From: JanetI found a copy of Slow River at the Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto, an independent gay bookstore
Actually Evecho recommended your books to me
Reading Slow River was like digesting with my mind the most delectable and filling meal possible.
I work as a professional environmentalist and Sci Fi is my first love. So bringing the prospect of environmental disaster together with Sci Fi was just my cup of tea. And even weirder, I’m one of the few people I know who have actually worked on sewer use and sewer treatment regulations. So while others may find the sludge and grime descriptions you so artfully articulated gruesome I was revelling in them. I read Slow River several months ago and the images often come back to me.
Janet, I’m going to use your Q as a launchpad for a little rant. Please be assured I do not (not not not) think you’re cheesy or undiscriminating or condescending. Read on to find out what I mean.
When I first found the SF community (after publication of my first story), I discovered that the community used the term ‘scifi’ derisively to refer to really cheesy low-budget visual SF produced for the indiscriminate unwashed. For several years, therefore, I bridled, bristled, got belligerent when anyone called my books scifi. Now I wonder what the hell my problem was.
Except, of course, I know what my problem was: respect. My assumption was that those who knew SF well enough to really appreciate it also knew what the in-crowd called it. Those who didn’t, didn’t. Sort of like judging a white person on whether they’re using the term ‘black’ ‘African American’ (in the UK ‘Afro-Caribbean’) or ‘person of colour’, or a straight person saying ‘gay lady’ ‘homosexual’ or lesbian’. If they use the wrong (take that word with a pinch of salt) term you just know they haven’t spent much time thinking about the issue–certainly not the politics behind the issue.
So when a reviewer says she doesn’t ‘read that scifi stuff’ I assume she thinks it’s all bug-eyed monsters and rockets. She thinks it’s crap. She’s prejudiced.
And she is. She’s a book professional, a reviewer, and there’s no excuse for her ignorance. But for those who are consumers (not producers or students or critics) of a genre, the case is different. Why should you inform yourself of specialised genre terminology? SF is something you love, a recreational activity, not something on which your livelihood or reputation or core identity depends.
So I try very hard not to make those assumptions anymore. Plus, the situation is changing–the way situations do.
I was horror stricken in the ’90s when the Sci-Fi Channel was named. Ohmigod, my Assinine Assumptive Self thought, they’re aligning themselves with the unwashed cheesy people! And then, huh, they bought Kelley’s story, “Alien Jane,” to turn into an ep of Welcome to Paradox (sucky title, but not a bad show). So then I had to reevaluate.
Nowadays lots o’ people who love SF call it sci-fi. The cognoscenti even have an affectionate term for the cheesy stuff: skiffy. It’s all good. The reason it’s all good is that now us skiffy producers have more respect. We no longer feel like the 90-lb weaking getting sand kicked in our faces (not that I ever did because, y’know, I tend to kick back, and I left 90 lbs behind when I was twelve–I was a jock: tennis, gymnastics, netball, track and field, martial arts, the whole thing–but lots o’ skiffy people were not). Now we laugh at ignorance and say, have you seen the box office figures? Life is good.
So, it’s easy to hurtle up the ladder of assumption based on word-choice. (I still firmly believe that people who use the word ‘bitch’ to describe women haven’t devoted nearly enough time to thinking about the basic issues of feminism.) But the assumptions that lie behind the assumptions… Ooof. They’re endless, and sometimes foolish.
Where am I going with this? Uh, not sure. Just wanted to share. (Been drinking lots o’ nice wine–Italian, several varieties–with the neighbours tonight. Don’t feel inclined, or even capable, of focusing…) Thanks for giving me the opportunity.
BTW, I’m really glad you like Slow River. Thank you. I had a great phone conversation last week with an Oregon book group–most of whom ‘didn’t like that scifi stuff’ until they read it–who loved it. So I just reread it myself. I thought it was pretty nifty.
Walks off (totters off to bed) with a smug glow…
OMG, I have always hated when the SF/F community get a bug up their collective asses about the word sci-fi. Usually I find it is the sub-sect of this community that refer to themselves as “fen ” (ie, a fabricated plural of fan).>>I think you’ve known me long enough to know that I what would be considered a professional in the sci-fi world, as well as having a genuine respect and passion for the genre. But I use the terms “sci-fi”, “skiffy”, “spec fic” and SF/F interchangeably.>>Arguably you could use the word “fantasy” to encompass all of genre writing, as sci-fi really is a sub-sect of fantasy (by which I mean writing that encompasses the fantastic and not necessarily writing that embraces dwarves and elves and wizards).>>The whole thing is ridiculous, really. So I’m very glad you got over your aversion to the term. >>:-)
Yep, it’s good to get over one’s ridiculousness :)>>Me + high pucker factor is not a natural combination (shudder).
