Review of “Omphalos” by Ted Chiang

This alternate reality novelette is a finalist for the 2020 Hugo Awards. It was released in the author’s collection Exhalation, published 7 May 2019 by Knopf. This review contains spoilers.

Dr. Dorothea Morrell is an archaeologist working on a dig in Arisona. She is scheduled to give a public lecture in the Chicagou area on how tree rings and other artifacts date the creation, which goes well, but afterward she finds evidence of the illegal sale of museum relics. With only a post office box address to go on, she lays a trap for the thief and catches Wilhelmina McCullough, daughter of Nathan McCullough, director of the University of Alta California’s Museum of Natural Philosophy in Oakland. Wilhelmina explains that she is not really a thief, but she feels the relics not being displayed should be in the hands of the faithful, especially considering the huge crisis of faith that will be coming soon. Her father is in possession of evidence that the Earth is not the center of the universe. Can Dorothea’s own faith withstand this knowledge?

In case you’re wondering, omthalos is Greek for “navel,” and this story is a play on Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot, by Philip Henry Gosse, published in 1857, where the author tries to reconcile the events of the Biblical Genesis with the evidence of science. In Dorothea’s alternate world, tree rings and ridges on clam shells stop at a certain point, the Atacama mummies have no navels and someone is carving the Yosemiti Cathedral into a cliff face in California. The date of the creation is clear. Faith is clearly a huge part of everyone’s existence, and the narrative mostly comes from Dorothea’s conversations with God. The number of stars is limited, and the center of the universe turns out to be approximately at 58 Eridani. This is a catastrophe on par with Copernicus’ observation that the Earth actually revolves around the sun and not the other way around, meaning that humans aren’t really the navel of creation. In this case, it looks like the inhabitants of 58 Eridani are, instead.

This story is satire, a gentle but fairly direct questioning of Western religion, and as such, I can imagine it might be offensive to some readers. I’m personally disappointed that the story didn’t give us any real glimpse of God’s chosen people out there at 58 Eridani. Dorathea wonders where that leaves us. Just an accident, I guess.

Four stars.

Notes on Accomplishing Greater Diversity

The current initiative for diversity falls out of the policy of multiculturalism. In recent decades, this policy has replaced assimilation, where individuals give up their cultural values to take on those of the dominant culture. Under multiculturalism, the expectation is that society will celebrate the diversity that different cultural values bring. All has not gone well with the effort to incorporate diversity within the dominant culture. In other words, there’s a lot of friction.

One of the big complaints about the issue has been that people talk about diversity a lot, but in practice, the dominant culture remains rigid and unaccommodating. For example, here’s a 2008 blog post where writers of color complain about being forced into writing stereotypes in order to get published. In the SFF community, it’s true that we see a greater variety in races, religions, sexual orientation, disability status, etc., among writers, but there’s actually a difference between counting beans (i.e. publications, statistics on the awards ballot) and establishing real diversity. So, what is real diversity? How would this look on the award ballots, for example? I have a few suggestions to throw out there.

For one thing, I’d expect a broad difference in content and theme. I’ve complained before about the preference publishers seem to have for emotional content over intellectual inquiry. As I’ve already mentioned in a previous blog, there were entirely too many stories out there this year on the theme of child abuse. This tends to crowd out serious SF in favor of emotional stories with a minimal SF or fantasy setting. The quantity of blatant political message fiction in contention for the awards this year is also troubling.

Second, I’d expect settings from different cultures and viewpoints. Real diversity should include more writers from outside the Western dominant culture, for example, writing stories based on Chinese, African or Pakistani culture. It’s true that there are more diverse names on the awards ballots in recent years, but has this really resulted in a diversity of viewpoint? And one of the Sad/Rabid Puppies’ complaints has been the dominance of liberal/progressive themes. Shouldn’t real diversity include other political viewpoints, as well?

