Wanna Read Along?

So I am doing an independent study next semester called “Female Protagonists of Colors in Speculative Fiction” and have decided to do most of my reading over this break between semesters to lessen the load in the Spring. A few friends mentioned that they would like to read along with me during this time. So here is the book list:

Required Texts:
James Alan Gardener – Expendable
SM Stirling – Island in the Sea of Time
Octavia Butler – Wild Seed
Nalo Hopkinson – Midnight Robber
Hiromi Goto – The Kappa Child
Larissa Lai – Salt Fish Girl
Leslie Marmon Silko – Almanac of the Dead
Eva Swan – The Bone Whistle
Daina Chaviano – The Island of Eternal Love
Angelica Gorodischer – Kalpa Imperial
Samuel R. Delany – Neveryona
Lizzie Borden’s Born In Flames (film)
Miyazaki’s Nausicca of the Valley of the Winds (graphic novel)

Additional Texts:
David Heath Justice – Kynship
Frank Miller – Give Me Liberty (graphic novel)
Children of Men (film)
Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu – The Shadow Speaker
F.M. Busby – Zelde M’tana

Some are hard to find, like Larissa Lai if you’re in the U.S. because it was Canadian only distribution so feel free to drop some from the list if you guys choose to read along. I’ll be posting about each books as I finish either way. BUT I forgot to post about this until I’d already started so I’ve already (re)read Midnight Robber and will be posting about it later this week.

Just started: Wild Seed

Next Book: Island in the Sea of Time

Probably won’t switch to Island until about January 1st because I’m in thesis crunch time and am trying to finish it before the end of this month by writing about 80 pages. We’ll see if it happens!

Two Months In The Making!

Okay so the Top Eleven Obscure Works as nominated and voted on by Feminist SF – The Blog! readers is now up! It’s been a bit over two months since I first suggested the list and looking at the final eleven books (there was a tie) I’m extremely gratified – by the fact that it’s out and done, the fact that so many participated in the process and the fact that I now have 7 books to add to my mental reading list (and I already own two of them just haven’t gotten around to reading them yet) and the four I have read on the list are all fantastic reads.

So go check it out, comment and link far and wide!

Forgetting

Posts around here will grow a little more scarce than usual in the coming weeks as I concentrate all my energy on moving across the bay and starting grad school – I feel a curious mix of excitement and nausea. I won’t be disappearing but I don’t know if the one-post a day route is going to work while all this is going on.  I’ll still post often it just won’t be as often as it has been over the last few months, probably more like 2-3 posts a week as opposed to 4-5.

All this packing for a move has clearly given me a severe case of wool-brain since I forgot to mention that the final round of voting in the Feminist SF Top Ten Obscure Works Poll ends tomorrow night! Here’s the post with the covers of the Top 24 books and here is the post with the link to the poll. Go vote!

Links – Female, Muslim & Mutant, Olympic Rumors, WoC & Beauty Carnival, Publishers Contract Issues – Deja Vu & Why Say No?

Links for today!

*Broken Mystic explores the position of Muslim Women in comics comparing the American-created Dust and super-heroines created by Muslims such as Noora, Hadya, Jalila and Aya in two parts – Female, Muslim and Mutant (Part 1, Part 2) . All characters are deconstructed and its a very interesting exploration of the true existence of Muslim women and the biased Western views of the lives of Muslim women. Also the comic he talks about “The 99” sounds pretty awesome I’m picking up the English translations as soon as payday swings around.  

*Racialicious talks about black athletes being banned from bars in Beijing during the Olympics and the xenophobia and racism that’s been directed at Chinese since these unsubstantiated rumors popped up. It all exploded at Perez Hilton’s blog and the comments are really quite horrifyingly racist and soul-killing – Perez Hilton Hates Yellow People.

*A new carnival is looking for submissions. The Women of Color and Beauty Carnival looks to explore:

This Carnival is intended to focus on beauty and what it means to and about women of color. In particular, I would like to see discussion go beyond a focus on the ways in which women of color can internalize self hatred to the ways in which women and communities of color recognize and celebrate beauty.

Submissions from women and men of color are welcome, focusing on these areas:

What does beauty mean to women of color?

What is the difference between beauty and ethnically based sexual stereotyping? How does stereotyping and white supremacy affect our concepts of beauty, and how can we create change? What kind of responsibility do white women who identify as allies have to analyze and take ownership of their privilege in this area?

