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Worlds Without End Blog

American Gods Teaser Trailer Posted at 10:10 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

I don’t think this is a particularly good trailer but it’s looks pretty decent. The guy they got for Shadow, Ricky Whittle, looks the part and you can’t beat Ian McShane. Lacking a bit in the excitement department for me but I enjoyed the book so I’ll hold out hope that Starz can pull off what I was hoping would come from HBO. What do you think?

Can Science Fiction Anticipate the Future of Gender? Posted at 2:14 PM by James Wallace Harris

jwharris28

Will the current concepts of male and female exist in the future? SF writer have no trouble seeing horrible futures, like The Handmaid’s Tale. So, can science fiction writers imagine desirable futures? Especially, when it comes to future gender roles? We’re seeing more stories like Too Like the Lightning, Ancillary Justice and Lock In where science fiction anticipates new views of gender. I just read The Disappearance by Philip Wylie, that rethought gender roles in 1951. Wylie wasn’t totally enlightened by today’s standards, but he saw women had far more abilities than society allowed. How much did Wylie get right? And how much can today’s SF writers get right about our future?

The Handmaid's Tale Too Like the Lightning Ancillary Justice Lock In

Is it possible for science fiction to imagine a gender equal society? Or, must we always examine the problem through dystopian failures? We assume we’re progressing towards more equality because of the changes we’ve already undergone. So how come we don’t see more positive futures in science fiction? Will we ever create a society based on individual equality? Ada Palmer explores such an idea in Too Like The Lightning.

I’m getting so tired of dystopian science fiction. I know novelists need conflict to forward their plots, but can’t they imagine conflict in a superior society that gives readers hope for the future? I want to believe in futures where killings like in Orlando never happen, and men like Jessica Valenti describes in Sex Object are as rare as dinosaurs. Can’t science fiction envision a tomorrow without all the things we hate about ourselves today? We don’t need unrealistic utopias or childlike fantasies, but more hope would be appreciated.

Do we assume since misogyny has always existed, it will always exist? I just read When Everything Changed by Gail Collins, that shows how the U.S. was dramatically transformed from 1960-2008 by women’s rights. Philip Wylie would have been gratified by Collins’ report.

The DisappearanceThe Disappearance tried to convince its readers to think different about women.  Wylie anticipated attitudes that wouldn’t surface until the late 1960s. His novel is dated, yet feels relevant because our society still lacks equality. It seems tragic we can’t imagine better societies, but still have engaging conflicts for characters and readers. Star Trek might be one positive example, but was it?

We identified most gender issues long ago, but there’s some kind of barrier to solving all of them. We can ask why everyone in the 19th century didn’t see the evils of slavery. What will 22nd century people condemn us for not seeing that’s obvious to them but not us? Can science fiction writers be the new abolitionists? I’m not sure making more female characters into protagonists does the trick.

Wylie made conceptual leaps in 1951 that we’ve come to accept. Women now work at jobs that would have been unbelievable then. What will it take for us to think equally far out of the box? Most men today believe women can do anything they want, but they still see women as sex objects. Can science fiction imagine societies where humans have free will to escape their biological programming?

How many readers changed their attitudes about women by reading The Disappearance in 1951? If science fiction can imagine us solving our problems in the future, can reading it change us now?

The Disappearance uses a clever plot gimmick to explore gender issues and feminism. In the first chapter, at 4:04:52 p.m., all the women disappear from Earth, and the story begins describing how men live without women. In the second chapter, at 4:04:52 p.m., all the men disappear, beginning a second story sequence describing how the women live without men. Wylie anticipates many feminist issues that wouldn’t be recognize until decades later. He’s a tiny bit progressive with his views on homosexuality and race, but falls far short of what we know. Wylie was ahead of his time — but not all of him.

We can never know when science fiction is right about the future, but won’t contemplating more possibilities enlighten us?

Wylie gives us Dr. William Percival Gaunt, philosopher, writer, competent man (much like Heinlein’s Jubal Harshaw, but without being an ass). Gaunt becomes the central figure in the story about males. Gaunt’s home is near Coral Gables and Coconut Grove, Florida. I was born in 1951, and grew up in Coconut Grove and Coral Cables, so this novel was especially meaningful to me. In the other half of the twin plot, Paula Gaunt, Bill’s wife, is a competent woman who becomes the leader of a small group of women. Both of the Gaunts eventually travel to Washington to help decide the fate of the nation.

Like the novel The City & The City  by China Miéville, the men and women occupy the same physical space without seeing each other, but their realities diverge, because the men and women react differently to the same event. Their worlds eventually become two very different places.

The City & the CityModern SF writers like Ann Leckie and Ada Palmer explore the future of gender today. If their ideas become common in the future, will future readers consider their books classics? Because Wylie gets much wrong, I’m not sure The Disappearance is a classic. Wylie felt men wildly underestimated the potential of women, but ultimately theorizes it takes a male and a female to make a whole person. We, of course, would consider that silly today.

