Have You Tried Less Tiresome Music?
I have questions, dear reader. Important, probing questions. Are you unenthused by hip-hop tracks about “police brutality and racialised oppression”? Does rapping about poverty and “the woes of Black Americans as artists” not render you giddy and enthralled? Do you not delight in endless repetition of the word nigga?
I ask because we’re told, by Dr Jeremy McCool and Dr Tyrone Smith, two devotees of “critical race theory,” that a failure to gush with enthusiasm is a result of “systemic bias and inherent prejudice,” and is suppressing such innovation. It is, they say,
The silencing of intellectuals in music.
This profound and damning revelation was uncovered by means of a “notional study” in which 310 participants, young adults, half of whom “self-identified” as black and the other half as white, were invited to listen to various tracks and read selected lyrics, before being asked whether they would be likely to skip said track if heard in the car, or would instead continue listening, mesmerised and ready to be educated.
In each instance, the white participants in the experiment rejected the messaging at a higher frequency than the Black participants.
Extrapolating with gusto – one might say wildly – our scholars promptly invoke “the silencing of Black narratives and perspectives.” It turns out that if a hundred or so white people are slightly less interested in rote racial narcissism expressed via the medium of rap, this could result in “artists who typically make thought-provoking music being shunned by the industry.” It’s all terribly unfair, you see. If true.
It remains unclear whether our mighty scholars considered the quality of the music as music, i.e., beyond any supposedly radical and “thought-provoking” content, those “deeper political implications.” Nor is it clear whether lyrical monotony, generic braggadocio and crass sexual references may have played a part in boring some more than others. To say nothing of many rappers’ own reliance on cartoonish racial stereotypes. Readers are, however, invited to ponder the intellectual heft of the following extract from one of the selected tracks, Da Baby’s Rockstar:
Brand new Lamborghini, fuck a cop car
With the pistol on my hip like I’m a cop (yeah, yeah, yeah)
Have you ever met a real nigga rockstar?
This ain’t no guitar, bitch, this a Glock (woo)
My Glock told me to promise you gon’ squeeze me (woo)
You better let me go the day you need me (woo)
Soon as you up me on that nigga, get to bustin’ (woo)
And if I ain’t enough, go get the chop
If you’ve somehow remained unmoved and have been so inadequate as to feel no moral and mental elevation, this can only be explained, it seems, by your “bias and cultural cluelessness.” How dare you silence this downtrodden intellectual, whose insights include, “I don’t even listen to [other] people’s music… I listen to me all day long,” and, “I definitely am the best rapper alive.” And whose estimated wealth is a mere $3 million.
Update, via the comments:
It occurs to me that if you’re getting your political consciousness from Da Baby, whose deep thoughts are quoted above, or Lil Baby, or J Cole, or Meek Mill, all “thought-provoking” artists selected by our scholars – if this is your measure of suppressed intellectuals – then there’s a fairly good chance that you’re a poseur, or an idiot, and your standards may require some drastic recalibration.
It’s also worth noting how one of the most hazardous of words to use – one that may result in a kicking or sudden unemployment, and from which All Decent Non-Racist People are expected to recoil – is simultaneously one to which All Decent Non-Racist People are supposed to be drawn, or at least happy to tolerate. Provided it’s being mouthed, endlessly, by idiots of a certain hue. And failing to have a taste for this experience is, we’re now told, evidence of racism.
his audience is entirely college students and the like with no exposure to anything outside the comfortable suburban academic/technology office world they inhabit.
A double deficiency, I suppose: (1) Very limited life experience, so they lack wisdom and judgement about life matters. (2) Very limited reading in the sf field, so even dreck seems new and wonderful.
And #2 remimds me of a funny story: An sf writer read a scholarly paper about sf which discussed an sf novel about teleportation technology. The writer later ran into the paper’s author and asked, ‘Why didn’t you instead focus your essay on Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination? It would have illustrated your ideas far better.’ The author replied, ‘Bester? Stars My Destination? Is that an author I ought to be familiar with?’ The young professor had just “discovered” science fiction and was very excited, but he had read almost nothing.
Nothing will turn you off of SF writers faster than, well, SF writers (never meet your heroes).
I can immediately think of an exception to that rule: Gene Wolfe. He was a true gentleman. And a fascinating and delightful conversationalist.
…the need by the narrator to explain in detail in the first chapter exactly how the magic in their world works, generally in an obtrusive and awkward manner.
