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rjalker · 2 years

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Here’s how to make The Murderbot Diaries 80 percent less casually transmisic, for each book and short story published so far as of January 25th, 2023. (Main books 1-6, and 2 short stories)

This post will be updated to include any future books once I've read them.

(If this is the first post of mine you're seeing and you're thinking, aghast or maybe offended, "What??? The Murderbot Diaries is transmisic????? What are you talking about????" Here's a link to my tag for reading these books. It contains all my posts I've made about the series except for a few random unimportant ones. Skim through them until you come to the ones talking about the transmisia in the series. I'll add links to this post with the important ones tomorrow.)

This post is literally just me picking out a section from each book and adding in things to explicitly establish Murderbot’s pronouns, normalize the characters asking eachother what their pronouns are/listing them in their fucking brainchip social media profiles, and maybe even more importantly, making it so that sex is not equated with gender.

I'm trying not to make this post any longer than it already is, so here's the tiny version: Murderbot and all the other bots and constructs so far being agender because they're all robots (shut up if you're going to argue semantics) who don't have genitals is transmisic. There only being one explicitly nonbinary human so far is transmisic. Go search my blog for a more in-depth explanation or wait until I've added links to this.

Dialogue that was spoken though the feed is marked with :: as quotation marks, rather than being italicized, to make it easier to read.

Anyways as a reminder, even if it's not intentional, malicious transmisia, it's still transmisia. I like Martha Well's style of writing. But it has a lot of problems that I'm hoping she'll fix.

She especially has a problem with biological essentialism and gender essentialism, which is exemplified in her The Books of The Raksura.

So to demonstrate how Literally Easy it would be to fix most of the transmisia in The Murderbot Diaries, here's some sections from each book/short story where I've added in and changed things so that it's not transmisic and actually represents the way trans people (and their allies) live and interact.

also, when the characters ask what pronouns Murderbot would prefer rather than asking what its pronouns are, that is 100% intentional to fit the theme of this post. Which is that even people who have the best intentions can be unintentionally transmisic and that everyone always has room to learn more.

So.

Here you go:

___

Prequel: The Future of Work: Compulsory

Words added: 150.

(You can read this short story here. Archived version here. Just the text can be found on a tumblr post here. Be warned that the first two links have eye-straining neon art at the top that moves, which is why I made the tumblr post.)

Asa took her arm gently. “They can’t talk,” he told her.

She shook her head as her friends steered her toward the access bridge. “No, it talked. I heard it.”

That still came as a pleasant surprise every time it happened.

The Company had assigned me different pronouns when I was constructed, and I’d always hated them. And I hated the gender they’d assigned me, too. So the second thing I’d done after hacking my governer module (the first was downloading media) was hack into the Company’s systems to change my pronoun and gender assignments.

Now, my pronouns were listed as it/its/itself, and my gender was listed as “indeterminate”. None of the humans got paid enough to bother memorizing our assigned pronouns or genders, so none of them had noticed the change. And every time they rented me out, the humans doing the renting got a copy of my relevant info, including my assigned gender and pronouns.

Maybe someday the euphoria of being referred to the way I enjoyed would dissipate, but apparently that day was not today.

___

Book one: All Systems Red

Words added: 79

Then Mensah said quietly, “SecUnit, do you have a name? Pronouns you would prefer?”

"My pronouns are what was listed on my contract when you rented me." I said, "It, its, itself."

I didn't explain how I'd gotten those pronouns. They didn't need to know that I'd hacked into the Company's system to overwrite the ones I'd originally been assigned. I'd changed my gender assignment at the same time. And they didn't need to know that either. I didn't want them to know that.

As for having a name, I wasn’t sure what she wanted. “No.”

___

Book two: Artificial Condition

Words added: 22

They had listed themselves as unaffiliated guest workers, but you could list yourself as anything, there was no identity check. Two had listed their gender as female, and they both used she/her/hers/herself pronouns. The other one had listed ter gender as tercera, which was a gender signifier used in the group of non-corporate political entities known as the Divarti Cluster. Ter pronouns were te/ter/ter/terself.

(To initiate the meeting, I’d had to make an entry on the social feed, too. The system was extremely vulnerable to hacking, so I had backdated my entry to look like I had come in on an earlier passenger transport, listed my job as “security consultant,” my pronouns as "it/its/itself", which was the format humans used, and listed my gender as "indeterminate". Posing as its own captain, ART gave me a prior employment reference.)

___

Book three: Rogue Protocol

Words added: 135

Her gaze went to Wilken’s back again, but on our private channel she said, ::I’ve never worked with a SecUnit before—I’ve never seen or interacted with a SecUnit before—so please tell me if you need any information or instruction from me. I know you already know my name, but I’m going to introduce myself properly anyways. My name is Don Abene, and my pronouns are she/her/hers/herself. You can call me Abene if you'd like. Do you have a name, or designation? What pronouns would you prefer?::

While I’d had several humans now ask me for my name and pronouns, I had never had a human ask me how to give me orders before. It was an interesting novelty. ::I have standing orders from Rin to assist you. I can do the rest.:: I said, answering the first part of her question, as for the second half... ::It is best if you refer to me as SecUnit, and my pronouns are it/its/itself.:: It wasn’t technically lying, since she’d asked ‘do you have a name’, not ‘what is your name’.

Not that it would matter if I was lying, anyways, considering all the other lies I was telling at the point, but still. Old habits die hard.

___

Book four: Exit Strategy

Words added: 36

I pulled a selection of video from the trip with Ayres and the others on the way to HaveRatton, mostly exchanges I’d tagged so I could critique my performance later. (A few times I’d broken up fights, been forced to give relationship advice, the infamous Cracker Wrapper in the Sink Incident, and the time near the start of the trip where I’d had to explain to a confused but enthusiastic group of depressingly young humans how to properly use it/its/itself pronouns when talking about me.) I cut it together, labeled it “Murderbot Impersonates an Augmented Human Security Consultant,” and sent it to Gurathin.

___

Book four and a half: Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory

Words added: 347

(You can read this short story here. Archived version here. Don’t scroll down to the comments at the bottom unless you want to see people misgendering Murderbot.)

Instead Ephraim asks her, “Can you separate that person from the purpose they were created for?”

Anger flares automatically, despite her best efforts to stifle it. But this is not an insult she will let stand, she can’t.

Ephraim should know better. He does know better, and his motive is clear: Refer to it as ‘they’ rather than its actual pronouns, to make a show of being respectful, the way this whole thing is a show of him being respectful, while denying it the same rights that every other person, including bots, was given without question. It was a transparent farce, and that just made her all the madder.

“Its pronouns are it/its/itself.” She snapped, and the only reason she managed to stay seated instead of storming out of the room in a fury was because SecUnit was still pinging her with armament request forms, getting more absurd by the second. None of its anger leaked into the messages, even though she knew it had to be listening. She wasn’t the one being insulted, so that meant it was her responsibility to shut the idea that this was at all acceptable down forever.

She continued angrily, “You know this, and I know you wouldn’t even think to use the wrong pronouns for anyone else, not a human, not a bot. So why should a construct be the exception? You say SecUnit is ‘a product of surveillance capitalism and authoritarian enforcement’, but how is that any different from any other refugees we take in from the Corporation Rim? Why should we not extend the same rights we grant bots to constructs? Why do you think it’s okay to use the wrong pronouns for a construct when I know for a fact that it wouldn’t even occur to you to do this to any other person? Use its correct pronouns or do not dare to speak about it at all: it/its/itself.”

Ephraim, for his part, looked suitably ashamed and guilty. “You’re right, I’m sorry, it won’t happen again.”

But not ashamed enough, apparently, because he simply repeated the question: “Can you separate that person from the purpose it was created for?”

___

Book five: Network Effect

Words added: 494

There was no planetary feed (stupid planet) but Stupid Boat had its own rudimentary feed that was heavy with games and pornography but light on anything that might be helpful for a security assessment, like who these people were and what they wanted. Even the individual humans’ feed signatures only contained info about their pronouns and sexual availability, which I didn’t give a damn about.

...

She smiled. “Thank you.” Then she added, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m being rude, interrogating you before I’ve even introduced myself. Forgive me. My name is Farai, my pronouns are she/her/her/hers. What about you?”

I said, “Call me SecUnit. My pronouns are it/its/itself.”

She smiled again. “It’s nice to meet you, SecUnit. Thank you again.”

...

