Monthly Archives: September 2018

End of the SF Gender War

The war raged on a few years ago, and I had hoped by now it was over. I’m talking about the gender war among science fiction writers.

The old stereotype was that male authors wrote hard science fiction, plot-driven stories that were true to science; and female authors wrote soft science fiction, character-driven stories that verged into magic and fantasy without a firm backing in scientific principles. Moreover, some considered the former true science fiction and the latter not SciFi at all.

However, I suspect the vast majority of SciFi readers don’t care about the author’s gender at all. There might be, among female readers, a feeling of pride in the sisterhood at reading a book by a woman author, but for the most part, readers just crave good stories by any author. To some extent, writer Mike Brotherton backed that up with an unscientific poll on his website in 2010, where 86% of the responders said the author’s gender had no impact on whether they bought and read a book.

In 2014, K. Tempest Bradford wrote an article for NPR titled “Women Are Destroying Science Fiction! (That’s OK; They Created It).” The article reviewed the controversy and highlighted a then-new issue of Lightspeed magazine, edited by women and containing stories written by women.

But Bradford’s article came out four years ago. Surely both sides have declared a truce by now. Right?

Apparently not. I went to a literary SciFi convention in Dallas, Texas last week, a convention called FENCON. I attended an enjoyable panel titled “Ladies First! – Female Writers and How they Got Started.” Authors Patrice Sarath and Mel Tatum made it an informative and educational session. The panelists praised female SciFi authors, both past and present, and neither they nor the audience (mostly male) had any trouble rattling off the names of many famous female authors in the genre.

But someone mentioned that, although we could name such authors, they tend to receive less recognition than male authors. Specifically, women win fewer Hugo and Nebula awards than their male counterparts do. (However, that’s not true of the 2018 Hugos.)

As a not-quite-famous-yet author, I thought it seemed petty to tally up the female and male award winners to see if percentages are appropriate. Then I began to realize how unfair it must seem if your gender is the under-represented one year after year, even though writers of your sex are producing fiction of comparable quality. Even if awards aren’t as valuable as sales, a striking disparity in awards must sting. Awards are a more tangible representation of esteem and recognition.

During the FENCON panel, someone also mentioned that in any listing of the top science fiction authors, there are usually few women’s names. Women science fiction authors have come a long way since the early days, but clearly, they’ve not yet attained the credit and appreciation they deserve.

I suspect this situation is much like any field of endeavor that started out predominantly male. At first, a few brave female pioneers enter the field, and endure a lot of criticism, but persevere. Later, women become more and more accepted over a long period. Eventually, no one will be able to recall a time before women had been working in the field.

If the SF gender war is not yet over, we’re at least in witnessing only its final skirmishes. In some more enlightened age (soon, I hope), we’ll realize how stupid this war was and we’ll settle into a comfortable peace.

Then we’ll probably start a gender war over something equally inane. That’s the pessimistic view of your humble observer of human nature—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 30, 2018Permalink

Medieval SciFi

Can Science Fiction trace its origins back further than Jules Verne? Further than Edgar Allan Poe? Further than Mary Shelley? Could you have read SciFi books if you lived in the Middle Ages?

Medieval scholars Carl Kears and James Paz think so. They wrote a fascinating article in The Conversation called “Science fiction was around in medieval times – here’s what it looked like.” They also co-wrote the book Medieval Science Fiction.

Their article cites some fascinating medieval examples of what we’ve come to know as science fiction. Moreover, some of these examples may be familiar to readers of stories by (ahem) me.

They reference “…the story of Eilmer the 11th-century monk, who constructed a pair of wings and flew from the top of Malmesbury Abbey.” My readers know all about Brother Eilmer from my fictionalized account of this legend in “Instability” which appears in the anthology Dark Luminous Wings.

The article’s authors also cite “…medieval romances that feature Alexander the Great…exploring the depths of the ocean in his proto-submarine.” Once again, readers will recall my story “Alexander’s Odyssey” in which the sea-god Poseidon becomes angry with Alexander for invading his realm.

Wait, some of you are thinking, Alexander the Great didn’t live in medieval times! True, but his ancient Greek contemporaries never mentioned his descent in a diving bell. Arabic writers in the Middle Ages became fascinated with Alexander and fantasized all sorts of stories about him. Among those was the submarine tale.

Here are some other examples of books one might classify as Medieval Science Fiction:

• Roman de Troie, written by Benoît de Sainte-Maure in the 12th Century. It features automata.
• Theologus Autodidactus, written by Ibn al-Nafis in the late 13th Century. In it, the main character is spontaneously generated, rather than born. He predicts the future, uses his reason and senses to deduce the religion of Islam, and explains bodily resurrection using cloning.
• One Thousand and One Nights, compiled between the 9th and 14th Centuries. It mentions immortality, interplanetary travel, underwater breathing capability, and humanoid robots.
• The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, written by Sir John Mandeville in the 14th Century. It includes automata, alternate human species, and diamonds that reproduce sexually.
• “The House of Fame” a poem written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the late 14th Century. In it, a house is constructed such that all sound flows into it. The occupants can hear all noises from everywhere.

