During a recent discussion here at the blog, I was asked to provide examples of underrepresented minority views. I’m now starting a project to review works like this from 2017. I have several candidates lined up, but I’d also be happy to have suggestions on likely candidates. I’m especially looking for Native American and LatinX worldviews, as this group has been pretty scarce in the recent SFF awards cycles, even though Native American and LatinX persons make up about 1/5 of the US population. I’m also interested in other underrepresented worldviews within the SFF community, and I may ask a few people to do guest reviews or articles as the project goes along.
I should probably define what I mean by “worldview.” I’m not looking for just diversity of race, religion, creed, gender, sexual orientation, disability status or national origin in the authors here; I’m looking for authors writing from within their own authentic worldview instead of just replaying Western stereotypes. For example, if a writer is Muslim, then I’m hoping to find some insights in the writing of what it means to be Muslim, and if someone is a military fiction fan, then I hope to see something of that history. Inclusion means accepting the worldviews of diverse people into the community. Since I’m hoping to help support the awards cycle in a small way with these reviews, I’ll also be trying to find works that somewhat meet critic Tom LeClair’s definition, that is: ambitious and profound.
Thanks for following along!
Lela E. Buis 
Aug 02, 2017 @ 02:27:12
I’m honestly interested to see the results of your survey, and hope you’re not just being provocative, as your examples suggest.
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Aug 02, 2017 @ 08:53:01
Stay tuned. First up will be Haitian writer Ibi Zoboi with a tale of Voudou.
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Aug 02, 2017 @ 02:43:24
HWJN
Super Extra Grande by Yoss
Yaqteenya: The Old World
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Aug 02, 2017 @ 08:50:51
Thanks, Vivienne. I’ve already reviewed Super Extra Grande here. I’ll look for the other.
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Aug 02, 2017 @ 17:40:10
If you want some underserved diversity, try the gun-nut community. Either Monster Hunter Alpha or Nemesis by Larry Correia have lots of gun-nut goodness you won’t see other places. Nemesis has some pretty different LDS sturcture to its afterlife and demons.
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Aug 02, 2017 @ 20:17:33
Thanks, Phantom. Are these thoughtful and ambitious enough to compete in the awards, do you think? Or just for fun.
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Aug 02, 2017 @ 23:21:45
Those two books represent pretty much everything that’s being excluded from awards these days. Fun is most definitely one of those things.
The themes aside from the fun story and the action are also seldom found in “award worthy” books, and so I think will introduce some much needed variety.
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 10:59:18
@Lela —
“Are these thoughtful and ambitious enough to compete in the awards, do you think? Or just for fun.”
I think that’s one of the biggest problems with the puppy mindset in general. To go back to my candy-vs-steak metaphor, they seem to want to award all the candy and forget the steak.
I’m not against military sff — for instance, I enjoyed the first couple of Monster Hunter books, and if new works come out with the depth of something like Armor by John Steakley, I’ll be all over it. And heck, milsf does get plenty of award attention — for instance Ninefox Gambit and the Ancillary books. But the puppies seem to forget that, for awards, you need to do more than blow stuff up. The book also needs to have something interesting to say besides “Hooray for us!”
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 13:51:18
You’re right that a novel of any sub-genre will need some kind of depth in order to compete evenly in the awards voting. This doesn’t have to be literary devices or political messages. I was really impressed with Jones’ Mongrels just because of the reflection of human condition. It should have made the nominations, I think.
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Aug 02, 2017 @ 18:24:02
Sabrina Vourvoulias, Ink.
Daniel Jose Older, Shadow Shaper
Colson Whitehead, Underground Railroad
Justin Key — no novel yet, but plenty of short stories: https://justinckey.com/published-works/
Naru Dames Sundar. Again, no novel yet that I can find, but short stories here: http://www.freesfonline.de/authors/Naru%20Dames_Sundar.html
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Aug 02, 2017 @ 20:14:53
Thanks! I’ll do a few older releases just because, but I need books published in 2017 for next year’s awards cycle.
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 11:56:59
Since it’s been mentioned here —
Shadowshaper is currently available at Amazon for only $1.99 —
If you’re looking for new books, Shadowshaper has been put on sale in advance of the publication of its sequel, Shadowhouse Fall, which will be out next month.
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 11:58:09
Darn it, I didn’t mean to make that image appear. Sorry about that!
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 13:48:13
Ok. I bought it.