She yawned. “Okay, third mom.” I froze, confused and annoyed, and almost lost all the data I'd just finished tagging. I put that on pause and said firmly, "I'm not your third mom. I'm not anyone's mom. I'm not any kind of gender that can be called a mom. Don't call me that." Amena jolted a little and blinked, looking startled, then frowned, shaking her head slowly, clearly confused. "Wait, what? Don't call you what? What did I say?" Okay, so, she hadn't been deep in thought, she was literally falling asleep standing up. That made it a little less annoying. But only a little. "You called me your third mom." I said, trying to actively remove some of the anger from my voice but probably failing miserably. My emotions were shot, okay? And so were hers. I got confirmation that she hadn't meant to call me that when, a few seconds after I spoke--yes, it was taking way longer than normal for her to process information. She really needed to go to sleep--her eye got wide and her face flushed red. I didn't need to be an expert on human body language to know that meant she was embarrassed. This was further confirmed when she stammered out, "I--I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I don't--I mean I don't really see you as my third mom, or a mom, or--" She waved one hand in a frantic gesture. "I don't see you as any gender that's normally a mom. I know your gender is indeterminate, I'm sorry, I think I just fell asleep and was half dreaming, so when you told me to go to bed I thought 'oh that's what my moms are always telling me', but your voice was different from both of theirs so my brain sort of just said 'oh yeah that's your third mom telling you to go to sleep'. But it's not because I see you as a mom! I think I would have called anyone who told me to go to bed right then my third mom. But I'm really sorry it happened, and I promise it won't happen again..." Her voice started trailing off at the end despite starting out strong, and I could tell she was starting to fall asleep again. "I forgive you." I said, since it was true and I really didn't want to hurt her feelings, "Just--go to sleep. It's harder to keep you alive if you're sleep deprived." Instead of making another gendered comment, she gave me two sleepy thumbs up, then turned and trudged away down the corridor. I followed her with two drones, just in case.

___

Book six: Fugitive Telemetry

Words added: 5

Senior Indah said, “The feed ID doesn’t need to say anything other than what everyone else’s says, just name, pronouns, and…” She trailed off. She was looking at me and I was looking at her.

...

I posted a feed ID with the name = SecUnit, pronouns = it/its/itself, gender = not applicable, and no other information.

Indah had blinked, then said, “Well, I suppose that will have to do.”

___

And there you go. 80% of the transmisia has now been removed.

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trifoliate-undergrowth · 1 year

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Love that ART was like "let me assign you a gender I'm bored" and murderbot heard "gender" and scrunched up its face like Cat No Banana so ART had to stick with hacking up and reconfiguring all its limbs

#meme #murderbot diaries #if you did not read artificial condition. I am being silly with the retelling but yes this did in fact happen #I was like lol is there a scary font in this editor for 'gender'. and then i was like. what is scarier than Comic Sans #and then because the pain is endless murderbot has to put a gender marker on its profile to get a job #the marker is essentially 'no thank you' but still. insulting that they asked #note gender does not equal genitals but I like this joke phrasing for my own gender reasons

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aroaessidhe · 6 months

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aro & ace books: robots, cyborgs, etc

This Golden Flame - one MC is an aroace girl, the other is an automaton (no sexuality)

Hamlet, Prince of Robots - various ai/robot characters, Hamlet is ace mlm and Ophelia is aroace

The Cybernetic Tea Shop - romance between an asexual woman and robot woman

The Murderbot Diaries - murderbot has no sexuality or gender, but also, not feeling sexual/romantic attraction / being repulsed by it is essentially aroace coding. also if I left this out everyone would comment about it !

Heart of Iron - word-of-god ace MC, her love interest is an android

The First Sister (trilogy) - one MC is lightly ace coded, Synthetics (ai/robot people) are a significant element later in the series

Yours Celestially - one of the two MCs is a nonbinary AI, who very lightly references not feeling sexual attraction at the end

#aspec books / aspec database / tumblr masterpost

#the 2nd half here are more handwavey #but yknow i like to add variety #this golden flame #hamlet prince of robots #the cybernetic tea shop #murderbot #aspec books #aroace books

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clonerightsagenda · 4 months

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kruskal-wallis said: What sort of books catch his attention? (Not preparing to offer suggestions – I don’t read I’m just a nosy bitch)

He's really an opportunistic scavenger (similarly he will turn on the TV and watch whatever is on) so I mostly have memories of him reading whatever MG/YA books my brother and I were reading when we lived in the house. He sure had opinions on the life choices of Scott Westerfeld characters. Turnabout is fair play though - I read his Clive Cussler books as a kid and pronounced them sexist despite being too young for gender theory. Weirdly enough I never got into his ancient fantasy Shannara paperbacks in the basement even though I had a big fantasy phase in my teens.

Currently attempting to tempt him with the Murderbot Diaries by essentially tossing them in the path of his grazing pattern

#kruskal-wallis #replies

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youurelovely · 5 months

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An obnoxious long rant on the Murderbot tv situation. Did I post this with the intention of having a conversation about it? Yes. Am I aware people are probably tired of talking about it and likely don’t think my thoughts are hot shit? Also yes. Anyway,

the post:

A lot of people have been talking about the casting for the tv adaption of Murderbot Diaries. Some people are disappointed and some people are disappointed other people are disappointed.

Plenty of people have already brought up that making Murderbot’s actor a white man is a loaded decision because of how the idea of whiteness as a default protects an inflated and false idea of white superiority. And even more people have talked about how man as a default is also an inflated and false protection of patriarchal standards.

And I agree with both of those ideas.

Other people have brought up that plenty of queer people treat masculinity and men as an unwanted part of the queer community. Which IS true, despite historically men and masculinity being important aspects of queer identity and love, people DO like to pretend non-binary and gender queer people have to all be feminine or they are mislabeled as a threat. Which is so fucked up and obnoxious.

However, I think that this tv series is clearly not making Murderbot’s actor a man to bring attention to queer masculinity as an important part of the queer community. I appreciate the people who are trying to defend the choice because real people are more important than Murderbot, but I think that this is just a clear case of most people reading The Murderbot Diaries and feeling uncomfortable without a clear binary in which to visualize and categorize Murderbot. Which is understandable. Despite my own discomfort with The Gender Binary, I understand people feeling more comfortable with rules and clear distinctions.

This is the THIRD production of Murderbot which has an actor play Murderbot and I doubt I’m the only one who has seen most interviews ask Martha Wells about Murderbot’s gender. Often they will tell her that they personally read the book with Murderbot looking male and made with male genetic material. Which, personal interpretation is fine obviously no one should be attacked just because they are attached to gender essentialism and believe only one of the Definitely Only Two Genders can punch people in the face. But it’s fucking annoying that a book which means so much to me (and other people I guess /jk) can be limited creatively just because people decided that a fantastical robot must have male genetic organics just because Men Punch Good.

I’m not saying that they should have used an actress. And I’m not saying that Murderbot needs to be feminine. But the actor wasn’t chosen because they looked at a range of actors and thought “why NOT a white man? This changes EVERYTHING about queerness!” Also, why NOT an actress? If I’m supposed to see a cis male actor as Murderbot, why not a cis female actress? Better yet, why not someone non-binary who understands the push and pull of expectations and social norms????

If they make Murderbot the one white character I will seriously lose my mind. Even worse if they make more people white to make Murderbot not the only white character. Why the fuck did they do this?

They picked a white man because of a history of success with fandoms/audiences becoming attached to white men. They picked him because they wanted someone who would look like competent security beyond human capabilities and they thought their vision was best described by a white man. Like MOST other science fiction and action movies.

I have always liked the IDEA of science fiction but I cannot enjoy a story which is written by a man for men to enjoy with action heroes and babes hanging off of them. (Tbh fantasy does this too but I was able to find books I liked a lot easier, and also because it’s always been my favorite genre and I was desperate) (Full disclosure I don’t see a problem with this trope if it’s two women but societal expectations aren’t exactly forcing women to be be action heroes or prioritizing women to be damsels for other women to rescue. Unless we think about how black and brown women are expected to cater to white women but that isn’t lesbianism that’s racism. *disclaimer I am a white person) so Murderbot was literally the start of me finding science fiction books to read that weren’t sexist gender essentialism But In Space TM.

So many people have given amazing recommendations that I’ve loved and so many others I’m excited to read next. Murderbot was the start of a genre revival for me!! I never thought I would find science fiction that wasn’t gender essentialist. And tbh I wasn’t looking as hard as I could have, because I had tried so many that sucked, so that’s partly on me. But what’s important is that, for me, Murderbot is an escape from gender norms and a return to a genre which has historical been viewed as leaning on a bioessentialism view of human gender and roles in society, especially due to the science aspect of science fiction. It isn’t the first science fiction book to have a more queer aspect to it, it’s just the first one I’ve read and I know I’m not the only person who has benefited from finding other books to read from people giving thoughtful recommendations online.

