Neglected cultures in Scifi and Fantasy

[Spring Bass]

Having just read 1491, I'd love to see someone do a secondary-world series based on Mayan civilization, with a Martinesque focus on the politicking and warfare (possibly with magic interwoven into the setting). I don't think Pre-Columbian America gets a lot of love in the fantasy genre, which is a real pity.

Or even just a setting where some seriously different feature in a non-European culture (like the lack of draft animals in pre-Columbian America) is shown in your secondary world, leading to a strikingly different culture than a more standard fantasy one.

[Shryke]

I thought Kay nailed it in the original article:

I'm never contrarian (!) but it does feel a bit wrong to imagine writers cynically prowling in search of underexploited real estate in fantasy. (Maori! Toltec!). The key, surely, is to work from within, let research be guided by what engages, animates; for authors to be steered not by claim-staking but by passion.

People work from what they know and what inspires them. And more most english speakers mining history for inspiration, that means European history. Because it's what they are familiar with. There's mostly European-styled settings (and thus non-whites seen as the "Here There Be Dragons" exotic other) because, well, those are the odds when it comes to the English-speaking literary world.

With more diversity of viewpoints and religions and histories and stuff, I think we will see more diversity in setting in the future. And it's already happening to a certain extent.

Of course, there's also the issue that literature is also based as much on other literature as it is on the author's own experience and history and thus there's also a certain amount of drag in genre when it comes to moving away from the stereotypical cliched "Ye Olde England/Knights and Castles and Dragons" setting.

Of course, at the same time there's the whole "Fuck Cliches!" movement is helping to counteract that in some ways.

[quirksome]

Are you sure you want speculative fiction that reflects today's world? African-Americans and Latinos commit 90% of the murders (and represent 90% of the victims) in New York City. In today's America they represent a huge (and it looks more and more likely permanent) socioeconomic underclass.

Could this be because poor people are more likely to commit crime and African-American and Latino people are more likely to be poor in America? Or perhaps because non-whites are more likely to be arrested, prosecuted and sentenced than whites?

SFF doesn't have to show all ethnic minorities as heroes but it would be nice to see a more nuanced view than your unsubtle implication of blacks&latinos=criminals and Africa&Asia=continents of barbarism, which is pretty insulting to people in developing countries who don't exactly have a choice about living in primitive conditions.

[quirksome]

I wonder what would happen if additional minority races were included in fantasy fiction with all the baggage that comes with them..... Look at the recent Discworld novels: they've been a social commentary and haven't pleased some readers the way that earlier Discworld novels have, at least some people here hold that opinion. If authors were to start introducing several minority races and their politics into novels we'd probably all be turned off. I like to be challenged as much as the next man when I'm reading a book, be it fiction or non-fiction, but I don't think Fantasy Fiction is that place for this.

Minority races come with baggage? Like the problem of engaging with a different culture, language, values, food, dress, religion instead of your own?

IMO Pratchett's novels have greatly benefited from showing the variety of species (nationalities) in a multicultural city. He draws parallels with the zombies, werewolves, trolls, dwarves and vampires being the minorities to the human citizens of Ankh Morpork and satirises the discrimination against immigrant cultures in the modern day. Why shouldn't authors talk about themes like immigration, integration, prejudice and a clash of cultures? There's a richness and depth to be found in the mingling and cross-fertilisation of society which wouldn't be found in a monocultural fantasy world.

If someone wants to write a novel with blacks, latinos and orientals then that's fine. If it sounds like a good book I'll read it, but the quality of the novel has to come before political correctness.

It's Asian not Oriental when you're referring to people. Please get it right.

[Eurytus]

SFF doesn't have to show all ethnic minorities as heroes but it would be nice to see a more nuanced view than your unsubtle implication of blacks&latinos=criminals and Africa&Asia=continents of barbarism, which is pretty insulting to people in developing countries who don't exactly have a choice about living in primitive conditions.

I don't believe he was referring to primitive conditions. I believe he was referring to barbaric customs. Like giving no rights whatsoever to women, female genital mutilation, condemning women to death because they got raped, sentencing women to be raped to "punish" their family, forced marriage, being murdered for witchcraft, death for blasphemy, being burnt for petty crime and a host of other customs which can't really be deemed anything other than barbaric.

I don't believe you can blame poor living conditions for those.

[Black Wizard]

It's Asian not Oriental when you're referring to people. Please get it right.

But there's a difference between the Asians in India & Pakistan and the Asians in China & Japan. Is the word "oriental" racist or something? It simply means eastern.