Maybe they never read anything but Tolkien, whose Hobbit and Lord of the Rings begin with explanatory prefaces. Sigh. Or maybe they read lots of sf/fantasy but did not read with any serious attention.
Somebody has rewritten The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald for the shipload of luxury cars that just sank.
Oh the
humanityLamborghinis!Nothing will turn you off of SF writers faster than, well, SF writers (never meet your heroes).
Hal Clement (Harry Stubbs) was a gentleman and a pleasure to talk to.
Hal Clement (Harry Stubbs) was a gentleman and a pleasure to talk to.
Yes indeed!
Here is an update about that fine, noble Person of Diversity who smeared poop on a woman’s face:
He was released without bail after joking about the assault and cursing out the judge. He has a long arrest record with multiple assaults and death threats. I can see why some people are provoked into calling for vigilante justice.
As a few other commenters have already pointed out, hip-hop is part of urban Black culture. If you are white and you reject it, you are “silencing Black narratives and perspectives.” If you embrace it, you are committing cultural appropriation. White people, you see, are always wrong, no matter what they do. Wrong and evil.
This is actually very liberating for us white folks. We know that we’ll be condemned no matter what we do, so we may as well do whatever the hell we want. Why would we try to appease our woke overlords? It wouldn’t make a bit of difference. Better to just ignore them.
Maybe they never read anything but Tolkien, whose Hobbit and Lord of the Rings begin with explanatory prefaces
Well, I wasn’t actually joking about the seminar. Those books/YouTube channels/etc. really do exist.
The problem, at least in fantasy fiction, is that D&D ate the genre alive somewhere around 1982. Nearly all mainstream fantasy fiction now is derived from the author’s college D&D campaign[1], or worse just rehashes other recent fantasy which itself is derived from its authors’ college D&D campaigns. I’m increasingly seeing tutorials like “how to design a magic system/race/world for your fantasy novel or RPG”, as if those two things are synonymous and interchangeable.
Your point on Tolkien is well taken, but it’s not quite the same thing: Tolkien was providing the history and teleology of his world before settling in to tell the story. The books I’m talking about will have awkward, intrusive monologues by a major character about exactly what their magic can and cannot do and the specific limits of spellcasting. It’s the unfortunate result of authors thinking about their fantasy novel as if it’s an RPG, which needs those kind of specifics to keep wizards from just running away with the game. By contrast in Tolkien’s work Gandalf does not pause in front of the door to Moria to explain at great length how door-opening charms work and how they specifically only work on doors and not gates or windows unless the caster is seventh level or higher.
Prior to D&D, there were certainly fantasy authors who would base a work almost entirely on an interesting idea for a magic system – Lyndon Hardy, Roger Zelazny, Christopher Stasheff, Patricia McKillip, Sheri S. Tepper and so on. But in those works the magic was described in terms of how the wizard perceived it and manipulated it, not as if the magic system were a set of stereo instructions.
[1] There was a brief GRRM-inspired movement of fantasy based on British history but with a lot more blood and sh*t spattered on everything, but it seems not to have lasted very long. I’m seeing a nascent movement of fantasy based not directly on D&D, but rather anime and video games. Since anime and video games also draw heavily from D&D’s tropes, this isn’t better.
Breathing is also evidence of racism.
Nothing will turn you off of SF writers faster than, well, SF writers (never meet your heroes).
Three more exceptions: Randall Garrett, Poul Anderson, and Vernor Vinge. All delightful individuals. And Randall Garrett (R.I.P.) told hilarious dirty jokes.
… no exposure to anything outside the comfortable suburban academic/technology office world they inhabit.
In an essay on writing SF for movies and television that I read long ago, Harlan Ellison told the story of meeting a self-assured young man who somehow had just acquired the option on Stranger in a Strange Land. As he listened to the guy, Harlan became more and more confused as the guy outlined his plans for the movie. Finally Harlan said “Wait. That’s ridiculous. Have you actually read the novel?!” “Well, no … but my girlfriend has, and she’s got some really neat ideas on how to improve it!” At that point, Harlan had to leave the room …
Breathing is also evidence of racism.
Well, as so often with such things, the authors’ conclusion – i.e., bad whitey – was seemingly predestined and arrived at in advance of actual thinking, should any have occurred. But then, this is a feature of wokeness in general. In order to conform, in order to be pious, there are any number of things about which one simply mustn’t think with any degree of clarity or realism.