Who really cares if Murderbot is played by a man? Except so many comments and interviewers just are too uncomfortable to engage with a character without having that male/female binary and no matter how many times Martha pushes past these questions it just keeps happening. Obviously not all interviewers pester for a confirmation of Murderbot’s canonical organic appearance and one even kept pushing for Murderbot being canonically female. Many even praise her for a non-binary character, some of them also just immediately mention that they think Murderbot has male organics.

It’s just so ridiculous to me that so many people seem to think they are reinventing masculinity in a character which is an intrepid space explorer (and grumpy about it). Although of course there are many things about Murderbot’s trauma and emotional regulation that do not fit into masculine gender norms, it is still the character who Saves The Day and Protects Everyone and Is Super Smart And Strong.

There have been posts examining secunits as male and comfortunits as female and those are just an attempt to examine inter-construct relationships and power dynamics compared to people’s irl experiences so I understand why they were written. And I absolutely do not mean to attack anyone for applying a book to the real world. But it feels like there is no escape from a push to define imaginary robots as a “Realistic” human gender when, for me, this entire book series is a book about an agender character who is tough as nails and accidentally makes friends and learns how to examine the ways in which it was dehumanized by people around it.

Again, people writing analysis examining how a book approaches things that are real issues are not doing anything wrong. Just because I’m sensitive doesn’t mean I’m going to assume I’m king of the universe over here. Other people have LIVES and I’m not going to pester them about their actually extremely thoughtful examination about how Murderbot’s prejudice against comfortunits is reminiscent of sex workers and female sexuality. (No matter how uncomfortable it is. The point is not to be comfortable.)

I will admit though that the audio with a female voice artist ART and a male voice artist Murderbot makes me want to kill myself. Like oh interesting, you see the character who is grumpy and kills as male and the character who SPENDS ITS ENTIRE EXISTENCE TAKING CARE OF PEOPLE AND MAKING A HOME FOR THEM AS FEMALE HUH I WONDER WHERE THAT CAME FROM HOW ORIGINAL OF YOU. I’m sorry I know a lot of people like it and I’ve heard that the voice actress does a great job! So I’m glad people are having fun but I am actively furious. Please enjoy your lives and know I’m a total jackass. Much love. (Genuine)

There are plenty of (amazing and talented) artists who have drawn Murderbot in a way that if you saw that person walking down the street, you could assume that that person identifies as a man. And there isn’t a problem with that, I’ve never been irritated by people drawing it this way. There are also more ambiguous fanarts of Murderbot. It’s all Murderbot to me. Just because I’m partial to lesbian ART and Murderbot doesn’t mean I think that my exact preferences should be fulfilled. (Another disclaimer!!!! Lots of people with a complex identity to gender and sex identify as lesbian. If you were confused, you should try learning more! It’s so cool! And interesting! I’m not misgendering Murderbot.)

But this live action business of only casting men isn’t an accident and it isn’t a fan artist with their headcanons. It’s a production that is purposefully making executive decisions about a character who all of us care about. Tbh someone else said he would make a great Gurathin and I agree.

Murderbot doesn’t exist in a world without gender norms. Murderbot was written by a person who lives in our world with our expectations and boxes and labels and limitations from irl people constantly asking everyone around them to fit into their comfort cube of gender essentialism. I can’t pretend that this is a decision without influences.

Anyway. I’m just fucking disappointed. I hope it’s still cute and fun and tragic. I hope I still like it even though it’s not what I was hoping for. I talked a lot about the gender thing and less about the race thing. Idk what to even say about the race thing besides this is very clearly because audiences and fandoms prefer a white man or woman over any non white ones and they are hoping to give it a boost. Why even pick this book is you aren’t willing to have anyone nonwhite celebrated in a fun little robot story.

#murderbot diaries #life commentary #.uncalled.for.arrogance.regarding.feeling.cheated.about.something.i.was.never.promised.#.tired.of.ranting.about.this……for.now.#murderbot tv show

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thebookofm · 1 year

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Recommended Reading

Here is a list of books, both prose and graphic, that I think are worth checking out. All of these books are speculative fiction (science fiction, fantasy, alternate reality, et cetera), since that’s essentially the only genre I read. Entries followed by a ♥ are my extra-special favorites. The ones marked with an H won at least one Hugo Award. Those marked with a ▽ contain prominent LGBTQ+ characters or issues.

Lighter Science Fiction

Douglas Adams: The Hitchhicker's Guide to the Galaxy and its first two sequels, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and Life, the Universe and Everything. The Hitchhiker’s Guide is a landmark work in SF comedy and is a must-read. If you are an audio listener, then I suggest starting with the 1978 BBC radio play, which was the original version of this story. (If you like THHGTTG, then check out Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and its sequel.) ♥

John Scalzi: Any of his SF, especially the Old Man's War series and the Interdependency series (The Collapsing Empire and its sequels). Scalzi’s work, with few exceptions, is not only very funny, but also includes some good science-fiction-y “big ideas.” If you are a fan of Star Trek, then his novel Redshirts, which won a Hugo, will be of particular interest. Interestingly in some of Scalzi’s recent work, such as Kaiju Preservation Society and the Lock In series, he never revels the gender of the main character. Almost all of Scalzi’s audiobooks are read by Wil Wheaton. Wheaton does a great job, but his voice does tend to make the listener imagine the main character as a man, even when there’s no textual evidence to support that imagining. ♥H

Martha Wells: The Murderbot Diaries (All Systems Red and sequels), winner of the 2021 Hugo Award for best series. Despite the name, this series of five novellas and one novel follows a human-bot hybrid (not a robot) security unit (SecUnit) as it struggles to protect its stupid humans while coping with social anxiety and finding time to watch soap operas. Plus, it doesn’t really murder all that often. The series is very funny, but it is also a surprisingly serious and insightful examination of sentience, autonomy, and living with neuroses. Wells, who identifies as neurodivergent, will write three more Muderbot books, beginning in November 2023, as part of her six-volume deal with Tor. I particularly enjoy Kevin R. Free’s narration of the audiobooks. I’m counting these books for LGBTQ+ representation because Murderbot is nonbinary and asexual, but since it isn’t human (and doesn’t want to be), nonbinary and/or ace readers (whom I assume to be human) may not find themselves reflected in Murderbot’s experience. ♥H▽

Scott Meyer: The Authorities series (The Authorities and Destructive Reasoning), Master of Formalities, and Grand Theft Astro. Meyer’s books are all hilarious, fun adventures. The Authorities books follow a privately funded taskforce created to investigate crimes that the police cannot solve. Megan Sloan is one of my favorite detectives in fiction. Master of Formalities follows a protocol expert in a far-future monarchy. My favorite gag in this book occurs when someone becomes his own uncle. Grand Theft Astro is a heist story with Meyer’s trademark humor. If you enjoy these books, check out his Magic 2.0 series, which is described in the Lighter Fantasy/SF Mashups section. Luke Daniels, who narrates all of Meyer’s audiobooks, does an excellent job with these stories. ♥

Ernest Cline: Ready Player One. This book is great fun, especially for those that remember the ‘80s or enjoy the popular culture of that era. The audiobook is narrated, very appropriately, by nerd icon Wil Wheaton.

Andy Weir: The Martian and Project Hail Mary. The Martian is the basis of the very faithful film adaption (which I also recommend), and it is super-realistic science fiction with a lot of jokes. Project Hail Mary feels much like The Martian (though far more speculative) at first, but a third of the way in, a major plot development shakes up the story for the better. ♥

Dennis E. Taylor: We are Legion (We are Bob) and sequels (the Bobiverse series). This series begins with the dark premise of the protagonist being uploaded into a von Neumann probe and launched into deep space, but it’s actually very funny. Ray Porter does a great job narrating the audiobooks.

More Serious Science Fiction

David Brin: Startide Rising and The Uplift War. In this universe, sentient species modify or “uplift” presentients to help them bridge the gap to sentence, after which the “client” species is indentured to its “patron” for 100,000 years. Humans, once discovered by the Five Galaxies civilization, only escape indenture because they have already uplifted chimpanzees and dolphins, making humans the lowest-ranking and most hated patron species in the known universe. These books have great worldbuilding and aliens that are very well developed in terms of both biology and culture. The other Uplift books are also good, but these two, which each won a Hugo, are my favorites. ♥H

David Brin: Glory Season. This novel is an amazing extrapolation of an agrarian society built on parthenogenesis. The main character is a rare “variant,” a person who wasn’t cloned but was instead conceived sexually via one of the tiny number of men on the planet. She and her twin must find roles in society without the benefit of membership in a clan of genetically identical women occupying an established niche. Plus, there are fun puzzles and Conway’s Game of Life. ♥

Vernor Venge: A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky. In this universe, the laws of physics vary with the average density in the galactic “neighborhood.” Thus, while the Earth lies at a point where only sublight speeds and human-level intelligence are possible, farther out in the plane of the galaxy and especially off the plane, superluminal speeds and superhuman intelligence can be achieved. Also, on one planet in the “Slow Zone,” there is a race of wolf-like beings who are not individually sentient but who achieve sentience (via ultrasonic communication) in groups of four to six. These books have spectacular worldbuilding, well conceived aliens, and some very compelling science-fictional “big ideas.” Can be read in either order, but publishing order (as listed above) is likely best. Each novel won a Hugo. ♥H

Vernor Venge: Across Realtime. This volume is a compilation of the novels The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime as well as the novella The Ungoverned. These stories revolve around an interesting technology for altering how time passes.

