The time has arrived, I’ve been looking forward to The Future is Queer book club since we hatched the idea late last year. What better way to celebrate Pride than to focus on some speculative fiction by and about LGBTQ folks. Whether you read one or all four of our options, I hope you find something below that sparks your interest so we can continue to enjoy talking about books together.
On to the boilerplate: ground rules remain the same as they always have. For those of you who might be joining in for #CannonBookClub for the first time (hello new friends!) all are welcome. The topics are numbered, and we ask that you refer to them below by that number to help people find the conversation topics they are looking for. Please try to have only one or two topics per comment – it helps build conversation. If you are responding to someone else’s thoughts, please try to respond directly to them and also tell us about your own ponderings on the book. While we’ve never once had to do this and don’t expect to now, comments that are not germane to our discussion will be removed.
We will also be talking on our social media platforms over the course of the next two days, and in our Facebook group, Cannonball Read Book Chat, so feel free to wander over there throughout the course of today and tomorrow.
And now, the topics!
- What stood out to you in the fictitious future of the book you read? Did it inspire hope?
- How important was the POV to the telling of the story? Would the book have been greatly affected by a change of perspective?
- What inherent world building components stood out to you as reflecting queer culture?
- The world around us is demanding we reckon with racial representation and bias – how were those issues explored in the book(s) you chose?
- How did the author reflect our present physical world in their imagined future?
- Talk tropey to me: which trope did your selection explore?
- What do our characters want, what are their motivations? How do you think that reflects the author’s experiences?
- Representation matters: which voices that would likely appear as a sidekick, or the best friend, were given the spotlight? What did it add to the narrative?
- Speculative fiction is often built on tales of exploration, survival, ingenuity, exceptionality, and redemption. Which of those components formed the core of the work you read, how did the author expound on it?
- Grab bag: I want to talk about something that doesn’t fit into the topics, meet me in the comments.
#3 – On a world building level, I appreciate that multiple pronouns were used and how Rivers Solomon stratified society. On the generation ship, Matilda, society is separated, literally, by levels of the ship. Higher in the ship, where the white passengers are, is cisgender and heteronormative. In the low decks where the black and brown people live, identity and sexuality are more fluid. On some decks, everyone uses the pronoun “they” and on another, everyone is “she”. “Traditional families” exist on the upper levels, while below families and couples are a mishmash, in part by necessity of how genders are separated and also by desire. The lower deck people are more accepting of different couplings while this behavior is looked down on and punished by the guards, who all hail from the upper decks.
An Unkindness of Ghosts explores gender identity through two main characters, Aster and Theo. Both recognize they don’t fit into the cis-heternormative world that they live in and try to best adapt and fit in, to protect themselves. Theo hides his expression of identity through religious trappings as he recognizes his oddness can be hidden under the guise of religion. Aster finds her stride when she is able to take on the persona of the male Ashton on the upper deck levels. They find companionship in neither being wholly comfortable in their skin.
I’ll come back after work to expand my thoughts on some more questions, but for now:
3. What inherent world building components stood out to you as reflecting queer culture?
This may not necessarily be world-building, but the question immediately made me think of one part in The Disasters that deals with Zee, the medic character who is a trans woman. The author makes a point of showing how in the future society has progressed in acceptance in certain areas (particularly in terms of individual’s sexualities and religious affiliations in the colonies). But while Zee may be able to play on a professional soccer team as a trans woman in most countries on earth, she is still being held back in her career because of her identity. It makes me think of now, and how our society likes to claim they are progressing while so many are still getting left behind in many ways: BIPOC, transgendered and nonbinary individuals, and so many more.
If your progress doesn’t include everyone, then it’s not worth as much as you want to pretend it is.
I was also struck by England’s deft handling of that reveal. From Nax’s reaction to the underlying truth that progress doesn’t happen at the same pace everywhere or in every arena – even though that should be what we strive for.