How do popular standards of beauty based on generalized whiteness affect our relationships with ourselves, each other, and between different groups of people of color?

The deadline for submissions is August 5 so hop to it, I’m gonna try to come up with something myself for this soon.

*If you’re even marginally involved with the publishing world in any capacity then you probably remember last year when Simon & Schuster and the Authors Guild went head-to-head over a change made in their contracts. If you didn’t hear about it or want a quick refresher go here. Pub Rants is a great blog by Agent Kristin who blogs about new writer mistakes, query letters, contract negotiation and more. This morning she brings us news that though S&S’s bid to change the contract failed here in the States the Random House Group is now trying something similar in the U.K. 

*Liz Henry over at Feminist SF – The Blog! asks:

Why are characters in SF so reluctant to Undergo The Great Change or quaff the vial of super-spice or be part computer or become immortal or have my DNA reengineered to be part-alien and merge with the giant group nanoconsciousness?

Then asks readers what they would do if offered that kind of choice. Head over and join the discussion. I’ll go into more detail in my reply over there but the simple answer is I would not hesitate to “quaff the vial of super-spice” at all.

Online Art & A Poll!

– I’ve been trying to keep you guys up with vito_excalibur’s wonderful art alters where she plays with the gender of such classic characters as Power Girl & ‘Beauty & The Beast’ and with the nationality/racial representation of Wonder Woman. Well Alters #4 is up and this time it’s her take on The Joker & Dr. Harley Quinn. I’m really loving this art series and this one is no exception so head over, take a look at her representation and tell her how much you love them! 

– In other news though I’ve posted a nominee post over at Feminist SF! – The Blog. Head over, read it and list the five F/SF novels you find the most obscure or underrated!

– I’m still up on the fence about writing more of my WisCon recap.

WisCon Days 1 & 2!

Elizabeth, Jackie and I arrived at the hotel around 1 in the afternoon. We arrived to find that somehow we were in one of the eight smoking rooms that the hotel has. Both of my roommates had their allergies acting up so that simply would not do, after raising much fuss we realized there was really nothing the hotel could do about the situation. They agreed to put an ionizer in the room and contact us if anything opened up (as it turned out we were moved to a smoke-free room for the last two nights we were there).

We immediately ran into Candra, Claire, Nisi & Victor but they were having a meeting and we were starving so we headed off to food. We ended up at the same place (Noodles & CO.) sitting across the way from each other.

The rest of Thursday passed in a blur of volunteering, hugging old friends and meeting new ones. Then we were off to the bar (this will be a recurring line when speaking of WisCon).

On Friday we hit the Gathering where I bought way to many books, had some tea, showed off my first and only tattoo and then had some tea. Then it was off to the Dealer’s room for more book buying (also a recurring theme of WisCon). We wandered for a bit, had lunch at Noodles & Co. again except this time with a larger company including Tempest, Leah and others whose names I’ve forgotten. We discussed WisCon, race and sci-fi in general. The whole table cracked up as Tempest’s phone was called and her ringtone was revealed to be the New Doctor Who theme song. We also talked about someone who had just received a massive book deal, for a sci-fi book featuring POC! It filled me with hope for the future of Sci-fi and my own writing.

Then it was off to the Opening ceremonies where there was much filk singing. Then the POC-only gathering which was great, mostly because there were so many new faces and everyone was laughing and having a good time. I cannot divulge what else we talked about but let’s just say we have our lists for when the revolution comes  😀

Our roommate Elizabeth returned to us with notes on the “Elves & Dwarves – Inherent Racism” panel: in summary it was a hot mess not because of the moderator, from all accounts vito did all that she could, but because of one of the panelists in particular. I point you to the panel summary and reaction videosat badgerbag’s LJ. The only good to come out of it was that we were introduced to Maria who had to sit through that awful panel. Then it was a series of parties, drinking, bars, drinking, lounges, drinking until we passed out for the night.

All in all, frist two days were fantastic and more to come.

P.S. If you’re desperate to know more about the ConDrama I mentioned yesterday head over to the post What Rachel Moss Did by the angry black woman.

Links for Friday 5-02-08

I was gonna write a whole thing for some of these but then decided to just but most of the links out there with a little explanation, unless I get caught up and start to rant.

