2/ I'm not saying this because "oh, Heinlein and Niven are all anyone needs". SF has been hugely diverse (in the way that matters, CONTENT, not just in some diversity hire checklist, although also that), and what we're getting now doesn't remotely reflect that.
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3/ ...and of course it doesn't, because the current authors aren't, for the most part, conversant with the field. A field of literature is, ideally, an ongoing conversation where the author/fans read new ideas, digest them, and respond to them, pushing the party forward
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4/ The classic story of Heinlein writing Starship Troopers, and Haldemann responding to it and rejecting it by writing The Forever War is the epitome of this, but it has happened thousands of other times - more often than not, really.
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5/ OP conjures up a strawman - "there are SFF gatekeepers". There are? The gates have fallen. Tor and the other publishers run the field now, and they've all but banned cis white hetero men, to make room on the shelves for PoC / female / immigrant / translated Chinese SF.
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6/ So, yes, there ARE gatekeepers - try to get a classic Nivenesque novel published! ...but as to OP's point: there are all these terrible racist smells-like-Confederate-spirit white men who are trying to keep private whatever people out: totally false.
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7/ Now, what OP MIGHT be referring to as "gatekeeping" is not control of the actual gates (i.e. the publishers), but people who have OPINIONS. Opinions like "SF had far more breadth and variety in 1960 or 1990 than today". Why not just say that?
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8/ The left, despite controlling the commanding heights of government, culture, media, and publishing, can't get over the self image it has had since the 1960s - the brave rebellious underdogs fighting against The Man. So of course a few scattered dissidents with no power >
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9/ ...have to be labelled "gatekeepers", that way the plucky young rebels who ... uh ... run every single publisher, control every fandom committee at every con, run the blogs for the big bookstores, etc can decry those mean mean "gatekeepers" who ... disagree with them.
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10/ e.g. here people who disagree that current SF is best SF are "bullies" How DARE some random individual blogger be mean to the poor old publishers / awards committees / cons / industry? BULLY ! Tor screams out in pain as it strikes you.https://twitter.com/jessnevins/status/1289951206672961536 …
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11/ And then, of course, the entire thread is peppered with mood-affiliation slanders. Again and again and again people who like the old variety and tumult of SF are tarred with a bizarre association with the Confederacyhttps://twitter.com/jessnevins/status/1289954911023636486 …
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12/ This is objectively false.https://twitter.com/jessnevins/status/1289959633432358912 …
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13/ This is objectively a red herring. No one, to a good approximation, is arguing that "the history of SF is the history of white male writers". We had Alice Bradley Sheldon, Octavia Butler, H M Hoover, Madeleine L'Engle, H M Hoover, Anne McCaffrey, Thttps://twitter.com/jessnevins/status/1289960398142222337 …
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14/ So OP is making up a God-damned lie out of whole cloth, putting it in the mouths of people who never said it, and then - bravely, so bravely! - disagreeing with a thing that no one said.
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15/ Also, OP is pulling the classic maneuver - not addressing the actual point that someone is making (e.g. "I dislike Obama's expansion of executive power, that whole 'pen and phone' thing"), replacing it with a fake point ("they hate blacks") and using that to dodge the point
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16/ Since OP never cites any specific quote in his thread (always a good technique when you're witch hunting - "the witches are out there, trust me - don't listen to their side of the story!") we can't be sure exactly what he's REALLY complaining about. ...but I have a hunch.
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17/ and it's what I was alluding to earlier: people (like me) who complain that the current SF market is narrow, full of bad writers, and ignorant of the history of the genre. Wow, feminist SF! ...but we've had that for 50 years. SF that grapples w trans issues! Had that too
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18/ SF that considers things from the perspectives of racial minorities! Yep, had that. SF that considers overbearing capitalism. Yep, yep, yep.
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19/ Ignorance of the history of the art form doesn't enable the "new voices" to throw off the old constraints - it just makes them boring, monomaniacal, and redundant. We explored this stuff for the first time 60+ years ago. It's time to JOIN that conversation, not restart it
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20/ I suppose me telling youngsters, women, BIPOC and all the rest "read your God-damned history and learn what the field is all about" is man splaining? Well, if you want something 'splained, get a man who's conversant w the topic to do it. You're welcome.
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21/ Same nonsense going on in this thread (h/t
@drethelin ) https://twitter.com/aliettedb/status/1289656583220129792 … Science fiction publishing and fandom was welcoming to women, hispanics, blacks, Asians, gays, drug users, and all sorts of other outsiders HALF A CENTURY AGO. This is invented nonsense.Show this thread -
22/ OP, and her entire generation, are invested in this narrative that they've FINALLY overthrown the exclusionary old boys network that tried so hard to keep them out. ...but it's lies and nonsense. It never happened They cherry pick a few facts, like many authors were white
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23/ ...because OF COURSE THEY WERE, in a country that was mostly white. And most authors were male, because OF COURSE THEY WERE, in a genre descended from two-fisted-pulps and popular science magazines. And they take these facts and then assume "obviously there was exclusion".
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24/ Notice the jujitsu here: if you respect old authors for writing great stuff (Lovecraft) or old editors for building enthusiasm (Campbell) then you are RACIST and are driving people away. Your appreciation of the greats is an ACT OF VIOLENCE.https://twitter.com/aliettedb/status/1289655684263444482 …
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25/ More of the jujitsu here: she's turned this into an either / or, fallacy of the excluded middle. She declares, with zero evidence, that appreciating the dead means that you hate the living / current wave of SF authors and fans.https://twitter.com/aliettedb/status/1289656583220129792 …
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26/ In fact, these are orthogonal. You can like or dislike the past masters, and you can like or dislike the current generation. (In fact, I like the past masters and dislike the current authors, but the connection is not causal; it's two distinct opinions)
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27/ What part of it is false? My assertion that the current gatekeepers of SF are the major publishers of SF, and that they're left of center? Why do you think that that's false? https://twitter.com/shaunduke/status/1290410267394871296 …
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28/ I didn't IGNORE it. I QUOTED it. And then I asked you for clarification, with my two hunches as to what you were talking about. That question still stands. I am honestly curious what part of my tweet (#5, above, in this thread) you think is false https://twitter.com/shaunduke/status/1290411299625676800 …
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29/ Shecky likewise finds tweet #5 in this sequence false, or funny, or something.
@SheckyX , would you care to explain what part of tweet #5 you disagree with? https://twitter.com/SheckyX/status/1290411241043886081 …This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread -
30/ Also, kind of curious what
@shaunduke means by "that level of dishonesty". I quoted his tweet, which quoted mine. All the material is here, for anyone who wants to read it. Anyway, invite still open@shaunduke - what part of #5 do you disagree w? https://twitter.com/shaunduke/status/1290411299625676800 …This Tweet is unavailable.Show this thread -
31/ I agree it's not rocket science. So ... what part of tweet #5 in this sequence do you think is false? That Tor, etc are left of center? Or something else? There were multiple claims in my tweet. https://twitter.com/shaunduke/status/1290412416141066245 …
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