Third, I’d expect diversity to include a broad sampling of ethnicities, genders and sexual orientations, both among the writers and the characters. One of the characteristics of recent ballots is the complete absence of white men, for example. Hispanics and Native Americans are also consistently shut out of the awards ballots. In some cases, preference for LGBTQ writers and characters may be at the point of displacing the straight and cis-gendered.

A while back, I got comments that recommended I look at the diversity on the Hugo ballot this year. So, how does it stand up under this kind of analysis? There are some good points here. First, there are four black writers and two trans writers on the ballot, both of which are under-represented minorities. There are also both men and women on the ballot, even if they’re not arrayed according to demographics. There are writers with disability. There is variety in the type of works, including fantasy, science fantasy, dark fantasy, space opera and hard SF.

On the critical side, this ballot tends to lack in intellectual diversity, suffering the usual preference for emotional over intellectual content. Although 8 of the works are nominally SF, Cixin Liu provides the only serious, hard SF, and is also the only writer from outside the dominant UK/American English culture. The contenders lean heavily to women writers of fantasy or science fantasy, and without Vox Day’s activism, there would be no white men on the Hugo ballot at all. Half the finalists were published by Tor, which means the company’s particular brand dominates, shutting out small presses and independents that might be publishing more diverse and cutting edge work.

The Hugo is a fan-based award, and by now it’s clear the rules allow particular groups to dominate the voting. So how could WorldCon increase the diversity of the results using these criteria? Broader participation?

Review of Heathens by Jonah Bergan

I’m actually gone on vacation again, and there’s going to be a delay while I work through Cixin Liu’s Death’s End at 600 pages. To fill in, here’s a review of one of those underrepresented voices that would be hard to find in offerings from the big publishers.

Things in the US have come apart. The Free Republic of Texas holds most of the Central US, and the Kingdom of God holds most of the North and East, except for a strip right along the coast where UN Peacekeepers hold ground they call the “colonies.” Only the Deep South of Florida, Georgia and Alabama is still called the United States. Holden lives in a disputed, ruined city, and like many young LGB people has a talent developing. His is telekinesis, but others have different talents which make them targets for people who consider the powers demonic. When Holden’s lover is killed by hostiles, he leaves home and is taken in by Sol as part of his family. Sol is for trying to reestablish peace, but he is opposed by Clarissa who wants to fight against the enemy. Motivated by anger and hate, Holden grows more militant. He moves to Clarissa’s camp, where he finds other young people like himself who want to fight back. Eventually Holden has to make a decision about what’s right.

This is a young adult novel in the popular dystopia sub-genre. It’s written in first and second person, as Holden narrates events for us and also speaks to the enemy as “you.” The political divisions presented by the book echo the slash and burn tactics of current politics, where the extremes of right and left attack the voices in the center. It’s well-written, with Holden’s narrative providing both the flow of his thoughts and feelings and a clear picture of both the city and what goes on within it.

On the negative side, a lot of people die here. It’s a dark vision that isn’t likely to encourage hope in younger generations. Also, I can’t see where any but LGB teens are developing the talents, though some straight kids do get ground up and/or join the fight. This means the book is tightly aimed at a particular audience when broadening the cast of characters would increase the audience size.

I like the message. Four stars.

Tribalism in the SFF community

In 2015 Brad Torgersen wrote a an interesting piece about tribalism in the SFF community. According to Torgersen, much of what is taken for racism and sexism in the US is actually a form of cultural tribalism, where people from different cultural backgrounds distrust and disrespect one another because of their difference. He lists some fundamentally different groups as examples, including religious groups, regional groups, progressives and conservatives, and notes that even people who think they are the most open-minded often exhibit sharp limits, if not open hostility, which faced with opposing cultural viewpoints.

Torgersen goes on to discuss the current battle over the Hugos, noting that the organizers of WorldCon and the Hugo Awards are a very exclusive group of trufans who consider themselves the in-tribe of science fiction and fantasy. According to him, this explains the small size of the convention and the elitist title, which suggests its members represent all real SFF fans in the world. Torgersen’s explanation of the current situation is that the Sad Puppies represented a different tribal group which was seen as a threat to the convention culture by WorldCon insiders. Of course the situation deteriorated from there. This explanation makes me wonder what the small group of core WorldCon fans thought about opening up the membership to a broad swath of Internet “supporting memberships?” Doesn’t this dilute the trufan blood?