I’m one of the confused people. *sigh* So sorry… These days, whenever I see SF I think “Speculative Fiction” and want to use Sci-Fi for “Science Fiction”. It’s probably Canadian academia crawling its way up my brain. I don’t know why people don’t want “Science Fiction” attached to their titles over here (and in other places). I want it! Pick me! Please, stamp Sci-Fi all over the first worthy thing I ever publish. But no, Margaret Atwood <>et al<> write Speculative and Literary. Fine. Be that way.>>Really, these days (and as far back as I can remember), I don’t care what the hell it’s called. As long as it’s good and engaging and NOT slow or heavily invested in the “clever” play of words that seems to characterize “literary” snotty crap (sorry, art)… I’ll take a dozen: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Crime, Mystery, YA, Teenage Vampire Romance and Rampage, all flavors of picture books and graphic novels… Bury me in them. And give me a flashlight so I can read while I dig my way out of the depths of the pile.
karina, it’s the combination of ‘scifi’ and ‘I don’t read it’ that gets my goat. When people say, <>OMG I *love* scifi!<> how can I be grumpy? (Well, a few years ago I could, but I’ve spent some time getting over myself.) A good book is a good book. Who cares what it’s called?
I’m glad your goat is hard to get these days. Because, <>OMG I totally love your work!<>>>I still wish I wasn’t so confused sometimes. But it seems it makes people want to hug me more often, so I guess it’s not all bad. >>Oh, and the “Be that way,” was directed at Peggy Atwood. Though she is an interesting character with an interesting sense of humor. She may just be trying (successfully) to confuse the confusable. A guy in my fiction class wrote a piece titled “How Peg Atwood Took Over the World.” It was hilarious. It made me like her public persona a little better.
Hah. I’m one of the “speculative fiction” crowd, only because I get tired of having to explain to people how my work can be science fiction if there’s hardly any damn science in it… So I just smile and make soothing noises and mutter about “speculative” fiction until they wander off in search of a latte or something.
karina, miz Atwood has been very smart. She’s an SF geek–grew up reading it, writes it–who says with a straight face, ‘I don’t write SF.’ (Tho’ she probably says ‘scifi’.) Her career is more robust i.e. exists because of it.>>kelley, my queen, you can call your stuff whatever you like. It’s lovely.
*trying not to laugh out loud because Esmeralda is still sleeping*>>You two make me smile so often my face will freeze into perpetual happiness one of these days.>>Also, you two can call your work whatever you want and I’ll read it. Call it latte-mustache fiction and I’ll keep cheering helplessly for it. I’ll even get them pompoms and short-short skirts and re-learn the gymnastics involved in serious cheerleading.
karina, you were a cheerleader? Cool!
*blush* Yeah. My sister and I were in the provincial synchronized swimming team when we were in junior high. The coach decided that we all needed to learn more <>charisma<> (which the gymnastics classes weren’t teaching us). So we were required to join the professional cheerleaders for < HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CF_Atlas" REL="nofollow">these guys<>. I spent many weekends with those pompoms. And thousands and thousands of Mexicans beheld the odd sight of me wearing short-short girlie skirts (I don’t mind trashy skirts, I’ll wear them in the summer).
I was also a go-go dancer at raves the year I was homeless. I found it to be tons more fun than cheerleading, (even now, I get the sporadic urge to sign up for a pole-dancing class). And dancing on the platform guaranteed that–when my shift was over–I’d be invited to an after-party with snacks and a couch to crash by early morning, and a shower and breakfast if I was lucky.
A cheerleader and a go-go dancer? Wow, never guessed that about you. Any video on those performances?>>The year you were homeless? Sounds like quite a story there too….
I know. If I were to drop dead today, I can say without hesitation that I’ve had a full life.
Are there videos? Yes, of the cheerleading. My mom recorded everything, both in her video camera and from the TV screenings of the games. But I (not so secretly now) hope a huge magnet flies over her house one day and erases all the evidence. I think she also taped me playing piano and messing up big time on live TV when I was in elementary school. She probably has photos of the go-go dancing, too, since she’d hired someone to follow us around and report on our meanderings.
Does anyone have a huge magnet and a helicopter I can borrow?
karina, those sound more like surveillance tapes than video of happy memories. I wonder if we have any special forces people on this list willing to make a side trip on their next mission…
Oh, the go-go dancing pics are definitely surveillance records. But I think the rest do feel like happy memories to my mom, though not to me (I was just going through the motions then).>>When I was reading your memoir and looked at the awesome drawings you made as a kid, I began–for the first time ever–to look forward to going through my mom’s many closets of boxed childhood evidence.>>I still want that magnet, though. Special forces people, I promise you spicy Mexican food and beer and real tequila and warm winters for your cooperation. We can try to leave a few tapes intact because, well, they make my mom happy.
I can only imagine the things contained in those boxes. She’s been scanning some of her photo albums and emailed me < HREF="http://www.flickr.com/photos/simulakra/74686390/" REL="nofollow">this<> and < HREF="http://www.flickr.com/photos/simulakra/74686391/" REL="nofollow">this<>. I’ll let you know when her scanner gets to the cheerleading years.
Hm… I’m such a topic-deviator. Bad Karina.
Unfortunately, I do not have special forces training, or I’d volunteer.>>Cute pix.