My life in books

Last year, on International Women's Day, Tor.com published a series of short stories on a theme drawn from the silencing of American Senator Elizabeth Warren during the confirmation hearings for Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. Commenting on the silencing, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said:

"She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted."

The phrase has quickly become a feminist slogan, a cry of resistance against the worst injustices of the new American administration.

I read most of these last year, but wanted to bundle all the comments on them together in one post, so here, very late indeed, is that post. Links to all the stories can be found here: https://www.tor.com/series/nevertheless-she-persisted/


Kameron Hurley, "Our Faces, Radiant Sisters, Our Faces Full of Light"

The title is, of course, a direct reference to a short story by James Tiptree Jr (Alice Sheldon) writing as Racoona Sheldon - a woman who certainly persisted, writing about a woman driven mad by warnings and explanations, who resisted to the end. And the story is a grim, but somehow glorious fable of women’s persistence across the years, the centuries.


Alyssa Wong, “God Product”

This is not a happy story. It’s a story about a woman led to believe she is nothing, that she must destroy the thing she values in order to gain the respect she craves.


Carrie Vaughn, “Alchemy”

A paean to every woman who has ever labored, thankless, hindered, belittled, mocked, in a field designated as being “for men” and who has succeeded against all odds.


Seanan McGuire, “Persephone”

A bitter tale that touches powerfully on many painful things - poverty, desperation, the futility of hope in a capitalist dystopia, the delegitimising of non-standard relationships, the traffic in human flesh and blood, the dehumanising of the underclass by the powerful, and the anger that grows from all these and more.


Charlie Jane Anders, “Margot and Rosalind”

A slightly comic, slightly snarky, quite delightful story about a female “mad scientist” who’s building a brain in her basement, despite the efforts of everyone trying to stop her.


Maria Dahvana Headley, “Astronaut”

Reimagining the story of the first primate to survive a flight in space. It’s an all-too-familiar story with a sweetly triumohant ending.


Nisi Shawl, “More than Nothing”

Cora knows what’s expected of her, the sister if a pastor’s wife, a member of a black community, but Cora feels the call of other ways, and even more dangerously, she dares to hope.


Brooke Bolander, “The Last of the Minotaur Wives”

This story speaks of an inheritance of hope, generations of quiet resistance that build to the culmination, the moment when all is ready for the last in the chain to stand, to run, to leave the prison behind.


Jo Walton, “The Jump Rope Rhyme”

Important lessons are often encoded in children’s games and rhymes. Walton, an accomplished poet as well as writer of fiction, has built a skipping rhyme for future generations on the theme of persistence. A poem of hope.

“Persisting, in bad times, with only hope,
For you, in space, for the dream we share
Of a better future everywhere.”


Amal El Mohtar, “Anabasis”

Fir those who do not recognise the reference, Anabasis, which means, in the Greek, journey/expedition up from below, is the title of a book written by Xenophon describing the experiences of an army of Greek mercenaries fighting for the Persian would-be emperor Cyrus the Younger. After Cyrus was killed in battle, the Greeks faced a long and dangerous journey home, and it is this journey out of civil war that occupies most of the account.

El Mohtar writes in this powerful short story about a woman struggling to bring her child to safety, to a new home, and about her own identity as an Arab, a Muslim, a Canadian immigrant, a writer, a voice crying for justice. It’s a story about being a refugee, about borders and documents and human lives. It calls up the specific memories of Muslims trying to cross out of a suddenly far less welcoming US and into Canada during the winter of 2017 and Donald Trump.

Ironically, several months after this story was published, El Mohtar, a Canadian citizen traveling on a Canadian passport, was detained by American Customs agents while on her way to a writers’ retreat in the US. As a result of the interrogation, she missed her flight and was traumatised. (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-author-calls-out-canadian-government-border-questioning-1.4430916)


Catherynne M. Valente, “The Ordinary Woman and the Unquiet Emperor”

In a world where everything that is not required is forbidden, an ordinary woman has the chance to change everything. She is warned. She is given an explanation. She persisted, and the world changed.

"Trollbooth," Maureen Tanafon, April 2015, Crossed Genres
http://crossedgenres.com/magazine/028-trollbooth/

While the men around her bluster around violently in an attempt to save two children lost to supernatural captors, a courageous young woman takes another path to win their freedom.


