More Words, Deeper Hole

Sigh

: james_nicoll; January 16th, 10:21

Noticed at the site of Michael McCollum, once one of Del Rey's stable of SF authors before the Great Purge of the 1990s:

A century after civilization fell in a day and a night of tectonic cataclysm, scattered communities have regained a fraction of what humanity lost on that Day of Destruction. One such is the Duchy of Hampshire on the southern tip of England.

Hampshire is at war with the Califat de Normandie.

It's not on to Oh Michael McCollum No this because Eurabia does not appear to be inconsistent with the antagonists of his early fiction; Mexico, for example, picks on poor America in "Duty, Honor, Planet" and in Life Probe, it's a unified Africa getting all Kaiser Wilhelmy (1).

1: Although, and I mean this in all seriousness, points for having united Africa as a rising if somewhat counter-productively ambitious power: McCollum is an Analog writer and Mack Reyold's North Africa series aside, Analog wasn't known for its progressive views on the potential of your non-Western sorts.

Analog April 1979, Brass Tacks, p. 176

Dear Ben,

Just finished "I Put My Blue Genes On" by Orson Scott Card. Good story. But it reminded me that all your stories have one major fault. They are racist by implication and by supposition. They ignore the possibility that Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Arabs, Ethiopians etc. might found civilizations in the stars. Card at least mentioned the Chinese (only to explain briefly that they had all been wiped out) to concentrate on the real world beaters of 2810 A.D. -- the Americans (granted they came from Hawaii), the Russians, and the Brazilians. Western civilization all. Most of your stories just ignore the existence of Earth's other races. Even a story about a planet peopled with the descendants of Japanese space explorers (Donald Kingsbury's excellent "Shipwright") feels it necessary to explain that this is an out-of-the-way, backward planet and that real interstellar civilization is white. Hope that in the future your writers will come to accept the fact that Nigerians as well as WASPs are star bound.

Gordon Heseltine
Canandaigua, NY 14424

Why is there no science fiction written by Eastern authors? (Assuming Russia and Japan are Western nations.) Because Eastern cultures are a-scientific. They will get to the stars aboard Western ships -- no matter who builds them.

Also posted at Dreamwidth, where there are comment(s); comment here or there.

( 39 comments — Leave a comment )

Sean O'Hara

2013-01-16 04:41 pm (UTC)

Wasn't the United States of Africa a common (background) feature in SF of the '70s? I remember a lot of books that assumed each continent would end up with a single government, possibly as the main sub-units of a United Earth.

matt_ruff

2013-01-16 04:50 pm (UTC)

I blame RISK.

harvey_rrit

2013-01-16 05:00 pm (UTC)

Word.

Ross Smith [myopenid.com]

2013-01-16 05:01 pm (UTC)

Well, to be fair, Risk can't be the source of all the bad ideas in SF. If it was, every alien invasion would start in Australia, instead of New York, Tokyo, or ~~London~~ Cardiff.

Sean O'Hara

2013-01-16 05:20 pm (UTC)

Only fools start in Australia -- the Indonesian choke point works both ways. Master strategists know Kamchatka is the key to victory.

Risk strategy

(Anonymous)

2013-01-16 06:20 pm (UTC)

Where you start depends on the luck of the draw, but if you have a choice South America is preferable to Australia. In one direction you have Africa, which is relatively small (on Risk's Mercator projection) and therefore a relatively easy expansion, and in the other direction you have North America, which is defensible at the Alaska and Iceland chokepoints.

Europe is hard to defend, and Asia too big to try conquering in the early stages.

Re: Risk strategy

keithmm

2013-01-16 08:27 pm (UTC)

Australia works well as a reserve bastion if you can set up a decent foothold somewhere else as an actual fighting base: I prefer South America as well.

For a while I was playing Risk online and one variant map I liked included Antarctica, which gave you a southern entry into South America, Australia, and Africa (this map also had many more territories, including Hawai'i which gave you a transpacific route). You could always tell people who'd just moved from the boardgame-standard map because they kept forgetting about the southern access. More than once I saw players buildup in Iceland, Alaska and Brazil, and then watch helplessly as a rampaging horde roared across Antarctica up the spine of the Americas.

fridgepunk

2013-01-16 06:05 pm (UTC)

And Civ! Don't forget the lasting damage to world building done by Civ.

