Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Disabilities in F&SF

Here's a post listing speculative novels that address disability. 

Over on [community profile] access_fandom there's howling that The Ship Who Sang  is a bad example, not a good one.  Here's a poem and a post.

Now, I'll admit that it isn't as good as some things we have now, like the Vorkosigan saga.  But it came out when nobody else was writing anything about heroic characters with disabilities, and the rare examples of disability were stock characters like Igor.  0_o  And then came Helva, and after her came other shellpeople who were ships and cities and all sorts of things.  To me, a shellperson's ship was basically adaptive equipment, like a wheelchair.  That could fly between stars.  I think that's awesome.  Hell, I'd consider that a trade up from the body I have, which is mobile but not what I'd call reliable.  The part of that image that spoke to me was about not being limited by the meat you're born with.  You could imagine something bigger and better.  You didn't have to be physically perfect to be an astronaut.  You could have a wreck of a body, and be the ship,  and go have adventures anyway.  So the society was kind of a mess in places, well, that's humanity for you.  You don't have to be perfect to have a future either.

And that wasn't the only time Anne McCaffrey wrote about a protagonist with physical or mental challenges.  She did that a lot.  Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but I count her as an icebreaker for a lot of what came after.  The Ship Who Sang  wasn't one of my favorites.  But if not for that, we wouldn't have The Ship Who Searched  and The City Who Fought,  and probably a lot of others tangentially inspired, that I have greatly enjoyed.

If you don't like what's being written, do something else.  You don't have to get it perfect the first time.  Try again, fail again, fail better.  Do something new.  
Tags: activism, networking, reading, science fiction
Subscribe

  • A Little Slice of Terramagne: YardMap

    Sadly the main program is dormant, but the YardMap concept is awesome, and many of its informative articles remain. YardMap was a citizen science…

  • Goldenrod Gall Contents

    Apparently all kinds of things go on inside goldenrod galls, beyond the caterpillars who make them. Fascinating. I've seen the galls but haven't…

  • Science and Spirituality

    Here's an article about science and spirituality, sort of. It doesn't have a very wide view of either. Can you be scientific and spiritual? This…

  • Post a new comment

    Error

    switch
    default userpic

    Your IP address will be recorded 

    When you submit the form an invisible reCAPTCHA check will be performed.
    You must follow the Privacy Policy and Google Terms of use.
    Help
  • 5 comments
songspinner9

songspinner9

September 12 2014, 04:40:36 UTC 6 years ago

I find it interesting that the person who posted the article complains about the image of a struggle. I have a chronic illness, and when I read those books as a kid, it was the fact that someone acknowledged the struggle and then had characters who were given a job using what they HAD THAT WORKED was wonderful. I didn't like the romance in that first one, but since I had realized by age 13 that I would not be able to be an astronaut because of my body not working properly, it seemed pretty damn brilliant to me. All I saw was characters in books and tv who were to be pitied or who were only "inspirational". Anne's characters were people.
ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

September 12 2014, 04:49:44 UTC 6 years ago

>> I find it interesting that the person who posted the article complains about the image of a struggle. I have a chronic illness, and when I read those books as a kid, it was the fact that someone acknowledged the struggle and then had characters who were given a job using what they HAD THAT WORKED was wonderful. <<

Something else I liked from The Ship Who Searched is that it was built on the earlier premise intended for infants ... but when Tia showed up as a small child, they changed the program to accommodate her rather than shutting her out.

>> All I saw was characters in books and tv who were to be pitied or who were only "inspirational". Anne's characters were people. <<

I think she did that throughout her writing. Not all of it grabbed me, but a lot of it did.

Another favorite? Killashandra Ree in Crystal Singer. Not only was she shut out of a desired career because her voice wasn't good enough, but the book had a bunch of other handicapped characters because the adaptation process and the job were so damn hazardous. There were some deaf characters, and some with other impairments, the crystal itself behaved a lot like an addiction ... and people just worked around it, went on with their lives. I liked the sense of community there.
msminlr

msminlr

September 12 2014, 21:38:06 UTC 6 years ago

I posted a comment over there contending that Helva was an indentured person, not a true slave, as the poem contends. 'Twill be interesting to see the response.
ysabetwordsmith

Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

September 12 2014, 21:48:04 UTC 6 years ago

From what I remember, that's true; the ships were under contract until they could pay off the cost of their hardware. I don't think it's fair to do that since the process began with children; but then, I also don't think it's fair to basically indenture college students today, like buying a very expensive lottery ticket on the chance that you might be permitted a job that pays enough to live on. It's the difference between de jure and de facto slavery.

Deleted comment

ysabetwordsmith

Re: Yes...

ysabetwordsmith

September 13 2014, 05:45:30 UTC 6 years ago

Often true, and even when debt slavery is outlawed, people still do it or find new "legal" ways of accomplishing the same ends. Humans just like abusing each other. It's frustrating.