Jim C. Hines's Blog, page 128

Fandom, Conventions, and Race

Over the past two weekends, I’ve been a Guest of Honor at Penguicon and Mo*Con. I had a great time at both, and would like to publicly thank both cons for all of their work, and for making me feel so welcome. Penguicon gave me a pocketwatch! Mo*Con wouldn’t stop feeding me! At both conventions, I got to hang out and talk to amazing people, and I’m grateful to all of the volunteers and attendees who helped me to feel welcome.

But these two cons also drove home something I’ve been noticing. Earlier this year, I was on a panel about inclusion in fandom at a different convention. One of our panelists insisted that fandom had always been welcoming to everyone, adding that she preferred the colorblind approach, welcoming everyone as individuals.

Mary Robinette Kowal beat me to the response by 0.6 seconds. Mary stood up and asked everyone in the audience who was white to raise their hands.

The entire audience raised their hands, with the sole exception of the partner of the panel’s one black panelist–a gentleman who, I believe, had been invited specifically to attend that panel.

That’s what “colorblind” looks like.

Most of the conventions I’ve attended are like this.

Data on race and ethnicity in the U.S. is a little messy, but in 2010, our population was roughly 72% white. So why do so many conventions seem to be between 95% and 99% white? And it’s not just in the midwest that I’ve seen this, either.

Mo*Con was an exception to the rule. There were times this past weekend I wish I could have been colorblind, because in the back of my mind, I kept looking around and wondering, Why can’t more conventions be like this?, and that frustration took away from my ability to just relax and enjoy myself.

We’ve had this conversation before. I don’t believe anyone is deliberately or consciously trying to limit convention participation along racial lines. Nobody’s setting a quota of at least 97% white folks. We’ve seen some conventions beginning to talk about trying to more actively look for nonwhite guests to invite, as opposed to thoughtlessly recycling the generally white status quo.

I’m not saying nobody should ever invite white guests of honor to their conventions. But I don’t think white men should be the default, the automatic choice, when there’s such a broad range of amazing writers contributing to our field.

But that’s just a part of the picture. One of the things I noticed at Mo*Con was a sense of genuine welcomeness. I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s not that I’ve felt unwelcome at other conventions; but Mo*Con had a sense of warmth and inclusiveness and appreciation for everyone that I haven’t experienced at most cons. Some of that might have been the smaller size and the focus on people and connections, but whatever the reason, I want that at every convention.

I want everyone to have that, dammit.

And it’s not enough to just tell the concom to invite more nonwhite guests. The entire convention needs to be a part of creating that inclusiveness. I need to be a part of it, of inviting and welcoming and listening. When conventions promote, where do they focus their outreach? When we come back to the real world and talk about what a great time we had at a con, who do we talk to? Who do we try to invite along to the next one?

Lots of people will protest that they don’t discriminate, and they don’t judge based on color. They’ll argue that they welcome everyone, and they do so in a way that’s fair and non-racist and colorblind. But we’ve seen what “colorblind” tends to create. We end up recreating and reinforcing our preexisting circles, building a convention that might be welcoming to us, but isn’t necessarily welcoming to everyone.

That needs to change. Because dammit, the world is bigger than that. Our genre is bigger. We should be bigger.

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Related Link: The Carl Brandon Society runs the Con or Bust fundraiser, actively working to help fans of color attend conventions.

Star Trek: Of Gods and Men

Star Trek: Of Gods and Men is an interesting phenomenon. It’s a fan-made film, but one done with at least the tacit acceptance of the powers that be. I picked this up after watching and enjoying another fan0-made Trek film, World Enough and Time.

