SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I thought we had a thread on this sort of topic (problematic authors?). I'm reading some Zane Grey books (the Delphi Collected Works of) and am really bothered by the references to Mexicans as Gr.....s and Chinese as Ch...s.

And some of the old SF/Fantasy like Robert A. Heinlein where they use derogatory names for their opponents (Chigs)

and not to forget the always "small hands" of the heroines in the John Carter books

We have your fave is problematic but that one’s more about the authors outside of their work:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I don’t remember if we have a dedicated thread for outdated language/attitudes, but it’s certainly something that’s been discussed.

Ralph Peters writes military fiction with a sci-fi touch mixed with a liberal dose of racism. As an ex-American Army officer, he does write competently in terms of military knowledge, but his fictional future war stories clearly show his racist way of thinking and are replete with ethnic slurs and descriptions of Middle Eastern and African opponents as inferior barbarians. Reading The War in 2020, among others, will clearly establish that in your mind.

I love it when American ex-military write, essentially, fairy tales for themselves. I wish to remind them that they never won a war fought against those "inferior" opponents. (The same holds for, say, French Légion étrangère, but I don't speak French, so I don't know how prevalent that kind of fiction is there.)

OTOH, old reactionary Tom Clancy writes about most antagonists with respect, attempts to depict their motivation etc, and "good guys" are rarely all that good.

James Bond and the Ludlum books do the same for the UK

I finished reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler the other day and it had some homophobic slurs sprinkled about it. Not pervasively, but whenever Marlowe was talking about these two characters.

Bnz wrote: "I love it when American ex-military write, essentially, fairy tales for themselves. I wish to remind them that they never won a war fought against those "inferior" opponents. (The same holds for, s..."

On a bit of a tangent, I had to scrape my jaw off the floor shortly after I got married when I found out that Americans are taught that they won the war of 1812! I grew up being taught that they LOST it and Canada re-gained the land the Americans had stolen north of the 49th parallel.

If you can handle Canadian humour (there are a few small jabs at Canadians but not sure how clear that will be) BUT it's not an official video, the video was done by a high school student: here's a song about the War of 1812: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVC67...

A different group laughing at Canadians--the group is called The Arrogant Wormsbut not about that war: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G84i... (watch since now and then little things come up over that flag)

Karin wrote: "I found out that Americans are taught that they won the war of 1812! I grew up being taught that they LOST it and Canada re-gained the land the Americans had stolen north of the 49th parallel."

Americans consider that they won it because they drove the British out of the US after they had burned Washington, defeated an attack on New Orleans and ended the impressing of American citizens to serve on British military ships. Plus the British support of Native American attacks on frontier settlements ended and the blockading of the US by the British navy ended.

Essentially no one won that war as the signed treaty after the war returned things to the same status as before the war.

Basically Canada won against the US and the US won against England

"The new American republic could claim victory in that its independence from London was assured, and the Indian nation opposition to westward expansion was removed. The memory of the conflict played a major role in helping to consolidate a Canadian national identity after 1867. The British retained Canada, but their attention was overwhelmingly devoted to celebrating the defeat of Napoleon. The consensus is that the tribes were the big losers"

CBRetriever wrote: "Karin wrote: "I found out that Americans are taught that they won the war of 1812! I grew up being taught that they LOST it and Canada re-gained the land the Americans had stolen north of the 49th ..."

Yes, exactly--this I realized this almost immediately after an American told me why they think they won, but I kept it short :) I was just remembering how shocked I was and noting how history was taught so differently in each country. This was back in the mid-1990s that I first heard that, so I don't know if it's taught differently now :)

But this is the war where the now Anthem words were penned to a British melody as I recall.

Karin wrote: "But this is the war where the now Anthem words were penned to a British melody as I recall.."

so true, and we're now doomed to hear all sorts of mediocre versions of that sung by people who can't hit all the notes (the screeching on the high notes kills me)

CBRetriever wrote: "Karin wrote: "But this is the war where the now Anthem words were penned to a British melody as I recall.."

so true, and we're now doomed to hear all sorts of mediocre versions of that sung by peo..."

