Star Trek novels by authors of color

[Damian]

Perhaps it's a symptom of social media, I don't know. But it seems so many debates in this country degenerate into name calling. To be clear, I'm speaking in general, not to any specific poster here.

We should have debates about diversity. That's a good debate to have. But too often it degenerates into anyone who wants more diversity is a social justice warrior or a radical socialist. Anyone who asks do whites fit into the equation is labelled a racist. Yes, there are radicals on both sides. And reasonable people should absolutely distance themselves from such people.

But it's those of use that fall somewhere in the middle that should have reasonable debates about these issues. I admit I'm a right of center conservative. And I can tell you not all conservatives are racists (again, speaking in general, not saying anyone here is doing that). I'm not. I do believe diversity is a good thing. I see diversity as adding to, not taking something away, that's how it should be. Adding diverse writers should make better Star Trek books. At the same time it goes back to my comment to Christopher earlier that doesn't mean I want to see us lose our current writers. And it shouldn't have to. There's no reason Christopher or one of our other writers needs to lose their job to make room for someone else. And I'm not saying anyone's proposing that. But that's where rhetoric becomes a problem. Of course, as is typical, the loudest people are the most radical generally and get the most attention. But that's where reasonable people can step up.

And perhaps that's one reason I like the future as depicted in Star Trek. Humanity has realized there is more that ties us together than separates us. Christopher is right that Star Trek can do better showing we can have diversity and equality at the same time. I just sometimes wish we remember at the same time, there's more that binds us then divides us. And it saddens me that we are all so divided. We don't have to agree on everything. But maybe we can find things we do agree on and use that as a starting point.

I have a dream that Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Christians, Jews, Arabs, atheists.... etc. stand together as one people.... in Quark's bar

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Part of the problem "Damian" alludes to is that extremists tend to deliberately misuse words in general, and the words "liberal" and "conservative" in particular.

Used properly, in the first place, "liberal" and "conservative" (as David Gerrold once pointed out) are adjectives, not nouns. "Liberal" comes from the same root as "liberty," "liberation," and even "libertine." The "liberal arts," i.e., the humanities, history, and non-professional-level courses in the natural and social sciences, are those disciplines that equip one for participation in a free society. To be politically, socially, and/or economically liberal is to be open-minded to well-considered change.

Likewise, "conservative" comes from the same root as "conservation," "conservatory," and "conservator." A "conservative estimate" is one that intentionally errs on the side of caution. To be politically, socially, and/or economically conservative is to be cautious about change.

Note that these two qualities are not extremes! To be liberal is not to seek sweeping change for its own sake, any more than to be conservative is to seek to reverse change that has proven generally benficial! Neither are they mutually exclusive! One can be liberal -- open-minded -- and conservative -- cautious -- at the same time, and even about the same proposed change.

There is a word to describe being both liberal and conservative. That word is "Centrist." And I have long described myself as being not merely centrist, but militantly centrist.

When extremists use moderate terms to describe themselves, they are seeking to normalize their extreme attitudes. And when they use them to describe the opposite extreme, they are seeking to not only demonize that opposite extreme, but everybody outside their own extreme. And when they deride those of more moderate viewpoint as political whores, interested in nothing bigger than their own careers, it is because the center, rather than the opposite extreme, is the worst enemy of any extremist. (Note also that we have seen plenty of examples -- on all sides of a political spectrum that has more than one dimension -- of extremists who are political whores.)

But to get back to the topic of the thread, I would argue that diversity brings strength to a society, and brings richness to body of literature, precisely because diversity of experience brings diversity of ideas.

 

[BillJ]

The sheer violent anger with which some people react whenever somebody asks why diversity is important makes me think that getting rid of white men IS in fact, the end goal.

One, I've not seen someone react with "sheer violent anger" when asked. The only ones I see express sheer violent anger where diversity is concerned is white males.

Two, as a white male, I've never felt the goal of diversity is to get rid of me. There's nothing wrong with others wanting to be in the spotlight with white men.

I would more than welcome a more diverse writing team behind Trek fiction.