Of Gods and Men is set about twelve years after the “death” of Captain Kirk on board the Enterprise B (in Star Trek: Generations). Starfleet has built a replica of the original USS Enterprise, a kind of museum and tribute. Captains Nyota Uhura and Pavel Chekov are in attendance, along with Captain John Harriman (captain of the Enterprise B). A time disturbance leads them to the planet of the Guardian of Forever, where Charlie X (from the original episodes, now 40 years older) is seeking revenge on Kirk. He escapes into the guardian and changes history…

The result is a mirror universe-like empire, the “Galactic Order,” made up of humans, Klingons, and more. Uhura is married to Stonn on Vulcan, which has remained neutral in the face of the Galactic Order’s oppression. Chekov is now a ruthless freedom fighter. And Harriman is still captain of the Enterprise, but he now serves the Galactic Order. Thus the film’s tagline, “Legends come together one last time…to destroy each other.”

While it opened kind of slowly, and the special effects were a bit uneven, I loved seeing some of the classic actors again. Nichelle Nichols will always be awesome, and while Walter Koenig sometimes seemed a bit tired, I really liked him as Kittrick the freedom fighter. We also got Trek alumni like Tim Russ as Tuvok, Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand, Chase Masterson, Ethan Phillips, and many more.

I’m having a hard time trying to evaluate this thing. Some of the plot elements were familiar, particularly after the J. J. Abrams Star Trek reboot. On the other hand, Of Gods and Men came out two years before the Abrams movie, which raises a few questions in the back of my mind… But even aside from that, the broken timeline isn’t exactly a new approach in Star Trek or science fiction in general. But it worked. It gave us a plausible story, and allowed the creators to bring back a number of characters from the old series. The tension didn’t exactly have me gripping my seats, but I stayed to watch the whole thing when I should have been working.

Familiarity with the old series will help. Otherwise, there are a lot of characters and references that probably won’t make a lot of sense. But as someone who grew up on original Trek, it was fun to see everyone coming together again.

My only other two comments are that the final battle dragged on a bit, and the Uhura/Stonn thing didn’t make sense to me, particularly given Stonn’s character in the original series. That said, it was a lot of fun to revisit Star Trek, and this had more of the original Star Trek feel than the Abrams reboot.

Also recommended: Star Trek: World Enough and Time. I believe both this and Of Gods and Men can be viewed online for free, as well as ordered on DVD from their respective websites.

Magic ex Libris News and Other Niftiness

After a bit of negotiation, we’ve accepted an offer from DAW, which means THERE WILL BE MORE MAGIC EX LIBRIS BOOKS!!!

Book three, tentatively titled UNBOUND, will probably be coming out in early 2015. (There’s no official or unofficial release date; this is purely speculation on my part based on my deadlines.)

Book four, tentatively titled I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO CALL THIS BOOK, would presumably come out in 2016.

But wait, there’s more! Last month also brought a royalties check for Libriomancer [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], which EARNED OUT ITS ADVANCE WITHIN ITS FIRST FOUR MONTHS! (THANK YOU!!!)

To celebrate all of this goodness, last night I went online and PAID OFF THE REST OF MY WIFE’S STUDENT LOANS! (Yeah, some people don’t see the excitement and awesomeness involved in paying off debt, but for me, this is party time!)

I have no doubt I’ll celebrate some more this weekend, when I join Saladin Ahmed, Gary Braunbeck, and Stephen Zimmer as guests at Mo*Con 8!

Finally, just to make sure I cram a year’s worth of good news into a single blog post–I’ve seen the cover art for the German edition of Libriomancer, and it is nifty. It looks like Die Buch Magier should be out in March of next year.

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If anyone needs anything, I’ll be sitting here in a daze, grinning goofily and wondering what just happened…

Smudge in a Jayne Hat

I’m doing the post-con recovery thing, so have a pair of pics of Smudge wearing a Jayne hat behind the cut. Because they make me happy.

The first was done by Mara Johnstone.

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The second one is by Emily Ritter.

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To Penguicon!!!

I’m off to play Guest of Honor at Penguicon today. I’ve been going to this convention for years, so it’s doubly awesome to have been invited to be author GoH. Triply awesome when you realize that as GoH, I get to invent a flavor of liquid nitrogen ice cream!