James S. A. Corey: The Expanse series (Leviathan's Wake, eight sequel novels and several shorter works). Fairly hard science fiction based on a politically strained three-way balance of power in a solar system that is confronted with terrifying alien technology. This series is the basis for The Expanse TV/web series, which I also recommend. The Expanse won the 2020 Hugo for best series. ♥H

Ann Leckie: Ancillary Justice and sequels (The Imperial Radch series). A far-future story in which a sentient ship formerly controlling and inhabiting many human bodies is now confined to a single human body (and with its ship self destroyed). These books attracted a lot of attention because the Radchaai language only uses female pronouns, and thus the gender of many of the characters is never revealed, but there's a lot more to this story than that. Ancillary Justice won basically all the awards offered in 2013. Leckie’s novel Provenance and her upcoming Translation State take place in the same universe but follow new characters. ♥H▽

Arkady Martine: A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace. A new ambassador (with the old ambassador’s memories shoved into her brain) is appointed to represent a “barbarian” space station to the “civilized” Teixcalaanli Empire, where she becomes embroiled in a succession crisis and meets people with names like Three Seagrass (my favorite character) and Eight Antidote. Eventually, she must also negotiate first contact with sentient aliens. These books are an interesting examination of imperialism and language. Both novels won the Hugo Award. H▽

Becky Chambers: The Wayfarers series (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and sequels). This anthology series explores different cultures and locations in a well developed galactic civilization. Wayfarers won the 2019 Hugo Award for best series. H▽

Lighter Fantasy/SF Mashups

Scott Meyer: Off to Be the Wizard and its sequels (the Magic 2.0 series). These books are science fiction disguised as fantasy. An amateur hacker discovers a computer file that can be edited to change the real world. Within 24 hours, everything goes wrong, and he flees from the FBI to medieval England, planning to set himself up as a wizard using his new capabilities. That plan doesn’t go well, either. These books are laugh-out-loud funny and may be of particular interest to computer scientists. The audiobooks’ narrator, Luke Daniels hilariously brings the text to life. ♥

More Serious Fantasy/SF Mashups

Tamsyn Muir: The Locked Tomb series (Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth, Nona the Ninth, and Alecto the Ninth [not yet published]). Charles Stross described the first novel as “Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space!” Honestly, I’m not sure whether to put this series under the “Lighter” or “More Serious” heading. There is a lot of humor, especially in the first book, but there is also quite a lot of horror and sadness. The second novel will absolutely gaslight you, forcing you to question your own sanity, but you’ll be glad you trusted Muir before you reach the end of the book. I can’t imagine anyone other than the excellent Moira Quirk narrating these books. ♥▽

John Scalzi: The God Engines. This novella, in which humans use enslaved gods (defeated enemies of their own god) to power their starships, is almost the only Scalzi work without a large dose of humor. It’s very good, though.

Anne McCaffrey: The first six Dragonriders of Pern books. (I've only read the first six.) These are science fiction disguised as fantasy and are classics in the genre. Far in the future, on an agrarian planet that has forgotten its history, humans ride sentient, telepathic dragons into battle against deadly spores that fall from the sky when another planet in an extremely eccentric orbit comes close.

Lighter Fantasy

Nicholas Eames: The Band series (Kings of the Wyld, Bloody Rose, and Outlaw Empire [not yet published]). Mercenary bands are the rock stars of the fantasy world in which these novels take place, attracting rabid fans and touring huge arenas. These books certainly have strong elements of humor, much of which is focused on the central conceit, but there is also a lot of action and pathos to be had. Both published books a great fun to read, and I’m looking forward to reading the third.

Tamsyn Muir: Princess Floralinda and the Forty Flight Tower. This novella subverts fairytale tropes and comments on gender roles while delivering an outsized dose of Muir’s trademark dry humor. Moira Quirk is hilarious as the audiobook narrator. I’m counting this book for LGBTQ+ because one of the characters doesn’t identify with any gender and because the story examines gender roles. ♥▽

Travis Baldree: Legends and Lattes. A female orc warrior retires from adventuring to open a coffee shop. "What's coffee?" everyone asks. This novel is well crafted, full of interesting characters, and very cute. My friend @novelconcepts aptly described it as “a beautiful warm hug of a book.” There's even a tiny touch of WLW romance, if you’re into that. Baldree is writing a prequel. ▽

More Serious Fantasy

Brandon Sanderson: All of the series and standalone books that are set in the Cosmere (rather than on some alternate Earth). Mistborn: The Final Empire is probably a good place to start. The Stormlight Archive (The Way of Kings and sequels) is my favorite series of Sanderson’s, but each of those books is >1300 pages or >45 hours in audio form, so it may not be the best place to start. Era 2 of the Mistborn series (set 300 years after the Era 1) is probably the most fun. Sanderson also has many books not set in the Cosmere that are more than worth reading. His method of taking a break from writing is to write on a different series, so, every year, he puts out ~400,000 words worth of material (3-4 normal novels or a single Stormlight book). If you listen to the audiobooks of the Stormlight Archive, I recommend getting the hardcopy as well, since the art included really helps bring the world of Roshar to life. ♥

Scott Lynch: The Lies of Locke Lamora and sequels (The Gentleman Bastard series). Great worldbuilding of an original fantasy world with dark humor. Lynch finally completed his first draft of Book 4 (of 7 planned) in May 2019 after a 4-year delay, so I’m hoping it will be available eventually. I’m starting to give up hope, though.

China Miéville: Perdido Street Station. Very rich worldbuilding. Very, very dark. Don’t read this book if you aren’t interested in depressing storylines. Miéville’s other work is just as inventive and, in his word, “weird” as this one.

N. K. Jemison: The Broken Earth trilogy (The Fifth Season and its sequels). These books have an intriguing premise, extensive worldbuilding, and an interesting writing style. These novels won the best-novel Hugo for three consecutive years, which no author had done before. H▽

Alternate Reality (Including Alternate History and Steampunk)

Elizabeth Bear: Karen Memory. This novel follows a lesbian prostitute as she teams up with a lawman in a steampunk version of a Seattle-like city in the Pacific Northwest. I also enjoyed Bear’s space opera series, White Space (Night and Machine). ▽

Cherie Priest: Boneshaker and its sequels (The Clockwork Century series). Steampunk + zombies = fun. This story begins with a plague of zombification erupting out of Seattle, and it finally provides a reason for Steampunks to wear goggles. ♥

Ian Tregillis: The Mechanical and its sequels (The Alchemy Wars series). Alchemy + steampunk robots + a little philosophy.

China Miéville: The City and the City. See the Detective Stories section of this document. ♥

Felix Gilman: The Half-Made World. Steampunk mixed with fantasy. Also, sentient, demon-possessed firearms.

Mary Robinette Kowal; The Lady Astronaut series (The Calculating Stars and sequels). This universe is an extremely hard-science-fiction alternate history in which a catastrophic event dramatically accelerates the space program. The Lady Astronaut of Mars, a short story, is chronologically last but was written first. There’s also a short story called “We Interrupt this Broadcast” that comes chronologically first but isn’t closely connected to the rest. Kowal’s second job is audiobook narrator—she narrates Seanan McGuire’s October Daye series, for example—and she narrates all these books herself. Interestingly, Kowal’s third job is puppeteer, so she’s pretty busy.

Scott Westerfeld: The Leviathan series, as described in the young-adult section of this list. ♥

Detective Stories in Speculative-Fictional Settings

Scott Meyer: The Authorities and Destructive Reasoning. See the Lighter Science Fiction section. ♥

John Scalzi: Lock In and its sequel, Head On. This series of detective stories takes place in a world where a disease has left millions of people “locked into” paralyzed bodies and forced to use remotely operated mecha to interact with the world. Scalzi never reveals the gender of the main character, leaving it up to the reader’s imagination.