Yes, and I speak as a Canadian first and a naturalized, dual citizen second, but I think the anthem should be the one that is to a melody written by an American, America the Beautiful.

me too

"The Star-Spangled Banner" is Francis Scott Key's knock-off of "To Anacreon* in Heaven," composed and written for the Anacreontic Society, a London club for amateur musicians. The original lyrics, including some variants from early printings, can be found in the Wikipedia article under that title. Appreciating the full version required a modicum of classical education, and Wikipedia explains at least most of the names and allusions.

There are a number of performances on YouTube: I think that the clearest is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eg7z...

Some of the difficulty in singing it seems to have arisen from stirring instrumental arrangements which neglected to take into account that it was meant for voice. Some nineteenth-century band arrangements are reportedly much more singable for ordinary vocalists.

The post-Revolutionary United States was still culturally in the British orbit, including popular music, and "To Anacreon" seems to have caught on quickly; at least, the music was used in 1800 for the first American presidential campaign song, "Adams and Liberty." Adams and the Federalists lost to Thomas Jefferson, but Key, reportedly a a Federalist, probably knew the music from that context as well as with its original lyrics.

"The Star-Spangled Banner" was given a boost by the Confederate use of it to celebrate the surrender of Fort Sumter, a public relations gaffe of major proportions. This ensured its popularity on the Union side.

*To save anyone from looking it up, Anacreon was a Greek poet known to celebrate love and wine in song (which made him an appropriate topic for a drinking song): there are a few poems and fragments now considered genuine, but in the eighteenth century he was still regarded as the author of a much larger body of imitative verse. He is a character in Mary Renault's "The Praise Singer," as seen by Simonides, a younger contemporary.

Ian wrote: ""The Star-Spangled Banner" is Francis Scott Key's knock-off of "To Anacreon* in Heaven," composed and written for the Anacreontic Society, a London club for amateur musicians. The original lyrics, ..."

The Star Spangled Banner is difficult regardless of accompaniment due to the large range and a few other things. However, much of it now is because we aren't being taught how to sing in schools, etc. It's a myth that you can just learn to sing by singing as you grow up. Only naturals (and there are very few of those) can do that really well and handle songs like this. That said, many professional singers cheat on certain things by adding notes as well, but by and large it's usually butchered.

Also, since recorded music has come along music has been more more of a passive experience for children.

I will stop here since I have read and learned far more about kids learning music than most people care about.

Michel wrote: "Ralph Peters writes military fiction with a sci-fi touch mixed with a liberal dose of racism. As an ex-American Army officer, he does write competently in terms of military knowledge..."

This is a standard issue with the Military as a whole. There will always be those who find it easier to kill the enemy by dehumanizing them first. This is not to say that everyone in the Military takes this approach, but it is not unheard of.

Karin wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: "Karin wrote: "I found out that Americans are taught that they won the war of 1812! I grew up being taught that they LOST it and Canada re-gained the land the Americans had stole..."

We also take out the whole second section, which is anti-British. Would be somewhat undiplomatic nowadays. There are a number of books on the...idiosyncrasies of the way the US teaches history up to the High School Level.

Dj wrote: "Karin wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: "Karin wrote: "I found out that Americans are taught that they won the war of 1812! I grew up being taught that they LOST it and Canada re-gained the land the Ameri..."

I am familiar with those idiosyncrasies in teaching US history, but the pendulum has swung the other way now, so kids in elementary school now are getting a different slant. However, history is always told with a bias, so I tried to get my kids to read more than one slant and to question everything, which doesn't mean they all did, but a parent can only do so much (when I was still homeschooling them.)

The 100 Year's War seems to be one of the most biased depending on which country it's taught in. Actually all of British History seems pretty biased towards England.