"And the Balance in Blood," Elizabeth Bear, November 2015, Uncanny Magazine
http://uncannymagazine.com/article/and-the-balance-in-blood/

Bear's fantasy novelette is a marvellous story about an unusual hero, a grey-haired cloistered religieuse named Sister Scholique who has the gift of the gods' grace; her prayers are often answered by the gods, from small things like a prayer to allow her to overhear a conversation just beyond the range of her hearing, to prayers for the souls of the dead. In fact, it is this latter purpose that takes up most of her time, praying over wax recordings of prayers for the dead as she turns these cylinders in her chantry. When a dream gives her an idea of how to build an automated chantry that will give her more free time, she sets her church on a path that leads to potential abuses. A beautifully written tale that asks questions about the influence of the wealthy in accessing practices meant to be available to all.


"The House of Surrender," Laurie Penny, January 11, 2016, Der Freitag
https://www.freitag.de/autoren/der-freitag/the-house-of-surrender

In the future, people have learned to live mostly in harmony. Captialism, the belief in hierarchies and the idea that one person can with impunity interfere with the autonomy of another are all distant memories of the past. But sometimes people, being people, offend against others, and if there is no way for them to live among others, they come to the island of the House of Surrender. And there they stay. Until one day a man arrives at the House who claims to be from the past.


"Two to Leave," Yoon Ha Lee, May 28 2015, Beneath Ceaseless Skies
http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/two-to-leave/

Yoon Ha Lee writes in a style all his own, lyrical, elegant, packed with images and delicate allusions. His writing seems to speak to the heart and the unconscious - when I read one of his stories, I often feel that I've just encountered something deeply profound, yet something I cannot quite capture in words, something that partakes of the nature of our dreams. So it is with this story, and deservedly so, for this is a story of a ferryman, and a river that cannot be crossed without sacrifice, a mercenary who kills with a swarm of bees, a messenger raven, and of eyes, and vision, taken and given. Of life and death and the states inbetween and the ways to reach them.


"Vulcanization," Nisi Shawl, January 2016, Nightmare Magazine
http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/vulcanization/

King Leopold of Belgium seeks to rid himself of the ghosts of the Congo. A steampunk meditation on atrocity, remembrance and guilt. Powerful.


"Our Lady of the Open Road," Sarah Pinsker, June 2015, Asimov's Magazine
http://www.sarahpinsker.com/our_lady_of_the_open_road/

In the future, people's fears of mingling with those they don't know, combined with increasingly sophisticated technology that makes possible holographic displays of concerts and sports events in the safety and security of one's home, have almost destroyed the idea of live performance and the travelling band. But a few artists remain on the road, committed to the belief that performance art involves the immediate relationship between performer and audience, no matter how high the cards are stacked against them.


"The Killing Jar," Laurie Penny, January 2016, Motherboard
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-killing-jar

In the not too distant future, the simulated murders of television and film are no longer sufficient to satisfy the public craving for blood and circuses. Society has recognised and legitimated a new kind of performance, the serial killer - who is free to kill as long as he follows the rules.

Writing the Other: A Practical Approach, Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward

Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward are professional writers of speculative fiction who jointly developed and teach the workshop "Writing the other: bridging cultural differences for successful fiction." This book contains material adapted from their workshop, as well as two essays written by Shawl, “Beautiful Strangers: Transracial Writing for the Sincere,” and “Appropriate Cultural Appropriation.”

This volume is designed to be used by authors concerned about honestly, effectively and respectfully writing about people, settings and cultures that diverge from the dominant paradigm -the unmarked state. I can’t venture an opinion on how well it does this, because I am not myself a writer. But I have found it to be, whether by design or not, an excellent book for the reader who is interested in seeing more clearly how successfully the books she reads are at writing the other.

The authors give many examples of successful and unsuccessful attempts at writing culturally diverse works. While there is a strong focus on race, they also consider sex and sexual orientation, culture and religion. Oddly enough, they seem to consider social class not a major category of "Other," at least in North American writing. I would tend to disagree, but I imagine that in a workshop, one must choose topics carefully, as there is not time enough to cover everything one might want to.

I was personally most engaged by the section on cultural appropriation, because it's something that I worry about a lot in my own life. I have a very strong sense of attraction, indeed resonance, to aspects of the art, culture, philosophy and religion of a number of other peoples, and it is often an inner struggle for me to try to work out whether I'm being a cultural poacher or a respectful learner. I'm still not sure I know the answer, but this essay gave me more ways in which to think about what it is that I do.