And so, it stupefies.
This is actually very liberating for us white folks. We know that we’ll be condemned no matter what we do
I was recently … exposed to a show called Ziwe, a Colbert-esque interview-show parody hosted by the eponymous social media personality. I’m not entirely certain who exactly is intended to be the target of the parody, as every episode involves Ziwe kafkatrapping a white guest to ludicrous extremes. I can’t tell if it’s just more bad whitey or if she’s self-aware enough to actually be parodying the kind of race grifters who do this stuff for real.
Regardless of her intent, the effect is that one quickly realizes that for any white person the only winning move is not to play and that any invitation to Have a Conversation About Race is not being offered in good faith.
Three more exceptions: Randall Garrett, Poul Anderson, and Vernor Vinge. All delightful individuals.
Ah, yes. But it’s not surprising that Poul Anderson would be such a fine, gentlemanly man. He was of Danish extraction and you know what they say about Danes.
Speaking of scifi, my daughter (early 20s) was profoundly moved by “Iron Widow,” a new novel by a Chinese woman.
The heroine lived in a world that was a cross between Hunger Games (poor people exploited by the rich), Pacific Rim (giant robots battling), and set in a society heavily influenced by Chinese attitudes toward women. Their mechs are piloted by men who are “linked” somehow to a concubine next to them, drawing on their power to land punches, and this often kills the women, who receive no recognition for their sacrifice while the men are praised like sports heroes.
Our heroine volunteered for this duty determined to avenge the death of her older sister by killing her pilot, but in battle is revealed to hold far more power than expected. Over the course of the book, she grows in power and authority and at the end becomes Empress of the land.
As if that wasn’t enough, the kicker on the last page was the heroine’s realization that a) this was not Earth, but an alien planet, and b) humanity was the enemy, and the aliens they were battling were the home team.
Since daughter doesn’t read books very much (she reads a LOT of fanfiction), and she really, really, enjoyed the book, I didn’t have the heart to observe that the ending sounds a lot like bad science-fiction stories in which an astronaut couple land on a planet and we learn they’re Adam and Eve.
Well, I wasn’t actually joking about the seminar. Those books/YouTube channels/etc. really do exist.
Oh, I believe you, I believe you! [ Laughs and cries simultaneously. ]
The problem, at least in fantasy fiction, is that D&D ate the genre alive somewhere around 1982…
I’d forgotten about D&D. I think you are right about that. Now that you mention it, I recall a wave of very bad D&D-inspired fantasy novels starting in the late 70’s.
It’s the unfortunate result of authors thinking about their fantasy novel as if it’s an RPG, which needs those kind of specifics to keep wizards from just running away with the game.
Maybe even authors whose interest is almost entirely in the magic itself and the story is just a vehicle to play with the magic?
By contrast in Tolkien’s work Gandalf does not pause in front of the door to Moria to explain at great length how door-opening charms work
It sounds like you have read a lot more of that bad fantasy than I have.
And this discussion reminds me of something that many successful writers have said: Most people tend to read stories to get lost in the plot and characters, but professional writers tend to read with an interest in how the story is put together: What techniques did the writer use to advance the plot, describe the characters, set the scene, and so on? How can I make use of those techniques in my own stories? Thus, for example, all the intense interest by other writers in the techniques that Heinlein introduced, from “the door dilated” to extremely off-hand clues to the protagonist’s race.
Meanwhile, let us take a break from the scifi nonsense, and take a look at wht is going on with the CCP.
Meanwhile, let us take a break from the scifi nonsense, and take a look at wht is going on with the CCP.
I thought I was taking a break from the ugly CCP news with some relatively inconsequential scifi nonsense. 😐
Farnsworth: College students see themselves as more noble and enlightened than their elders, but in fact in every “revolution” have been the first in line to be foot soldiers for the cultural revolution (killing and imprisoning). This was true in Germany between the wars, in Italy under Mussolini, in Russia as communism got started, in China under Mao, in Cambodia in the killing fields. In the name of virtue, they are happy to kill millions, burn books, destroy art.
ccscientist,
Yep, but what was particularly jarring was the yte dude in the suit and tie, presumably the professor, down front leading the chant. As a guy what still has his draft card saved, I can attest that it was never this bad back in The Before Times when this crap started to get off the ground (at least in the US&A), and at least the protesters didn’t wear uniforms and pound on the tables like Khrushchev on crack.