I’ll be making Troll Toe Ice Cream, for anyone who wants to stop by…

The full schedule looks like so:

Friday, April 26:

6:00PM-7:00PM: Opening Ceremonies
7:00PM-8:00PM: GoH Social Hour (Meet n’ Greet, with Q&A for all the Guests of Honor)
9:00PM-10:00PM: You’ve Written It, Now What?

Saturday, April 27:

4:00PM-5:00PM: Make ‘Em Laugh: Comedy in Speculative Fiction
5:00PM-7:00PM: ICE CREAM!!! (I probably won’t be there the whole two hours, since I’ll need to run and get dinner.)
7:00PM-8:00PM: Jim C. Hines – Sexism and Cover Art

Sunday, April 28:

3:00PM-4:00PM: Closing Ceremonies

My wife Amy will be coming along on this one. It’s our first convention with just the two of us, and I’m really looking forward to it. Partly because we get to spend a weekend together in a nice hotel surrounded by geeks. And partly because, well, it’s the first time she’ll see me doing the Guest of Honor thing.

It’s a combination of sharing something that’s really important to me with my best friend in the world, and at the same time, spreading my authorial peacock feathers to show off for my mate. Which is a little silly, but still cool.

Tapping the Internet Brain: Stuffed Spiders?

Dear Internet,

Without getting into detail, I was asked today about the possibility of doing a very small run of stuffed fire-spiders as a promotional bonus type of item. (We also discussed the possibility of Smudge T-shirts.)

These wouldn’t be available for public sale; it would be more of a “Buy this stuff and get your own Smudge, too!” idea.

I love this idea. But since I know nothing about the world of stuffed toys, I was hoping the internet might have a suggestion on where to go for limited-run, good quality, hopefully-not-ridiculously-expensive stuffed fire spiders.

Help me internet brain! You’re my only hope!

If you don’t want to comment, you can also shoot me an email.

Thank you!

People Being Awesome in the Aftermath of the Boston Bombing

After yesterday’s post, I wanted to follow up with some examples of kindness, courage, generosity, and overall awesomeness from the past week or so.

The Red Cross of Eastern MA sent out a Tweet saying they didn’t need blood at this time, because so many people had rushed to donate after the bombing. (For readers not located in Eastern MA, your local Red Cross would probably still appreciate donations, though!)

From El Pelon Taqueria, a restaurant in Boston: “This week @Boston_Police @BostonFire and all Public Saftey–put away your wallets.” They’re one of many stores and restaurants to show this kind of generosity.

The sheer number of people, both first responders and civilians, who reportedly ran toward the chaos and explosion in order to help the victims.

The Chicago Tribune sent pizzas to the staff of the Boston Globe, along with a note saying, “We can’t buy you lost sleep, so at least let us pick up lunch.”

Several of you pointed to this photo of a Boston police officer delivering milk to a family with young children during the lockdown.

Google put together a tool to help people find their friends and loved ones after the explosions. I’ve grumbled about some of Google’s actions in the past, but this was a perfect example of using their skills, resources, and connections to do good.

Honey Nichols spent Wednesday handing out candy to residents of Boston. (Thanks Peter K. for this one.)

Check out this amazing list of Boston-area residents who offered space to sleep, transportation, food, and more.

This exchange between people in Syria and Boston.

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Please feel free to add more examples in the comments. If links get caught in the spam filter, don’t worry, I’ll be checking and unspamming those throughout the day.

Violations of Wheaton’s Law From Last Week

I assume most of you are familiar with Wheaton’s Law? I suppose it should be no surprise when national tragedy brings out the lawbreakers, as it did last week. If I were a smarter person, I would have turned off the internet for at least the first 48 hours after the bombing. Alas, instead I ended up spending too much time jumping back and forth between the news and social media sites. While this did help me to stay informed, it also resulted in a fair amount of rage…

6. The lamestream media was scared to say what we all knew: the terrorists were Muslim. Political correctness is literally killing us by blinding us to the real enemy!

