A Quick Note: The Silence and Caribbean Science Fiction
Readers of the blog will have noticed my silence for the last week and a half (with the exception of a handful of posts). This is entirely intentional, and I think you all deserve an explanation. The reason: I am working on my MA Thesis at this very moment (draft #1), which is due at 11:59 (and 59s) PM on the 31st (less than two days now). Needless to say, it has been excruciatingly difficult. I do expect to return on the 1st. No joke. I have posts. I will be posting. That’s two more days. You can handle that, right? For those curious about the about-ness of this paper, you’ll be pleased to know that I’m going to bore you with my rough abstract for the Eaton Conference, which I will be presenting at in February of next year: Caribbean speculative fiction has historically been primarily occupied with the fantastic—magical realism, folklore, and fantasy—with traditional elements of science fiction—advanced technology, space travel, etc.—mostly left to developed and developing nations, such as the United States, India, China, and some nations of the Latin American mainland. Careful study will show that this has little to do with disinterest on the part of Caribbean nations in matters of technology or space; in fact, a great number of Caribbean governments have played a part in the ratification of a number of United Nations amendments related to the space industry. There are exceptions, mostly notably in Cuba, which has a strong science fiction community that has gone largely unnoticed by Western mainstream audiences. Yet the Caribbean has found a strong voice in the science fiction works of Tobias S. Buckell and Nalo Hopkinson, both Caribbean-born writers who have secured their places in a now rising multicultural shift in Western science fiction—a movement split between the increased mainstream interest in “World SF” and the inclusion of non-Western settings and characters within mainstream SF itself. What is most striking about the inclusion of Caribbean views within Western SF is that many of the authors are expatriates, and this is particularly relevant when discussing the works of Buckell and Hopkinson. Both authors have imagined futures in which the Caribbean not only has a presence in space, but is also an active participant in the colonization of other planets. These futures reflect a modern Caribbean consciousness in which identity is complicated by the postcolonial situation, the problematic nature of expatriation, and the fracturing (or merging/creolization) of cultures; this reflection, however, is relayed through a space-oriented setting where Caribbean characters and cultures have coalesced and established themselves outside of the traditional postcolonial situation, and outer space itself becomes an object through which postcolonialism and its predecessor are combated or rendered mute, thus allowing for the formation of an identity that is not predicated upon an un-chosen past. In this paper I will analyze and discuss how Tobias S. Buckell’s trilogy of science fiction novels and Nalo Hopkinson’s Midnight Robbers, along with some of her short stories, present outer space as an answer to the issue of “space” and cultural ownership within the Caribbean context. These writers, I will argue, imagine futures in which outer space is both an answer to the postcolonial situation in the Caribbean and a “space,” in the general sense, that is part liberatory and part identity-forming. And that’s that…
Science Fiction and Reptiles: A Very Strange Email, Updates, and a Question
(There are two sections for this post. The first is about SF and reptiles and the second is on updates about what I’m up to and a question that I’d appreciate answers for.) I. Science Fiction and Reptiles I’m hazarding a guess that the following email is a joke, since the author’s name is Warren Peece (i.e. War and Peace). The content, however, is interesting enough to approach. Here’s the email: Is it my imagination or are there a lot of lizard stories out there? I just read a really creepy and sexy piece, but insightful and funny, where the protagonist goes from starting out as comet and ends up reptilian! Pretty terrific – it’s called “Modern Malice” Just curoius, Warren I’ve never heard of the story referenced in the email, but there have been a few lizard-related stories out there in the last few years (well, some of them were dinosaur stories, but so be it). Plus, one of the top science fiction shows at the present moment is about lizard people invading Earth–V, in case you didn’t know. The thing that gets me about the email is that it isn’t the usual kind of spam that I received in my inbox. This particular email is remarkably cogent, and only seems to be selling me something that is poorly defined (the story mentioned). So, the question I have is this: what stories have you read lately about lizards or other reptilian creatures? Let me know in the comments! Maybe there’s a trend going on that nobody realizes is there. II. Updates and Things I’ve had some issues writing things for this blog (let alone for anything else) lately. There are three reasons for this: School The semester is practically over, but I have a 25-page paper left to write and 30 papers to grade (that’s about 220 pages of stuff to mark). Lack of Inspiration I have some ideas, but I’ll talk about those in #3. My problem has been in finding things that haven’t been talked about elsewhere or that aren’t too simple/boring/old/uninteresting. Hopefully it’s just the winter season at work. Biting More Than I Can Chew At least four things I’m working on right now require more research and thought than I originally hoped. As a result, they’re not ready, and probably won’t be until next week. I don’t know if anyone else has ever felt like this about what they’re doing, but it is sort of frustrating when you start on a project that you think will be done in a few hours, and realize that actually you need to spend another week thinking about it before you can get it in good shape. That said, I do have some things lined up. I’m going to talk about the recently released Japanese live-action adaptation of Space Battleship Yamato (a.k.a. Star Blazers to U.S. audiences), followed by a discussion of live-action anime adaptations and why films like Transformers and upcoming adaptations seem to work so well. I’m also starting to consider submitting some of my articles to places like Strange Horizons and other magazines. Why? Because if I’m going to be a critic and an academic, I might as well start getting myself out there. That doesn’t mean the quality of work posted here will lapse, but it does mean that some things may be sent to magazines first to see if they’ll bite. Either way, content will keep appearing here. That said, I do have a question for anyone willing to answer it: which content do you most enjoy on this blog, and which content do you least enjoy? Honesty is appreciated. Alright, I’m out. See you all tomorrow with something other than random complaining!