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Pixel Scroll 8/2/17 What Rough Pixel, Its Hour Tick-Boxed At Last, Scrolls Towards Bethlehem To Be Born? | File 770
Aug 02, 2017 @ 22:11:41
Aug 03, 2017 @ 08:14:03
Hi Lela,
Someone in a different forum was asking an honest/non-snark question about the incidence of capitalism being presented in short fiction/magazines. The question was about within the context of diversity within the genre. I don’t read enough magazines to know one way or the other.
But given the lack of response, it might just be an interesting perspective.
Good luck with your project.
Regards,
Dann
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Aug 03, 2017 @ 08:31:39
Thanks. I’ll keep an eye out. Capitalism is often presented in negative terms these days, as it’s associated with colonialism, questionable ethics, etc. I think the question would be about positive presentations.
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Aug 03, 2017 @ 13:19:38
I’m betting you could find something like that coming from anti-capitalist cultures. Writers tend to be critical of their own culture.
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 10:27:44
First, apologies for dropping out of the previous discussion — I got busy with other stuff. Second, this is the kind of effort I can get behind; if you think a segment of sff is being neglected and you want to bring it to the attention of more people in a positive way, more power to you.
I still don’t think you’re likely to get a whole lot of traction with magical realism — as I’ve mentioned previously, sff voters tend to want more speculative content in their speculative fiction. Nonetheless, it does get awarded occasionally, as the Clarkes have showed us this year with Underground Railroad (and a couple of decades ago, The Healer’s War won the Nebula). So it’ll be interesting to see what you come up with!
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 10:44:05
I’ve got some reviews written already. There are lots of deserving works out there, and there’s no reason for the same token names to show up on the awards ballot every year. Ibi Zaboi’s American Street is already up today. Stay tuned. 🙂
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 11:04:53
@Lela —
“same token names”
Same token names? That’s an interesting comment. Yoon Ha Lee, Becky Chambers, Charlie Jane Anders, Ada Palmer — none of those have appeared on the Hugo novel list before (I haven’t checked the shorter fiction shortlists). And Jemisin and Liu have each only been there once before.
Sure, there are a few that crop up repeatedly — LMB, Connie Willis, Neal Stephenson for a couple of examples — but there’s also lots of fresh talent every year.
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 13:45:50
Do you know, I surfed by someone’s blog this week who said they voted Ninefox Gambit below no award? I thought the book was awesome, with significant depth that gave it award-worthiness. Do you suppose it’s now a Hugo voter strategy to vote the biggest competition to your first choice below no award?
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Aug 07, 2017 @ 20:07:04
@Lela
I can’t speak for all the other blogs, but I put Ninefox Gambit…and a couple other nominees…below No Award. I didn’t find Ninefox Gambit confusing.
I found that it wasn’t compelling. It started with characters that I didn’t really care about and then proceeded to plot elements that made no sense. It came off as fantasy trying to be MilSF rather than true MilSF.
I do think that it had a hint of a good idea if the idea of having belief in a calendar impact the function of mathematics had been shifted towards focusing on the success of delusional people in imposing their delusions on others. But Michael R. Fletcher has already done something along those lines already.
Regards,
Dann
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 14:01:07
@Lela —
“Do you suppose it’s now a Hugo voter strategy to vote the biggest competition to your first choice below no award?”
Ha, no.
In this case it doesn’t require any “strategy” to explain a No Award vote. If you’ll read through the Goodreads reviews, you’ll see that a fair number of people hated Ninefox because it was so confusing. That was fine with me — it was SUPPOSED to be confusing — but some readers have little tolerance for that sort of thing.
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Aug 07, 2017 @ 18:15:43
Show me two voting WSFS members, and I’ll show you two people who do not use “No Award” 100% alike, with the few exceptions I can think of being “No Award over people who are trolling the awards” (which has a long history of having some consensus) and the group of voters who disagree with the concept of “No Award” and will never use it.
The rules currently state:
“You should vote for No Award as your first choice if you believe that none of the nominees are worthy of the Award, or that the Award category should be abolished. If you vote for No Award in any other position it means that you believe the nominees you placed above No Award were worthy of a Hugo, but that those not placed above it were not worthy.”
That leaves it wide open for interpretation. If we all agreed what’s worthy of a Hugo, or what’s good to read to begin with, it’d be a pretty boring world, wouldn’t it! 🙂
Some folks feel that if a work was nominated, it’s by definition worthy of a Hugo – they’re the ones who don’t ever use “No Award.”
I’ve never seen or heard anyone say “Only my favorite work is worthy of a Hugo – everything else goes below No Award,” but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.