Go to the FBI’s terrorism report here. Scroll down to the bottom, and start working your way back. How many of those terrorist attacks in the U.S. were committed by Islamic extremists, as opposed to environmental extremists, Jewish extremists, anti-abortion extremists, etc.? Seems to me that if you hear about a terrorist act in the U.S. and your first assumption is IT’S THE MUSLIMS!!!, you’re pretty much just showing off your ignorance and bigotry.

5. You never see Christians doing this stuff / Islam is the religion of hate.

Um … y’all know the KKK is a Christian organization, right? Not to mention the Westboro Baptists. Or the Army of God. Or Hutaree. We’ve got plenty of Christian hate, both historically and in the present day.

You can twist any religion into an excuse for hatred and violence. And while it’s been a long time since I attended Sunday school, aren’t Christians supposed to have that whole, “Judge not, lest ye be judged” thing going on?

And as long as we’re talking about hate, please see this quote from a December 2009 study published by Duke University about the backlash after 9/11:

Hate- crimes against Muslims rose from 28 in 2000 to 481 recorded incidents in 2001, and current levels remain about five times higher than prior to 9/11.

4. “I can’t believe that pair in the Boston bombing was NOT Towel Heads. They are Czechoslovakian. F*** Czechoslovakia!”

This is one of a depressingly large number of comments from people who don’t know the difference between Chechnya and the Czech Republic, but weren’t about to let ignorance stop them from spewing hate and racism.

3. I heard this thing on the internet, and even though I have no idea whether or not it’s true, I’m going to repost and retweet it to everyone I know!

There’s a lot of confusion and misinformation after something like this happens. In the first 48 hours, it felt like major news outlets were tripping over each other to get their facts wrong. We’re so hungry for facts–especially facts that might confirm our own biases and assumptions–that we end up spreading an awful lot of misinformation.

2. “I wonder how many Boston liberals spent the night cowering in their homes wishing they had an AR-15 with a hi-capacity magazine?” -Arkansas Rep. Nate Bell

Dude, I don’t care what your position is on gun control. You’re an asshole.

1. Pretentious, holier-than-thou bloggers getting up on their high horses to go on and on about other people’s dickish behavior.

Um…aw, crap.

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Because this was depressing, I’m working on a follow-up post giving examples of people being awesome in the aftermath of tragedy.

Asking For Beta Readers with Autism

ETA: Wow, and thank you. I’ve got several emails I still need to reply to, but I think at this point I have enough beta readers to help me with the story. I very much appreciate all of your responses.

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Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes, and for sharing various positive and awesome things. I don’t know about you, but for me, reading your comments and hearing about the good things in your lives brought some much-needed hope and happiness yesterday.

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I’ve just finished writing a story about Nicola Pallas, an autistic bard from the Libriomancer books. This one is set many years earlier, when Nicola is unaware of the larger world of magic.

I’ve talked before about my son being autistic. To be blunt, this story is important to me, and I want to get it right. I want Nicola to be an individual, not the One True Representative of Autism. I want to avoid the various cliches and problematic storylines (there is no “cure” narrative in this one). And I want her experiences and perceptions to ring true.

So I’m asking for a few beta readers with autism, to take a look at this story and help me make it stronger. If you’re interested and willing to help me on this, please email me at jchines -at- sff.net.

Thank you.

It’s My Birthday. Share 365 Awesome Things!

[image error]I got older today. Which doesn’t really distinguish today from any other day, but today is when we celebrate it with cake and presents and jokes about the gray in my beard.

What I want today is for you to share something awesome. It could be a cool fact about the universe, the best book you read last year, something great that happened to you or your friends, or–if you happen to be a LEGO executive–a contract for your new goblin- and princess-themed sets based on my books!

The Challenge: I would love to see 365 Comments of Awesomeness, one for every day of the coming year. Which may seem like a lot, but I HAVE FAITH IN YOU ALL!!!