Unfortunately I
wasn’t able to get together a bigger story for this week’s post
like I had hoped. So here are some more lightning news
flashes, or lightning flash non-fiction, with links to the full
stories. These stories cover race issues in sci fi and fantasy pop
culture, and the world-building behind The Circle. Then comes
news of the blogger’s current projects.
Star Trek Licence Plate Removed Due to Racist Connotation
During the week, a
man in Canada was forced by policy to turn in his Star Trek-
themed license plate due to “politically incorrect” language. The
message on the licence plate unintentionally conveyed reference to a
racist method of assimilating the indigenous population of Canada to
white culture. However, it was actually referring to Star Trek
(post-original series) episodes involving the alien and villainous
Borgs’ attempts to assimilate other races.
ReplacingLovecraft’s Image in the World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy
Award committee introduced a new trophy that replaces the traditional
one that had bore H.P. Lovecraft’s image. The new award depicts a
gnarled tree overlapping a full moon. The old award became
objectionable due to Lovecraft’s racist beliefs conveyed in many of
his writings. While Lovecraft wrote some of the greatest horror and
sci fi stories of the 20th century, his outspoken racism
gave him a bad image to many minorities of colour and people of
Semitic background.
World-building for The Circle
On this weekend of
its release, io9.com talks about how The Circle’s director
dealt with the challenges of world-building for the movie, that world
being a near future Earth dominated by an internet
empire that basically plays Big Brother. It’s not quite Google but
it’s definitely a response to Google’s dominance in the internet
industry.
“Circa Sixty Years Dead” Update
I just figured out
how I’m going to insert the images of ads into the manuscript
template so I can meet Amazon’s 24-page minimum for the print
edition of “Circa Sixty YearsDead”. Instead of using
rich text format, I’ll use HTML format. HTML is a language
typically used for making web pages and because of that it can convey
images unlike most document file formats. Therefore it is more easily
convertible to self-publishing platforms such as Amazon’s Kindle
Direct Publishing.
So what do you think
is the line between sci fi/fantasy fandom and racism? When it comes
to those genius speculative lit authors who are also bigots, can we
separate the author from their creation in order to admire their
work, or is admiring the one admiring the other? Feel free to leave
your comments in the box below. And no, these questions do not exempt
anybody from the blog’s anti-discrimination/anti-racist policy;
anybody leaving racist or other discriminatory remarks will be
blocked.
See you next time.
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| Credit: Pixabay.com |
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