Invisible 3: Personal Essays and Poems on Representation in SF/F

Invisible #3

by Jim C. Hines (editor), Mary Anne Mohanraj (Editor), K. Tempest Bradford (Introduction)

18 essays and poems on the importance of representation in science fiction and fantasy, with an introduction by author K. Tempest Bradford. Proceeds from this collection go to support Con or Bust.

contains:
Heroes and Monsters by T.S. Bazelli
Notes from the Meat Cage by Fran Wilde
What Color Are My Heroes? by Mari Kurisato
The Zeroth Law of Sex in Science Fiction by Jennifer Cross
Our Hyperdimensional Mesh of Identities by Alliah
Erasing Athena, Effacing Hestia by Alex Conall
Not so Divergent After All by Alyssa Hillary
Skins by Chelsea Alejando
The Doctor and I by Benjamin Rosenbaum
My Family Isn’t Built by Blood by Jaime O. Mayer
Lost in Space: A Messy Voyage Through Fictional Universes by Carrie Sessarego
Decolonise the Future by Brandon O’Brien
Natives in Space by Rebecca Roanhorse
I would fly with Dragons by Sean Robinson
Adventures in Online Dating by Jeremy Sim
Of Asian-Americans and Bellydancing Wookies by Dawn Xiana Moon
Shard of a Mirage by M.T. O’Shaughnessy
Unseen, Unheard by Jo Gerrard

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Poetry, Disability, Research, Anthologies, LGBT

90 pages, ebook

First published June 27, 2017

About the author

Jim C. Hines began his writing career with a trilogy about the irrepressible Jig the goblin, which actor and author Wil Wheaton described as "too f***ing cool for words." He went on to deconstruct fairy tales in his four-book Princess series, made all the world's literature a grimoire in the Magic ex Libris series, and explored the heroic side of spacecraft sanitation in his Janitors of the Post Apocalypse trilogy. His short fiction has appeared in more than fifty magazines and anthologies. Jim has been outspoken about topics like sexism and harassment, and was the editor of the Invisible series—three collections of personal essays about representation in sf/f. He received the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer in 2012. Jim currently lives in mid-Michigan.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good collection of essays and problems about representation.

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is not one bad apple in this anthology, but even though I liked all the essays and poems, there are some that rocked my world.

What Color Are My Heroes? by Mari Kurisato
Erasing Athena, Effacing Hestia by Alex Conall
Not so Divergent After All by Alyssa Hillary
The Doctor and I by Benjamin Rosenbaum
Natives in Space by Rebecca Roanhorse

[Quartzen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This, like the previous two books in the Invisible series, is a collection of works (mostly essays, some poems in this volume) about personal experiences with representation of marginalized identities in science fiction and fantasy media (including written SF, TV/movies, comics, games). Also like the previous two collections, it's a really solid collection of writing on the topic, and I would recommend all three of them if you read and/or review SFF stories!

[Gehayi · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best way that I can talk about this is to break down each submission.

K. Tempest Bradford's "Introduction" was good, describing books as mirrors and then talking about how important it is to see yourself in media and to listen to others saying what they wanted to see of themselves. Good start.

"Heroes and Monsters," a poem by T.S. Bazelli, talks about how being fed the same stories over and over can be damaging to those who need something else. I could get behind that theme--sort of, as it seems that being fed the same thing all the time wouldn't be good for ANYONE--but then the person who has been fed all the wrong stories is transformed into a fire-breathing dragon. And I really don't think that being forced to consume stories that don't suit you turns you into a monster--a powerful one, at that--literally or figuratively.

I would have preferred it if the people who seemed to thrive on the diet of the same old stories had wrongly perceived the narrator as a monster that had to be vanquished or killed. (To quote Vincent from Silent Hill 3: "Monsters? They look like monsters to you?") As it was...the poem didn't set well with me.