Future Plans: A List
I’ve been thinking about things I’d like to do on this blog over the next few months (or year) and decided to write up a list for your perusal. Some of these things are pretty much set in stone, and others are flexible. If you have suggestions for things you’d like to see on this blog, please let me know. I’m always open to suggestions, whether of the “we want more of that” or the “you haven’t done this” variety. Update: I added some things to the list which I had previously forgotten. Here’s the list: Upcoming Projects A video review of the Barnes & Noble Nook. I recently purchased one and plan to review it, but not for a few more weeks. I want to get used to using it first. The sort-of-final post in my New Weird and Scifi Strange series. I expect I’ll come back to it again, but this third post will be enough for now. Pick My Next Read Polls. I’ve done them before, but I thought it would be fun to do it again. I’m not sure how I will run it. Either I’ll pick the books from my to-be-read pile, or perhaps I could open it to your suggestions. What do you think? Book reviews of The Reapers Are the Angels by Alden Bell, The Misadventures of Benjamin Bartholomew Piff: You Wish by Jason Lethcoe, Angel Dust Apocalypse by Jeremy Robert Johnson, City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer, and Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 by David Petersen. I have a dozen other books I’m reading, so this list will likely get longer as the weeks go by. A post showing the before and after state of my bookshelves. I bought a new bookshelf a couple weeks ago, and things have shifted significantly around these parts. My apartment still looks like a cheap library, but so be it. Possible Projects Discussions centering around my research (expatriate Caribbean science fiction, to be specific). This may be focused specifically on science fiction, or it may look at cultural elements and theory. Think of it as an on/off ordeal. Worldbuilding progress on Altern, one of my fantasy worlds. I’m not treating the worldbuilding in the same way as Tolkien, primarily because the world I’m writing in is post-Elizabethan and pre-coal in design. The people there are on the cusp of their version of the industrial revolution. There is a hint of magic, but its presence is severely limited to the point of being impossible to discern from natural phenomenon. Mythological creatures do exist, though (not all of them; no dragons, yet). Discussions and reviews of non-traditional speculative literature. By that I mean non-Western in a limited sense. One of the professors on my M.A. committee is judging a translated SF award right now, which is part of what led me to this idea. More discussion of books that aren’t released by major publishers, or books by major publishers that simply aren’t receiving much attention (which almost amounts to the same thing, since, as I see it, books that don’t get as much attention are often the kinds of books I really enjoy, and which I think most of you would enjoy learning about). A little more current events/real world stuff. Maybe a post every couple weeks about something that needs to be addressed. I’ve avoided politics as much as possible, but I don’t think it’s worth hiding away from the things that matter to me on this blog. A discussion of my experiences reading The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis in Spanish. Yes. I am doing this, and it will be an experience. That’s what I’m thinking right now. What do you think? Do any of those things sound completely uninteresting to you? Is there anything you’d like to see on the list that I haven’t put there? Let me know.
