Laugh, damn you, laugh at my amusing post-feminist warrior woman!
I've been asked (in a tentative, maybe kind of way) if I'm interested in being on a panel on humour and speculative fiction at an upcoming convention next year.
It's a topic I do have something to say about - still - after being on this same panel year after year, usually with the same people (buy Hal Spacejock by Simon Haynes, by the way. And if you see Chuck McKenzie, tell him to write more novels!). And it does give me a chance to promote the brilliant and underrated Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. And to promote my chapbook, Hobgoblin Boots, which I have woefully under-publicised due to it arriving about 5 months before my baby did. (no excuses, Tansy! plug that baby - oops, I mean book)
But - sigh. Just because most of what I've had published is humorous fantasy doesn't mean I'm not a fantasy writer. I feel at times like I'm in a teeny little ghetto. I understand it totally - we have a serious glut of Big Name fantasy authors in Australia, many of whom turn up to conventions. If you have a panel on say, worldbuilding in fantasy, or fantasy heroines, or whatever, then you just have to throw a marshmallow and it will stick to enough writers to fill two panels on that topic and then some (ok, maybe a bit marshmallow). All of whom have more books on the shelf than me. We do suffer from over-stuffed fantasy panels at Aussie conventions. It's a long list, and I'm quite a distance down it. The list of humorous spec fic writers, though - well, if you only count those with novels published, it's pretty much me and Chuck and Simon.
This one's turning out whingier than I thought it would. I'd like to see more humour in science fiction and fantasy. I'd love to see more really quality humorous stories coming through the ASIM slushpool and into our pages - we never get enough of this. And we're the only people really who actively seek funny spec fic out & publish as much of it as we can. I'd love to see more humorous spec fic by women. I'd like to have to compete a bit harder to be on the 'humour in speculative fiction' panel - and even miss out, if there's a girl or two who are writing more popular SF and fantasy comedies.
But most of all, I'd like to see someone who is known for writing humorous fantasy (not necessarily me) successful enough to make it on to panels to chat about things like worldbuilding and women and warcraft and all that other fantasy stuff alongside Trudi Canavan and Jennifer Fallon and Kate Forsyth and Sean Williams. Because while I understand and sympathise with the realities of genre separation, I do not think humour is or should be considered a sub-genre of anything.
I am not saying there shouldn't be panels on humour in speculative fiction. Because if we didn't have those panels, there wouldn't be representation of humour in speculative fiction on panels at all. My problem is more with the near-universal perception of humorous SF & fantasy as being a genre apart from 'real' SF and fantasy - and, the one we come across a lot in reference to ASIM, the perception of humorous SF & fantasy being automatically distinct from 'good' SF and fantasy.
In the late 1960's it was considered radical to have a panel on women in SF. (oh, but no one would be interested in that!) Now we don't need one (no, we really don't) because there are so many female writers and readers and protagonists that it seems ridiculously generic. At Australian cons, panels on fantasy are usually staffed by more women than men and if they're not, there's something wrong, because we do have more successful female fantasy novelists than male, and the panels should reflect this. If we want to talk about women or gender in speculative fiction (which we should, at every opportunity!), we need to take a leaf out of WisCon's book and get more specific: can you be a feminist and wear a chain mail bikini? Do women or men write the best sex scenes? Can women write male characters/men write female characters? Is the backlash against Buffy going to leave us with screaming, wimpy horror heroines again?
So I will remain suitably grateful for there being a panel on humour in speculative fiction (when there is one), and look forward to the day when we don't need one, because it's just an accepted aspect of the genre.
Oh, and by the way: my next novel's not funny. Well, margolanagan thought it was. And Trent Jamieson referred to it as New Weird Lite (in a good way - I think). But, really. Not funny!
PS: I was in no way offended by the New Weird Lite tag. Really truly. I thought it was cute and funny, which was why I repeated it. On the same weekend, Margo called me the "Queen of Nouns," which I plan to have printed on a t-shirt. Thank goodness she got famous. Now she can write blurb quotes for all our books - she's brilliant at it. Likewise, Trent is about to become hugely famous when his book, Reserved for Travelling Shows, is released by Prime, so the quote from him will also be worth its weight in gold. But he assures me my book isn't 'lite' at all. I must admit,the frivolous spelling was my own. 'New Weird Light' sounds a little classier.