Great googly moogly, it gets worse.
Also revise and extend, the guy up front is not a prof, it is apparently a guy who lost custody of a child because his wife was forcing a kid to be “transgender”.
Trigger warning, there is misgendering going on.
The event above was at the “University” of North Texas, and to support David, you can order their mug below from Amazon.
Great googly moogly, it gets worse.
I believe that’s the father of James Younger. I believe I raised the issue of the battle he was fighting to protect his son James against the mother’s attempting to transgender him to a girl. I also believe that when I raised this here someone here mocked my concerns. If I am wrong on any of this, please let me know.
I can’t imagine why anyone would make light of such concerns.
“We fear error much less than we fear being thought narrow-minded.”
–Midnight Maxims, by Theodore Dalrymple
If I assumed too quickly that the classroom thing was woke, I apologize. My other comments stand though.
I think having read Vance and Wolfe in my teens left me too much of a snob to bother with 99% of published fantasy. Any hint of a reskinned Tolkein tends to just make my eyes glaze over.
Kate Elliot’s Crown of Stars series was the last really original (and not Vance or Wolfe) fantasy work I can recall reading.
The event above was at the “University” of North Texas, and to support David, you can order their mug below from Amazon.
Hahaha – that mug is perfect to describe the show put on by those idiot woke UNT students in the two classroom videos.
I believe that’s the father of James Younger.
Yep, more from Andy Ngo.
If I assumed too quickly that the classroom thing was woke…
Woke on steroids and amphetamines.
Now that I know what the event was and who was pounding for what reason, it is just sick. First, that they think transitioning a child makes any sense at all. A child does not know about sex, how they feel about the world, or what they are giving up by transitioning. My friend’s 4 yr old wanted to be a bulldozer–should we help him achieve that? Turn him into a cyborg? Second, shouting down someone because you disagree. Was the speaker advocating genocide? Hardly.
IUP and West Chester University
Boy, don’t those names bring back some memories…
True story: For my 17th birthday, I drove to IUP to spend the weekend with my girlfriend, who graduated a year ahead of me and had been away at college for all of three weeks. Drove all damn day to get there, arrived right at dinnertime, and as the appetizers arrived learned that my girlfriend was now interested in sucking face with a classmate nicknamed “Barf” and didn’t have the courage or decency to tell me before I made the trip.
By the end of the night, I’d danced with a cute one-legged girl at the student union, reunited with some old schoolmates (Matt and Andy), gotten drunk at a house party with Matt while watching a bootleg tape of Rocky Horror, fled the house in a rush after somebody got stabbed in the kitchen, and finally staggered back to Andy’s dorm room to discover him sharing a bottle of rum with the one-legged girl. (“Wait, you know Squid?” “Wait, you know Andy?!”). Whereupon we spent the wee hours talking about the secrets of the Universe, as one does when drinking underage.
I swear to you all, upon the grave of my sainted Uncle Chuck, that the above actually happened. I really need to write a screenplay.
“This was true in Germany between the wars, in Italy under Mussolini,”
Oh yes. I think there’s a misconception nowadays that fascism always was the preserve of dim-bulb thugs with too much time on their hands that neo-fascism became after WWII. But it wasn’t. It was huge in the universities.
Mind you, looking at the universities these days, we seemed to have engineered a situation in which it’s both at the same time.
I swear to you all, upon the grave of my sainted Uncle Chuck, that the above actually happened. I really need to write a screenplay.
I think that’s how my parents met. I mean they told me they met in a bowling alley but…like I was gonna believe that one. Mom had both legs though…so maybe not. 🙁
Oh yes. I think there’s a misconception nowadays that fascism always was the preserve of dim-bulb thugs with too much time on their hands that neo-fascism became after WWII. But it wasn’t. It was huge in the universities.
American Progressive intellectuals praised European fascist intellectuals, and vice-versa. Mussolini was an important figure among European fascist intellectuals.
You can make a good case that most of today’s leftists are indeed fascists: Their ideology places identity front and center, and they judge who is good and who is evil based on their membership in various racial/ethnic/sexual/religious identity categories.
It was huge in the universities.
Something about university that leads to a love of authoritarianism.
Something about university that leads to a love of authoritarianism.
Fucking teacher’s pets: Assholes who have spent their entire lives in the school-to-university pipeline, all the while being told that they are the smartest. So of course they think they are entitled to rule the world.
