IBARW: Book Recommendation!

[nex0s]

So, first of all, I want to say that while I ADORE Ursula Le Guin, and Octavia Butler (and I like but don't love Nalo Hopkins) - PLEASE STOP RECOMMENDING THEM TO ME. I own all or most of their books. There ARE other writers both of color, and with colored characters, out there

Comments

[deifire]

If you don't know that Gaiman's "Anansi Boys" is about black people, you are an idiot, pain and simple. I've not heard that one yet, but honestly, I wouldn't be surprised to hear it from somebody, somewhere, at some point.

I've heard this one. Multiple times. From readers who didn't realize the characters were black until some point way late in the novel, or never realized it at all. And just...yeah.

I suppose the fact that the author himself is white and a well-known public figure in fandom might maybe override the actual text in the minds of fen who read Gaiman's male protagonists and automatically picture Gaiman. (Especially readers who came straight from Sandman, in which the title character did spend an awful lot of time bearing more than a passing resemblance to his creator.) I mean, I could kind of sort of buy it in the case of American Gods and Shadow.

But in the book about Anansi's kids?! How do you get past the dust jacket of this one and not realize Fat Charlie is black, let alone the entire novel?!!

But yet. From people whose reading comprehension skills I would never otherwise doubt. I guess some of us really are that conditioned to think fantasy character = white, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

[nex0s]

But yet. From people whose reading comprehension skills I would never otherwise doubt. I guess some of us really are that conditioned to think fantasy character = white, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

This is exactly it. Same thing with Snow Crash and American Gods. Even though *I* think lines like "smooth, cappuccino colored back" and an entire sequence explaining how his father was black should make it clear that said character (Hiro Protagonist) is not-white, aren't enough to make that clear.

In one eye and out the other, I guess.

N.