Most people I’ve talked to, and whose blogs I’ve read, seem to fall in the mushy ground in the middle. I’m not afraid to use No Award, but I don’t use it very much. Mostly I use it if something seems REALLY out of line with my idea of what a Hugo-worthy work should be. If I can’t make myself finish something, which doesn’t happen often, I’ll usually No Award it – that goes in the “REALLY out of line with my idea of what a Hugo-worthy work should be.”
My view of what’s Hugo-worthy won’t jive with some of the other voters’ views, and that’s fine. That’s how it should be.
In most cases, voting something under No Award doesn’t particularly accomplish anything. In most cases, you won’t even notice in the stats at the end that something was voted under No Award by a group of voters unless a LOT of voters think a work isn’t worthy of a Hugo.
And out of thousands of “strategies” emerges consensus.
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Aug 07, 2017 @ 19:10:52
It’s funny – I’ve seen quite a few bloggers saying they had as much difficulty as I did with the Best Novel category – that there were 5 choices they could easily vote #1. What’s funny is, those 5 vary from blog to blog! THAT’S what makes a great ballot!
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 14:11:32
I didn’t think it was meant to be confusing. If you’ve read Lee’s short fiction, I suppose you already know a lot of background. He just didn’t stop to fill people in on that. I didn’t have any problems with it, and though there was a great payoff to keep reading. You think it was too challenging for readers?
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Aug 06, 2017 @ 14:22:40
@Lela —
“I didn’t think it was meant to be confusing.”
Of course it was. I’m reading Raven Stratagem right now, and at points even the characters themselves admit that they don’t understand what’s going on. Confusion/not understanding is part of the point about the vast differences between cultures and how culture creates reality.
You can see my full review of the book here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1844000081?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
“You think it was too challenging for readers?”
I don’t know if I’d characterize it as “too challenging”. But it was obviously challenging in a way that a good few readers didn’t want to deal with. Read the GR reviews for more details on their reactions.
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Aug 08, 2017 @ 23:41:37
I that’s the case. then I think Liu’s Death’s End might end up with a few No Awards. It does take a bit of patience to wade through 600 pages of threats and scientific response. How many of the Hugo voters will have actually read it?
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Aug 08, 2017 @ 23:47:24
I also put Death’s End below No Award. It wasn’t really because of the science. I found that I really didn’t care about most of the characters. By the time I put the book aside most of the plot elements were made irrelevant, or represented poor choices. The science was somewhat interesting, but as Vernor Vinge had used something similar for a propulsion system a couple decades ago, it wasn’t exactly “new”.
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Aug 08, 2017 @ 23:51:59
@Lela —
“I that’s the case. then I think Liu’s Death’s End might end up with a few No Awards.”
I wouldn’t be at all surprised.
“How many of the Hugo voters will have actually read it?”
Dunno. Probably most of the voters who actually put it on their ballots will have, or at least read part of it. For instance, I didn’t read it, and I left it off my ballot. I thought Three-Body had serious problems, and I found the first few hours (listening, not eyes-on-the-page) of Dark Forest incredibly tedious, and I decided I just had better things to do than put myself through a third dose of the same.
Remember, the Hugo site itself tells us this: “No, you do not have to have viewed everything possible to nominate or to have read all five nominees to vote. If you have seen just one movie or read one story that you think is good enough to deserve a Hugo, you should nominate it. The Hugos work best when as many fans as possible use their own experience to nominate and vote for the things they think are wonderful.”
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Aug 08, 2017 @ 23:55:59
@me —
Sorry, I left off the second half of that Hugo quote. It goes on to say:
“Can I vote for something I have not read/seen?
No, don’t nominate or vote for something you have not read or seen, and don’t vote based on reputation — the Hugos are meant to honor your choices and judgments, not the rumor of someone else’s.”
So it’s entirely kosher to not read all the nominees — but if you haven’t read it or at least part of it, don’t put it on your ballot.
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Aug 09, 2017 @ 00:05:25
Part of it, eh? Maybe people are just reading part of Ninefox Gambit.
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Aug 09, 2017 @ 00:14:06
I would not be surprised. I did that for The Dark Between the Stars, for instance. I listened to several hours (audio version, obviously), couldn’t stand it, and knew I would never find it award worthy. I did not waste my time listening to the rest.
Yes, total completion of all works would be best, but sometimes continuing to torture yourself is just not worth it. And while you and I both enjoyed Ninefox, I’m sure it was torture to some.
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