Overthinking and Overviews: Fanzine, Semiprozine, and Someone Else’s Review (Writing About SF in Related Works) (and the YA entries, that too)

 I cruised through the nominees for Best Fanzine and Semiprozine, and couldn’t really engage sufficiently to form an opinion. It felt like I’d have to read a whole lot of the fiction on these sites to get a good grasp of what they do, and how well. And I’m already feeling overwhelmed by the idea of reading two regular novels and multiple YAs so I can render a vote. Possibly the longer fiction too although I’m not feeling particularly enticed.

I did find a review for one of the other Related Works that I thought I would link here; I didn’t go as far as to read the book about writing about writing science fiction, but I did go through the review. 

It made me (over)think about this category people call science fiction, and my reluctance to count myself as part of it. There are times when my answer is an enthusiastic yes, like when I was reading my favorite short story entry this year, or when I’m reading older stuff that resonates, like Octavia Butler, or Robert Sheckley. 

And then there are times when science fiction feels like this closed fortress where people have interminable discussions about some TV show I’ve never seen. I’ve been thinking of that while enjoying the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, imagining some straw interminable science fictional person (of undetermined gender but they are wearing a lumpy oatmeal-colored sweater and Birkenstocks) sneering at me if I were to try writing something that blatantly fun. Or, more likely, somehow parsing my more innocuous behaviors in an attempt to find a core of subconscious evil political affiliations (left version) or satanic cult involvement (right version) (they both smell similar).  

Probably lots of us are examining our beliefs lately, about lots of things. I’m a solid, dull, healthcare-and-trains liberal. Never liked postmodernism, blame it for lubing the ascent of fascism. 

Although I have a gender, and pronouns, I've never really done' much self-reflection about them other than "I'm female so this thing I'm doing/wearing/liking can't be exclusively male." 

Sometimes it’s the culture. For example, where I grew up, women can play musical instruments. A lot of people from North America have a really difficult time with that idea unless it’s parodied or sexualized, and even then it should only be about supporting her singing rather than shredding on solos. In many countries women musicians are everywhere, but we had to invent the concept of “blind audition” before women could work as symphony musicians, while other musical genres were doing things like ignoring Rosetta Tharpe. So as far as I was concerned, playing a guitar the way nature intended was not so much an expression of longing to engage in a gender-coded expression as much as a repudiation of gender codes. And I’m really glad to see lots more young women picking up instruments these days. 

And sometimes it's my commitmentphobic nature, refusing to accept any new philosophies until they've had lots of crash test dummy testing. Unlike trains and healthcare, which are completely evidence-based. 

It took me most of my life to commit to finishing a novel. Even then I refused to submit it to a publisher, preferring instead to test drive the life of a self-pubbed science fictionizer before jumping in the deep end. I wasn’t really happy that it came out science fiction in the first place since I had always thought I’d end up writing fantasy. 

A lot of this commitment phobia had to do with imagining myself being a part of the crowd. hen I first began to engage with science fiction, it was full of sexism, including positive pedo energy, and I  felt like an outlier as I shuffled through stories like A Boy And His Dog. Then I watched the next generation balance the creepy old predator energy with newfangled inclusivity, and a determined effort to make things less of a boys’ club, but this went along with the overthinky discussions about gender, and culture, and I felt the same kind of alienated Goldilocks feeling. So I concluded it was me, and I lean toward the ambiguous and nuanced take. 

Before GamerGate, I ran a blog (from this very account) about women in games, and my spidey sense got me to delete it before the controversy blew up. My last post was about how there actually was gender parity in games as far as people consuming them, the gender issues had to do with things like why the culture would court the bro market and consider games equivalent to sports, and why the liberal press insisted on evaluating them due to theming rather than gameplay. I felt I couldn’t comment on the micro issues of gender within gaming because it was a way bigger issue than games. I was really glad I was prescient enough to see it coming before things blew up. I was Goldilocks in GamerGate too; both sides were egregiously wrong about some things (dogpiling Zoe, the “gamers are dead” headlines) and right about a couple things too (pretty much everyone involved with GamerGate was obnoxious AF so there was plenty of “yeah, they’re lying, but they’re OUR liar so they’re lying for good!” kind of behavior). 

I thought it smelled bad from all directions, so I stepped far back and that seems to be my old reliable avoidance pattern, and that’s likely why I’m commitment phobic with regard to cultural areas. People are always trying to get me to declare for Team Righteousness or Team Evil, when I’m on Team There Should Be More Trains, And Free Ibuprofen Too. 

And also free reading material, goshdarnit. I am awaiting the Hugo Voters’ Packet in hopes it will contain some, because I am seeing BTS three times next month and have therefore put myself on financial probation: no new books aside from DC Carl 8 (pre-ordered) and the Tchaikovsky novel if it’s not included (I already have Nnedi’s). There was a Martha Wells story in the category where I snubbed most of the entries and I didn’t want to pay for it, but I’ll read it and maybe even vote for it if it’s free. I like Wells and her Murderbot character a lot. 

Meanwhile, here are the YA entries with brief synopsisesses that I found on Amazon and Goodreads and Reddit and places.  

Among Ghosts by Rachel Hartman (Random House Books for Young Readers)
Fantasy; a transkid avoids dragons, etc. 

Coffeeshop in an Alternate Universe by C.B. Lee (Feiwel & Friends)
Sapphic portal romance. 

Holy Terrors by Margaret Owen (Henry Holt; Hodderscape UK)
Book 3 in a series about a thief with theme of whether people can change. 

Oathbound by Tracy Deonn (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Also book 3 and one reviewer mentioned “Southern Black Girl magic”.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press)
Latest in the Hunger Games series; I already own it but haven’t read it yet.

They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran (Bloomsbury US; Bloomsbury UK)
Body horror set in Vietnamese shrimper community with gender identity themes 

I'm willing to read any/all of them that show up in the voter's packet. Typically I prefer books about teenagers murdering each other (Hunger Games, Outsiders, et al.) than doing their awkward teenage romances but Romeo and Juliet is a touch act to imitate. 

And if anybody came out of that values-oriented rant with questions about my values, very well. Trains, healthcare, renewables, science, rule of law: for. Plutocrats, denialists, people who go around trying to limit others' rights based on innate characteristics: against. Baseball, gardening, gender issues, Warhammer miniatures, Norwegian metal bands: zero interest, but also totally uninterested in burning calories disparaging/resisting/cancelling any of that. I'm not really interested in a bunch of wild rabbits somewhere in the British countryside either but that didn't prevent me from enjoying Watership Down.