I think 'Lunar Voices' is perfectly passable as a story, but for me, as a disabled SF fan, it falls foul of the situation I talked about in my initial blog. Once again a story cheats its way around the Kobayashi Maru of disability with technology that makes disability irrelevant, rather than truly engaging with the interaction of disability and society. An accessible environment is far more than just the physical dimension within which disabled people exist. Mary, and disability, are basically along for the ride here - disability as foreign language fails to challenge the issue SF has with creating believable disabled characters with a real depth to them. Phulani has depth, but Mary seems a cypher who talks without us every learning about her, the complex person for whom having BSL as a first language is only part of her identity, part of the person with whom society interacts. I can't help thinking that the story would have been so much stronger with Mary as the viewpoint character.
Of course, all this could just be me pouting because it wasn't my entry selected, but I hope I'm deeper than that. If I raised my concerns by blog then I had to similarly raise them in fiction, and if those concerns still exist with the result then I have to be true to my beliefs and say so.
I don't think I disagree with anything that Sarah says in either of her essays, I applaud her for her discussion of the judging process, and kudos to Redstone for running the contest, there are simply wider aspects of disability, and environment and society, and the way that SF/F approaches them, that I'd hoped to see addressed.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-26 07:10 pm (UTC)Redstone's contest is now over and the winning story has been published. The winner is 'Lunar Voices' by Nick Wood, which you can read at http://redstonesciencefiction.com/2010/09/lunar-voices/ , while Sarah Einstein talks about the judging process at http://redstonesciencefiction.com/2010/09/possible-future/
I think 'Lunar Voices' is perfectly passable as a story, but for me, as a disabled SF fan, it falls foul of the situation I talked about in my initial blog. Once again a story cheats its way around the Kobayashi Maru of disability with technology that makes disability irrelevant, rather than truly engaging with the interaction of disability and society. An accessible environment is far more than just the physical dimension within which disabled people exist. Mary, and disability, are basically along for the ride here - disability as foreign language fails to challenge the issue SF has with creating believable disabled characters with a real depth to them. Phulani has depth, but Mary seems a cypher who talks without us every learning about her, the complex person for whom having BSL as a first language is only part of her identity, part of the person with whom society interacts. I can't help thinking that the story would have been so much stronger with Mary as the viewpoint character.
Of course, all this could just be me pouting because it wasn't my entry selected, but I hope I'm deeper than that. If I raised my concerns by blog then I had to similarly raise them in fiction, and if those concerns still exist with the result then I have to be true to my beliefs and say so.
I don't think I disagree with anything that Sarah says in either of her essays, I applaud her for her discussion of the judging process, and kudos to Redstone for running the contest, there are simply wider aspects of disability, and environment and society, and the way that SF/F approaches them, that I'd hoped to see addressed.