On the gripping flipper though, I wonder if in a few years there's gonna be a bunch of "after the end" type settings where the end was caused by a global pandemic, and only Madagascar survived because they closed their port before getting infected.

Edited at 2013-01-16 07:01 pm (UTC)

tavella

2013-01-16 07:22 pm (UTC)

I've long had a thought that one of these times, an author who wanted to do the world-obliterating epidemic thing should look at the actual genetics of the human race, and put the citadel of survivors in the logical place: Africa. Because nearly of the genetic diversity of the human race is there.

austin_dern

2013-01-16 11:11 pm (UTC)

On the flip side I'm not sure the Europa Universalis engine isn't actually running psychohistory. I've had the most fascinating alternate World War II era bubbling in my mind ever since seeing the key elements played out without my really pushing.

Nathan Helfinstine

2013-01-17 04:22 am (UTC)

Pretty much all of Paradox Plaza's games are good for this. Crusader Kings II is great for creating wildly alternate outcomes of the late middle ages.

austin_dern

2013-01-17 04:34 am (UTC)

Oh, man, I have one of those where the Papacy ended up exiled to Sheffield. My wife --- whose first husband was from the North of England --- is delighted every time she thinks of it.

fridgepunk

2013-01-16 05:44 pm (UTC)

The African Union is an actual real life thing, but back in the day it was the Organisation of African Unity, and there was a hope by a lot of people (Gambian born William Conton's The African has an African Union's formation slowly going on in the background towards the end of the book), given the widespread belief in pan-africanism by most of the post-colonial african states and most major black activists and figures, that the OAU would lead to a federalist EU of african nations for their own good and in defense against unreconstructed white nations like South Africa, Britain and worst of all, France.

Then the cold war led to a rise of nationalism in most african countries, and the sudden influx of weapons into national militaries led to coups of democratic institutions, and the OAU and union ended up with a bunch of tin pot dictators who used them as forums to justify their wars, which kind of killed that dream harder than a flying car crashing into a pedwalk.

(and considering the problems that the EU and USA are having getting their federalisms to work in the face of beligerant and self-loathing legislative branches, I'd imagine that proposing a federation of hetrogenous states as a good thing in Africa would break people's willing suspension of disbelief these days, plus there was a problem with the original use of the idea in sf because a lot of authors were doing the "africa is a country" thing instead of anything more intelligent)

mmcirvin

2013-01-16 07:05 pm (UTC)

In the mid-20th century, there were also several serious attempts to create a unified pan-Arab state, none of which lasted very long unless you count more modest efforts like the UAE and Yemen.

I sort of assumed that the tendency toward superstates in SF worldbuilding is more a way to make things easier on the author.

mmcirvin

2013-01-16 08:55 pm (UTC)

...note: these were based on Nasser-style secularist pan-Arab nationalism, not Islamism.

This.

rpresser

2013-01-17 01:28 am (UTC)

I remember seeing almost all of the middle east marked "U.A.R." in one of my mid-70s Hebrew school textbooks. (It was the early 80s for me, but the texts were at least 8 years old.)

Re: This.

mmcirvin

2013-01-17 04:10 am (UTC)

At various times there were the AF, the FAR, the UAR, the UAF, and the UAS, which had fluctuating membership, though the most common country to be involved in these schemes was Egypt (which just called itself the UAR on its own for a while). What I do remember seeing on old maps was just the Egypt-Syria version of the UAR.

Re: This.

mmcirvin

2013-01-17 04:14 am (UTC)

...now the UAE is a bit different: it's basically a federation of local monarchies, with one of the monarchs serving as federal president.

wakboth

2013-01-16 06:15 pm (UTC)

If I had the time and the talent, I'd write a story about a flourishing, civilized, multi-ethinic and more or less secular European Caliphate having to deal with crazy religiously motivated terrorism from the theocratic Christian States of America, just to enjoy the reactions from the wingnut demographic.

james_nicoll

2013-01-16 06:57 pm (UTC)

I got sent something years ago where crazy pants American Christians were trying to trigger WWIII and the End of Days with a specially bred red bull and various provocations. The rather laid-back Caliph of the restored Caliphate proved very reluctant to fall for the CPAC's obvious ploys.