As a side note, Torgersen calls himself a perpetual out-tribe because of never fitting in anywhere. He may have written this blog in response to attacks on Twitter, where one poster called his African American wife and biracial child “racist shields.”

The politics of postmulticulturalism

More of the ongoing discussion on social trends.

By the end of the 20th century, multiculturalism was running into serious trouble. Not only did the policy fail to bring real change, but issues like genital mutilation, forced marriage and honor killings just didn’t fit into the culture of the West very well. Problems like these led to a re-inspection of the limits and effects of multiculturalism as a policy and a change to what experts are calling postmulticulturalism. This is anything but a well-defined movement, but it seems to involve a swing away from the mosaic and back toward establishing national cultural identities. Presumably this will de-emphasize the separate identities that minority groups have established over the last few decades and trend back toward encouraging assimilation into the larger culture. Variations on postmulticulturalism include cosmopolitanism, or the idea that all humans belong to the same community, and interculturalism, which emphasizes interaction and cultural exchange.

In effect, experts note that this new postmulticulturalism includes new takes on immigration policy, racism, religious freedom and gender politics. Specifically, immigrants are viewed as a threat to national security and cultural values, and discrimination is increasing toward POC, especially from the Muslim religious tradition. US presidential candidate Donald Trump, for example, has called for a complete ban on Muslim immigration. France has passed laws directed at preventing Muslim women from wearing full-face veils. An increase in fascist activities in the US has been heavily directed toward Muslims. Even the resolution of recent court cases has swung away from policies of inclusion and back toward compliance with cultural tradition, leaving minorities without any legal recourse.

So, multiculturalism has the advantage of drawing lines about what cultural practices are unacceptable within the larger society. However, there are heavy losses for some minorities under this policy. According to Dorota Gozdecka (2014), a “new racism” is about identifying those with “transgressive” cultural values and rejecting or marginalizing these individuals into a cultural ghetto.

Review of Penric’s Demon by Lois McMaster Bujold

This novella is fantasy and published by Spectrum Literary.

Young Lord Penric is on the road to his betrothal to Preita, the daughter of a cheese merchant who will bring wealth to his brother’s house. However, Penric never makes it to the ceremony. He and his groom have an encounter on the road where a Learned of the Bastard god dies and her demon possesses Penric. His life falls apart immediately. The betrothal is off, and he is spirited away to the city of Martensbridge where the Bastard’s temple lies. It turns out the elders of the Order aren’t pleased with what’s happened, as there was a suitable vessel, well-educated and prepared for the demon. Apparently it prefers Penric. Because of this, he faces immediate dangers, not only from the elders, but also from ambitious noblemen in the city.

This is a very professional young-adult story from a well-established writer—apparently part of a series. It’s smoothly written, and the characterization, imagery, world-building and theme are well-developed. The message is similar to others I’ve recently reviewed in young-adult, that being kind to others will make you successful against adversity. However, this story stretches the bounds of reality less than some. Drawbacks: Bujold puts me off a little with a tongue-in-cheek treatment for her characters. There’s something to be said for the irony, but it suggests she doesn’t take the stories seriously. I prefer real drama. I’ll give this one 4 stars.

McCalmont’s idea of diversity

Once he was on a roll, McCalmont deconstructed diversity as it currently plays out in science fiction, or in general speculative fiction, to look at the broader field. I already mentioned that he thinks diverse writers are not really permitted to write from their own worldview, but are instead channeled into the popular format for speculative fiction. They’re allowed to write about their own culture, but only within strictly defined parameters.

Presumably this is because publishers don’t want to rock the status quo boat. It’s one of those things that might invite controversy, for one thing, which might end up hurting their bottom line. Another reason is that some of these ideas might come across as subversive.