I’m only halfway through this one (hope to finish tonight!) but that reveal was so gentle- I don’t mean that as criticism; Z told her story, Nax heard her story, and they let the unfairness of the world echo around them in the surrounding silence. It was a beautiful thing for Z to share, and a terrible thing that I wasn’t surprised that, well into the future, she was still being held back by things that plague trans kids today- especially kids who are just trying to play sports (my state is actively attacking trans teens over this right now) and be comfortable in their own skin.
7 – Talking back and forth with Theo, Aster describes herself thus, ”Aye. You gender-malcontent. You otherling,…Me too. I am a boy and a girl and a witch all wrapped into one very strange, flimsy, indecisive body. Do you think my body couldn’t decide what it wanted to be?” “I think it doesn’t matter because we get to decide what our bodies are or are not,” he answered. Aster wants to be recognized for Aster without gender identity and expression being a part of it because Aster is still figuring Aster out. As Rivers Solomon identifies with with the pronoun “they”, it stands to reason that this is an experience they went through, figuring themself out and then deciding who they are.
4 – Oof the racial reality aboard the spaceship Matilda is sadly very similar to how BIPOC are being treated today. Matilda society is literally racially stratified. Whites make up the highest class and inhabit the upper levels and best parts of the ship. Everyone else is lesser. Blacks and brown people are relegated to the bottom of the ship, forced into menial jobs. A POC on the upper decks is immediate cause for suspicion. Coming from the lower decks, it is impossible to improve one’s lot in life. There is no formal education, resources are denied, and there is no path to upward mobility. This world order is brutally enforced by guards on decree of the Holy Sovereign who guides the ship to the Promised Land. When power outages happen, heat is taken away from the low decks to keep upper levels in comfort, and this becomes the breaking point.
“Twit, now dog and she’d heard much worse so many times that she did not care, could not care. She didn’t need much. Didn’t need to be adored and loved and called nice things. All she wished for was perfunctory respect paid to the fact that she was, indeed, alive. Real, breathing, thinking, movable parts and all.”
This sentiment is at the heart of Black Lives Matter, to be seen.
I definitely agree with you …
I do feel like the idea of lack of social mobility, and being stuck in a situation for some inherent greater good is a pretty common trope in sci-f and space travel. Wool, Snow Piercer etc. come to mind. The have and have nots. So in many ways the story felt familiar but then it also had throwbacks to southern slavery with the men of the upper decks raping fertile women to increase their slaves/workers.
I was hoping for more of the past to be revealed … even if the how wasn’t relevant to Aster since she was stuck in the situation she was in, and it didn’t matter what the past may have been.
10:
I think that food and eating made a large impact in (at least) three of these books; I don’t remember too much about food being mentioned in IHYGTM, but food played a large role in The Disasters, LWTASAP, and – most importantly- AUOG.
Food allowed characters to hold onto pasts that had been ripped from them.
Dr. Chef learned about others from the food that they grew and ate, and delighted in the meanings and customs of sharing food with others. They kept the memory of their destroyed world alive through cooking and sharing. People sought solace, comfort, and strength from communal meals, junk food, and good-old-fashioned caffeinated beverages.
The kids in The Disasters that shared the Muslim faith; whether culturally or religiously, were drawn together over the familiar flavors of their families, despite being from (literally) different worlds- and they freely shared their food (and culture) with the other kids that they picked up along the way, and underground network of freedom fighters had a hub at a Halal restaurant!
The women of Q deck in AUOG preserve their culture, heritage, and strength in the food that they prepare, eat, and share. The flavors of their past; strong spices, root vegetables, aromatic herbs- are the only thing that they have left- the only thing that they can still control. The first way to care for each other within the Lowdeckers is to see when they last ate, and to feed them ASAP. A soul-crushing blow comes when the powers-that-be restrict their ability to cook and provide the food that has always given them a tiny bit of comfort in a cold and terrible world.
Food could always bridge the gap in times when language failed; in sorrow, joy, camaraderie, and pain people of all backgrounds could gather around a table, near a stove, in a pantry, or around wax-wrapped hand pies and feel communal and familiar comfort – even in unfamiliar times.