CBRetriever wrote: "The 100 Year's War seems to be one of the most biased depending on which country it's taught in. Actually all of British History seems pretty biased towards England."

Yes, in fact history in general tends to be slanted toward the country it's being taught in or which side of a war people were on. People are subjective and have biases, which is normal, so it can be tricky to wade through things.

Karin wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: "The 100 Year's War seems to be one of the most biased depending on which country it's taught in. Actually all of British History seems pretty biased towards England."

Yes, in f..."

This tends to be even worse in countries with a history of authoritarian streak, like China, Russia and North Korea, while other countries that are democratic but also ethnocentric, like Japan, embellish or cover up historical facts to look better. As an example, Japanese history books will tell about the actions of the Japanese Army during WW2 in a way a U.S. veteran may find highly questionable.

John R. Elting's Amateurs, to Arms!: A Military History of the War of 1812 summarizes the historiography of the war at the beginning of his "Essay on Sources:"

"Among the North American continent's many wars, the War of 1812 has remained something of an unwanted orphan stepson. To British historians it has been the sad tale of a minor nuisance that steadily festered into an intolerable string of missed opportunities, useless victories, and unexpected defeats - something best somehow ended and then forgotten. Some Americans have seen it as a war of barefaced aggression, incompetently directed, and too often stained by cowardice, stupidity, and treason -- something of a national disgrace, redeemed only by half-mythical deeds of valor. Only the Canadians, who saw it as a successful war to maintain their independence, could write of it with pride."

He later notes that one Canadian historian went so far as to report a British and Canadian victory on the "second day" of the Battle of Lundy's Lane on July 25, 1814, which all contemporaries thought was inconclusive, and was followed by equally inconclusive skirmishing between two badly mauled armies on the 26th. It did stop an American advance into Canada, but the later British attempt to follow up with an attack on the US side was fairly easily repulsed.

It sometimes figures in American military history as a moral victory, in that Winfield Scott's newly-trained American regulars faced off against veterans of Wellington's peninsular campaigns, who thought it was fiercer than anything that they had experienced fighting the French. Elting considers all the general officers involved, except for Scott, to have been either flatly incompetent or distracted by wounds or illness.

Territory captured by both sides was returned under the eventual peace treaty. This turned out to be more complicated that originally supposed. To the surprise of the British government, the Royal Navy had already captured Astoria, the fur-trading settlement at the mouth of the Columbia river, which could be understood to show that they recognized it, and the surround Oregon region, as US territory to begin with.

(A Royal Navy captain was expecting to seize the furs stored there, counting on the prize money when they were sold. However, they already had been sold to British rivals when it was realized that fort was not really defensible against a serious attack. Claiming the territory was a poor-second best to justify the action.)

For an analysis of how the war came about, Bradford Perkins' Prologue to War: England and the United States, 1805-1812 may still be the standard account.

Karin wrote: "Yes, in fact history in general tends to be slanted toward the country it's being taught in or which side of a war people were on."

And this has been going on for a long time. I remember my son, who is a history buff, telling me about the battle of Kadesh between the Egyptians and the Hittites. According to him it was more or less a draw, but each side went home claiming it as a great victory (and leaving inscriptions to that effect).

This battle took place in 1274 BCE.

Margaret wrote: "Karin wrote: "Yes, in fact history in general tends to be slanted toward the country it's being taught in or which side of a war people were on."

And this has been going on for a long time. I reme..."

Yes! And not just this battle :).


Michel wrote: "Karin wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: "The 100 Year's War seems to be one of the most biased depending on which country it's taught in. Actually all of British History seems pretty biased towards Englan..."

Yes, Japanese historians tend to tone down the strong fascist elements and their very long history of ethnocentrism and racism (as you probably know, they closed their borders for over 200 years, and also Japanese Buddhists committed genocide against Japanese Christians--not just Christians, but all of their family members as well. There were more than just those Catholic martyrs listed online since there were over 300,000 of them before this attack started.)

