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Nov. 22nd, 2011
(from a thread I started on YA fiction: someone mentioned The Great Barrier series)
(is there any way to write this sarcastically enough to get the point across or would I just be stuck with a best-selling series?)
That's the one where she deals with American guilt over having stolen Indian land by erasing Indians from history entirely? That's a powerful idea that is in no way problematic. I can see no grounds on which to critique the idea of obliterating entire civilizations pre-emptively to avoid feeling bad about exterminating them later on.
It gives me a great idea for an Eastern Front story that lets me concentrate on the way awesome equipment the Germans used in the Second World War, the great uniforms and the other fun parts of WWII without the distraction of the less savoury aspects of the conflict. Basically a Mystik Barrier cut off everything east of Gleiwitz, preventing humans from settling there. On 31 August 1939 it suddenly vanishes, granting Germany access to much needed empty land to colonize. It's pure Tiger Tank action through the fields and forests of a land without a people!
Although I am not sure why they need the tanks if it's empty. Maybe I should stick some subhuman hordes in there, orcs and trolls and monsters, have them come swarming across the border, give the soldiers something to shoot nobody will mind seeing massacred.
Anyway, the first book is Living Space, the second is Wonder Weapon and the last one is The Final Solution.
(is there any way to write this sarcastically enough to get the point across or would I just be stuck with a best-selling series?)
You observed some of the strategies that suppress women's writing: "She wrote it, but she wrote only one of it," or "She wrote it, but she had help," or "She wrote it, but she's an anomaly." Well, the late 1970s and early 1980s spawned many women SF writers who wrote quite a bit of highly praised fiction. The old strategies don't quite work. Here's the new one: "They wrote it, but they were a fad."
I'm linking to it again because the phrase "women's renaissance in science fiction" is a useful one and one I could have used last weekend. I am hoping by linking to this again to sear the phrase into my brain.
The phrase that was getting tossed around was "feminist" and as I pointed out, not all the women involved were feminists; Shirley Nikolaisen AKA Sam Nicholson was in no way a feminist and in fact used an evil, make-up wearing feminist as an antagonist in one of her stories, but she was part of the process.