 

[Christopher]

Perhaps it's a symptom of social media, I don't know. But it seems so many debates in this country degenerate into name calling. To be clear, I'm speaking in general, not to any specific poster here.

To a large extent, this is actively encouraged by Russian trolls and bots, posting inflammatory comments on both sides in order to exacerbate tensions and short-circuit intelligent debate, a classic divide-and-conquer strategy. So it is somewhat a symptom of social media, but it's more of an active exploitation of social media as a vector for divisive propaganda.

 

[Damian]

To a large extent, this is actively encouraged by Russian trolls and bots, posting inflammatory comments on both sides in order to exacerbate tensions and short-circuit intelligent debate, a classic divide-and-conquer strategy. So it is somewhat a symptom of social media, but it's more of an active exploitation of social media as a vector for divisive propaganda.

I wouldn't be surprised. It's a shame we allow ourselves to be used like that.

It's why I don't get my news from Facebook or social media sites. I'm frankly amazed people do. I typically turn to NPR or my local newspaper for my news. Another problem with the internet for current events is it's too easy to use it as an echo chamber...that is only read and watch things you agree with. It's important to see what people who might not agree with you are saying. On occasion people might find things they actually agree with.

I remember some months ago AOC and Ted Cruz were actually working on a bill together. If they can find common ground on a topic I'm sure those of use that fall somewhere right or left of center can find common ground.

.does anyone besides me find FAMILY GUY overly misogynistic, or even extra-crudely so, in its multiple throwaway comments about women in general? Granted, the entire show has trafficked in crudity, particularly in the later years.

I used to like Family Guy, years ago. But it just stopped being funny. I used to like the 'remember the time we...' segments because it was something usually ridiculous. But yeah, it's gotten way over the top.

I am a big South Park fan on the other hand. One thing I like is no one is safe. In fact, it's too the point if they haven't mocked your group, you're probably offended. Like why is our group not good enough to be made fun of. I love satire and sarcasm and South Park is quite good at that. And someone upthread noted how conservatives were starting to think South Park was for them so what do the creators do? They turn the tables on them and make fun of them. They don't want to be a rallying point for any group.

 

[trampledamage]

MOD NOTE: please, no more general discussion of the rights and wrongs of promoting diversity.

I'm happy with discussions of diversity in publishing in general since that's a way of helping understand the situation with Star Trek novels, since Trek is not alone in having a diversity problem (I follow some romance writers on twitter, and ho boy!)

HEY!!!!!!


Mod Angry Voice: If I politely ask you all to stop discussing something I mean it!

I've got two pages of posts to go through and I am going to be issuing official warnings to anyone who continued this after my post.

Regardless of your need to issue an explanation or a correction to Randy's original post, or to subesquent posts. if I say stop, you stop.

There are two forums on this site precisely for discussion of general topics. They are Miscellaneous and The Neutral Zone. Feel free to go there and start a thread titled "This came up in a TrekLit thread and the mean mod won't let us discuss it there"

*time passes*

All warnings issued. I'm going to have a cup of tea. Behave yourselves

 

[LizStargaryen]

Hope this isn't off topic... *ensign wincing at the presence of the captain on the bridge*

I'm a Black woman professor and author who loves Star Trek, and would love to write a licensed short story or novel in the Trek universe.

*retreats below decks*

 

[trampledamage]

Hope this isn't off topic... *ensign wincing at the presence of the captain on the bridge*

I'm a Black woman professor and author who loves Star Trek, and would love to write a licensed short story or novel in the Trek universe.

*retreats below decks*

That is absolutely on topic - and exactly what I want to make space for in this thread. The discussion of actually diverse authors of Trek and the opportunites to broaden that was getting completely lost in the general argument on meritocracy vs exclusion.

You keep posting! you're welcome here

This is the first time in aaaaaages I've had to use the angry mod voice. It's usually much quieter around here

 

[LizStargaryen]

Haha! Thanks! My love for Trek is sincere, and I do love TrekLit. Guess I never thought myself eligible to write it!

 

[David cgc]

Haha! Thanks! My love for Trek is sincere, and I do love TrekLit. Guess I never thought myself eligible to write it!