"Notes from the Meat Cage" by Fran Wilde talked about wearing a body brace and finding stories of protagonists who had escaped assistive devices and disabled bodies. Sadly, Wilde mentioned only two such characters in detail (Helva, the brainship from Anne McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang and Lise from William Gibson's story "Winter Market"). Other liveships were mentioned as being important to her--Farscape's Moya, which I'd at least heard of, and Bear & Monette's The Lavinia Whateley and Aliette de Bodard's mindships, which I hadn't--but not why. From that point on, I felt as if I was missing part of Wilde's message--an allusion or attitude that pervaded fictional liveships that I was expected to be familiar with.

Wilde concluded by talking about two characters that she'd created and how Djonn and Lane had braces and tech to help them, but they weren't defined by their bodies and limitations. I didn't understand that at all, as I am disabled and, well, I can't escape my body's malfunctions or what those malfunctions prevent me from doing. I'm not JUST a malfunctioning body that can't do a lot of things--but the problems and limitations are important. Wilde's fictional treatment of disability was so alien to my own experience that I couldn't identify with it at all.

"What Color Are My Heroes?" by Mari Kurisato starts with the statement that they believed, as a child, that Luke Skywalker was indigenous--which they admit probably came from desperation--and then discussed the paucity of indigenous protagonists, or even characters, in science fiction. They were especially not pleased by non-Native authors fabricating quasi-Native cultures, especially since most non-Native authors reduce Native characters to stereotypes.

I agree. That's very common, and it shouldn't be. Yet at the same time I've seen countless writers' sites advising non-Native writers to make up Native tribes and societies and religions because writing about a real tribe that they weren't a member of would amount to appropriation. I waited for Kurisato to deal with that issue, but it never came up.

More disturbing, I thought, was that only 0.4% of all mainstream characters are Native American--and almost none of these are positive. Either they reduce the Native character to a historical stereotype, or they focus on unflattering modern--and predominantly negative--stereotypes. So I was pleased to hear that there were many indigenous writers in science fiction; Kurisato named five of them. (Rebecca Roanhorse, Dr. Darcie Little Badger, Daniel Heath Justice, Owen Benaway and Cherie Dimaline.) But though they were praised as "incredible Native voices," I wasn't told what they wrote, who their characters were, or what made them incredible authors. I wanted to hear that part...but again, it never came up.

The overall impression I had was that this essay was too short. It was interesting; there just wasn't enough of it. Some subjects that were merely touched on could have been explored in far greater depth.

"The Zeroth Law of Sex in Science Fiction" by Jennifer Cross is largely autobiographical, the story of an aromantic black woman who enjoys sex but not relationships and her struggle to find someone to identify with in science fiction. It was fascinating, especially the part about aromanticism, as I empathized with Cross's frustration over the ubiquity of romance plots and the tiresome assumption that women are all about falling in love. Yet at the same time, I was baffled by the presence of another common trope for asexuals and aromantics: the belief that they are broken and/or wrong. Cross seems to have spent decades believing that romantic love was the best for everyone, even if she didn't want it. I always wonder why folks believe that they're broken rather than thinking that there's a spectrum and some people are more romantic (or more sexual) than others).

"Our Hyperdimensional Mesh of Identities" by Alliah is the story of someone growing up queer in Brazil in the 1990s and 2000s. It's also, like Wilde's essay, written for an audience that already knows what the author is talking about. Alliah talks about their "transmasculine non-binary gender identity" and fanfic about "an agender transhumanist Root (from Person of Interest)." I didn't know what "transmasculine" or "transhumanist" meant. Interesting, and I agreed with their point that readers are always assumed to be cis, straight and white, which is a silly assumption for anyone to make. But at the end, Alliah spoke of people "deserv[ing] to live as a hyperdimensional mesh of identities when they want to flatten us," and I found myself wondering three things: "What is a hyperdimensional mesh of identities?" "Who are the 'they' that Alliah is referring to?" and "Why does this 'they' want to flatten others?" The phrases that I kept tripping over sounded as if they were intended to inform. They just weren't clear.

(Apparently "transmasculine" is a word that, according to the Gender Wiki, "describes transgender people who were assigned female at birth, but identify with masculinity to a greater extent than with femininity," while "transhumanism," according to Wikipedia, is "an international and intellectual movement that aims to transform the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies to greatly enhance human intellect and physiology." The latter still has me confused.)

