Comments | nex0s: IBARW: Book Recommendation!

nex0s

IBARW: Book Recommendation!

Aug 09, 2007 23:29

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 ( Read more... )

ibarw, books, fangirl, race_relations

Comments 25

Tangentially speaking... nolly August 10 2007, 16:20:12 UTC

Have you watched Heroes at all? The cast is very racially mixed, deliberately, and at least one of the new characters next season is Hispanic. Season one hits DVD 8/28. (If you've talked about TV in a post I haven't read yet, I apologize.)

I don't know if you read my ComicCon panel summaries; if so, you can skip this.

During the Spotlight on Neil Gaiman panel, someone asked him about an American Gods movie. He said that no one has figured out how to adapt it yet -- it's difficult because he wrote it after writing Way Too Many screenplays, so he made it as structurally different as he could, pretty much. He thinks someone probably will figure it out eventually, though.

Re: Tangentially speaking... nex0s August 10 2007, 16:39:15 UTC

I don't have cable or broadcast, but I have had the Heroes DVD on my netflix queue and am waiting for it.

N.

Re: Tangentially speaking... nolly August 10 2007, 16:43:24 UTC

I BitTorrented Heroes; NBC released all the episodes to their website, so I don't feel overly guilty about doing so -- especially since I've preordered the DVDs.

beaq August 10 2007, 19:53:41 UTC

Thank you very much for the Acacia recommendation. Will get.

(The comment has been removed)

dr_memory August 11 2007, 02:38:44 UTC

eh?

nex0s August 12 2007, 19:20:45 UTC

I think I want to buy these, to help make sure they get the sales needed to keep them in print, if that makes sense. Also, I want them in hardcover!

Now I am tempted though. How on earth is this possible.

And why are writing in the third person?

nex0s.now @ gmail. com

N.

dr_memory August 11 2007, 02:38:16 UTC

Argh, damn you. My to-read pile is showing signs of getting taller than I am.

But after I've finished Falling Man, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Against the Day, Kushiel's Scion, and the cool book about NYC apartments that Iz got me for my birthday... I'll pick up Acacia. It'll probably be out in paperback by that time anyway. :)

deifire August 11 2007, 14:31:43 UTC

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 ( ... )

nex0s August 12 2007, 19:22:49 UTC

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.