RE: https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/116290338892571761

🤦🏿‍♂️Actually, nevermind.

Why is everything like this?

The author supposedly went on an anti-woke, right-wing podcast to promote the movie while trashing other books and movies that do have a "woke" message or that have inclusive representation? But... why?

Why was that necessary?

I'm not saying don't watch the movie or read the book. Do whatever makes you happy.

I'm also not interested in debating how much inclusion is in his stories, whether he realizes it or not.

And I'm not interested in comparing even bigger, "super woke" sci-fi franchises like Star Trek or Star Wars.

I'm just saying that I personally watched the last one (The Martian), and I watched this one (Project Hail Mary), but you can guess if I'm watching the next one.

So many choices in entertainment.

The actions that attract the MAGA customer base will probably alienate me, and vice versa. That's OK!

Whether or not I watch his next movie doesn't really matter that much to him. He's not going to go broke and that's okay. Good actually!

But it's so hard to be an author, let alone a woman author, in sci-fi, who tells stories with good representation? Those authors don't need to be punched down on.

🤔Now I need to buy two IMAX tickets worth of sci-fi books written by authors that aren't anti-woke, just to put my part of the universe back in balance.

🤔Actually to properly balance things out, I have to keep reading new sci-fi books until I find one that I can recommend to thousands of people.

@mekkaokereke must they be new?

@s_wilson

You're right! They don't have to be new!

@mekkaokereke @s_wilson In that case, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (their other books that I'm aware of are mostly fantasy) and anything by Octavia E. Butler.
@JonnyT @mekkaokereke the dispossessed...
What about Cherryh?

@s_wilson @JonnyT @mekkaokereke

Absolutely! Very favorite SF author of all time. CJ Cherryh is wonderful.

For the uninitiated, start with Downbelow Station and move on to the Chanur series.

Great mixture of hard SF, politics, humanity, and adventure. Fantastic writing style. Just the best.

Her fantasy novels are wonderful too.

@mastodonmigration @JonnyT @mekkaokereke I was thinking about the Foreigner saga, for some reason, even if most of the other works are better

@s_wilson @JonnyT @mekkaokereke

Absolutely love the Foreigner series. All 22 books!

Have been listening to it on audio book. David Thomas May is a wonderful narrator who does great service to Cherryh's complex liguistics.

@mastodonmigration @JonnyT @mekkaokereke I loved the first six, then I grew a little tired of the pattern and I went on for the next three , but never started the tenth

@s_wilson @JonnyT @mekkaokereke

You need to be in the right frame of mind for sure. Finding it to be the perfect antidote for these crazy times. Just a wonderful escape to another world. It is a slow burn though.

Edit: Maybe try the audio book version

@mekkaokereke @s_wilson (Edited my post in a nod to Le Guin's biggest regret about LH of D, and because I made an assumption I shouldn't have made).

@JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson Most of Le Guin's novels are scifi actually, it's just her half dozen fantasy books are more famous.

Big plug for Four Ways to Forgiveness and The Telling, imo the best of the Hainish Cycle.

@fullfathomfive @mekkaokereke @s_wilson Thanks for the correction. I'll rephrase my comment, "most of their other books I know are fantasy". My introduction was the Wizard of Earthsea trilogy when I was young, so I fall into that category of only knowing the most famous ones. I'd like to read more of her works but, alas, I'm mostly limited to audiobooks from our local Library and they don't stock any of them.

@JonnyT @fullfathomfive @mekkaokereke I'm always puzzled about how her most known books are the few she wrote for children

I'll recommend her short stories books too

@s_wilson @JonnyT @mekkaokereke Her short stories are so good! I feel like novellas and short stories are her natural medium
@JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson Ah that's a shame. The audio versions of her books are mostly terrible though – I wish they'd re-record them.
@JonnyT @fullfathomfive @mekkaokereke @s_wilson the Dispossessed is an extremely interesting sci-fi novel by Ursula K LeGuin that explores a possible reality of an anarchist society
@JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson Le Guin has a whole heap of Scifi many/most in the same univverse.

@hypostase @JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson Le Guin was a fucking genius.
Also recommending "The Dispossessed". Blew my mind.

For something more recent, Ann Leckie is a solid choice, and Becky Chambers if you want something really wholesome.

@forse @hypostase @JonnyT @mekkaokereke That can very likely be the book that changed my life more deeply
@forse @hypostase @JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson second these.
Also for fun romps, Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries.
Almost anything by Adrian Tchaikovsky.
A Memory Called Empire and sequel by Arkady Martine.
The Locked Tomb series - lesbian necromancers in space? Yes.
#bookstodon
@noodlemaz @forse @hypostase @JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson nono, you have to say "lesbian necromancers in spaaaaace!" ;)
@noodlemaz @forse @hypostase @JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson Alien Clay by Adrian was quite good, seems a recurring theme of intelligent gue slime.
Also books by Ian M Banks?

@forse @hypostase @JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson

The whole Hainish cycle is wonderful, yes, but The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness are the best.

Iain M. Banks (""Money implies poverty") was also woke before the conservatives discovered the word and oriented their culture wars around it, in the Culture people change their gender by meditating on it and the social norm is to father one child and mother one child, if one is into procreation, of course. :-)

@Leszek_Karlik @forse @hypostase @JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson R F Kuang’s Babel is excellent SF that doesn’t feel like SF and covers 19th century imperialism
@paulc
Darnit! I had a feeling That other shoe was about to drop.
Anyhow, I agree with Paul, and want to add that Babel is an amazing anti-colonialist novel that reads like historical SF (although I read it as fantasy) and makes one smarter and more curious for having read it.
Also, catnip for multilingual people.
@Leszek_Karlik @forse @hypostase @JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson
@forse @hypostase @JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson Ann Leckie is the GOAT. The Justice of Toren trilogy is the best world (really, universe) building ever done, and I will die on that hill.

@forse @hypostase @JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson

After reading The Dispossessed, I recommend. Samuel R. Delany’s Trouble On Triton which he wrote in response to Le Guin’s work.

@hypostase @JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson

Yeah thanks for bringing this up. The Dispossessed is like book number three in the series "The Hanish Novels and Stories" and a two book collection of all the works in the universe is a fantastic read!

I loved reading the collection, and if I don't have so much other stuff on my TBR list, I would read it again.

@JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson Ooh, thanks for reminding me of books on my to-read list that I need to move to the top!
@mekkaokereke @s_wilson @JonnyT
Totally support those recommendations!
The Left Hand addressed gender, patriarchal misogyny and relationships and Le Guin won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel, becoming the first woman to do so.
@mekkaokereke @JonnyT @s_wilson
Octavia’s Bloodchild a short story blew me away as a teen, the Parable series was yet another perfect perspective.
#Writing #Scifi #GreatWomen #Author

@JonnyT @mekkaokereke @s_wilson

As always, more people should have paid attention to Butler's Parables.