John Scalzi: The Dispatcher series. As of a few years ago, if someone is intentionally killed, they stand a 99.9% chance of recovering with their body reset to a few hours earlier, which makes murder more difficult, but not impossible. Dispatchers are licensed to kill—I mean dispatch—people before they can die from injuries or illnesses, thus giving them a second chance. One such service provider gets caught up in illegal dispatches and a series of mysteries.

Brandon Sanderson: Snapshot. Two detectives are sent into a snapshot, a detailed simulation of an entire city and its millions of inhabitants on a specific day, to investigate a crime.

China Miéville: The City and the City. This book is amazingly thorough exploration of a ridiculous premise: two cities occupying the same space. This novel is probably my favorite of Miéville’s books. ♥

Richard K. Morgan: Altered Carbon. A murder mystery with an SF “big idea” at its core. The basis for a Netflix series that I haven’t seen.

Superheroes and Supervillains in Prose

Brandon Sanderson: Steelheart and sequels (The Reckoners series). This is a young-adult series in which all super-powered people, called Epics, eventually turn evil.

Seanan McGuire: The Velveteen series. This series is McGuire’s funniest work and is available for free here, but I recommend buying the books to support the author. McGuire also has a number of other fantasy series under her own name as well as some SF/horror series under the pen name Mira Grant.

Comics and Graphic Novels

Brian K. Vaughan, Cliff Chiang, and Matt Wilson: Paper Girls. This 30-issue comic follows four newspaper-delivery girls who get swept up in a temporal war on Hell Day, 1988. They travel to the ancient past and the far future, meet their adult selves, and learn a lot about themselves in the process. The comic was adapted into an excellent Amazon Prime series, which is a bit more character-focused than the plot-driven comic. Both comic and show are recommended. ♥▽

Ryan North: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. This comic was my favorite ongoing superhero series until its recent ending. Firstly, it’s hilarious. Secondly, since Doreen Green (Squirrel Girl’s alter ego) is a computer-science student, there are a number of gags about coding and math. Thirdly, the heroine usually solves her problem not by beating up the villains, but by empathizing with them, understanding their problems, and helping them find nonviolent solutions. Since the series ended with Issue 50, it’s quite possible to read it all. ♥

N. D. Stevenson: Nimona. This mash-up of fantasy and science fiction is not only filled with humor but also includes a surprising amount of sweetness. ▽

Various authors: Lumberjanes. This young-adult comic series follows a group of cabin-mates at a summer camp for girls—excuse me, “hard-core lady-types”—as they encounter a surprisingly high frequency of supernatural phenomena over one time-dilated summer. This comic wrapped up its run after 75 issues. ▽

Alan Moore: Watchman. There’s a reason many people point to this graphic novel as an exceptional example of the genre. Honestly the way the story is told is more interesting than the story itself, but the storytelling is well worth the price of admission.

Short Stories in Speculative-Fiction Settings

Various authors: Metatropolis and its sequels. This series of anthologies is a near-future look at how cities (and green spaces) might evolve.

John Scalzi: Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City: Prologue. Trust me, read this hilarious fantasy parody for free here.

John Scalzi: Miniatures. A collection of very short science-fiction stories.

Young-Adult Speculative Fiction

Brandon Sanderson: The Rithmatist. In an alternate United States (so not in the Cosmere), geometric drawings are used to defend the world against an onslaught of 2D creatures. If you listen to the audiobook, I strongly suggest buying the hardcopy as well, since the drawings included play such as strong role in the story. I also suggest the Reckoners series, listed above, but The Rithmatist is my favorite non-adult story from Sanderson. ♥

Scott Westerfeld: Leviathan, Behemoth, and Goliath. This series takes place in an alternate-history WWI, where one side uses steampunk mecha, and the other relies on genetically engineered animals. There’s a bonus epilogue online, for those how can’t get enough. The hardcopy contains some very nice illustrations. The companion Manual of Aeronautics provides much additional (full-color) artwork, though the character descriptions in the last few pages contain major spoilers. ♥

Mark Lawrence: The Book of the Ancestor trilogy (Red Sister, Grey Sister, and Holy Sister). On a world being buried under ice, an orphan with magical powers joins others like her training to become warrior nuns. ▽

Myke Cole: The Sacred Throne series (The Armored Saint and sequels). In a land ruled by a religious tyrant who claims to have defeated devils from another plane, a teenage girl must fight to protect those she loves when the emperor’s vicious zealots arrive at her tiny village. Plus, there’s a steampunk mecha suit. The age of the protagonist points toward a young-adult audience, but this book has far more violence than is typical of YA novels. ▽

T. Kingfisher: A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking. “T. Kingfisher” is a pseudonym used by Ursula Vernon for young-adult and adult titles. This book follows a very minor wizard whose magic only works on dough. The story is full of humor and heart, and there’s more than a little (bread-based) action as well.

Anne McCaffrey: The Harper Hall Trilogy: Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums. These books are a subset of McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series, which is discussed eleshere.

Suzanne Collins: The Hunger Games series. These books are the basis for the kids-killing-kids battle royale film series.

Children’s and Middle-Grade Speculative Fiction

Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events. Very well done, but also very dark. The Netflix series based on the books is also quite good.

Ursula Vernon: Castle Hangnail. This adorable story follows a would-be wicked witch who applies to fill a vacancy at the titular castle.

Brandon Sanderson: The Alcatraz series (beginning with Alcatraz vs. The Evil Librarians). These books take place on an alternate Earth (thus not in the Cosmere) where most of the world is run by a cabal of evil librarians. There’s a ton of fun adventure and silly humor, which my son loved when I read them to him as an 8- to 9-year-old. Be sure to get the later printings with art by Hayley Lazo; her work is great.

Kazu Kibuishi: The Amulet series (beginning with The Stonekeeper). A portal-fantasy graphic novel with beautiful art and an interesting, magical setting.

#unsolicited opinions #bibliophilia #science fiction #fantasy #speculative fiction #alternate reality #alternate history #detective story #mystery #recommendation #books

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walks-the-ages · 2 years

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Me: there's biological essentialism in Books of the Raksura, both how the Fell are handled (they're either straight evil, or the only good ones are half "good-race" and control the pureblooded fell) and in how Moon arbitrarily assigns pronouns and genders to the various people's he meets, purely based on how deep their voices are or if they have large breasts, this is similar to how in her more recent works, Martha Wells introduces one-off side characters that Murderbot uses they/them pronouns for without anything in the narrative saying how Murderbot "knows" that's their pronouns, so we can only assume that Murderbot is arbitrarily assigning them they/them pronouns because they're "gender non conforming" when it would be so simple to add in a line about Murderbot checking their Space Facebook to check what their pronouns are. Also every single bot uses it/it's pronouns so Murderbot isn't even trans within the narrative because it agrees with it's "assigned mechanical at birth" designation, which could easily be fixed by asserting that Murderbot chose to use it/it's even after the company or other people assigned it she/her or he/him or Te/ter pronouns, and if it said it's pronouns out loud at literally any point in the novels because so many people feel like it's okay for them to "project their pronouns onto Murderbot" which is,..... Extremely transphobic and not okay.

People in the Murderbot fandom: "omg if the books of the Raksura has biological essentialism then just don't read it!!! Stop being so negative!! Stop hating !!! The Murderbot Diaries isn't transphobic I'm not even going to read your replies where you point out examples of unconscious bias and where you acknowledge this is clearly unintended on Martha Wells part and stop reading these series if you hate them so much!!"

Me, on literally every single other post I have ever made about Books of the Raksura and Murderbot: "I literally love these series so much, they're fantastic and great and I love the characters!!! I can't wait for the next books to come out! I wish we had more books set in The Three Worlds and got to see Moon and the Courts years in the future! Here's an entire AU I've come up with where Moon finds some baby Fell and adopts then before the events of Saraseil to turn into this whole giant divergent universe and--

---

Like, you can't cry about someone needing "critical thinking skills" because they're... Thinking critically about the works they're consuming.

I absolutely love Martha Well's various works as an author (especially her Stargate Atlantis novel which was amazing), and me being able to point out some elements in her work that are unintentionally transphobic does not mean I hate her and think the novels or characters or whatever are bad are horrible or blah blah blah.

It literally just means I am not blindly worshipping the novels and her writing, I can actually see the flaws and think about how they're sending an unintentional message through her work, and still love the work.

Me pointing out unintended transphobia in The Murderbot Diaries isn't me calling for The Murderbot Diaries to be "canceled" or that "I'm putting too much negativity" in the fandom lol.

You can enjoy a work, but you should be aware of the elements in it that are problematic, otherwise you risk internalizing them.

#walks talks #Murderbot #The Murderbot Diaries #Raksura #Books of the Raksura #critical thinking skills #Martha Wells #bold text

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asmywhimseytakesme · 3 years

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As promised, here is a list of my favorite tropes in fiction. I may continue to refine this over time.