Wylie felt women could do they same jobs as men, had the same sexual drive as men, thought women had been falsely imprisoned by society’s expectations and roles, but he couldn’t imagine women being 100% independent. He thought men and women needed each other, and considered non-heterosexuals as misguided. Our modern view of gender and sexuality assumes everyone is equal and independent. We see gender and sexuality as important traits for identity, but differences that don’t cause inequality. We’re moving away from marriage as a bond between an unequal male and female, to a legal contract between equal individuals. But isn’t that just a start? Won’t gender roles in society be vastly altered by current trends? Can science fiction imagine those changes?

Wylie follows Plato by suggesting that man and woman are half-a-soul that make one gestalt soul. That’s where this novel idealistically fails, but I have to give Wylie tremendous credit for seeing things very differently from the 1951 normal. When Everything Changed was the perfect book to read after The Disappearance. Gail Collins’ book magnificently shows how much things have changed. I’m not sure Wylie could foresee his ideas playing out. Sex Object would have blown his mind, but not all of it.

There were 1970s feminists who advocated changes to society that would eliminate the ways we make women into sex objects. They were labeled radical, and the reaction against them helped generate a wave of anti-feminism, which also turned many against the ERA. Our society has become hypersexualized since then. Can science fiction writers imagine societies where we don’t objectify each other and still have healthy, rewarding sex lives? To many 1970s feminists we’ve gone backwards.

Any science fiction written today that shows how we outgrow gender might seem prophetic in the future if we eventually erase those traits. I think that’s what Ada Palmer is showing in her novel. Her characters claim “she” and “he” are outmoded concepts, but are sometimes used for the convenience of the 21st century reader to understand the 25th century. But the narrator explains that’s even deceptive for our primitive minds. Because sometimes the narrator will call someone a he, but only mean that person has male traits, but not necessarily male biology. As science fiction writers are discovering, getting rid of gender pronouns are difficult. Will any personality traits be considered masculine and feminine in the future? Does Palmer go far enough?

Do such science fictional speculations suggest future humans might also get rid of sex? Can we, or the science fiction writers of today, imagine future males and females with no unique gender roles? Or gender disappearing from language?

Sex Object, is a feminist memoir that beautifully illustrates the problem of sexual objectification. How could science fiction writers take the problems Valenti describes and create a fictionalized enlightened future that solves them? Valenti wants society to process out the repugnant aspects of seeing or being objects, but she doesn’t know how. Is that our future? Finding politically correct ways of pursuing sex and romance?

In the past, science fiction was mostly about traveling into space. Today, science fiction is often about staying home on Earth. We may even stop talking about men and women. Those labels might become essentially meaningless. Can writers create stories where readers comprehend gender equality? I just bought The Fate of Gender: Nature, Nurture, and the Human Future by Frank Browning. That makes me wonder what nonfiction books inspired Philip Wylie.

Do science fiction writers actually imagine new concepts, or do they observe them beginning in society, like the dots in the yin and yang symbols?

2016 Prometheus Award Winner Posted at 2:00 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

The Libertarian Futurist Society has announced the winner of the 2016 Prometheus Award, honoring pro-freedom works published in 2015.

Sevenevesprometheus Award

WINNER:

  • Seveneves by Neal Stephenson (William Morrow)

NOMINEES:

Our congrats to Neal Stephenson and all the noms!

2016 World Fantasy Award Finalists Posted at 8:00 AM by Dave Post

Dave Post

The Buried Giant The Fifth Season Uprooted Savages The Chimes A Head Full of Ghosts

The 2016 World Fantasy Awards finalists have been announced. The awards will be presented during the World Fantasy Convention, October 27-30, 2016 in Columbus, Ohio.

World Fantasy AwardThe finalists in the Novel category are:

Our congrats to all the finalists!  You can see the full list of finalists in all categories on the Locus website.

What do you think of this lineup?

2015 Shirley Jackson Award Winner Posted at 8:00 AM by Dave Post

Dave Post

The 2015 Shirley Jackson Award winners have been announced at Readercon 27 in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Experimental FilmShirley Jackson Award

WINNER:

FINALISTS:

Our congrats to Gemma Files and all the finalists! You can see the complete list of winners in all categories over at Locus Online.

What do you think of this result?

2016 David Gemmell Legend and Morningstar Awards Shortlists Posted at 5:29 PM by Dave Post

Dave Post

The finalists for the 2016 David Gemmel Legend and David Gemmel Morningstar awards have been announced.  Voting is underway now and you have until midnight on Friday, 19th August to get yours in.  That’s right, you get to vote – no strings attached.

 

The Dread Wyrm Son of the Black Sword Slayer Ruin The Liar's Key

David Gemmel Legend AwardThe Legend Award for Best Fantasy Novel:

 


Battlemage The Traitor Baru Cormorant The Fire Sermon Starborn The Vagrant An Ember in the Ashes

David Gemmell Morningstar AwardThe Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer:

 

The presentation takes place at 8 p.m. on Saturday 24 September at Fantasycon in Scarborough, UK.

What do you think of these finalists?  Anything surprise you on the list?  What are your picks?