Untapped Potential in SF

>> I so wish Hollywood would get over its insistence on treating science fiction as nothing more than "stardust" westerns. <<

I wish that too.

>> I agree with you that there needs to be more diversity but Hollywood is all about sex appeal. It can't seem have actors or actresses that aren't physically attractive or having some other positive appeal. The idea that someone could lack both physical attractiveness AND just be an average person seems to be something it just can't work with. <<

... which leaves 99.9% of the human race unrepresented except as they can fantasized "Wouldn't it be nice if I looked like that." But mostly it just makes people feel unhappy and inadequate. Or in my case, bored and annoyed and itching to shut off the tube and go write. When all the characters look like Popular People and you hate pop, there's very little traction there.

This is exactly why I made The Blueshift Troupers with not only ethnic diversity, but also paying attention to how jumpgates might alter humans and what kind of disabilities could crop up on different planets. I want to show that folks have a future.

It's more common for species senses to diverge than overlap. A human's color vision is much better than a dog's, but the dog has better smell. A human cannot echolocate like a dolphin does, but has a far more refined sense of touch and more manipulatory organs. Sometimes people feel inadequate over what they can't do. Sometimes they feel smug over what they can. It's more fun if you just compensate for each other's differences. But look at how humans deal with each other, and that's likely how they'll respond with other species. Some cooperate and some act like jerks.

But hey, feel free to prompt for this at any relevant prompt call.

I've always enjoyed Alan Dean Foster's Humanx Commonwealth for that reason.

For my own version, well, see the hiveships in The Blueshift Troupers. They are much happier and healthier with a crew than alone. They're people, but they're not humanoid at all, so they have a very different range of strengths and weaknesses. Oh, and I've done fuzzy aliens in The Godship Wanderers, if you'd like to explore that relationship further.

See the Serial Poetry page for The Godship Wanderers. The two poems written so far are "Estrellado" and "Gathering Family."

It was easy. All I had to do was show them things by poets like Lorna Dee Cervantes and Langston Hughes. We consistently had 1-2 guys in every class who absolutely caught fire with it. Most of the rest were intrigued, and their essays showed that they were engaging with the material. There were always a handful of indifferent students who didn't really care to be there, but that's par for the course. It made a significant difference for the majority.