š on not white male speculative fiction authors
Octavia E. Butler's novels, Izumi Suzuki's short stories. Matt Ruff and Ben H. Winters, being white authors writing on racism. And tentacles. GIANT tentacles.
Friday 23 June 23 | Vol 2 Issue 23 [1 ]
This weekend, once again, Iām going dancing in the mountains. Only this time I know beforehand itās in the mountains [2 ]. Saturday is my usual writing day, so please excuse my recycling (but with less typos) of a piece originally written for the bookpo.st blog [3 ] on the Afroamerican science fiction author Octavia E. Butler.
Dancing? A pretty poor excuse you cry. No. Dancing is important. Vital even.
Back in the late eighties I was friendly with Britainās youngest ever Buddhist monk, living in a retreat in Scotland. A silent Buddhist retreat no less ā www.samyeling.org. Julian, if this youngest ever monk lived in a silent Buddhist retreat in Scotland, how on earth could you have been friends with him? Because he heard the music of Prince. Thatās why.
Silently secluded away in his Tibetan Buddhist Monastery, on hearing Purple Rain Greg realised the world was large and amazing and out there. And he needed to reengage with all its glory. And especially to dance to the music of Prince. Which he did, dressed in peach and black. Between his second awakening and lithely gyrating at Wembley Stadium, we printed t-shirts together, with Sign Oā The Times blasting out on loop.
Dancing is important.
Years later I find myself a regular guest at friendās country retreat (secular, no very quiet chanting, but it does have a very nice Aga stove) in the hills opposite that very monastery. Everything connects. Everything repeats. Everything comes full circle. The Lord Buddha would approve. Iām pretty certain that The Lord Buddha would fucking love Prince too. Hands up who thinks the Dalai Llama has Seven on his iPod.
Hereās his Purple (not saffron orange) Highness and a fav track of mine from his landmark album that sustained a million squeegee strokes.
Verso Books have just ā just in my world has a slight delay ā published a second set of short stories by Izumi Suzuki. Donāt worry, I was also unaware of a first set. In fact, I would never have heard of her, second set or not, had if not been for an article in Frieze [4 ]. It says something when an author has to be discovered through a magazine on fine art. Particularly when they are a writer of science fiction. Or speculative fiction should you not want to be seen sporting thick-lensed geek glasses.
Thereās your connection: non-white female authors of science fiction. Who are largely unrecognised. Although, this makes it sound like thereās a long queue of highly recognised white female science fiction authors. There isnāt. Hands up (again) whoās heard of Ursula K. LeGuin (although Iām unsure whatās on her iPod). Speculative fiction is a perfect vehicle to examine gender issues. Except itās written by men. Correction, except only the books written by men are publicised.
Men review speculative fiction. They donāt want girls in their club. I have no idea of this logic. Who the fuck doesnāt want girls in their club? What kind of club is it that lacks girls? Something to do with the imaginary power they think the Club of Future Science wields? Perhaps if these girl authors are let in, theyāll start writing speculative fiction about gender imbalance, and then where will we be.
I am reminded ofā¦
In a review of Emily Nussbaumās I Like to Watch, the critic Sarah Mesle identifies the source of this pheĀnomenon as the ācircular logic by which a piece of art becomes serious because a serious critic attends to it, and a critic becomes serious by tending to seriĀous art.ā The prevalence of this brand of logic also explains why the history of men, like the fiction and culture of men, is almost always taken to be more serious than the history of women. [5 ]
Izumi Suzuki has a biography worthy of a film. Originally a model for Nobuyoshi Arakiā¦ you can probably see how this is going pan out. The Telegraph, that bastion of white male privilege leads its review of her book with āErotic actress, sci-fi visionary ā who was Izumi Suzuki?ā [6 ]. Cāmon Stephanie LaCava, did you have to devalue her literary abilities by stating shock-horror naughty porn star first, letās hope we can blame that on the editor rewriting her copy.
A super short biography of Izumi Suzuki reads like a Haruki Murakami plot. Married for four years to the free-jazz saxophonist Kaoru Abe, their tempestuous relationship dramatised in Wakamatsuās film Endless Waltz, before divorcing, followed a year later by his death from an overdose of Bromisoval. Suzuki lived on for a further ten years, writing, before suicide, aged thirty-six.
Both Izumi Suzuki and Octavia E. Butler imagined worlds built on gender fluidity, pre-cursing todayās struggle for non-binary acceptance. Daniel Joseph wrote an Art Review piece (what is it with art magazines heralding her?) ā artreview.com/how-izumi-suzuki-broke-science-fiction-boys-club ā and as her translator heās ideally suited to tell her story. I couldnāt steal reword it better, I recommend reading the article. Iām simply loading both her books onto the Kobo, ready for any down-time from dancing in the mountains (there had better be a Prince remix), or should the sub-bass keep me awake all night in the Camper van.
As if an echo, hears hereās the piece from bookpo.stā¦
September 27, 2020
This post should start with with Octavia E. Butler. But it doesn't. Because I had never heard of her until last week, and I should have.
Like a lot of people I'm watching HBO's latest series Lovecraft Country and thoroughly enjoying it. Having long had an appreciation of Lovecraft inspired horror tropes, and as a fan of Jordan Peele, it ticks many boxes.