(Anonymous)

2013-01-16 08:22 pm (UTC)

Never published?

(The red bull, IIRC, exists in reality...)

Bruce

mmcirvin

2013-01-17 04:17 am (UTC)

Robert Charles Wilson's Spin used the red bull as well.

agrumer

2013-01-17 08:22 am (UTC)

It’s also a plot element in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. It’s common enough to be something of a tedious cliché if you read a lot of Jewish fiction.

mmcirvin

2013-01-17 07:25 pm (UTC)

Red heifer, actually (Red Bull is the glorified caffeine supplement).

keithmm

2013-01-16 08:42 pm (UTC)

I saw someone send in an outraged email to the creator of an online comic when the hardass female starship captain finishes a briefing with her new XO by commenting that they'll talk more after the captain did her afternoon salah in her cabin. At that point said reader obviously realized why the commander was portrayed wearing a headscarf with her uniform and was absolutely pissed off that the artist/writer had the gall, on a starship crewed by humans, aliens, and genetically-engineered people created from the genetic material of several different species, all of them with their own set of beliefs (or non-belief) to have a practicing Muslim (although of obviously a very liberal variation) aboard.

(Anonymous)

2013-01-16 08:57 pm (UTC)

Matt Ruff wrote something like that last year

cshalizi

2013-01-16 09:53 pm (UTC)

I've not read it, but this sounds similar to descriptions I've seen of Matt Ruff's The Mirage.

matt_ruff

2013-01-16 11:11 pm (UTC)

The Mirage

icecreamempress

2013-01-17 12:26 am (UTC)

Which was a really enjoyable read, too. Thanks, Matt!

Nathan Helfinstine

2013-01-17 04:24 am (UTC)

You should be flattered that two people mentioned it before you did.

michaelgr

2013-01-16 10:15 pm (UTC)

No eastern culture can build a spaceship, and if it does, it's not a true eastern culture.

neowolf2

2013-01-16 10:39 pm (UTC)

Only True Scotsmen can engineer a spaceship!

fridgepunk

2013-01-16 10:53 pm (UTC)

I thought you were going to link to the One True Scotsman who can certainly engineer a spaceship for a second there.

rfmcdpei

2013-01-17 12:19 am (UTC)

What happened in the 1990s? (So that's why he stopped having recent books to find in the used bookstores.)

james_nicoll

2013-01-17 04:55 pm (UTC)

Del Rey purged a large number of the mid-listers acquired by Lester and Judy-Lynn del Rel (and iirc posts by LWE correctly, a lot of the editorial staff was shown the door at the same time).

james_angove

2013-01-19 03:53 am (UTC)

Is that what happened to Robert Frezza, you think?

BTW, I shot an email at the music critic you found, asking is he was any relation. No reply yet. If I never get one, I will of course add this kid to the list of people who's work I've never followed and now NEVER WILL! I will send him a huffy email to this effect so that he will learn the error of his ways, for all it is entirely to late.

I'm sure that'll show him.

reynardo

2013-01-17 12:36 am (UTC)

I did like that in John Wyndham's "The Outward Urge", the post-nuclear world was split between Brazil and Australia, with a soccer-like rivalry between them.

Which is a bit unfair, as Brazil would kick our butts if it ever came to a soccer-based final fight.

Nathan Helfinstine

2013-01-17 04:25 am (UTC)

Not once Australia starts fielding mutant kangaroos!

dbdatvic

2013-01-19 05:18 am (UTC)

And in Phil Foglio's XXXenoPhilE comics, there was one series where Antarctica was where the survivors all came from, if I recall right? (Buck Godot also had something or other interesting about old Earth history but it's not coming to mind right now, other than the Gallimaufry's inexplicable adoration of popsicles.)

--Dave

( 39 comments — Leave a comment )