A Blogger Interview from Of Blog of the Fallen
Larry over at OF Blog of the Fallen has posted a long list of questions for book bloggers. I thought they were interesting enough to post about here, so that’s what I’m doing. Larry seems interested in getting a lot of responses, so if you are a blogger, whether about books or otherwise, you should participate. Answer the questions on your blog and post your link in the comments. (Note: Apparently Larry posted these questions as a spoof of sorts. I took it seriously when I wrote these answers, though, and so should you.) Here goes: 1. Without giving anything away, what can you tell readers about your blog? The World in the Satin Bag is a science fiction and fantasy oriented blog, ranging from discussions and rants about various issues in the genre fiction world, book and movie reviews (sometimes in-depth, sometimes not), and anything else that strikes my fancy. I’ve recently been talking about the New Weird and Scifi Strange “phenomenon.” Some have called my blog “serious.” I like to think that WISB is a mixture. (On a ridiculous side note: isn’t the point of telling people about your blog to give something away? Or is there a specific thing I’m not supposed to give away about The World in the Satin Bag? If I’m not allowed to give anything away, then I can’t even say that my blog is a blog, because that is already giving the reader something by which to develop an expectation.) 2. What can you tell readers about your future themed review months? Are there any sequels in the works? I don’t have any themed review months, so I can’t tell my readers or anyone’s readers about such things. I review what comes to me, what interests me, and so on. All I can really say is that you shouldn’t expect my reviews to be non-genre oriented. 3. What do you feel is your strength as a blogger/reviewer? I’m going to approach this from two different positions: one that is egotistical and one that is objective. Objective strength: I’d probably have to say my dedication to blogging and reviewing. I’ve been blogging for four years as of Sept. 3rd, with over 1,500 published posts. That evens out to about a post a day. I don’t know how many people can say the same, since there aren’t a lot of statistics on these kinds of things. Regardless, the fact that I have been doing this for so long seems to be paying off for me personally; I’ve improved drastically over the years (look back to the oldest posts on this blog and you’ll see how true that really is). Egotistical strength: I consider myself to be a pretty strong thinker and critic, particularly in the last year. I’m not right all the time, but I am quite pleased with many of my critical posts on this blog (such as my writing on Inception or even my more recent discussions on New Weird and Scifi Strange). To be fair, though, this isn’t a strength that I think is unique. There are quite a few bloggers out there who take a critical approach to their posts. 4. If you could go back in time, what advice would you give the younger you concerning your blogging/reviewing career? Do what you love. It’s not advice that I wasn’t already attempting to fulfill, but I would likely tell my younger self to remember to keep the blog about what I love. I wouldn’t try to change what I’ve already done, for the most part, because I think failing and succeeding is a better way to learn how to be a good blogger/writer/etc. than reading about it on the Internet (though you can get a few good ideas from there). 5. What was the spark that generated the idea that drove you to start your blog/reviewing career? I actually began The World in the Satin Bag as a fiction experiment. In Sept. of 2006 I had the idea to use a blog to try to finish my first novel (which this blog is named after). The first chapter went up on Sept. 17, 2006 and ran for thirty-one chapters, ending on Sept. 2, 2007. I used the blog to talk about books, reading, writing, and things related to genre while writing the book, and then converted the blog to a heavily genre-oriented discussion/criticism/review/rant blog. The rest is history. That’s pretty much what started everything. I had no idea that, four years later, I would be where I am now. Then again, most people don’t know what the future holds for them, right? The entire novel is still available to read on this blog, in case anyone cares, but it is old and something I’ve preserved here for fun. 6. Were there any perceived conventions of blogging/reviewing that you wanted to twist or break when you set out to start blogging/reviewing? Honestly, no, but not because I was interested in parroting everyone else. When I started blogging, I had no idea what blogging was. I started this, as I’ve indicated previously, as an experiment. As such, I do things on this blog that I like. That, to me, is the only convention any blogger should stick to: write what you enjoy writing about. Most of us do this for free, after all. 7. In retrospect, is it safe to say that the online blogging/reviewing world wasn’t quite ready for your blog/review column? Blogging/reviewing was dominated by powerhouses such as Wil Wheaton, Dave Itzkoff, and Harriet Klausner at the time. Looking back, was your blog/review column too avante-garde in style and tone? I don’t even know how to respond to this question. If I say yes, it paints me as an arrogant jerk; if I say no, it implies that I’m a hack like Harriet Klausner (though not like Wil Wheaton, who I think has done a damned fine job of making something of himself based on his geek identity; he’s no
Question: What do you look for in a review?