In one of my son's concerts in college they played a contemporary Japanese piece that used some of the later hidden Christian songs as the starting point, and the composer included this information in his notes.

Plus they ignore a lot of the brutality mentioned time and time again in memoirs, autobiographies and biographies.

Even today in Japan one's racial identity (and their definition of race is much different than ours) is listed on your identity card even if it's back some generations and mixed and there is discrimination, particularly against people with Korean descent, but others as well.

Apparently things are changing, but I have met quite a number of people who were born in Japan and were half white, Indian, etc who left as adults because of all of the racism, etc, they'd grown up with in the 20th century.

The Flashman books absolutely take the cake when it comes to attitudes of which we no longer approve, but they are also works of genius from an historical fiction perspective and open a window on the past which in my view ought not be closed (if only for cautionary purposes).

As I said in my review, they would never be published these days...

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Adrian wrote: "The Flashman books absolutely take the cake when it comes to attitudes of which we no longer approve, but they are also works of genius from an historical fiction perspective and open a window on t..."

That's kinda what I was saying about Zane Grey's books and what led me to start this thread

For sanity's sake, I'd like to steer this to "cringeworthy" moments from books we're presently reading rather than things we remember from school, which is always a bit on the propaganda side of things. Share cool stuff you've un-learned, or "oof" moments from SFF here! Otherwise, please take pity on my fragile ability to keep up with things that support a status quo hellbent on hurting people, please and thanks!

Allison wrote: "For sanity's sake, I'd like to steer this to "cringeworthy" moments from books we're presently reading rather than things we remember from school, which is always a bit on the propaganda side of th..."

I'm good with that as I am currently reading the Zane Grey books

Allison wrote: "For sanity's sake, I'd like to steer this to "cringeworthy" moments from books we're presently reading rather than things we remember from school, which is always a bit on the propaganda side of th..."

Thanks, since I was thinking of that as well :)

Karin wrote: "Dj wrote: "Karin wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: "Karin wrote: "I found out that Americans are taught that they won the war of 1812! I grew up being taught that they LOST it and Canada re-gained the lan..."

True history is always told with bias. Some places are worse than others. Countries as well as states.

Two things I have read in the past relate to the history bias fact. The first is that in the United States, History is the only course where when you get to college you have to start over from the ground up.

The second is, that there are as many different Alexander the Greats as there are history books written about Alexander the Great.

CBRetriever wrote: "The 100 Year's War seems to be one of the most biased depending on which country it's taught in. Actually all of British History seems pretty biased towards England."

National History for public consumption tends to be that way, although the military sometimes flips that slant, especially if they have lost a war. Mostly because then they are looking for things that went wrong.

Karin wrote: "Margaret wrote: "Karin wrote: "Yes, in fact history in general tends to be slanted toward the country it's being taught in or which side of a war people were on."

And this has been going on for a ..."

My cousin who is half Korean worked in Japan as a Manager for a foreign company. She said she loved it because she was everything the Japanese workers hated and she was in charge.

I told her not to let it go to her head.

Many of the older sci-fi works missed the boat in regards to how a future might look. Quite a few have completely male-dominated societies with Women either as decoration or in need of rescuing. In some, this can be overlooked for the most part but in some, I am looking at Ensign Flannery here, the female lead is mostly just a tool that is used by the Men that dominate her life and falls in love with the Hero of the story for no better reason than he helped her alleviate her boredom.

Dj wrote: "CBRetriever wrote: "The 100 Year's War seems to be one of the most biased depending on which country it's taught in. Actually all of British History seems pretty biased towards England. National History for public consumption tends to be that way, although the military sometimes flips that slant, especially if they have lost a war. Mostly because then they are looking for things that went wrong. ..."

That is quite true. One good example of a critical analysis of an American defeat is Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal , by James D. Hornfischer. It tells of the worst American naval defeat of WW2, the Battle of Savo Island, and is not afraid to put in evidence the incompetence of various American commanders and the deficient tactics and outdated practices of the American fleet in that battle. It also gave its dues to the Japanese fleet, which demonstrated its mastery of night naval combat.