"Erasing Athena, Effacing Hestia" by Alex Conall was...well, I'd known about Zeus/Ganymede and Apollo/Hyacinthus for a long time. And it was interesting to hear about Zeus seducing Callisto in the form of Artemis. However, if you check the source ( Ovid's Metamorphoses ), it's not Zeus disguised as Artemis but Jupiter (or Jove, if you prefer that name) disguised as Diana, and it's not seduction but rape:

Jupiter, seeing her there weary and unprotected, said ‘Here, surely, my wife will not see my cunning, or if she does find out it is, oh it is, worth a quarrel! Quickly he took on the face and dress of Diana, and said ‘Oh, girl who follows me, where in my domains have you been hunting?’

The virgin girl got up from the turf replying ‘Greetings, goddess greater than Jupiter: I say it even though he himself hears it.’ He did hear, and laughed, happy to be judged greater than himself, and gave her kisses unrestrainedly, and not those that virgins give. When she started to say which woods she had hunted[,] he embraced and prevented her and not without committing a crime. Face to face with him, as far as a woman could, (I wish you had seen her[,] Juno: you would have been kinder to her) she fought him, but how could a girl win, and who is more powerful than Jove? Victorious, Jupiter made for the furthest reaches of the sky: while to Callisto the grove was odious and the wood seemed knowing.

This is the story that Conall spins as showing that "Artemis" (Diana, really) is a lesbian; a male god, disguised as a woman, rapes a young girl who tries desperately to fight him off. Also, Conall seems to have skipped the next portion, in which Callisto, now a rape victim, is discovered to be pregnant and Diana doesn't even ask for an explanation--she tells Callisto to leave immediately and not pollute the sacred fountain. And then Callisto gets turned into a bear because Juno is jealous. I'm not seeing a loving lesbian relationship between Callisto and Diana; I'm seeing a poor girl who can't catch a break.

While I found nothing wrong with the rest of Conall's research, this blatantly false description of what happened to Callisto rankled.

Next comes Alyssa Hillary's "Not So Divergent After All" in which they analyze neurodivergent representation in the Divergent series and talk about being deeply disappointed that the female lead, Tris, is neurotypical, despite knowing, as they started Allegiant, that Tris was neurotypical. I can see craving representation, but Hillary knew from the beginning that the representation they were looking for isn't there. Interesting, as I like reading critiques of bad novels, and I can certainly understand Hillary's cry of "Where are the heroes like me?"--but I really wish that they had mentioned a book or two with a neurodivergent lead, or book series with neurodivergent authors.

"Skins" by Chelsea Alejandro is a poem about the author, a Filipina woman, playing video games and getting the chance to play the protagonist as an Asian woman. Not a bad poem, and Alejandro makes some good points about the need for more diversity in video games.

"The Doctor and I" by Benjamin Rosenbaum focuses on Doctor Who (both Old Who and NuWho), tropes that he sees as Jewish (such as the Doctor's penchant for revering intelligence and trickiness, as well as finding non-violent solutions), and self-identification with characters. Interesting, though I wasn't convinced that those tropes were exclusively Jewish.

Jaime O. Mayer criticizes TV shows Once Upon a Time for perpetuating certain myths about adoptees (that all adoptees feel less than whole and that all adoptees feel that they must find their biological parents), praises Supergirl for getting the sisterhood of Alex and Kara Danvers right, and frowns at Supergirl for having Kara refer to Eliza Danvers not as her mother but as her "foster mom" and for not letting Kara bond with Eliza. Again, interesting, but I wish it had been longer and more fully developed.

Carrie Sessarego's "Lost in Space: A Messy Voyage Through Fictional Universes"--an exploration of how various well-known science fiction universes (Star Wars, Firefly, Star Trek, and the Vorkosigan Saga) treat disability (or, as Sessarego coyly calls it, "messiness"). She definitely feels that disability primarily exists in science fiction to highlight society's economic, political and technological failures, not as if disabled people just happen to exist and can do excellent work. I disagreed with several of her arguments, but I found the essay compelling, nevertheless.