What’s more, intellectuals love all-embracing theories, and what could be more all-embracing than fascism and communism.
Hitler tried to make a big distinction between fascism and communism only because communism was his main competition. Fascism aligns business with the state without owning the businesses, whereas communism owns everything (for the people). Otherwise, they both have spies, propaganda, top-down control, an absolutist ideology, and kill dissenters and oddballs. University types love an all-embracing ideology that gives life meaning and really really want to tell the rest of us slobs how to live.
Breathing is also evidence of racism.
I’ll just leave this here.
Another video the UNT kerfluffle wherein a cogent counterpoint is offered to the speaker.
New York Times “Ethicist”: May I disinherit my right-wing daughers?: Yes.
“So don’t change your will because you’re angry and upset with your prospective heirs. A better reason is that people with their views are doing a great deal of harm…Even if your daughters are, in some sense, more sinned against than sinning, you could reasonably worry that putting resources in their hands will allow them to support destructive causes.”
big distinction between fascism and communism only because communism was his main competition.
Two sides of the same the coin.
I’ll just leave this here.
That is an all time classic comment. We need a Casey Kasem top ten count down.
New York Times “Ethicist”
Sort of like “jumbo shrimp” or “military intelligence”.
big distinction between fascism and communism only because communism was his main competition.
They were competing for the same pool of assholes.
Two sides of the same the coin.
A counterfeit coin.
Steve E (1:22): Thanks. That’s very kind of you.
Kate Elliot’s Crown of Stars series
Purely by coincidence I started reading that tonight. Bit of a gruesome start, if I’m honest; I’m hoping it gets better later. It does illustrate my point above; the magic, when it occurs, simply happens and we have to follow Liath’s travails to understand exactly what all is going on there. Show, don’t tell.
If you can accept “urban fantasy” as fantasy there’s some good work in there. Simon R. Green’s Nightside series is either wildly original or I simply don’t recognize any of the stuff he’s stealing. I’d accept the rebuttal that it’s horror rather than fantasy, though.
the ending sounds a lot like bad science-fiction stories in which an astronaut couple land on a planet and we learn they’re Adam and Eve
You bastards. You blew it up. You blew it all up.
The phenomenon of ardent fans of genre fiction not even being aware of, much less seeking out and reading the classics in the field is hardly novel, sadly. Most of my fans-of-SF-and-fantasy friends have never read Dune or Lord of the Rings, much less Conan, The Chronicles of Amber, or Rendezvous with Rama. For that matter increasingly many such don’t even read, they just watch the film adaptation.
Maybe even authors whose interest is almost entirely in the magic itself and the story is just a vehicle to play with the magic?
Ah, but Lyndon Hardy’s Master of the Five Magics is precisely that and yet he doesn’t engage in the kind of hamfisted fantasy-fiction-as-RPG-rules-text thing I’m talking about. It’s an examination of how reasonably reliable, well-understood magic could lead to a kind of magic-powered Industrial Revolution. Zelazny created a new magic system for just about every novel he wrote, and played around with them, and again they were described as the magi themselves saw and interacted with them rather than in the bloodless, don’t-try-and-use-this-spell-to-mess-with-the-DM’s-precious-plot way.
a big distinction between fascism and communism only because communism was his main competition
The same reason modern day Communists insist national socialism was right-wing and that Hitler was the evilest. It’s not because he was any different from Stalin, just that he opposed him.
You bastards. You blew it up. You blew it all up.
I liked that sort of unsubtle pulp storytelling a lot better when I was a preteen.
For that matter increasingly many such don’t even read, they just watch the film adaptation.
I have vague memories of when that became a highly emotion-laden controversy in the fan world after the huge success of the first Star Wars movie. “Who are all these people who have never read [fill in with names of your favorite writers]??!!”
Lyndon Hardy’s Master of the Five Magics
Is that the one where the protagonist literally creates the conditions of Maxwell’s Demon? I loved that story!
I was probably in junior high when I read it, so I didn’t catch the reference at the time. But sitting through a Physics lecture some years later and hearing about Maxwell’s Demon, I had to stifle a giggle at the recollection.
I still think fondly of that book every time I apply sunscreen.
“Who are all these people who have never read [fill in with names of your favorite writers]??!!”