It's a topic I do have something to say about - still - after being on this same panel year after year, usually with the same people (buy Hal Spacejock by Simon Haynes, by the way. And if you see Chuck McKenzie, tell him to write more novels!). And it does give me a chance to promote the brilliant and underrated Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. And to promote my chapbook, Hobgoblin Boots, which I have woefully under-publicised due to it arriving about 5 months before my baby did. (no excuses, Tansy! plug that baby - oops, I mean book)
But - sigh. Just because most of what I've had published is humorous fantasy doesn't mean I'm not a fantasy writer. I feel at times like I'm in a teeny little ghetto. I understand it totally - we have a serious glut of Big Name fantasy authors in Australia, many of whom turn up to conventions. If you have a panel on say, worldbuilding in fantasy, or fantasy heroines, or whatever, then you just have to throw a marshmallow and it will stick to enough writers to fill two panels on that topic and then some (ok, maybe a bit marshmallow). All of whom have more books on the shelf than me. We do suffer from over-stuffed fantasy panels at Aussie conventions. It's a long list, and I'm quite a distance down it. The list of humorous spec fic writers, though - well, if you only count those with novels published, it's pretty much me and Chuck and Simon.
This one's turning out whingier than I thought it would. I'd like to see more humour in science fiction and fantasy. I'd love to see more really quality humorous stories coming through the ASIM slushpool and into our pages - we never get enough of this. And we're the only people really who actively seek funny spec fic out & publish as much of it as we can. I'd love to see more humorous spec fic by women. I'd like to have to compete a bit harder to be on the 'humour in speculative fiction' panel - and even miss out, if there's a girl or two who are writing more popular SF and fantasy comedies.
But most of all, I'd like to see someone who is known for writing humorous fantasy (not necessarily me) successful enough to make it on to panels to chat about things like worldbuilding and women and warcraft and all that other fantasy stuff alongside Trudi Canavan and Jennifer Fallon and Kate Forsyth and Sean Williams. Because while I understand and sympathise with the realities of genre separation, I do not think humour is or should be considered a sub-genre of anything.
I am not saying there shouldn't be panels on humour in speculative fiction. Because if we didn't have those panels, there wouldn't be representation of humour in speculative fiction on panels at all. My problem is more with the near-universal perception of humorous SF & fantasy as being a genre apart from 'real' SF and fantasy - and, the one we come across a lot in reference to ASIM, the perception of humorous SF & fantasy being automatically distinct from 'good' SF and fantasy.
In the late 1960's it was considered radical to have a panel on women in SF. (oh, but no one would be interested in that!) Now we don't need one (no, we really don't) because there are so many female writers and readers and protagonists that it seems ridiculously generic. At Australian cons, panels on fantasy are usually staffed by more women than men and if they're not, there's something wrong, because we do have more successful female fantasy novelists than male, and the panels should reflect this. If we want to talk about women or gender in speculative fiction (which we should, at every opportunity!), we need to take a leaf out of WisCon's book and get more specific: can you be a feminist and wear a chain mail bikini? Do women or men write the best sex scenes? Can women write male characters/men write female characters? Is the backlash against Buffy going to leave us with screaming, wimpy horror heroines again?
So I will remain suitably grateful for there being a panel on humour in speculative fiction (when there is one), and look forward to the day when we don't need one, because it's just an accepted aspect of the genre.
Oh, and by the way: my next novel's not funny. Well, margolanagan thought it was. And Trent Jamieson referred to it as New Weird Lite (in a good way - I think). But, really. Not funny!
PS: I was in no way offended by the New Weird Lite tag. Really truly. I thought it was cute and funny, which was why I repeated it. On the same weekend, Margo called me the "Queen of Nouns," which I plan to have printed on a t-shirt. Thank goodness she got famous. Now she can write blurb quotes for all our books - she's brilliant at it. Likewise, Trent is about to become hugely famous when his book, Reserved for Travelling Shows, is released by Prime, so the quote from him will also be worth its weight in gold. But he assures me my book isn't 'lite' at all. I must admit,the frivolous spelling was my own. 'New Weird Light' sounds a little classier.