Science Fiction Fandom: The Biggest Tent of All

„Then I became an author, and I heard even worse: that the only reason to write characters who are Filipino or Ethiopian or Colombian is to satisfy some arbitrary liberal/politically correct standard of fiction. (It couldn’t possibly be because these are people who make up daily life in a metropolitan U.S. city.) I heard bitter rumors that editors were biased toward stories by authors who weren’t white American men. That writers like me were ruining the genre by shoving our unrelatable characters down fans’ throats. How could I parse these accusations?

Here’s the rub: I don’t experience science fiction through a lens colored by my physical appearance. I don’t need characters to resemble me in order to appreciate their struggles.

The great beauty of genre fiction is in how it pushes the boundaries of what’s possible, and that means getting into the minds of all kinds of life—elves, insects, robots, dragons, Wookiees. How anyone can say with a straight face that women, queers, and people of color don’t have a place in these stories is mind-boggling.”