If you’ve never read Thomas Kuhn’s brilliant book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), then you should pick up a copy. This deserves its own blog, but a quick summary of what he says is that changes never come from within the prevailing paradigm. Because the people who are successful there have too much invested in the old ways of doing things, they’ll always attempt to stamp out new ideas. This means genius lies on the fringes—while the center is rife with mediocrity.

This isn’t to say that all current speculative fiction is rife with mediocrity. However, it’s definitely infected hard SF.

Brother Guy Consolmagno, winner of the 2014 Carl Sagan Medal

Here’s an item of interest. Did you know there is a Carl Sagan Medal for outstanding communication by an active planetary scientists to the general public, as recognized by the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences? The winner for 2014 was announced at WorldCon this year. He is Brother Guy Consolmagno, also recently appointed Director of the Vatican Observatory by Pope Francis.

His most recent book is Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? released in 2014.

Review of Salvage by Alexandra Duncan

Ava is a sixteen-year-old girl who was born on the merchant ship Parastrata. Women do most of the drudge work on board merchant ships and receive no education. They are never allowed to leave the ships, except through marriage to seal trade agreements with other ships. The culture practices polygamy, where older men take multiple wives. Ava falls in love with Luck, the brother of her friend on the ship Aether, and when news comes of her betrothal, she is sure she is to be Luck’s bride. The two of them consummate their marriage a little early, but when they’re caught, they find Ava was to be married to Luck’s father, the ship’s captain, instead. Ava is to be thrown into the Void for her transgression, but with the help of one of the women, she manages to escape to Earth’s space station. She is rescued by Perpétue, a ship’s captain who takes her to Earth. Ava struggles, as she has never experienced full gravity, but she adapts, and Perpétue’s young daughter Miyole starts teaching her to read. Perpétue disappears in a storm, but Ava and Miyole escape in the damaged ship. They are taken in by the street smart Rushil. He starts helping Ava repair their damaged ship, but Ava is worried about exposing Miyole to dangers in the slums where he lives. She searches out her Aunt Soraya and the two begin school in the rich neighborhood where her aunt lives. Miyole flourishes, but Ava feels like a misfit. She returns to help Rushil repair the ship and flies with him to the space station to apply as a ship’s captain. There she finds Luck again, and has to decide between her old life and her new one.

This novel has some rich world-building. Duncan has invented a whole culture for the merchant ships’ crewes, including language, customs, religion and sanctions. The story investigates the effects of these cultural elements, with Miyole shining the light of cold reason on Ava’s customs and beliefs. Four stars.

This book was an Andre Norton Award nominee in 2015. It also won the 2015 Compton Crook/Stephen Tall Award.

Review of “On a Spiritual Plain,” short story by Lou Antonelli

I’m currently reading the Hugo nominations so I can vote. Here’s my second review.

Lou Antonelli’s story (Sci Phi Journal #2, 11-2014) is about Earth-people at a base on a planet called Ymilas, and it’s narrated by the base chaplain, a young Methodist minister. Because of the planet’s strong magnetic field, it traps particles that show up as fantastic auroras. When one of the work crew named Joe dies, it becomes evident that it also traps ghosts. The young minister consults with the local alien religious leader and discusses the problem, finds that the spirits of the local dead are also trapped and that they must go on a pilgrimage to the north polar region where they can pass through a gate and dissipate into nothingness. The minister sets out with the religious leader on the pilgrimage and Joe, supported by the local Helpful Ancestors, passes on. When the next man dies, the minister knows they need to go on another pilgrimage.

I rather liked the premise here. The story is well-written, though not very complex, dramatic or exciting–a bit short on conflict. The setup with the magnetic field and the ghosts is creative and provokes questions about the nature of the human soul a.k.a. the electromagnetic imprint left by humans after they die. There is very mild humor in the base commander’s anxiety about the safe return of the transportation equipment the minister uses. Three stars.