[Happy Ent]

Richard Morgan seems to be doing fine, for one, though I do recall there was a kerfluffle over the name of "Black Man," but that a tangent

Well, in the US, the book’s title is Thirteen. Doesn’t get much more kerfluffled than that. (Great book, by the way, and very a propos.)

Incidentally, I just learned today that Les Schtroumpfs Noirs has been not only retitled to The Purple Smurf for the anglophone market: each black smurf has been meticulously re-coloured to purple!

[Thelonious]

I don't believe he was referring to primitive conditions. I believe he was referring to barbaric customs. Like giving no rights whatsoever to women, female genital mutilation, condemning women to death because they got raped, sentencing women to be raped to "punish" their family, forced marriage, being murdered for witchcraft, death for blasphemy, being burnt for petty crime and a host of other customs which can't really be deemed anything other than barbaric.

I don't believe you can blame poor living conditions for those.

I'm glad I live in the civilised West where we just bomb people from on high with drone aircraft, and drive up food prices in the developing world through financial speculation, and create markets for sweatshop products.

OP: I'm looking forward to Blue Remembered Earth by Alastair Reynolds, but we really need more black writers if the genre wants to stay fresh.

[Lummel]

Those Smurfs always seemed a bit dodgy to me. All male community and only one of them has got a beard? What's up with that?

Maybe I'm missing something but the barbarous elements mentioned above seem to me to have the makings of great fantasy and science fiction. A magic system based on eating albinos - fantastic - you've got horror, you've got novelty, you've got the corrupting nature of power. It leads naturally into a story - what is it about albinos that confers this power? How are the albinos going to react? Can they tap this power and protect themselves, what about the albino eaters - does the power dissipate or build up - may be if they eat to many they become albinos themselves and are hunted down to be consumed in turn.

Isn't the barbarian other the raw stuff of fantasy and science fiction, either as dark lord enemy or noble savage who implicitly criticises decadent civilised ways?

What about Dune - isn't that a colonial narrative? It's just of course that both sides are mysteriously white even though the fremen seem to be culturally space arabs.

[Eurytus]

I'm glad I live in the civilised West where we just bomb people from on high with drone aircraft, and drive up food prices in the developing world through financial speculation, and create markets for sweatshop products.

Thanks for the strawman argument.

[Lummel]

There's an essay by Montaigne in which he compares the barbarism of the indians of Brazil with the behaviour of his own countrymen during the civil war, I'm not sure what is so strawmanish about acknowledging our own shortcomings if discussing those of others.

Although how any of that is relevant to the OP's question of why are fantasy and science-fiction authors choosing to ignore the contemporary racial mix when writing their books I don't see.

Personally I still think that our publishing industries are too insular. We don't see enough in bookshops from other countries particularly in translation. I bet there's a whole bunch of stuff going on in Indian fantasy and science-fiction publishing that we'll never know about because it's written in Bengali or Punjabi or Tamil.

[Datepalm]

Those Smurfs always seemed a bit dodgy to me. All male community and only one of them has got a beard? What's up with that?

Around here the meme is that they're antisemitic (Gargamel is a little...how shall I put it....Jewish) plus theres the whole thing about how there's only one woman, she defined by being a woman, and she was created by evil to tempt men, and then 'made good' by crossing the vigin/whore dichotomy.

What about Dune - isn't that a colonial narrative? It's just of course that both sides are mysteriously white even though the fremen seem to be culturally space arabs.

Thats what bothers me, when it comes to portrayal of race - its not the playing around with cultural traditions, thats a perfectly legitimate use and misuse of the genre and sometimes there are cues the author wants to use and associations s/he wants to get across at that are best signalled by a very white setting*, with very white characters. Whatever. But we have a lot of stuff outside of that. ALL THE TIME. I dunno, do Europeans really just not notice that not everything is a 'european influence'? (Like the Fremen, or like WOT) and then you get authors who just can't seem to make the leap and imagine one or two of their 18 main characters as not. freaking. white.

I assume thats just where their brain goes to, defaultly speaking, when they first conceive of these characters, but not ever changing it in a setting that demands it (non european, continent spanning) is a kind of racist-y, and contributes to this sense (held, presumably, by the authors themselves amongst others,) that non-white people are a kind of unusual and specially noted exotic rarity.

re-barbarism: Hm. I'm a long way from being some kind of cultural relativist, and I cheerfully support, in Israel for example, legislating entire ways of life out of existence, but at the same time, figuring out whats 'culture' and whats 'this place is a mess' is I think a legitimate attempt. (Gosh, why, as a genre that can freely invent cultures or laboratory-like change their parameters or project them into the future, SFF might even be ideal to explore such questions!) For example, I read an article a while back (won't look for it becuase I think it was in Hebrew) that argued that a lot of 'honor killings' of women take place in homes that are violent and messed up to begin with, but when a non-muslim girl is killed by her father, its an isolated incident of personal evil, when its a muslim, its 'culture'. (Its not an entirely convincing argument, but its also being argued back against by muslim women. Point being, all culture is a debate.)