Here's hoping there's another Strange New Worlds open-submission anthology. Those were always fun (though I understand the argument that they're an immense amount of work for a somewhat niche collection). I remember some years ago there was a burst of eBook-only novellas, and I thought that they were using those to "audition" new novelists (particularly JJM, who wrote a Titan novella before his first full-length Trek work, though he wasn't exactly walking in off the street in terms of tie-in novels), but that seems to have petered out. I'd like a return to those; it'd be a good way to expand the stable of writers, and more frequent, shorter books by new (or new-to-Trek) authors, especially of more varied backgrounds, would seem to fit with CBS's goals of year-round, full-spectrum Trek, and being able to point to Trek as a poster child for politically conscious and diverse media. Additionally, novellas seem to be "in" now (I just finished This is How You Lose the Time War, and have To Be Taught, if Fortunate on order at the library, and I've heard from bigger readers than me that those are part of a trend, though they're the only ones I've been specifically recommended recently), so that gives the novella idea more legs than more non-SNW short story collections (which were also a good way to get a broader cross-section of writers than the regular novel schedule permitted).

 

[Jim Johnson]

I'd like to see Derek Tyler Attico write for Sisko again. I really liked "The Dreamer and the Dream" in SNW 2016.

I can't speak for the fiction line, but Derek's a dear friend of mine and has more material coming up for the Star Trek Adventures RPG--some stuff in the forthcoming Delta Quadrant Sourcebook and more material in a couple as-yet unannounced projects (neither specifically Sisko, though). Hoping to get him involved in more, as well.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

More diversity in the pool of Star Trek writers can only be a good thing, IMO. A wider diversity of experiences means that we get a wider diversity of stories, and who could object to that?

I honestly hadn't realized that it had been so long since Andy Mangels wrote or co-wrote a Trek novel. I've enjoyed what I've read of his collaborations with Michael A. Martin, and they always made an effort to include a diversity of characters in their works. (Full disclosure: I'm also friendly with Andy on social media, as we both write for TwoMorrows Publishing on a freelance basis. We've never met in person, though.)

Equality doesn't mean that our differences are erased or ignored, it means they're welcomed and celebrated. That was what Roddenberry believed, at least nominally, though he fell short in practice. Fortunately we have occasionally seen some of that, like Uhura speaking Swahili and Sisko's fondness for African art. But Asian characters tend to be totally Westernized (even Hoshi Sato, who was supposedly from Japan), Dr. Bashir was totally English without any connection to Arab or Islamic culture, etc.

This is a good point. And I know that Avery Brooks' speaking out at times affected DS9 in a positive way. Sisko's reluctance to spend time at Vic's in the Holosuites came from Brooks' own objections: He didn't like pretending in a fantasy version of 1960s Las Vegas when he knew that as a black man, he wouldn't have been allowed in the door of Vic's in real life.

I recall a similar thing on an episode of Homicide: Life on the Street, where a subplot was drawn from Yaphett Kotto's own life and given to his character of Lt. Al Giardello: As a dark-skinned black man, Kotto had noticed that many lighter-skinned black women were reluctant to date him. As a white man, that was completely outside my own experience and I had no idea that that particular form of prejudice was a thing, so H:LOTS and Kotto actually helped raise my consciousness a bit.

I'm not saying they absolutely can't do it, but I for one would prefer for gay writers to tackle gay relationships, because, as I said, they're the ones with the personal experience.

This seems perfectly reasonable to me. Even the most well-intentioned person from outside a particular subculture will inevitably get certain things wrong.

Here's hoping there's another Strange New Worlds open-submission anthology. Those were always fun

Well, from what I understand, the last time they did SNW, it was run by an entirely different division of Simon & Schuster that was more than a little shady. I can't find the blog post, but former SNW editor Dean Wesley Smith took pains to point out that he was not involved with this latest iteration of SNW and that it was largely geared toward separating hopeful authors from their money. That was enough to convince me not to submit. And it seems that Smith's warning was right on the money, as I was contacted months later by the publisher to see if I had any original stories I wanted to pay to have published, even though I'd never sent them any actual material, only a general inquiry email.

So, be careful out there.