If you're not watching here's the gist: it's a sci-fi horror series set in 50s America confronting racial themes. Or it's a series exploring America's current racial crisis using 50's sci-fi horror conventions. There's a sort of anti-Easter egg in there as well as H.P. Lovecraft (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft) himself was a notorious racist (www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-radio-web/the-hatred-of-hp-lovecraft-racist-anti-irish-bigot-and-horror-master-1.4326744). Something that's been quite happily overlooked in the recent revival of his work. The films Mandy and A Colour from Outer Space, both featuring Nicolas Cage for example. Lovecraftian films isn't the tangent I want to go off on, but if you do, see lovecraftzine.com/movies/mikes-recommended-lovecraftian-movies.
So, Lovecraft County. The series is televised from Matt Ruff's novel of the same name. Matt Ruff is white. The second most asked question I saw on Reddit and similar boards when the series was first announced ā after is it any good? ā was can a white person write about race? I'm white and don't know enough about the realities of racism to express an opinion, or indulge meaningfully in debate. My interest was piqued mainly by the giant squid monsters.
In a Venn diagram with HBO's Watchmen series there is a strong overlap ā sci-fi and racial themes in an alternative history modern day America. Lovecraft Country has tentacles, Watchmen has capes.
Watchmen is another sci-fi TV series about racism in an alternative history America, written by Damon Lindelof, a white person, but here only a third of the co-writers are white males (variety.com/2019/tv/news/watchmen-damon-lindelof-behind-the-scenes-1203436108). But we digress.
The "can/should a white person write drama about racism" moral debate is an echo of the very same question Ben H. Winters's Underground Airlines ā novel about a black bounty hunter hunting escaped slaves in an alternative history modern day America ā raised. Ben H. Winters is white. So white he looks a bit like Buddy Holly (starts signing Weezer).
The internet furore about his book is really about a review and nothing he actually wrote. The NY Times said āThis is a white writer going after questions of what itās like to be black in America. Itās a fearless thing to do.ā (www.nytimes.com/2016/07/05/books/ben-winters-underground-airlines.html) Given he's a white male and already a popular (and talented) author he's in no real danger of harming his career or income. The book is good and made me suitably uncomfortable, without being blatant. Insidious would be a good description, just like the rationale for slavery.
Lovecraft Country is set in an alternative 50s, where contemporary hip-hop is played. A nice illusion to how little has changed nowadays, and what we ended up with are media storms about white people using speculative fiction to discuss racism in America, rather than perhaps confronting that white people still perpetuate racism in America.
But the strange thing is, in all these articles is no-one mentioned Octavia E. Butler.
Why should her name have been dropped you might wonder. Between 1970 and 2000 she wrote a series of novels exploring racial issues, miscegenation, and slavery, using sci-fi, time travel, and aliens as vehicles in the exploration of feminist and multicultural possibilities. She is credited with being a founder of Afrofuturism (again I didn't hear her name during the celebrations for the release of the Black Panther film).
She's acknowledged ā when you find an article about her ā as one of the greats, but in all these crusades or tirades about white male writing about racial identity and structural racism her name hasn't been brought up, when she wrote the blueprint. History repeating itself? It's not that she isn't acknowledged, she's won a fistful of awards, it's that she's not promoted. I've never seen her in the book pile at Waterstones as I have Asimov, Dick et al.
I'm a nerdy data geek and speculative fiction fan so clicking clicks deep into off-piste territory is what I like to do. If I hadn't I wouldn't have discovered Octavia E. Butler.
And as far as I'm concerned if Jordan Peele made Lovecraft Country into a TV series then Matt Ruff got it right.
Izumi Suzukiās Terminal Boredom Buy here š¾ Izumi Suzukiās Hit Parade of Tears Buy here š¾ Octavia E. Butler's Kindred Buy here š¾ Octavia E. Butler's Dawn: Lilith's Brood 1 Buy here š¾ Octavia E. Butler's Adulthood Rites: Lilith's Brood 2 Buy here š¾ Octavia E. Butler's Imago: Lilith's Brood 3 Buy here š¾ Matt Ruffās Lovecraft County Buy here š¾ Ben H. Wintersā Underground Airlines Buy here š¾ Ben H. Wintersā The Last Policeman Buy here
Postscript: I bought Anne Octavia E. Butler's Lilith's Brood two days ago and I discovered this morning she got up in the dead of the night to finish it, and is already deep in the seriesā second book. I purchased for myself Butler's Kindred, Matt Ruff's Bad Monkeys, and Ben H. Winters's The Last Policeman and Underground Airlines.
Postscript redux 2023: Since writing this, Octavia E. Butler has started to gain the recognition she deserves with NASA naming a locale after her on Mars [7 ] and Disney dramatising Kindred. Letās hope recognition for Izumi Suzukin comes a little faster.
š
This week featured
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izumi_Suzuki
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Ruff
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_H._Winters
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_(musician)
Our heroes are Octavia E. Butler and Izumi Suzukin. Drawn by artist in residence, Fatima Fletcher. Show your appreciation by following fatima.fletcher on Instagram. Her work is for sale at fatimafletcher.com, where sheās available for commissions. Her wonderful orchid place mats are for sale at fatima-fletcher.square.site/s/shop.
Buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/vfnIE9P0Ta
References
For all you manifestors out there, this is obviously deep shit, 23 23 23, the mysterious prime number, agent of chaos, etc
https://dot.la/octavia-butler-mars-landing-site-2650936190.html
Legally I have to tell you I might get five pence or something from Bookshop dot org should you purchase something, but really I just want to stick it to Amazon and keep independent bookshops alive. Yeah, rebel me, bringing the man down from the inside etc etc.
Not only have I heard of Ursula K. LeGuin, but have read and enjoyed several of her books. Albeit a long time ago when i used to read science fiction.