Note, I am not pulling these from a website, I’m writing these up myself. There may be a page on tv tropes for all or most of these, but I’m trying to articulate to myself what I like and why I like it, so I’m naming my own tropes and writing descriptions that are specific to my own taste. I’m also including a short list of examples for each.

Needless to say, if you know of a book or show that includes some of these tropes (the more the better) and it isn’t mentioned here—PLEASE TELL ME. And of course, these are just my preferences and opinions—if you disagree, that’s fine, we just don’t like the same things 😁

These are organized loosely by category—character tropes, relationship tropes, and plot tropes.

Under a cut so people who aren’t that interested in my specific tastes don’t have to scroll forever.

Character Tropes

Mastermind—

An extremely clever and competent character who reads people, pulls strings, and often has a grand scheme the other characters are unaware of. Usually a good guy (at least my favorites tend to be), but doesn’t have to be.

Eugenides (Queens Thief), Miles Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan Saga), Peaceable Sherwood (the Sherwood Ring), Lord Peter Wimsey (the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries) Sir Percy Blakeney (the Scarlet Pimpernel), Sherlock Holmes

Note: all the above examples are male characters, but I don’t consider this a gender specific trope. I would love recommendations of female characters who fit this trope.

Not Just A Soldier / Not Just A Mom

I originally had these listed as two tropes, and then realized that they were just inverses of each other. They each have to do with fulfilling gender stereotypes in some ways, while subverting or transcending them in others.

For a male character in the genres I read, Not Just A Soldier is typically a fighter of some kind, and really good at it. Basically, on the surface he appears to be a very Masculine Male Manly Man. But! It turns out he is also just a really nice guy. And not only that—he’s smart, and he’s good with kids!

On the flip side, Not Just a Mom seems at first glance to be your typical motherly feminine character. But! That isn’t her entire personality! She also has a (not particularly feminine) career and hobbies outside of parenting, and she is confident and competent doing those things—AND (this is important) those non-mothering things she is good at are essential to the plot. (This tends to be less of an issue that needs to be specified with male characters, grumblegrumble.)

So on both sides, we have a character who is fulfilling gender stereotypes on one hand, but subverting them on the other.

Not Just A Soldier examples: Costis (Queen's Thief), Din Djarin (the Mandalorian), Cazaril (the Curse of Chalion), Uncle Iroh (ATLA)

Not Just A Mom examples: Hera Syndulla (Star Wars Rebels), Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan and Ekaterin Vorsoisson Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan Saga), Katara (ATLA)

Adventurous Parent

A parent who continues to be cool and have adventures and stay involved in the plot even after becoming a parent (a GOOD parent, of course).

Din Djarin (The Mandalorian), Dr Mensah (Murderbot Diaries), Hera Syndulla (Star Wars Rebels—-we’ll see if this holds true now that she actually has her own biological child?? Assuming she’ll show up in future Star Wars projects—I’m hoping to see her in the Ahsoka series🤞)

Reluctant Ruler

It seems like many bad guys would kill to be king—and many good guys would really, REALLY rather not be in charge, thanks. But when a good guy is forced by circumstances beyond their control into becoming a ruler, and they decide that they might as well try to do a good job at it, and then THEY ACTUALLY DO—this trip has my whole heart.

Maia Drazar (The Goblin Emperor—this book is basically the perfect example of this trope and I love it SO MUCH), Eugenides (Queen’s Thief), Sophos (Queens Thief), Aral Vorkosigan (Vorkosigan Saga), And hopefully Din Djarin in Mandalorian season 3? OH PLEASE YES I NEED THIS.

Broken, but loved

The name basically says it—these are characters who believed themselves broken, heartless, and unlovable, but others chose to love them anyway. It’s important to note that they are NOT “saved by love”, but they do CHOOSE to try and be better because of love.

This trope just GETS ME EVERY TIME GUYS. It makes my heart hurt in the most joyful way.

Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Attolia (Queens Thief), Zuko (ATLA), Medraut (the Winter Prince)

Friend Indeed

This is a simple one—a character who befriends someone who is in the middle of a difficult situation, when it would be much easier to just keep their distance.

Ratthi (Murderbot Diaries), Csevet (The Goblin Emperor), Kuill (the Mandalorian)

Magic Schmagic

The character in a fantastical story who can’t do magic, doesn’t know about magic, and doesn’t WANT to. They just wanna carry on being their own non magical, mundane selves and we love them for it.

Sokka (ATLA), Din Djarin (the Mandalorian), Digger (Digger), Gideon (Gideon the Ninth)

Relationship tropes:

Found Family

Ok, this is a popular one so don’t think I need to explain it. Since these often involve large groups of characters, I’m just going to list a few of my favorite pieces of media where this trope features prominently.

Star Wars Rebels, the Mandalorian, Digger, Murderbot Diaries

Reluctant Friendship

Where two characters are thrown together and one or both doesn’t particularly want to be friends with the other, but as they move through the adventure together they gradually come to like each other and form a friendship.

I also love the romance side of this trope but I’m just as happy to read about a platonic relationship.

Ben and Nathaniel (This Was Our Pact), Kaidu and Rat (The Nameless City), Kamet and Costis (Queen’s Thief), Digger and Shadowchild (Digger),

Magical Animal Sidekick

A character who forms a deep personal bond with a magical creature. It doesn’t have to be an actual creature—in a sci-fi setting this could also be a sentient robot or ship.

Temeraire and Laurence (His Majesty’s Dragon), Ani and Falada (Goose Girl), Murderbot and Art (Murderbot Diaries), Ezra and the Loth Wolves (Star Wars Rebels)

Prose/plot tropes:

It’s Complicated

Related to the Mastermind character trope, the distinction here is that this is a plot that wasn’t manipulated by a single character intentionally, rather it’s a complex series of interactions and misunderstandings that are all revealed to be interconnected in the end.

The Court Jester, Howl’s Moving Castle, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Digger

Sarcastic, Witty, and/or Colloquial narration

The name says it all. I usually prefer this in 1st person, but it can be fun in 3rd person too. In 3rd person it might be the narrator who is witty, or it might just be the main character's thoughts that are witty as related by the narrator.

1st person— The Thief, Murderbot, Digger, Dragonhaven

3rd person—Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Gideon the Ninth

Written For You

First person narratives are interesting and tricky because there is the question of WHY narrator is telling the story, and who they intend it for. I love first person stories where the narrative is specifically addressed to a person or group, which adds a level of meaning to the story. This isn’t the same as a story told in diaries or letters (though that can be fun too).

The Thief and A Conspiracy of Kings, the Winter Prince, All Systems Red, Dragonhaven

The juxtaposition of Magic and Mundane

I deeply love stories that mix magical things with mundane details of life in a deliberate way. I feel this makes real life feel a bit more magical, and helps magic feel a bit more real. This juxtaposition can be a central idea of the plot, or might simply be present in the way a narrator describes things.

This may be my favorite trope of all, come to think of it (though there are a lot of great ones listed above, so maybe I shouldn’t start naming favorites…) most of my own story ideas center on this idea to one degree or another.

Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Howl’s Moving Castle, His Majesty’s Dragon, Digger, Hilda, Queens Thief, Dragonhaven

Tropes I would like to see less of: prophecies, hereditary magic, a Chosen One, Soul Mates, fate/destiny. Yes, many of the stories I love involve these tropes, they’re hard to get away from in the genres I prefer to read. These tropes are Iess exciting to me first off because they’re done so often, but there’s a bigger reason I’d like to see less of them, which has to do with characters agency. I’m much more interested in a story that is about a character who CHOOSES to do the right thing, not because they were Chosen, but because they CHOOSE themselves to do the right thing. In the same vein, characters who CHOOSE to build and maintain a relationship are so much more interesting and, frankly, romantic to me than people who are just meant for each other BECAUSE FATE OK. Just.... no. People making tough choices because it’s the right thing to do makes for a much better story (aim my opinion) than people who do the right thing because DESTINY. So the overall theme here is, more character agency! (And as I said above—if you disagree, that’s fine! This is just me listing my preferences and opinions.)

If you read all that—wow! To all those who made it this far, thanks, and if you have any book/show recommendations that involve these tropes, please tell me about them!!

#tropes i like #personal #on writing #on reading #book recommendations #queens thief #the mandalorian #star wars #murderbot diaries #digger comic #studio ghibli #hmc #atla #howls moving castle #vorkosigan saga #and uuiuuh a bunch more but those are the main ones

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rjalker · 2 months

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tumblr's search function is truly useless so I have to repost this since I literally can't find the original post even if I search whole sentences from this. Fuck you tumblr.

