Using the panel discussions of the most
recent World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City in August 2016 (to which
I was invited and had a friend pay my membership! [Thanks, Paul!] but was
unable to go (until I retire from education)), I will jump off, jump on, rail
against, and shamelessly agree with the BRIEF DESCRIPTION given in the pdf copy
of the Program Guide. This is event #2363.
The link is provided below…
Fandom: We Are the
World – Our international panel discusses experiences in fandom, including
similarities and differences that have surprised them most when attending
events and talking to other fans, both on and offline.
Christopher
Kastensmidt – of German ancestry, he currently lives, works, and writes in
Brazil
Takayuki Tatsumi –
Japanese professor and author of SF, in particular, cyberpunk
Arkady Martine –
aka AnnaLinden Weller, author and scholar from the US
Ron Yaniv – publisher
of the magazine Chalomot Be’aspamia (original Israeli science fiction and
fantasy stories)
Carolina Gomez
Lagerlof – works in Sweden as a patent examiner for pharmaceuticals
Ms. Clare
McDonald-Sims – a reader and collector of SF books, digests and pulp. “…a serial
committee member and volunteer for fan clubs and smaller conventions in
Melbourne, Australia.”
Brazil, Japan, US,
Israel, Sweden, Australia – good job whoever put together the team!
Confession: I’ve
been to exactly three SF conventions, Diversicon (http://www.diversicon.org/), MarsCon (https://marscon.org/2017/goh.php),
and MiniCon (http://mnstf.org/minicon52/)
all in Minnesota. Oh, I went to one in like…North Dakota, too, once long, long
ago. I’m by no means an expert on international writers.
I CAN say that I’ve
had two stories performed by the YA podcast, CAST OF WONDERS based in England, I
have a time-travel short story in the Scottish SF Magazine, SHORELINES OF
INFINITY; I used to be published by eBook publisher, MuseItUp, which is based
in Canada.
So I do know a
teensy bit about the international speculative fiction community. I’ve read
(attempted to read) lots of British and Canadian SF, I tried Finnish SF (Hannu
Rajaniemi), and of course, I’ve read SOLARIS by Stanislaw Lem; and I just
placed SHINE on hold at the library which is a collection of positive SF by
writers from around the world. This article at the SFWA site has some
interesting comments -- http://www.sfwa.org/2010/03/where-is-international-sf/,
but it’s pretty outdated.
More recently,
Chinese science fiction, primarily through Chinese-American SF writer Ken Liu,
has risen in popularity. He’s won several of SF’s major awards both for his own
work and for the translation of the novels of Liu Cixin. Maureen F. McHugh also
wrote her first novel CHINA MOUNTAIN ZHANG in a universe where the US was taken
over by China, and won Tiptree, Lambda, and Locus awards.
I find it somewhat
strange that for whatever reason, Canadian SF has been lumped together with
American SF; though Mexican SF is excluded as something different and seems to
be rare – at least as far as I can see. Mexican SF writer Gabriel Trujillo
Muñoz wrote in an email, “Beginning in 1990 . . . there was a
conscientious intent to create a science fiction community
. . . it didn't take root…[and he] sees a boom that is over and
a situation where ‘even though all the great Mexican writers have practiced it
[science fiction] . . . . [they] are ashamed to say it in
public.’…he sees a movement that has disbanded and a genre that continues to
struggle to be noticed in the national literature scene.” (http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/articles/terra-incognita-a-brief-history-of-mexican-science-fiction/)
African SF writers
look to be getting more exposure in the coming months, starting last year in
July in a series of interviews on the website, boingboing: http://boingboing.net/2016/07/14/100-african-science-fiction-wr.html
While many
countries with wealthier populations seem to be producing science fiction, what
about Iranian SF? Yemeni SF? The ten poorest countries on Earth – all of them
in Africa (http://www.cheatsheet.com/business/10-of-the-richest-and-poorest-countries-in-the-world.html/?a=viewall)
might come up in the series I noted above, even the wealthiest countries don’t
seem to all have an active SF writer. I can’t name a Qataran SF writer off the
top of my head, nor a Singaporean SF writer, either. South Korea – the most
technologically advanced country on Earth – also seems to be lacking in its
production of SF, though they DO have a strong fantasy presence.
What does it take
to stimulate a culture to produce fiction that examines the future? What
cultures have a concept of the extraterrestrial – and is that concept tied to
the “alien” being from somewhere outside the dominant culture? Why did SF die
in Mexico, but is now flourishing in China? Where are the other science fiction
writers?
Lots to think
about. Much more to read. Maybe more to write about…
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