Mindblowing SF by everyone else

[sqbr]

The latest furore to hit the fannish blogosphere is that The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF consists entirely of stories by white men. Called on this, the editor said the emphasis was on stories that took unusual scientific concepts and developed them in even more unusual ways...with women the stories concentrate far more on people, life, society and not the hard-scientific concepts I was looking for..

This has understandably pissed people off, and there has been much listing of female (and to a lesser extent POC) authors who write "mindblowing" stuff.

But I thought it might be worth being more specific. So: what are some "mindblowing" individual stories (novels or short stories etc(*)) by someone who isn't a white man (ie women, POC, trans writers etc) that "takes unusual scientific concepts and develops them in even more unusual ways". (They can also concentrate on people, life, society)

Off the top of my head:

• Bellwether, by Connie Willis, about trends and chaos theory.
  
• Many short stories by Ted Chiang, specifically Seventy Two Letters, a hard sci-fi story set in an alternate Victorian London about homunculi and golems and how they relate to the laws of thermodynamics.
  
• Xenogenesis trilogy by Octavia Butler: The aliens have a really fascinating biology. Her shorts stories are apparently amazing too.
  

Mindblowing but with really squishy sciences like linguistics and sociology:

• "The Sparrow" by Maria Doria Russell. I hated this book but the linguistics was pretty awesome.
  
• "Where once the sweet birds sang" by Kate Wilhelm. On the cultural effects of a society of clones.
  
• Sleepless series by Nancy Kress: the sociological effects of having a genuinely superior subset of society.
  

See also the first few comments to this (very good) post.

I was feeling bad about not being able to think of many, but there's very few authors I consider really mindblowing science-wise, I bet I wouldn't agree with the stories picked for the original anthology.

(*)I'd say "Only short stories" but I personally don't like short stories so wouldn't have much to list :D

Comments

[sami]

Bellwether, not Bellweather. :) Awesome book though.

I also think her short story "Even the Queen" is utterly brilliant, but you know, that explores sociological ramifications of a technological change and is totally focussed on women, so I'm sure it's not mindblowing at all.

[havocthecat]

Did this person seriously think that the only stories out there that were mindblowing wrt science were only the ones written by white men? Did this person not see the problem in that? Argh.

[aquaeri]

I turn away from dreamwidth for two minutes (okay, two days) and SF commits another fail? Well, thanks for keeping us all informed.

(And yeah, certain types of "mindblowing" SF probably is only written by white males, because I suspect it requires a lot of shared viewpoint and valuesystem and just plain ignorance of how mindblowing humans already are. This is not a virtue.)

Time to get the popcorn

[susanreads]

Tempest has a great post about this: see especially footnote 29.

[sqbr]

explores sociological ramifications of a technological change and is totally focussed on women, so I'm sure it's not mindblowing at all.

Exactly! Bah.

I kept thinking of mindblowing sf I'd read where the mindblowingness isn't the science itself but the stuff that happens around it. And really, the number of stories whose scientific ideas genuinely blew my mind is pretty tiny (and Ted Chiang's was one of the them)

[sqbr]

Well, in their defense they only chose 21 stories, so I don't think they were claiming to list ALL the mindblowing sf out there, just some if it :)

But still, yes, indeed.

[sqbr]

Yeah if you define your terms narrowly enough you will indeed only get stories by white men, but that doesn't get you off the hook for using that definition on the first place.

[sami]

I haven't read Chiang's, but I'd argue it's very difficult for the science to be mindblowing. It's either too much within reach or too far outside it. Or requires a novel to explicate.

Ringworld (Niven) is pretty awesome, conceptually. Greg Egan's one about the Theory of Everything is brilliant too. The rest? Meh.

[aquaeri]

The thing is, I believe this is in fact the definition a lot of what regards itself as "normal" SF fandom is using (see also: how women can't write hard SF) and because they think they're normal they are likely to react in a very startled/surprised way when this is pointed out to them.

Yes, I know they're soaking in ignorant privilege, but SF has been supporting that state of ignorant privilege for a long time.

[orbitaldiamonds]

Googling the "Sleepless" series. That sounds fascinating, thanks!

[sqbr]

Well, seventy two letters applies the laws of thermodynamics to golems, which isn't so much advanced as something it never occurred to me to do :D

[sqbr]

In my experience these rules are either so restrictive they only apply to a very very few white men (like hard sf which only uses cutting edge accurate hard science well enough to impress someone with the relevant degree. The only authors I can think of from the last decade or so are white men..but there's two of them) or they apply mostly to white men and then people apply them inconsistently eg Apparently I Write Like a Girl.

But yes, even when it's not applied inconsistently "normal" does "happen" to end up mostly describing white male etc books, and getting people to question their assumptions is incredibly difficult.

Re: Time to get the popcorn

[sqbr]

Yes, that's a great post.

[sqbr]

I have to admit I wasn't a huge fan myself, I didn't like her conclusions (to be honest I'm questioning whether she should be on the list). But it was certainly thought provoking.

[orbitaldiamonds]

Nice.

I read Beggars Ride years ago, didn't realize it was part of a series! I'll have to go back. :)

[aquaeri]

I think we're agreeing violently. My point about "Hard SF", because I've followed the history of it a bit, is that the definition of exactly what is "Hard SF" has basically become more restrictive every time a woman wrote something that would fit the previous definition. For example, biology is now well outside the remit of "Hard SF", but it wasn't in the 1950s. Similarly, the psychology ("psychohistory") of Asimov's Foundation series was seen as pretty "Hard" in its day but not now girls are writing stuff with much more rigorous psychological underpinnings.

[sqbr]

*agrees non-violently but with enthusiasm*