Controversies

Predators, the GOP, and you

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People sick of American politics and American media, you might want to look away from this one. Or not. Also, I reserve the right to use copious profanity throughout this post… because it involves American politics and media. For various reasons on Sunday night — mostly having to do with the fact that I can’t beat that one hidden boss in the Dragon Age 2: Legacy DLC wtf why doesn’t Anders heal faster he’s so damn useless and seriously why is Sebastian even in this game — I found myself watching Predators (2010) on TV. I’d been vaguely interested in […]

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Flipping the scrip: Can we? Should we?

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So since last week’s debacle, a lot of people have asked me whether it’s even possible to write a discrimination reversal that isn’t chock full o’ bigotry. Not really sure why they’re asking me; it’s not like I’m some kind of expert on the matter. But they are, so what the hell, I’ll share what I think. I think a workable discrimiflip is possible. Hell, I may have done one, depending on how you look at it — in the Dreamblood books, Gujaareh and Kisua are societies whose darkest-skinned denizens hold the greatest power and prestige, while people who are

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This is how you destroy something beautiful.

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This is how my Monday morning began: with a slap in the face, courtesy of new Weird Tales editor Marvin Kaye. If you haven’t been following the “controversy” over author Victoria Foyt’s self-published novel Revealing Eden, here’s a good analysis of it with links to others. I put air quotes around controversy in this case because there really isn’t one. On the one side of the discussion you’ve got the author and a handful of defenders — many of whom seem to be sockpuppets of the author herself — insisting that the book isn’t racist because… something. On the other

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Dear Fandom: Grow the Fuck Up

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I’ve been in a state of apoplexy for the last 48 hours or so, because a) I’m still in recovery mode from Comic Con (short version: it was awesome and overwhelming, more later), and b) coming back from Comic Con has left me maybe hyperaware of all that’s both right and wrong about the entire media-consuming community. Comic Con itself is an example of what’s right. 100,000+ people took over downtown San Diego for 5 days and there were no riots, nobody got shot, and while there was one unfortunate incident, for the most part things went remarkably well. SDCC

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There’s no such thing as a good stereotype.

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Rantytime. Warning for profanity — although I’m going to try and rein it in, as best I can. Nobody listens to Angry Black Women, after all. This rant has been partially triggered by yet another discussion of “strong female characters” circulating in the blogosphere. (A good jumping-off point for this discussion is this io9 article, where I butted into the comments for a minute to pretty much make this same point.) This isn’t a new discussion, of course; people have been talking about it for awhile on and off. It’s just the latest hiccup. The strong female character (SFC) is

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Catching up with myself on gay YA

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This has been a rough week, and it’s not over yet — just a lot of personal and day job stuff going on. But also a little bit of professional stuff, which I’ve caught only the narrowest edge of since, hey, rough week. Not much time for internets. Still, I’ve been trying to follow the whole controversy that’s been going down the past few days regarding gay characters in YA. If you weren’t aware or haven’t been following it — here’s a good roundup — it’s basically the same kind of discussion we periodically have in SFF about the presence

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Some points of general interest.

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This is not addressed to anyone in particular, though it is triggered by a comment or two — not necessarily negative ones, if you’re wondering, mostly just perplexing ones — that I’ve seen or heard in places, about me and mine. And me being the kind of girl who points at the giant stinking elephant in the room and says, Dear gods, what is that thing? — well, I felt the need to explain: 1. My editor did not know I was black when she bought my novel. She found out the first time we met in person — after

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Missing Voices

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What should science fiction sound like? Or fantasy. A short story of mine, “Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Beneath the Still Waters”, was published in the UK anthology Postscripts a few months back. I’ve sold the audio rights to Podcastle, which is going to run the story sometime soon — and I’m glad for this, because it’s one of my favorites. See, this story is set in New Orleans, in the days immediately preceding and following Hurricane Katrina. In some ways, it’s my love letter to the city that I know what it means to miss —

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Is there a Rule of Three in SFF?

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Somebody in my Twitter feed linked this today, which I’d never seen before. Some insightful commentary from the late Dwayne McDuffie, a kickass comic book writer and trailblazer within that genre, talking about the Rule of Three. No, not this one; something else: Which got me thinking, of course. I’ve said before that most of the criticism I get as a writer is perfectly thoughtful, interesting stuff, which is doubtless helpful to those who are trying to decide whether to buy my books or read my stories. But I’ve seen a very few reader responses that, IMO, crossed the line

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