Yes, I am trying to destroy science fiction, thank you for noticing. 12

God, what does a woman have to do around the internet to get her heathen liberal-fascist* feminazi reverse racist anarcho homosexual agenda aimed at the complete destruction of a literary genre noticed? I was about to start setting shit on fire, I fucking swear.

But it’s okay, guys! Senpai noticed me! (Okay, and a lot of other people, but I’m still getting some dokidoki in my shriveled, blackened little kokoro.) Finally, someone gets what we’ve been trying to do all along! We no longer have to go creeping around under cover of the internet, stealing Edgar Rice Burroughs novels from babies and pushing well meaning white guys (who just want to explain to us that we should stop whining because racism and sexism aren’t actually a thing any more, or wait maybe they are a thing but we should just suck less okay) down the stairs.

I for one am relieved. I’ve hated scifi since the minute I first encountered it. As my mother read The Hobbit to my brother and me as children, I had only two thoughts:

1) I was pretty sure I could take my older brother in a knife fight. If I sacrificed him on the altar if the dark and terrible lesbofeminazi gods, would I grow up to look absolutely fabulous in trousers and have my very own mustache to twirl?

And.

2) I was going to destroy Middle Earth and the rotten literary ground from which it had sprung. And then salt the soil with the bitter tears of all god-fearing, proper fans.

I never managed number one, though I do still look fabulous in trousers. But goal number two is ticking along nicely. I have joined an (apparently not so secret) cabal composed of basically everyone who isn’t a straight white guy oh wait there are some straight white guys in or cabal too, um shit, I guess it’s actually a cabal of people who just don’t think everything has to be about straight white guys. Yeah, that. And then, of all dastardly things, we WRITE.

Because we saw, you see. We saw so clearly that the foundation of all speculative fiction is actually straight white guys, not, you know, fantastical elements and what if like those lying bastard liberals tell you in their “college courses.” (Hah! Our secret liberal indoctrination works again!) So if you replace the straight white guys in fiction with people that actually reflect the diversity of the population, IT WILL ALL COME CRASHING DOWN LIKE A JENGA TOWER SURROUNDED BY DRUNKEN UNDERGRADS.

AHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAA

I mean, we SAY we would just like to read stories about people like us, that a little diversity doesn’t hurt, but smart guys like senpai know. He’s on to us. We hate art, because art is only the stuff senpai likes reading, and the rest of us totally don’t count because we don’t get the greatness of all that ART. We’re just going to burn that shit down. I for one only read scifi because I hate it. I only do things I hate. That’s how my bitter, sad, and twisted life works. That’s why you should all run out right now and bake me cakes because if there is one thing I hate more than scifi it’s cake and I’ll eat cake while I read a scifi novel so then MY HATE-FILLED, MISERABLE EXISTENCE WILL BE COMPETE.

I am so glad I don’t have to pretend any more. It’s like a great burden has lifted from my shoulders.

Now, I’m going back to writing my story about a lesbian Sikh werewolf going to the prom because I am doing my part to destroy everything that scifi stands for. Which, let us remember, is only straight white guys. Only that. Ever.

* – That’s what it’s called, right, Bill O’Reilly (or was it Glenn Beck I don’t even know any more they’re all like the same person) is no longer actually intelligible through all the froth, so I’m guessing.

12 thoughts on “Yes, I am trying to destroy science fiction, thank you for noticing.

  1. Reply Nathan Dec 20,2013 11:50

    I think it says something that Maystock can’t even spell your name right.

    I particularly liked the following:

    “The new crowd will point out that Samuel Delaney writes in his 1999 article at the New York Review of Science Fiction titled ‘Racism and Science Fiction,’ that John Campbell rejected one of Delany’s stories ‘with a note and phone call to my agent explaining that he didn’t feel his readership would be able to relate to a black main character.’ Keep in mind that Campbell’s modern detractors openly admit they can’t relate to ‘overwhelming white, male’ characters and constantly advocate for people who are gay like they are, black like they are, female like they are. If Campbell is racist and sexist, he has plenty of company.”

    That’s a pretty profound rupture both of careful reading and basic logic.

  2. Reply Nathan Dec 20,2013 11:54

    Sorry, “May,” not “Maystock.”

    (I will now become trapped in the ironic pocket-universe created by bothering to double-check the name of the dude I’m criticizing for not bothering to double-check the names of the people he is criticizing. Thank you and I’m out.)

  3. Reply Kathryn Ohnaka Dec 20,2013 14:23

    I tried really hard to read that guy’s essay, but wow…what a pretentious prick.

  4. Reply Janiece Murphy Dec 20,2013 15:47

    Rachael, your mother must be so proud. As am I. Bravo.

  5. Reply Emily Dec 20,2013 17:26

    if you’re going to write lesbian sikh werewolf going to the prom, make sure you write in about the whole not shaving thing. it’s kinda important.

    this requires: https://31.media.tumblr.com/f9351c521c73f787ea4b8f24a0901f7c/tumblr_mw2z4l8izS1qgweaqo2_500.jpg

    • Reply Emily Dec 20,2013 17:33

      actually, i did skim the article, and i find the whole thing funny in a, “i’m watching a 5 year old with a thesaurus throw a tantrum” sort of way.

      one wonders if someone like gaiman or stephenson, both of whom very much support women and PoC in writing, would feel about this temper tantrum? cos, i think those two authors have prolly done more for the genre than this asshat.

  6. Reply Chelsea Conlin Dec 20,2013 19:04

    Oh man, I’m glad I wasn’t drinking anything or I would have had to wipe down my computer monitor. This was a thing of beauty.

  7. Reply Andrew Barton (@ActsofAndrewB) Dec 20,2013 22:46

    Data point for you, Rachael – I was almost late for work today because I FORGOT how to tie my shoes, for the second day in a row. So obviously my opposition to this bloviating dude–and, of course, my as-yet-unrecognized struggle to do my part in destroying science fiction–stems from my brain problems. Huzzah!

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