(Note: I am still working on another post on the whole New Weird/Scifi Strange thing. I’ve been busy, and those posts tend to take a lot of time that I currently don’t have. Derrida is killing me. The next post will be up this week, though.) Jeff of Genre Reader has a post up on his blog about reviews and what we look for when we read them. Part of his blog contains a series of questions intended for his listeners, but because I think the questions are worth addressing among readers everywhere, I thought I would post them here along with my answers. Here goes: 1) Do you prefer informal reviews or formal reviews? When I am shopping for books, I prefer informal, but detailed and honest reviews. Vague information is useless for any review, but too much detail turns me off. When I read reviews, I’m looking for a reason to buy the book; if the book was awful, or the reviewer doesn’t give me the information I want to figure out if the book is worth buying, then I move on. (I do read OF Blog of the Fallen, but he is an exception, rather than a normality for me.) 2) Do you prefer short, medium length, or long reviews? Medium length. Short reviews usually lack detail, and long reviews usually fail to hold my attention. 3) Plot Summary: Do you prefer just a simple copy of the summary from Amazon, or do you want the reviewer to use part of the review to write his/her own summary of the book? Or would you prefer the summary is left completely out of the review? Honestly, I don’t care either way. I usually skip over the summary, or I’m already aware of the summary on the book cover, which gives me little reason to read a paragraph on what the book is about. Having a summary in the review doesn’t bother me, though; I just don’t read it. 4) Is it important if the reviewer liked the book, or do you read reviews to get a sense of whether YOU would like the book (no matter what the reviewer says)? I know this answer seems obvious, but if you think about it, some review readers do indeed see a negative review and won’t take the time to determine if the negatives apply to them (the potential reader). Of course it’s important if a reviewer liked the book. Knowing which side the reviewer stands will determine what that reviewer writes about, and if it’s a good/bad book, I want to know why. Reviews will always be subjective, and reviewers/readers all need to understand that. At the same time, however, I read reviews to figure out if I’m going to like or dislike the book too. That seems to me to be a requirement for reading reviews. I don’t always agree with the reviewer, though. Some reviewers have different tastes in terms of major details (genre) and minor details (themes, specific elements, character types–such as homosexuality). You can usually tease out that kind of information by reading the review, though. For example, if you read some of John Ottinger’s reviews over at Grasping for the Wind, you’ll notice that he has particular dislikes related to certain social conditions; I don’t have those dislikes, but the fact that he brings them up in his reviews shows me what things I might like about the book in question (this is not a slight against Ottinger, but an observation). 5) Are there certain reviewers you trust almost absolutely? By that, I mean if Reviewer A likes a book, that is good enough for you and you will buy the book despite what other reviews say? Or if Reviewer B dislikes a book, you immediately remove the book from your to-buy list? No. There are reviewers I am more likely to agree with than others, but my particular literary tastes are personal, complicated, and unique. Most people are the same way. You might like a type of science fiction novel that I’m not into, while at the same time we’ll both gush over Battlestar Galactica. That’s just the way it is. That’s not to say I don’t trust reviewers; what I’m saying is that there are no reviewers who inspire me to buy everything they review positively (in fact, I’ve purchased a few books that were reviewed poorly by reviewers who I know have the exact opposite tastes as me). Sometimes I will buy. Sometimes I won’t. Sometimes no matter how much a reviewer likes a book, I know it won’t be for me. And that’s it. Feel free to answer the questions here or on Jeff’s blog. The more responses the better. P.S.: Is it just me or does it seem like there are missing questions to this thing?
The Caribbean, Science Fiction, and Space: Initial Thoughts
As many of you already know, I’ve been working on a paper on Caribbean science fiction–specifically the work of Tobias S. Buckell and Nalo Hopkinson, since my criteria is that the authors have to write about the Caribbean and be Caribbean themselves. The one thing that has stuck out to me so far–and I’ll be honest in saying that this is mostly focused on Buckell, because I have yet to read the works by Hopkinson that might contribute to this theme–is the relationship between the Caribbean (people and place) and (outer) space. I’m considering the notion that outer space for Caribbean people–particularly the colonization of other planets–is a kind of “escape” from the conditions of the postcolony. From what I’m learning about the racial, cultural, and economic conditions in many Caribbean countries, though not all, it becomes very clear that the Caribbean is never truly free from its various colonizers. The tourist industry, former colonizers, and so on have and continue to play a role in many Caribbean countries, and people within the countries themselves often fulfill the role that Frantz Fanon derided in his book Wretched of the Earth (a kind of clone-colonial, if you will). This notion seems to work well within Tobias Buckell’s work, because his three novels definitely play with space, planets, and other places in a way that, I think, defines them as implicitly “Caribbean.” Other themes also play out in his work, such as that of the “out of place” Caribbean–both the colonial and “out of place” concepts function in his novels, from the controlling Satrapy to the foundations of Chilo and the various characters who “wander” from place to place. I suspect that there is a connection here to Buckell’s “expat” status (if that’s the right term), and I hope that when I read more of Hopkinson, I will find similar elements. So, these are some things I’m playing around with. They’re very rough at the moment, so if you have criticisms, please take that into account. I could very well be wrong, but so be it. Interestingly enough, most of the above ideas, however rough they may be, are a testament to the value of libraries. While perusing Library West at the University of Florida, I discovered an interesting book of essays/discussions from a United Nations seminar/conference on international and national space law from the Latin and Caribbean perspective. Oddly enough, many Caribbean countries that have no space programs and no immediate connection to the space programs of other nations (some Latin countries do by providing materials that are used by the U.S. and other nations for space-based things, in case you didn’t know) have participated in many of the signings and attempts to ratify various UN space legislation from the 60s on. Not something I think most people would know, even those that live in the Caribbean. I’m still looking into that, though. But that’s for another time. So, how are you?