[ID: The "Wow!! Cool robot!!!" meme, showing a person looking at a Transformers character and missing the point of the story, which is fired out of a gun and goes flying literally over their head, because they are distracted by the cool robot. The person saying, "Wow! Cool robot!" has been labeled, "Martha Wells being inspired to write The Murderbot Diaries". She is looking at "The Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie", which has the point of: "Gender is a social construct and you cannot tell someone's gender or pronouns just from looking at them. If you want to know someone's pronouns you're gonna have to ask them or someone who knows them because you cannot tell just by looking. Even if you know someone's gender, that doesn't mean you know what their pronouns are, because pronouns don't equal gender.". This point flies completely over Martha Wells' head, because she is too busy looking at the cool robot. End ID.]

And this isn't even getting into any of the ableism!!

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rjalker · 1 year

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"I know this character is nonbinary but I headcanon them as binary trans ;)" cool, you're a bigot!

#The Murderbot Diaries #-.-#Murderbot deserves a better fandom #TMBD fandom exorsexism #TMBD fandom transmisia #exorsexism #transmisia #fandom exorsexism #fandom transmisia #fandom bigotry #gender essentialism #they're headcannoning this nonbinary character as a girl because it's friendly :|#The Murderbot Diaries fandom transmisia #The Murderbot Diaries fandom exorsexism #binary bullshit #binary privilege

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rjalker · 1 year

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"She/hers are all sweet and innocent and bubbly and friendly! Therefore nonbinary people who are sweet and innocent and bubbly and friendly are actually girls!!!!!!" - people headcanoning canonically nonbinary characters as actually being binary trans girls because they just fucking hate nonbinary people and think only girls are allowed to be friendly and naive.

#NO I'M NOT JOKING THIS IS THE LASTEST EXORSEXISM IN THE MURDERBOT DIARIES FANDOM #it's not even satire this is literally the thought process #gender essentialism #like come the fuck on people. It's 2023 #fandom exorsexism #tmbd fandom exorsexism #fandom transmisia #tmbd fandom transmisia #Murderbot deserves a better fandom #exorsexism #transmisia #Istfg

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rjalker · 1 year

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"Murderbot's a boy because ~he~ is snarky and sarcastic and funny and badass! Miki is a girl because ~she~ is naive and innocent and friendly and needs protecting :) :)"

I think we need to ban binary people from talking about nonbinary characters.

Both of these characters are nonbinary and solely use it/its pronouns. But fucking binary people are just dying to misgender them and erase their identities to be more palatable to them because they cannot fucking stand seeing nonbinary people actually getting representation -.-

#gender essentialism #exorsexism #fandom exorsexism #tmbd fandom exorsexism #Murderbot deserves a better fandom #transmisia #fandom transmisia #tmbd fandom transmisia #The Murderbot Diaries fandom transmisia #The Murderbot Diaries fandom exorsexism #The Murderbot Diaries fandom bigotry #misgendering

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rjalker · 1 year

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anyways do you think Martha Wells will write about any kind of oppression that is not literally just "dangerous people are oppressed because they're dangerous" in her new book, Witch King????

Because this has been the whole basis for the oppression in:

The Murderbot Diaries

The Books of the Raksura

The Fall of Ile-Rien

City of Bones

and that's just fucking racist.

Murderbot is distrusted and feared because it's got guns in its arms and could crash a space station into a planet in twenty seconds if it felt like it. It's literally confirmed that it can hack even high security government systems without a single moment of trouble. It spies on everyone around it at all times, even after it's no longer forced to.

The Raksura are distrusted and feared because they literally evolved to mimic other species so they could sneak into their cities and eat them once they'd gained their trust. And also they look exactly like their cousin species, which still does literally mimic other species to eat them!!!! The Raksura are stronger and faster than any other sentient species they meet. They don't need weapons because they have razor sharp fangs and disembowling claws and even spines on their backs. Not to mention they could just pick you up and drop you.

In The Fall of Ile-Rien, wizards are distrusted and feared because most wizards literally just use magic to be evil and torture people. People who have spells cast on them are shunned and ostracized (except when they're not because Martha Wells forgot about her own rule) because a lot of the time, the spells cast on people are fucking curses to make them kill people and go out of control. Including curses that takes years to take effect.

In City of Bones, the main character's people were literally genetically engineered to replace everyone else after the apocalypse.

Martha Wells has written oppression to always be "dangerous people are oppressed because they're dangerous" and that is literally just fucking racism and so many other forms of bigotry it's not even funny!

Real fucking people are not oppressed because otherwise they'll fucking kill everyone around them.

Her work also relies very heavily on biological essentialism, and gender essentialism.

#Martha Wells #Rjalker reads The Books of the Raksura #Rjalker reads City of Bones #Rjalker reads The Murderbot Diaries #Rjalker reads The Fall of Ile-Rien #racism #Martha Wells is a cis white woman and it's very clear in her writing.#especially with the Raksura.#so much biological essentialism going on it's absurd #and the gender essentialism.#Fucking RIP to Chime and River >:|

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rjalker · 2 months

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I am so not in the mood to listen to banter. We turned the corner and the colonist was there. There was no feed ID, but AdaCol2 supplied the name Lucia and when I asked it for more info, the gender signifier bb (which didn’t translate) and he/him pronouns. (I asked because the humans would bug me for the information; I was as indifferent to human gender as it was possible to be without being unconscious.) Iris said, “Hello. Thank you for inviting us in.”

it's not even consistent with Murderbot's characterization. It is constantly describing people as either male or female or actually checking their gender markers in their feed bio. This is really clearly Martha Wells trying to brush the fact that she doesn't have characters list their pronouns literally anywhere under the rug as "characterization of Murderbot not caring" when it's literally not. We know none of these people list their pronouns in their feed bios. The problem is Martha Wells thinks that just listing your gender is the same thing as listing your pronouns. And apparently saw at least some criticism for that, which is why she wrote this bullcrap in to handwave it away.

Here's some random highlights of Murderbot noticing and caring about ~human gender~. No these are not in any sort of order.

He stepped back, and glanced uncertainly at the other two, the second male human bodyguard and Tlacey, who was an augmented human female.

A woman with bridge crew insignia said blearily, “The rest of the crew— Is the supervisor—”

One was an older female human named Bellagaia

Two were female, and one was tercera, which was a gender signifier used in the group of non-corporate political entities known as the Divarti Cluster.

I could pick up some info from her interface. (Feedname: Eletra, gender: female, and an employee ID from a corporation called Barish-Estranza.)

Casualty Two (Feedname: Ras, gender: male, and another Barish-Estranza employee ID.)

still showing a static image of two male humans,

The B-E humans had their visors up, and we’d seen the lead human before. He was Sub-Supervisor Dellcourt (male/demi) and he was one of the smart ones, which was just how this day was going.

and if you need a reminder:

Senior Indah said, “The feed ID doesn’t need to say anything other than what everyone else’s says, just name, gender, and…” She trailed off. She was looking at me and I was looking at her.

I posted a feed ID with the name SecUnit, gender = not applicable, and no other information.

so yeah. Martha Wells' response to people pointing out the lack of pronouns ever being brought up is to handwave it away and blame it on the ~unreliable narrator~ even though that doesn't work when she's made it explicit that no one actually has their pronouns in their feed bios, just their gender. Because she equates sex with gender with pronouns.

In ten years or so there's gonna be a bunch of trans people who start talking about the implicit and explicit exorsexism, transmisia, and general biological essentialism in Martha Wells writing, including the Murderbot Diaries. And none of you are allowed to pretend that no one was criticizing it at the time she was publishing the books.

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rjalker · 1 year

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So this post can be understood even by people who have not read The Books of the Raksura, Raksura have pretty much six sexes, like ants or bees.

For clarity, I'll be referring to them as: Queens, Consorts, Male warriors, Female warriors, Workers, and Healers.

Raksuran society 1000000% equates sex with gender, and sex (and thus, gender) are treated as immutable and unchangeable. There is no in-between or any variation or nonconformity allowed.

River, who was born a male warrior, is treated as though he is "pretending to be a consort" and "reaching above his station" because he wants to be with a queen, and (apparently) takes on many of the roles a consort would.

And the second a real fucking consort is found to replace him, he gets knocked to the very bottom of the social ladder.

And not because he's a vicious, abusive asshole. No one gives half a shit about that. No, the reason he's now at the bottom of the social order is because he thought he could take the place of a Real Consort™, but now that they've all got Moon, The Real Thing, they don't need “delusional” River “the pretend consort” who thinks he can “reach above his station” anymore.

And we're supposed to think this is what he deserves, for pretending to be something he's not. We're supposed to think it's shameful and embarrassing that River thought he could be a consort.