I loved Doctor Chef and they’re relationship with food.
I CANNOT WAIT for you to finish that one- the best food moment has yet to come!!!
OMG yes, the food!
The care that Dr. Chef put into the meals he crafted for his crew did so much to establish exactly who they were.
In The Disasters there’s a scene where Nax and his brother begin to unpack their baggage while cooking and it settled the story in a different way than it previously had been. Food, and the particular cultural impacts of food, are big in both books.
yessss- Nax, his brother, and the pan full of hot oil and crisp veggies.
I am nearly done with A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. The diverse species stood out the most for me. Much of the book explores the concept of attraction and dating cross-species. It’s about being open and not assuming everyone likes the same things. I also liked the how some sapiens change genders like Doctor Chef. Their entire experience is fluid.
I think Rosemary as the new human in space was the best character to introduce the world. The reader can connect with her immediately. We know Earth and Mars where she came from and use that as a guiding point with the fish out of water trope.
I liked how the characters spoke about past wars within species and how futile destroying each other was over bias. Doctor Chef and Pei have great perspectives on why to fight and why to give up.
I think the characters are seeking a family and acceptance, especially Rosemary. They also want to explore and connect worlds with tunneling, which is a big focus of much speculative fiction. This book reminded me of Kill Joys and Farscape. All these wandering beings thrust together and then fighting for each other in space. All about the ensemble more so than one character.
I have been thinking about how subtle Chambers is with her messages. I mean, they aren’t hidden, but she’s not walloping us over the head. In the whole series she has characters who love who they love, (in romantic and familial ways) even when others don’t understand or forbid that love. Sentient beings, human or not, will always love regardless of the boundaries we impose on ourselves and each other.
Narfna said something in her review of Small Angry Planet that really got me thinking – basically that the crew of the Wayfarer gets along and functions reasonably well because they are accepting of difference, while the main antagonists insist on homogeneity and try to eliminate everyone different.
Agreed re: subtlety. Chambers’ world feels full and lived in, it’s only logical that it would be filled with beings of all sorts. Every new realization was a delight, but it never felt like going through a “checklist” of representation.
I read A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet a few years ago, and wanted to have finished both The Disasters and I hope You Get This Message (I started the first of them on Monday), but it’s been a really exhausting end of term week, I’m alone with Gabriel all weekend and I’m simply entirely out of spoons. I just popped by to once more thank Katie/faintingviolet for the excellent job she’s doing with the book club. It’s a great theme for June, the book selection is very good and the various discussion questions leave room for a lot of different approaches. I could probably think up some answers based on my recollection of the Becky Chambers book, but I’m so very tired, both physically and mentally that I’ll have to sit this one out.
Thank you, Malin! As I am also running perilously low on spoons I completely understand and thank you for taking the time to comment at all. Give Gabriel a hug from me and I hope the weekend without Mark goes as smoothly as it can.
Many hugs to you both. My spoons have developed a magic trick – they seem plentiful and then they are all gone.
8. As I said in my original review, the kids in I Hope You Get This Message are “a cast of leads who are usually shunted into the “best friend” role; this isn’t your classic “privileged straight white boy who plays football really just wants to be a writer, dad!” teen melodrama- and for that I am grateful.”
It meant a lot to see the sideline characters shine, and they were able to take the lead in a way that wasn’t pandering or derivative.
The characters in The Disasters did not look like your “typical” cast of leading characters, but despite their diversity they still fit into the same tropes of a traditional teen drama: cocky heartthrob with a secret, power jock who is above for your nonsense, brilliant and beautiful nerd girl, wealthy cool kid…the list goes on. While I was disappointed to see the character generalizations, it still means something to have kids who do not “look the part” take the role of traditional archetypes- I suppose, in the end, that the fact that they took on those archetypes IS powerful in the way that everyone deserves to have a tropey good time!
The thing that I loved about The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is that there were no sidekicks; every character had their moment to shine, and every character played an integral part in the survival of their team.