested in a pro-writer’s perspective on the value of cons to writers should definitely read his post. And then you should go buy a whole bunch of his books. Basically, all of his stuff is amazing. I won’t pick for you. Just…start somewhere 😛 Anywhoodles!