Saying that older SF authors got society totally wrong only really makes sense if they were writing about our current time period. If they were writing about the far future then your assuming that society changed in the last 50 years, but will stay stagnant for the next 500 or so.

JasonReads wrote: "I finished reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler the other day and it had some homophobic slurs sprinkled about it. Not pervasively, but whenever Marlowe was talking a..."

I'm reading The Big Sleep now, and I was bothered a bit by this. But there was some interesting irony. At one point Marlowe is struggling with one of the gay characters (Carol), and as narrator he makes a dismissive comment about how Carol's punch couldn't be very strong (directly implying that a gay man must be physically weak, essentially). But the fight is not very one-sided, Marlowe had to step back in time for Carol's punch not to knock him over, and then they go back and forth before Carol is ultimately subdued.

Sorry for the wordiness, I just thought that was ironic and funny, and unintentionally anti-homophobic.

H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E Howard. I like reading much of their work, but the problems with racism are obvious.

Lovecraft seems to be worse in this regard. Should be no surprise that his best work, which I think is At the Mountains of Madness, doesn't showcase these aspects. Also: Would make a fantastic horror movie. Years ago Guillermo del Toro was slated to direct a film adaptation, but the project fell through. :( You could argue about Lovecraft's worst example since there are plenty to choose from, but for me it's probably The Horror at Red Hook.

My guess is Howard just wasn't as vitriolically racist as Howard based on his fiction. He sure did love marking people by races though, and talked a LOT about "pure blood." Consider the unsurprisingly titled The Lost Race, which is basically just a recounting of what happened to Howard's Picts (tldr; only their chieftans kept to "pure" blood by mating with other Picts, and the rest got fat and ugly). Not his strongest work even if you discount the "purity" aspect, since there is almost none of his characteristic adventure in that story.

AndrewP wrote: "Saying that older SF authors got society totally wrong only really makes sense if they were writing about our current time period. If they were writing about the far future then your assuming that ..."

An excellent point. I would posit that it is unlikely barring a cataclysmic event that the species would go back to the completely male-dominated point of view. Some shifts are hard to backtrack once they have been done.

Dev wrote: "JasonReads wrote: "I finished reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler the other day and it had some homophobic slurs sprinkled about it. Not pervasively, but whenever Ma..."

It could be that it wasn't quite as unintentional as it seems. Although it would be hard to say one way or the other at this remove. A great example though.

Can I talk about Harry Potter here? Is that appropriate? Lemme know if it's not and I'll quiet.

J. K. Rowling made (and continues to make) a bunch of transphobic comments on her Twitter account, so I did a research study to write a paper that's in review in a professional journal right now. In short, I asked all the HP fans how JKR's comments had affected them. It was ILLUMINATING. A lot of the fans pointed out thinks about the books that I hadn't noticed myself. I did realize that there is almost 0 racial diversity and that the Gringott's goblins were a Jewish reference, but respondents pointed out how Rita Skeeter was a transgender metaphor (looked manly, too-bright makeup and fake nails, turned into a beetle to spy on underage kids), Tonks was a reformed gender-fluid (most of her personality and boisterousness completely disappeared upon starting her relationship with Lupin; she previously hated anyone calling her Nymphadora, but allowed Lupin to feminize her and call her Dora), it just goes on and on and on. The end result is that Harry didn't "fix" things in the Wizarding World, he merely returned it to the status quo.

I think CBR meant to talk about older works. I would personally talk about JKR in the thread I linked to in msg #2.

yep, I was talking about older books from maybe the 70s and earlier. And not so much from their personal behavior/words/life, but in the books themselves. It's more of a you're reading along in a book, knowing nothing about the author, and all of a sudden you run across some verbiage that is totally offensive like the example I used of calling someone of Spanish descent in the OLD West a G***er. And all the Americans (white, of course) are doing that.