You might think I’m stretching things to call a story “Science Fiction” if it dates from a time before the development of Science. If SciFi is concerned with potential future technological or scientific advances, then an author couldn’t possibly write in that genre before Galileo came up with the scientific method in the early 17th Century. Right?

Well, maybe, but the genre of science fiction is quite broad, and considering the modern stories that get pigeonholed there, it seems unfair not to include the examples I’ve given above and those cited by Kears and Paz.

Living in the 21st Century, most of us regard Science Fiction as a modern genre, no more than two centuries old. If we could converse with some well-read folks from the 5th through 15th Centuries, they might disagree. Of course, if you do have such a conversation somehow, please tell—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 16, 2018Permalink

Re-Launch and Dark Stories

Pole to Pole Publishing has done it again. They’ve launched another new anthology, this one called Re-Launch. It’s chock full of science fiction stories about launches and new beginnings.

Here’s the blurb:

Beginnings are always messy. ~ John Galsworthy

Spacecrafts hurtling toward alien worlds. Second chances for civilizations. First contact. Rebirth. Non-humans looking for a new life. Opportunities for fresh starts and do-overs far from Earth. These stories and more explore the theme of Re-Launch.

Send your imagination into orbit with 18 science fiction tales from an international roster of authors.

Featuring fiction from Douglas Smith, James Dorr, Kris Austen Radcliffe, Eando Bender, Wendy Nikel, Stewart C. Baker, Meriah Crawford, Gregory L. Norris, Jennifer Rachel Baumer, Jonathan Shipley, Vonnie Winslow Crist, Lawrence Dagstine, CB Droege, Jude-Marie Green, Steven R. Southard, Calie Voorhis, Anthony Cardno, and Andrew Gudgel.

Re-Launch reminds readers that new beginnings rarely go as planned and danger waits for the unwary on all worlds.

Yes, that’s my name listed along with those great authors. My story “Target Practice” is in this anthology. In that tale, inmate number 806739 lives in an underwater prison of the future that forces convicts to operate unarmed mini-subs in cat-and-mouse chases against men in armed subs training for battle.

Re-Launch is the science fiction part of the Pole to Pole’s planned Re-Imagined series, along with Re-Quest (fantasy quests and searches), Re-Terrify (monsters) and Re-Enchant (magic and fae).

It’s available for purchase at Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, 24 Symbols, and Scribd.

Also, for those who haven’t yet bought some of Pole to Pole’s previous anthologies, like Hides the Dark Tower, In a Cat’s Eye, and Dark Luminous Wings, you can now purchase all three in a boxed set called Dark Stories. I’m fortunate to have a story in each one of those anthologies.

You’re going to enjoy Re-Launch and Dark Stories. That’s a promise from—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 9, 2018Permalink

Could You Be A Salaried Novelist?

What if you could quit your day job and earn a salary as a novelist? You’d write full time and get paid for it, even before you sold your novel. Does that sound good?

Early time clock. Photo by Rodw.

According to this article in The Bookseller, that’s the plan for a new, London-based publishing firm. Headed by Jonathan De Montfort, De Montfort Literature (DML), intends to pay chosen writers a salary of £2,000 per month (about $31K per year) to write novels. The company will also coach these writer/employees.

A hedge fund manager and novelist, De Monfort believes the traditional publishing model is “a mad way to do business.” By contrast, the software industry doesn’t expect its most creative employees to work on their own, unpaid, then submit their work product and receive payment only after acceptance of their product. De Monfort is betting authors will focus better and write more marketable novels if they aren’t stressing about money.

There are a couple of strings attached. First, DML would own the intellectual property and copyright to any novels you produce, and your “ideas,” too. That goes beyond what traditional publishers require. Second, according to the article, if you leave DML, you couldn’t write for another publisher for two years.

The website’s FAQ section says DML allows its writer employees 25 holidays plus bank holidays per year. Presumably, you’d be working the rest of the time, though it’s not clear how the company will monitor that. Chances are they won’t use a time clock like the one in this post’s image.

The company plans to pay salaries to ten writers as a start, and hopes to increase that number to one hundred later. They will choose their writers using a selection process featuring a prediction algorithm akin to the one De Monfort developed for predicting financial and economic events.

Although DML’s is a private venture, there are examples of government financial assistance to writers. The National Endowment for the Arts offers grants to writers, as do several states. Between 1969 and 2010, Ireland allowed its poets to work tax-free.

But DML’s model is different and, as far as I know, both pioneering and unique. This is a private publisher paying its writer employees a monthly salary up-front.

The book publishing industry is already undergoing considerable upheaval, with the explosion of independent publishers and self-publishing. The DML model may represent one more disruption to an already chaotic industry.

We’ll see if their experiment succeeds, both for the company and for its salaried authors. If it does, you can expect more publishers to try that model.

Time to stop blogging; I’ve got to clock in for my workday and earn my salary. My employer isn’t DML, it’s a rather demanding sea-deity. Remember, I’m—

Poseidon’s Scribe

September 1, 2018Permalink