I’ve mostly enjoyed sci-fi, and to say “enjoyed” is sometimes a stretch, as a mild entertainment diversion with some interestingly…well possibly interesting…insights into the future. Have I been doing it wrong? Was there some canon I was supposed to dedicate hours of my life to, kinda like with the Bible and learning ancient greek and hebrew or whatever (I fear I failed my eternal soul there as well), before I could “properly” do such a thing? And keep in mind I ask this as someone who flinches when explosions go “boom” in a vacuum.
Was there some canon I was supposed to dedicate hours of my life to…?
But of course, you filthy heathen! 😀
Please do not put too much trust in my 40-year-old memories, but I retain an impression that those fans were personally offended at the “invasion” of con culture by hordes of people who did not share the same…obsessions? (And I say that as someone who vastly prefers an afternoon reading Zelazny or Wolfe to an afternoon watching movies.)
But of course, you filthy heathen! 😀
A part of my on-going, one-man war with the fetishization of books and fiction in general. Currently in dubious battle elsewhere over literal interpretations of the Bible and the “necessity” of Christians (so-called) to better understand the ancient Greek (whatever that specifically means) and Hebrew (whatever century that specifically applies to) lest they not understand the literal meaning of the Bible and its literal truth…which of course would make them not be Christians as they understand it…or something. Interpretation of which is of course not literal because…reasons…but it is. Oh, and it’s the foundation of everything. So there.
…lest they not understand the literal meaning of the Bible and its literal truth…
So, no parables, metaphors, allegories, etc? Sigh.
“Allegories are only found on the banks of the Nile!”
Was there some canon…?
I always assumed it was Appendix N from the original Dungeon Master’s Guide…
I liked that sort of unsubtle pulp storytelling a lot better when I was a preteen.
These kinds of ideas seem much more momentous when they’re the first time you’ve ever encountered them, and have no life experience to compare to. I was well into adulthood and had seen Casablanca before I ever saw The City on the Edge of Forever, which is why I’ve never understood the fuss.
Is that the one where the protagonist literally creates the conditions of Maxwell’s Demon?
I don’t remember. I don’t think so; my recollection is that each of the Five Magics is a kind of proto-science (engineering, chemistry, statistics, etc.) that has been codified to the point of being (mostly) reliable.
I always assumed it was Appendix N from the original Dungeon Master’s Guide
Aside from the OSR weirdbeards, no one who plays D&D has ever read any of the books in Appendix N.
These kinds of ideas seem much more momentous when they’re the first time you’ve ever encountered them, and have no life experience to compare to.
W: When was the Golden Age of science fiction? The 1940’s? 50’s? 60’s?
A: No. The Golden Age is 12.
The Golden Age is 12.
Sounds about right. I know the number of classic SF books that don’t make me cringe has dwindled with each passing year as I re-read them. Rendezvous with Rama; most Chalker; Dune. I don’t have the same problem with fantasy; I suspect it’s because I both have lower expectations and it’s generally easier to write a competent Hero’s Journey than SF that isn’t cartoonishly pulp.
the number of classic SF books that don’t make me cringe has dwindled with each passing year
For me, too.
I suppose, to be fair, I should acknowledge that the Golden Age of many things is around 12, when all sorts of intellectual horizons begin to open up.
One last tilt at sci-fi books: I still reserve my ultimate hatred for a sci-fi tale to be found within the covers of the utterly woke “The long way to a small, angry planet” by one Becky Chambers. Described by some as “progressive” and also: “an immersive and optimistic science fiction novel which does exactly that: immerse” I found it stultifying, tedious but for those who are woke it ticks all the correct boxes (I won’t say right, because the left does not allow that word.) I won’t spoil it for those who love to read about wokery in a progressive future where only love of any stripe reigns, but I do note it is not ‘1984’ which, of course, the progressives have done their level best to make very real, so maybe this is fiction for them. So it goes.
the utterly woke “The long way to a small, angry planet” by one Becky Chambers.
I can’t say I’ve even heard of it, but it was published in 2014, by which time I had already greatly reduced my sf reading and involvement in sf culture.
Described by some as “progressive”
As I think has been discussed here before, Official Science Fiction went down the woke virtue-signaling toilet long ago. I don’t think it much matters, as the ability to self-publish on Amazon has destroyed any gatekeeping or prestige the legacy conventions might once have had.
As I think has been discussed here before, Official Science Fiction went down the woke virtue-signaling toilet long ago…
But, but, SFWA! Locus! File 770! Superannuated adolescent SMOFs! /sarcasm, obviously