-Okay, in stupid-ass-lawsuit news citizens of the Greek Island of Lesbos (who are called Lesbians) are suing the GLBT community of Greece to stop them from using the word lesbian because “they claim use of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders and causes much embarrassment.” Okay on one hand it’s kind of laughable but yeah not really because what’s the primary assumption this whole thing is working from? The idea that being called a lesbian (in the queer sense) is something that one should be embarrassed about, that it’s something horrifying. It works on the assumption that lesbianism is wrong or unnatural and so being associated with it is something truly disgusting. So all this queerism plus the idea that you get to tell someone how to identify or not identify? Yeah, it’s really not so funny. If the Greek courts do grant this injunction they plaintiffs intend to take this lawsuit international.

– The 21st Carnival of Feminist SF/F Fans is up at Heroine Content. You should go check out all the genius links (and I’m not just saying that ’cause I’m linked to twice) because there are some truly amazing things linked. In fact it took me fifteen minutes to write that last sentence because I kept getting distracted by entries in the carnival. Isn’t that enough of an endorsement to get you to go over there and check it out?

– Yesterday was May Day! and there were protests all over and work stops at ports from San Diego to Seattle in support of immigrants, workers’ rights and against the occupation of Iraq. Couldn’t be at any of the rallies and want to see what it’s like? Well check out the video May Day Mashup a collection of highlights from the L.A. Rally over at Hot Potato Mash. It’s really amazing and powerful.

– Today is Blogging Against Disablism Day! Go check out all the super-cool blog posts and educate yourself on an -ism that’s rarely discussed.  

-Okay most of you know I am not a fan of Orson Scott Card (you’ll also know that’s a bit of an understatement) I find him extremely queerist and misogynistic. A lot of this probably has to do with his Mormonism, there’s also that book he wrote were it’s all about how close-minded and bad liberals are (now I don’t argue there are bad liberals but come on? really?)  Yonmei who back in October ’06 wrote a fantastic five part expose entitled “Dissecting Orson Scott Card” (link goes to first part, link to the next part at bottom) has come back to him with Orson Scott Card is a misogynistic homophobic wanker this time talking about his misogynistic rant against J.K. Rowling where he gets supremely hypocritical and really just…wankery. My favorite part of his crazy is when he takes on J.K. for Dumbledore being gay: What a pretentious, puffed-up coward. When I have a gay character in my fiction, I say so right in the book. I don’t wait until after it has had all its initial sales to mention it.  Not that I haven’t made a similar argument about this issue but coming from Card it’s supremely laughable because yeah they’re gay up front and then they’re horrible castrated or killed or some other supremely depressing circumstances, it’s really a case of pot and kettle. Personally out of the two bad choices I’d rather find out that a character was queer after the fact than know all along and read about horrific things happening to him.  Anyway, go read the post and the comments.

Monday Quick Links

Just a couple quick things because I’m exhausted after  weekend mini-vacation and the next two days will be busy, fun and even more exhausting:

Forbe’s Annual 15 Most Wealthy Fictional Characters, number one used to be one of my favorite cartoons!

Cassie Edwards and her publisher part ways, after her plagiarism comes to light. I have issues with Edwards even without the plagiarism, can we say exotification and appropriation? I knew you could! Also you should really head over to www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com and read how this all got brought to light (see blogging can change the world, at least the publishing world) and for their insightful, hilarious commentary.

And last but definitely not least vito-excalibur has her latest alter up: Alter #3 Le Beau et la Bete. Remember I pointed you guys her way after her reinterpretations of Wonder-Woman and Power Girl (Boy). This time she takes on fairytales and Disney and it’s just as fabulous as the others.

 

Gaming, Size & Awards!

Pat over at Token Minorities has an excellent post Suggestions for Talking about Race and Videos Games and while Pat is focused on video games this could be suggestions for discussing race when it comes to Science-Fiction, TV, Movies, Comics, anything where people simple want to write off the medium and consequently the racism in it, as trivial.  

