Ceridwen's comments (member since Oct 15, 2009)

Ceridwen's comments from the Think Galactic group.

have you had a chance to check out Jonathon Stroud's Bartimaeus trilogy yet?

No I haven't. Not even heard of it! I will definitely add to my insanely long to-read list. (Edit: holy cow, did you say footnoted footnotes!? That's the best thing I've heard all day!)

I pointed it out because I hope you'll be willing to look beyond your comfort zone the next time you edit.

I second this. I would like to propose a thought experiment. Let's say someone decides to put together an sf anthology, and it just so happens that all of the authors chosen to be included were women. Would you suspect the editor of having an agenda? Would you believe him or her when s/he denied it? I wouldn't.

Phew Wealhtheow - those are some really great links, especially the Angry Black Woman one - she's hysterical, plus I've always thought footnotes were intrinsically funny.

As a pretty serious sf reader, I too am troubled by the Grandfather Clause of Guyness that seems to hover around the genre. I would really prefer to see a vibrant and inclusive sf community, partially because male readership has long been on the decline (to be fair, so has readership in general, but women have always read more than men) and a genre that caters to a decreasing population cannot be healthy. If science fiction publishers refuse to take a hard look at who their readers (and customers) actually are, which is predominantly and increasingly female, they risk having no readers at all. Of course I don't want to go the other way and read no male authors at all, of course. That would be lame, as lame as reading only male authors is.

Also, I'm bummed about Paul DiFillipo being a jackass. I read and enjoy writing by jackasses all the time, as being a great writer and a nice person don't always go skipping through the fields hand in hand, but I do like to pretend.