Zane Grey is getting a tad bit better as he wrote more as the one I just finished at least had noble savages and good Native Americans.

Dj wrote: "Many of the older sci-fi works missed the boat in regards to how a future might look. Quite a few have completely male-dominated societies with Women either as decoration or in need of rescuing. In..."

Omg yes. And these men still drink and smoke in closed meetings, too. I won't read Asimov's Foundation series because of stuff along these lines.

So, while i understand the sensitivity...

The genre we're reading asks us to believe in alien cultures and fantasy cultures that are often quite different from ours. Do we really expect such cultures to share our early 21st century mores?

If not, then is it really that hard to read about a different time in our own culture when things were less enlightened?

There's obviously lines to be drawn (blatant racism for example), but it seems, well, rather narrow-minded to reject attitudes that are old fashioned while being fine with aliens and fantasy.

my initial post had to do with blatant racism and I ran up against the N word in the current Zane Grey I'm reading. At least he seems to have fairly intelligent gutsy heroines

I will point out that most of these "old-fashioned" attitudes are unfortunately still very much present in our current reality, so it may be more interesting to imagine cultures that do not have the same prejudices and are flawed in other ways instead, especially for those of us who are/have been negatively impacted by these attitudes.

Also, there's a difference between a book that depicts a prejudiced culture and one that normalizes/endorses that prejudice or where the author clearly shares that prejudice.

Kaa wrote: "Also, there's a difference between a book that depicts a prejudiced culture and one that normalizes/endorses that prejudice or where the author clearly shares that prejudice."

But how do you know?

One of my favourite books is an anti-racism story (subtext - not pounding you constantly with its message) but there are some appalling people in it with appalling views. But no-one could come away from that story thinking it was anything other than an anti-racism book.

Sometimes authors just put the characters out there and let the readers decide how they feel.

all humans have viewpoints. we usually notice them in others when they differ enough from our own to make us uncomfortable. I certainly can tell when the author and I feel differently about social justice issues. Maybe the author grew as a person, but kindness and social responsibility are not just a change in vernacular, it's a mindset. Mindsets create a scope of the world. people read that in all the time.

Allison wrote: "all humans have viewpoints. we usually notice them in others when they differ enough from our own to make us uncomfortable. I certainly can tell when the author and I feel differently about social justice issues. Maybe the author grew as a person, but kindness and social responsibility are not just a change in vernacular, it's a mindset. Mindsets create a scope of the world. people read that in all the time."

But this is exactly my point. How do you know how the author truly feels?

Vonnegut for example was a master at including totally evil characters in his stories. Someone reading on a superficial level might think... oh, Vonnegut's included this really carefully drawn character who I really hate... therefore I hate Vonnegut.

But what Vonnegut was really doing was giving the reader the opportunity to perceive that character in the world of the story and come to their own conclusions.

You can't have an anti-racism novel without including some racists. And instead of pontificating about what dickheads such people are, the really good novelists let the story do the work and let the readers make up their own minds.

that's what I'm saying. those characters aren't the issue. to use an example from a favorite of mine, Once and Future King uses the n word twice-- once from the beak of a deranged bird with something like Tourettes, and once when a knight is saying how others call the Black Knight that because they are racists. from this I can see that his characters aren't super great, but that the author finds racism to be the purview of the deranged and bigoted, generally.

on the other hand, he shows the clergy and those seeking saintliness in a very unflattering light, suggesting he does not much respect the church. if he had a priest who was very honorable, or a saint who was very human, that would change my impression of TH White's views on religion.

As I've said on other threads, what I like about older sci-fi is that I think the storytelling tends to be a lot stronger than most stuff written from the 80s onwards.

Mind you, there are any number of clangers in the older stuff - from wrong science through to unreconstructed ignorance. For the most part I just shrug and put it down to the prevailing attitudes of the times. It doesn't affect the way I see things these days.