*This in itself might actually be rather historically inaccuarate, depending on the time and place, and its possibly by the time we get to 2011 we've already had a couple of centuries of whitewashing history, (the White Wild West comes to mind,) but ok, lets say our need for tropes, even if they're racists tropes, beats anything.

eta

Personally I still think that our publishing industries are too insular. We don't see enough in bookshops from other countries particularly in translation. I bet there's a whole bunch of stuff going on in Indian fantasy and science-fiction publishing that we'll never know about because it's written in Bengali or Punjabi or Tamil.

The World SF Blog is a tad Quixotian, but appreciated. I also think its interesting that a lot of non-anglophone writers do write in English (Hannu Rajaniemi, Alliette de Bodard, Jean Valtat....Ok, by many, I mean a few I can think of) which I guess speaks to how important the whole conversation of the genre is, and also how strongly the particular trappings of the genre are welded to english, in some ways.

[Lummel]

Around here the meme is that they're antisemitic (Gargamel is a little...how shall I put it....Jewish) plus theres the whole thing about how there's only one woman, she defined by being a woman, and she was created by evil to tempt men, and then 'made good' by crossing the vigin/whore dichotomy.

Yes I'd heard that and both, er, concerns had struck me before it's hard to miss when your watching the cartoon even when your still drinking your milk and eating some biscuits. So I thought I'd go with something a little lighter in tone. But seeing as we've broached the subject I might as well bottom out the crassness now and yes that since Peyo was Belgian I suppose we should be glad there wasn't an episode of the Smurfs involving pedophilia with chips that Papa Smurf covers up for years and years. Maybe it's still to come out. He's probably got friends in high places.

Thats what bothers me, when it comes to portrayal of race - its not the playing around with cultural traditions, thats a perfectly legitimate use and misuse of the genre and sometimes there are cues the author wants to use and associations s/he wants to get across at that are best signalled by a very white setting*, with very white characters. Whatever. But we have a lot of stuff outside of that. ALL THE TIME. I dunno, do Europeans really just not notice that not everything is a 'european influence'? (Like the Fremen, or like WOT) and then you get authors who just can't seem to make the leap and imagine one or two of their 18 main characters as not. freaking. white.

I assume thats just where their brain goes to, defaultly speaking, when they first conceive of these characters, but not ever changing it in a setting that demands it (non european, continent spanning) is a kind of racist-y, and contributes to this sense (held, presumably, by the authors themselves amongst others,) that non-white people are a kind of unusual and specially noted exotic rarity.

Yes. Over in the Rockson thread that pulpy series has a black character as one of the good sidekicks. He's called Detroit. That's right he doesn't get a name just a geographical designation!

On the whole given that race is an explosive topic in the USA I would have thought that authors would have used fantasy and science-fiction to explore it because it's safe - you can fix the parameters to suit the story or the point you want to make. I suppose Star Trek does it - there you can have heritage but it's rather more like a display cabinet to show your friends than something which determines your outlook - unless you're an alien of course.

[Grogsmash]

If the fremen were non-white, wouldn't we have people complaining about that also though? The uber white guy coming and taming the savages?

[GrandPoobah]

Uh, dude, pretty much the entire eastern continent is populated with non-whites, and there is a large southern continent that is unexplored. Kinda like the real medieval europe on which it's based. Shocking I know.

Unexplored, except by the Sothorians who already live there. Kind of like how Columbus "discovered America."

Jalabhar Xho the exiled Summer Islander is another black character. Not a heavily featured character, to be certain. He's in a spot where he kind of makes sense being. An exiled prince from a foreign kingdom (the Red Flower Vale). He has also served as a bit of a go-between for the Iron Throne and Dorne.

[Lummel]

If the fremen were non-white, wouldn't we have people complaining about that also though? The uber white guy coming and taming the savages?

You're probably right. But then in Dune the outsiders have to adapt to Fremen ways to survive - at least to the minimum level of using stillsuits (or whatever they are called) and they thrive by adopting the Fremen dream of having running water on the surface. Paul and Leto seem to me to strike a compromise with the fremen. The fremen get the transformation of the planet surface they have been dreaming of even though this will destroy the source of Spice which they are all dependant upon while the Atradies get to use them as their military power (at least until the fishy women come along).

That's a different kind of narrative, the outsider has to change to get what he wants and he has to give something back.