And all the actual horrible things he did? No one cares about that. The only reason he's hated is because he's trans-coded. Not because he went around abusing those under his power. Nope. Just because of his trans-codedness.

And then we get to chime!!!

Chime, who was born a Healer, after being unconsensually metamorphized into a warrior, is treated like he's fucking useless and can't be trusted around fucking books or has any useful knowledge and can't do anything to help anyone with anything, despite the fact that he was the top fucking healer in the whole fucking colony before Pearl's abuse caused him to metamorphize into a warrior.

So now that he has the body of a warrior, he's treated like he's been a warrior his whole life - - he's treated as though he's irresponsible and can't be trusted to do anything, and anytime he gets upset with this or wishes he could go back to being a healer, he's told he needs to just get over it and accept the fact that he's a warrior now and stop complaining because his complaining is getting on other people's nerves.

He is not allowed to do something as simple as help pitch a fucking tent without being literally snarled at and chased away by the “real” workers, who refuse to let him help simply because he's now, in their eyes, a warrior, and therefore would only ruin things and get in the way.

They also treat people who were born as warriors this way! Refuse to let them help with anything, refuse to teach them how they can help, and then complain that they're useless and never help with anything! Root tries to help out with things multiple times and gets chased away!

Like, for fuck's sake, the warriors aren't even taught how to properly dress their kills when they go hunting, and then are constantly insulted and shamed for doing it wrong, even though everyone refuses to show them how to do it properly!

Moon teaches the people he goes hunting with the proper way to dress their kills in one fucking try with no fucking problem, and the workers are shocked when they see it was done properly. Even though it would take them just five fucking minutes to have taught these people how to do it right in the first place!!!

The same way women will straight up refuse to let their sons or husbands or brothers help out with the cooking, then do nothing but complain that no one helps them and they have to do everything themselves! Even though they're literally the ones chasing everyone who wants to help out of the fucking kitchen!

Many warriors would be fucking delighted to be taught how to help out around the court! They'd love to fucking learn how to pitch tents and set up beds and all this shit they're not allowed to do!

But instead they're constantly shamed for not helping with anything and being useless, by the same exact people who literally refuse to let them help, and refuse to teach them how to do anything properly.

And because Chime is now in the body of a warrior, that means he gets the same treatment, even though he does literally know how to help and how to do things properly.

The workers literally refuse to let the warriors help, then do nothing but shame them for not helping.

And we are not supposed to have a problem with this. We're supposed to think it's funny how the warriors literally get snarled at and chased away from helping. We're supposed to think it's funny that Chime is dismayed and “sulking” about not being able to help set up camp.

Especially because he already has self-esteem issues since fucking being transformed into a warrior, because now he can't use any of his magic to help heal people the way he could before! He was literally in line to be the next healer in charge, and now he can't even do something as simple as make rocks glow, let alone do anything besides basic first aid to help save people's lives!

And then we get to Rift.

Rift isn't trans-coded like River or Chime, but he's sure as shit neuridivergent-coded. It's heavily implied that there's “something wrong with him” that makes him a fucking serial killer. Like he's fucking mentally ill in some way that just makes him a serial killer who can't be trusted and should be dead.

And he's the only Raksura we ever see who has a fucking problem with the ruthlessly enforced biological and gender essentialism of Raksuran society. So of course, of course he's portrayed as mentally ill in some undefined Scary™ way, and manipulative and a liar and definitely a fucking serial killer because there's just something wrong with him, otherwise he wouldn't have gotten kicked out of his court!

Rift is literally the only fucking person we see who has a problem with the way Raksuran colonies are set up so that how you are born, or what a fucking quirk of evolution transforms you into without your consent, determines what you are allowed to be and do for the rest of your life, no exceptions.

And he's portrayed as crazy and untrustworthy and a serial killer because of some undefined vague Scary Mental Illness.

Like. Wow.

“I have a problem with the way our society is set up to define people by how they were born”

“You only think that because you're mentally ill”

Like??????????

And we are not supposed to think Rift is right!! We are supposed to think Raksuran society is awesome and perfect and the way things should be!!! We are not supposed to sympathize with Rift! We're supposed to think he's ominous and scary and MentallY ILLLLLL in a scary way, not the nice fun relatable way with Moon's anxiety.

And apparently, Raksura who get kicked out of their colony are only ever kicked out for good reasons. Never because they're leaving for their own safety, or because they're being mistreated, or anything like that. No, we're just supposed to accept that there was a good reason everyone treated Moon like shit when they thought he was a “feral solitary”.

And the fact that they refer to these people as “feral” at all is just. Also so fucked up.

And the fact that Rift apparently existed just to teach Moon the lesson that he's the exception that proves the rule makes it even worse! Everyone gets to be like, “see, we told you feral solitaries are dangerous!!! but not you though, you're not like the rest of them :)”

And this kind of shit is why I call out the seemingly "innocent" and "harmless" exorsexism, transmisia, and biological and gender essentialism in The Murderbot Diaries (all robots are nonbinary because lack of genitals = gender, anyone?). Because this is the pattern that Martha Wells has established, and she's continuing it, just less blatantly.

#ableism #biological essentialism #gender essentialism #The Books of the Raksura biological essentialism #The Books of the Raksura gender essentialism #Martha Wells biological essentialism #Martha Wells gender essentialism #Rjalker reads The Murderbot Diaries #Martha Wells transmisia #transmisia #exorsexism #Rjalker reads The Books of the Raksura #The Books of the Raksura #Chime of Indigo Cloud #River of Indigo Cloud #Rift the Feral Solitary #long post

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rjalker · 2 months

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people really need to stop recommending books based purely on the fact that they're "Queer representation" of some kind.

Not only does it do a disservice to the story itself, because I guarentee you the author wanted their story to be remembered for more than having "x characters" and nothing more...

...but if you're going around blithely reccomending tons of random strangers read something like the Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia E. Butler based purely on the fact that some of the characters use it/its pronouns...

that's.

I'm sorry but that is just so negligent. That's the only word I can think to describe it. Xenogenesis is an adult science fiction story meant to be read by adults who are ready to have an incredibly serious conversation about slavery, eugenics, rape, genocide, and how consent literally cannot exist when you are a slave, and what that means for you and everyone around you.

It's not a fun casual adventure story anyone and everyone should be picking up without knowing what they're getting into. You have no idea how many people you're casually recommending this series to are victims of rape who are going to be triggered by scenes in this series, and you're not giving them any warning!

It's already bad enough for people to be flattening stories down into whether or not they have "X characters" but to not warn people about genuinely triggering content in the books you're flattening this way?? Why would you do that?

Please don't fucking do that. If you know a series deals with triggering topics then you need to warn people about that any time you recommend people read it. The Xenogenesis series requires trigger warnings for rape at the very least, and a whole lot more on top of that too, but that's the bare minimum.

Stop recommending people read things just because "characters use x pronouns in it" or "it has nonbinary characters" or "it has a lesbian in it" without any relevant warnings about triggering content it also contains.

At least the person who did this did specify that the it/its users in Xenogenesis are all aliens, but like, that's the least of things people need to be aware of before reading this trilogy.

Reccommend media by actually summarizing it. There's almost always an official summary you can find somewhere. Warn people about any topics that might be triggering that the content contains.

And, since I see this happen the most: for the love of fuck do not lie to people about Queer characters being in a series, or refuse to explain to people that the Queer characters that do exist are just the same old stereotypes we've all seen a million times, with nothing to balance them out and make them actually progressive.

That is going to accomplish nothing except alienating people who've been tricked into reading something that's not actually what they were told it was. You are not going to get anyone to enjoy a series by betraying them by lying about nonexistant or at best shallow, stereotypical, bioessentialist 'representation'.

The Animorphs does not have a single canon Queer character.

The Murderbot Diaries is just the exact same nonbinary robot stereotype that was old in the 90s, with no important human nonbinary characters at all despite there being seven whole books at this point. There are exactly 2 human characters who use neopronouns, but they're the epitome of "token characters". They appear for a combined total of maybe 10 pages, have no importance to the plot, and get shoved offscreen as quickly as possible, never to be seen again. All of the robots use it/its pronouns because they don't have genitals and Martha Wells is transmisic and loves biological essentliasm, and still very clearly equates sex with gender with pronouns. Despite the protagonist using it/its pronouns, no one ever asks anyone else for their pronouns, everyone just magically knows, because, again, biological essentialism. Also known as the exact opposite of representation for trans people.

The Xenogenesis trilogy does not have a single canon Queer character in it. All of the characters who use it/its pronouns are part of the third reproductive sex for the alien species.

Start recommending series based on what the plot is actually about, or what good things they have going for them, not just because they have characters who use XYZ pronouns or are the literal stereotype of a nonbinary robot.

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