 

[JD]

I wasn't talking about her South Park criticism. I was talking about the post where she says "You know what, screw it: no novels by white men in high schools for the next 20 years" and the post where she says "I am more scared of angry white men in trench coats that I am of ISIS."

I used to like Family Guy, years ago. But it just stopped being funny. I used to like the 'remember the time we...' segments because it was something usually ridiculous. But yeah, it's gotten way over the top.

I'm the same way, I used to really like Family Guy, but after a while it just seemed like it was getting cruder, just to be cruder. I had the same problem with Tosh.0, when he first started out I found it pretty funny, but over time he got cruder to the point of just being disgusting, and I couldn't stand it any more and stopped watching.

I am a big South Park fan on the other hand. One thing I like is no one is safe. In fact, it's too the point if they haven't mocked your group, you're probably offended. Like why is our group not good enough to be made fun of. I love satire and sarcasm and South Park is quite good at that. And someone upthread noted how conservatives were starting to think South Park was for them so what do the creators do? They turn the tables on them and make fun of them. They don't want to be a rallying point for any group.

I've been thinking I might need to give South Park another go, I watched it a while back but at the time I wasn't as aware of current events, so I didn't get a lot of what they were dealing with, and thought it was OK. Now that I'm more aware of what's going on in the world, I'm thinking I might like it more.



Does Pocket/Gallery ever try to recruit authors themselves, or is just up to authors and agents to approach them?

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

. . . And it seems that Smith's warning was right on the money, as I was contacted months later by the publisher to see if I had any original stories I wanted to pay to have published, even though I'd never sent them any actual material, only a general inquiry email.

S&S has a vanity subsidy division?!??!!!

 

[David cgc]

S&S has a vanity subsidy division?!??!!!

Oh, yeah, now I remember, the grand prize was some kind of free vanity publishing package (a $5000 value!) from "Archway."

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

That right there sounds like it would have been grounds to withdraw S&S's license, a few months back when there was some question of whether it would be renewed.

The surest, fastest way to guarantee that you will never be taken seriously as an author is to subsidy-publish under a known vanity imprint.

On the other hand, The Book That I Will Not Name, by The Author I Will Not Name, is living proof that genuine self-publishing actually can get you into the bookstores (even if the book is so abominably bad that even the subsidy houses would say, "keep your money").

(I was a participant in a self-publishing venture some years ago, when the Lead Docent at the International Printing Museum was in the process of getting his uncle's fictionalized memoir, The Surgeon Factory, into print: "Doc" needed some Ludlow slugs cast, for the half-title page, and I cast them. Which is to say that except for the cover, the book was printed entirely by letterpress, on vintage cylinder presses.)

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Oh, yeah, now I remember, the grand prize was some kind of free vanity publishing package (a $5000 value!) from "Archway."

Yeah, that was it.

 

[DS9forever]

The announcement a couple of days ago of Marc Bernardin joining the staff of Picard for season two immediately made me think of this discussion. It's good to see.

https://www.dailystartreknews.com/r...ns-star-trek-picard-as-a-supervising-producer

 

[TheAlmanac]

This thread feels somewhat more relevant right now.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I can't find the blog post, but former SNW editor Dean Wesley Smith took pains to point out that he was not involved with this latest iteration of SNW and that it was largely geared toward separating hopeful authors from their money.

“I edited Star Trek: Strange New Worlds for ten fun years. It was a wonderful project that helped fans and new writers tell Star Trek stories. I was very proud of the work I did on that and the fine writers I was lucky enough to buy stories from. This new incarnation is a scam to suck new writers into one of Simon and Schuster’s vanity publishers. Avoid this contest at all costs.” – DEAN WESLEY SMITH
Link now dead...
http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/not-editing-new-star-trek-strange-new-worlds/

And replying to Dandru at:
https://trekmovie.com/2016/04/13/wi...tar-trek-strange-new-worlds-writing-contenst/
“Sad that such a wonderful project [”Star Trek: Strange New Worlds”] that lasted for ten years is being destroyed by corporation greed and the desire to take advantage of young writers. The Star Trek franchise should be ashamed of itself.” — DEAN WESLEY SMITH