[Datepalm]

If the fremen were non-white, wouldn't we have people complaining about that also though? The uber white guy coming and taming the savages?

Its still an iffy, colonialist narrative even if they are all physically somewhere in realm of general caucasianess. You could paint everyone blue and the chosen guy from the psuedo-european culture who comes and leads the psuedo-asian/african/middle eastern culture people is still deeply....um, yeah.

Granted, I know more about Dune specifically by osmosis than by actually having read it. (I did, at some point, I think, but I don't remember anything directly anymore) but it comes up elsewhere too, and it is rooted in these orientalist, Lawrence of Arabia fantasies.

Jalabhar Xho the exiled Summer Islander is another black character. Not a heavily featured character, to be certain. He's in a spot where he kind of makes sense being. An exiled prince from a foreign kingdom (the Red Flower Vale). He has also served as a bit of a go-between for the Iron Throne and Dorne.

Once memorably voted "Most intriguing character without a line of spoken dialogue."

[GrandPoobah]

Aye. Outside of The Wire there's hardly a role for a black person that isn't one of: magical old black man, abused black woman, random criminal #3 or Shaft style hardman.

You forgot the non-magical older black cop who just wants to retire before his crazy white partner gets him killed.

Or in 70s cop films (particularly "Dirty Harry" series) the minority partner who inevitably DOES get killed. Which I guess makes the star character (and the filmmakers) seem less racist as Harry's blowing holes in various minorities.

[Ormond]

Yes. Over in the Rockson thread that pulpy series has a black character as one of the good sidekicks. He's called Detroit. That's right he doesn't get a name just a geographical designation!

Now that's one criticism in this thread that strikes me as just being silly. There have been plenty of people of all races in the real as well as the fictional world that have gone by nicknames derived from geographical names, such as Tex, Frisco, Vegas, etc. Indiana Jones, anyone? Not to mention there are now thosuands of real life Americans with names like Brittany, Trenton, London, Paris, Boston, and Memphis on their birth certificates. :)

As to the original problem--

Some of this is because people often don't get it when an author uses a setting where the characters are racially as well as culturally different. Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea is set in a world where most of the inhabitants have darker skin, but a lot of readers I think simply don't remember it that way. There's a Catch-22 here where too many mentions of different racial characteristics will make the writing seem stilted and unrealistic, but only using sparing mentions and descriptions risks having people in the majority White "western" world missing this and simply assume all the characters look like Caucasians.

There are fantasy books out there based on different cultures, including African ones. Sheri Reynolds edited two volumes called Dark Matter that are SFF works by African-American authors. Charles Saunders, for example, has the Imaro books:

http://www.charlessaunderswriter.com/

There also seem to be several non-Asian authors, like Barry Hughart, Lian Hearn and Kij Johnson, who have set fantasy novels in Chinese or Japanese settings.

As a gay man I can understand both the original poster's frustration and the difficulty authors have in dealing with the frustrations of minority readers. I want to read about gay and lesbian characters in any genre, but I of course want them to be realistic well-rounded characters. I don't want them to be either just flamboyant bitchy queens, or just counter-sterotypically macho brutes who happen to be gay. And ideally I want more than one gay character in a book, with different personalities and interests. However, unless you are writing a huge multi-volume saga like ASOIAF with hundreds of characters, it's hard for most authors -- especially those who aren't themselves gay -- to think it's realistic to do this, since in the average story the number of characters is itself small enough that introducing more than two gay characters will lead quickly to your having a much higner percentage of gays in your book than exist in the "real world". And that may bore or alienate many of your heterosexual readers, who are the majority of those who buy books. I think a lot of similar dynamics operate with ethnic minority characters.

[GrandPoobah]

Once memorably voted "Most intriguing character without a line of spoken dialogue."

Well, one supposes Martin might bring him a bit more to the forefront if enough people let him know they were interested. Assuming it'd work with the story, and Cersei doesn't get to follow through with having him killed for being one of the guys rumored to be schtupping Margaery Tyrell.

The biggest problem the character has is his storyline. He's in King's Landing because he wanted something from Robert. Help in claiming his kingdom. And (pardon the expression) as Dany's "shadow" in Westeros. His doing more than escorting a kid somewhere or giving Joff a bow is hard to work into the plotline. He needs something that nobody in King's Landing can currently give him, because they have their own situation to worry about. Barring him inexplicably heading home while she's on the way, he's not likely to cross paths with Danaerys either. In a perfect world, he'd be or become a spy in the court. But there's already at least one of those already.

Funny thing, I've tended to imagine the Dorneans as a bit darker skinned. Not as dark as a Summer Islander, but perhaps a bit Arabic.