"Decolonise the Future" by Brandon O'Brien states that science fiction and fantasy have a tendency to "uncritically revisit legacies of colonialism and imperialism" while leaving those who have actually had to deal with foreign invaders out of the story. Interesting premise, and I would have liked to have heard more. But while O'Brien is passionate about the Caribbean's history being vital in science fiction—he doesn't seem to be aware that most people outside of the Caribbean know nothing about its history. He mentions nothing beyond the fact that the Caribbean was colonized by white people. He refers to things like solarpunk, socioeconomic evolution, climate and works by Caribbean authors, but he doesn't define the terms or explain why the books are good and worth reading. Unfortunately, yet again, the author was preaching to the choir rather than attempting to educate the audience.

"Natives in Space" by Rebecca Roanhorse dovetails with Kurisato's earlier essay, pointing out how Natives are ignored most of the time and stereotyped the rest of it. She also insists that indigenous people and their values are needed in science fiction to help communicate ideas that could build a better future. I would feel more certain about that if I knew what values Roanhorse was talking about. But again, the author assumed that the readers knew what values Natives hold dear. (My main contact with Natives in the past year have been through articles about the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and J.K. Rowling's disastrous Pottermore essays on the History of Magic in North America. If I have learned anything, it's that I don't know much about Natives.)

"I Would Fly With Dragons" by Sean Robinson is an essay about being bullied and how a story "The Littlest Dragonboy" by Anne McCaffrey) made the author feel as if being different was okay and they weren't alone. The essay ends with good wishes and forgiveness for the bully, which I find incomprehensible. I could never let a bully off the hook like that.

"Adventures in Online Dating" by Jeremy Sim is about people from a minority group not wanting to get romantically involved with others from that same group. I didn't really understand this, and it was nothing that I could change.

"Of Asian-Americans and Bellydancing Wookiees" by Dawn Xiana Moon is the autobiographical essay of a geeky Asian-American woman. She also wonders why Asian-Americans are so seldom cast as leads in roles where race doesn't matter; talks about Asian-Americans writing themselves out of their books, comics, etc., using white as the default race; and states that she refuses to make herself invisible. Interesting, but again, it needed to be longer.

"Shard of a Mirage" by MT O'Shaughnessy is confusing. It talks about mirrors not reflecting the whole of a person, saying the labels tend to miss bits of people. O'Shaughnessy says that he never saw the whole of himself in stories. (I'm not sure that anyone ever does.) He wants to know if fictional worlds could have a place for him while the heroes are saving the day. I kind of got the impression that representation didn't matter as much the worldbuilding.

"Unseen, Unheard" by Jo Gerrard is the final poem in the anthology, one about someone who never gets representation: an older queer fat woman. Never the strongest, never the fairest, never the hero. I could feel her frustration.

Overall, I felt that many of the essays needed to be more fully developed, while at least four were insufficiently clear, assuming that their points had already been made. Overall, I would give the book three stars. But I'll add a fourth for good intentions. The book was not as helpful as I had hoped it would be…but it did try.

[Joy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Representation matters, and if you still doubt that then you definitely need to read the essays within this collection. I am a white woman, and I haven't seen nearly enough representation of people like me in media - how hard is it for all of those who are less privileged than I? I cried at the end of "Hidden Figures" because HERE were the strong intelligent black women that we need to see, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Diversity in viewpoints and in characters and in stories is really important to help everyone see that their potential is possible, their dreams are possible. You might not be able to find a perfect match to yourself - say an asexual woman with fibromyalgia from the Philippines (to completely make up a likely existing person) - but you should be able to find characters that cover the various aspects and show them being successful and happy. What message does it send to only see people like yourself as the low-paid help, never the boss? What message does it send to only see people like yourself as sidekicks, never the hero?

Representation matters. So does this book. I will be picking up the previous two collections at some point to continue broadening my own experience.

[Melinda Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent critical look at science fiction and fantasy representation. Appreciated all of the author's viewpoints expressed in the essay, and I highly recommend for all fans and writers of speculative fiction.

[Kris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again another brilliant essay and poetry collection highlighting issues of inclusivity and representation. The entire series is highly recommended.

[Natalie Holden · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like this was the weakest collection in the series, with most essays focusing on specific works of fiction and a few uninspiring poems. Still an important read, but nothing groundbreaking.