One of my close friends, Bankuei has posted a Roleplaying 101guide for people interested in getting into RPG’s and such. I admit that I never played and RPG before I met Bankuei (the only roleplayers I knew in high school were crazy, I don’t just mean the kind of crazy we can all get when we like/are obssessed with something, I mean STRAIGHT UP KRAZY!!!) plus there are a lot of issues around exotification and appropriation in these games. But now that I’m getting into the more indie ones that don’t make me nauseous, I find a lot of fun in them and recommend people head over and read his 101 post if you’re interested even a bit in RPG’s. Bankuei’s been asking me to write up my early experiences with RPG’s and Roleplaying gamers for a while now and I hope to get around to that this week.

Resist Racism has a post up about The Last Acceptable Prejudice, where Resistance is specifically talking about fat prejudice. Now as a Person of Size and a Person of Color it’s angering to me to see fat prejudice called the last acceptable one, for exactly the reasons Resistance posits it plays too much into the Oppression Olympics for my taste. I have experienced racism and fat prejudice at different times in my life and think that both need to be combated. Stating any prejudice as the last acceptable one not only devalues all the other prejudices alive and well in our society but also ignores the systemic institutionalization of oppressions for the overt expressions of prejudice.

The Tiptree Award Winning Book has been announced, along with the works that were short listed. The Tiptree is presented at WisCon (which I’m attending again this year) and celebrates works of F/SF that work to explore and expand gender and our understanding of it. The Winner – The Carhullan Army (American Title: Daughters of the North) by Sarah Hall. Head over to Debbie N.’s post on it to read more about the Tiptree, the shortlist of nominees and to find out who the jurors were this year.

The Nominees for the Gaylactic Spectrum Award, which celebrates works of F/SF that include significant positive explorations of gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered characters, themes, or issues, have also been announced.

The list of nominees for the Japanese Seiun Awards have been announced, of course I can’t read the works of most of the nominees cause I don’t read Japanese but it’s always cool to see what’s going on in other places around the world. There are also two categories for foreign works that list nominees we in the west would be more familiar with, I would point out though that only two women are nominated, one in each of the categories.

Monday Dreariness & Links

It is Monday, which is bad enough but it is a Monday where I’ve been up since 4 A.M., after only five hours sleep, so I am understandably cranky and ready to go home. Le Sigh, since that’s not happening for a few hours yet let’s get to some of the interesting things from around the net that I’ve found today.

Karnythia over at The Angry Black Woman has a wonderful post on People of Color and the Politics of Medical Research. The Tuskegee Experiment is only the most well known of the instances POC have been used to further medical knowledge against their will and then the benefits of those experiments used to help Upper Class White Folks. She also mentions Harriet Washington’s book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, which I’ve heard from vatrious friends is a fantastic resource and completely gruesome to read. I haven’t read it personally because of some of the gruesomeness that’s been described to me by those that read the book but I probably should pick it up soon. She also discusses Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his accusation regarding AIDS. It’s all great stuff, head over there and give it a read.

In the interests of my previous post on White Liberal Feminist Imperialism, I feel remiss in not mentioning the other imperialist moment that’s been occuring in the feminist blogosphere. A blogger by the name of Black Amazon made a post in which she stated “Fuck Seal Press”. For those who don’t know Seal Press is a feminist publisher, and her fuck you was about their ignoring of Women of Color {or near enough} in their publishing. Their response was so entitled and unprofessional that it disgusted almost everyone who read it. Read about the whole thing over at WOC PhD in Why Seal Press is OFF the syllabus. I would link to the actual posts but like WOC Phd I can’t seem to link to them directly.

Over at Feminist SF – The Blog!, the angry black woman in Are We Talking About Gender and Magazines AGAIN? …Yes talks about gender disparities in several top F/SF magazines. She’s analyzed Asimov, Fantasy & Science Fiction (F&SF) and Analog by their Table of Contents so far in 2008. I think, considering the prevaling thoughts on women writing/being interested/excelling in fantasy as opposed science-fiction, that most will be shocked to find out that Asimov has the highest percentage of female writers so far in 2008. She also has yearly percentages for Asimov, Realms of Fantasy (ROF) & F&SF. Make sure to check out the comments as well which are very illuminating.

And last but certainly not least over at The Hathor Legacy, Revenna talks about Nim’s (almost awesome) Island and the issues with race that abound in the movie. Mostly it’s about the action-adventure scenes which she says recall the whole pulp fiction the Other as evil stereotype. You remember from all those pulp novels about the heart of  deepest, darkest Africa and it’s headhunting, cannabalistic evil dark people who’re evil because….um, well…because they’re dark…AND EVIL!