Further Adventures in Publicity

[coalescent]

Different bit of publicity material, but the same book as last time, with an exciting new way to mis-spell the title, and:

"Good female SF writers are hard to find -- this is sure to be included on many SF awards shortlists"

Comments

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I'm just waiting for that handy GCSE-maths revision tome, Principles of Angles.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

non principalis, sed principia ...

[twic.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

Oh ho ho, very good. This is the most erudite joke i've read this week.

-- tom

[truecatachresis.livejournal.com]

Hah, now I'm hoping it FILLS a shortlist with all 6 possible spellings...

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether that comment is acute or obtuse. Or maybe just right.

[swisstone.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they're trying to maximize its chances of getting on shortlists by making people think there are three different books ...

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'm just contrary and annoying, but there's no better way to ensure that I don't nominate it for anything.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I like this one because it manages to patronise all science fiction readers, as well as the author.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

"Principles of Angels" is an anagram of "Spin no-elf Spacegirl".

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

Perhaps less tongue in cheek than last time, but seriously, I do wonder just why SF seems to be stuck sometime in the late 1970s as far as gender issues are concerned.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I'm probably too deep in the belly of the beast to get perspective on this. (Plus, my grasp of gender relations wasn't that nuanced in the late 70s.) Do you mean that Gollancz here are being late-70s in patting themselves on the back for publishing AN ACTUAL REAL LIVE WOMAN, or that Niall and the rest of us are being late-70s for thinking they're being tokenistic/patronising?

It's worth saying that the climate on such things seems a lot healthier to me in the US sf field.

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

I think Gollancz are being patronising fools; but in general the attitude to gender issues in SF seems to have gotten as far as recognising the most blatant of sexism, and then stumbled in trying to find any kind of maturity or sophistication in dealing with the subject. Hence my rough approximation of late 1970s (I wasn't thinking of any specific year or incident in that comparison, more the general maturity level).

There seems to be a degree of "hard" feminism (which most of the developed world has moved on from) on one side, and patronising tokenism (not to mention outright unreconstructed sexism) on the other - another position that the world at large seems to have moved on from. Whilst society in general has developed a greater level of maturity and sophistication in dealing with gender issues (along with many other forms of discrimination), SF still seems to be stuck at the "you can't say that, it's sexist!" stage. And I wonder why.

Last time, ktempest said to me "we live in a world where the shoulda coulda wouldas sadly do not dominate the sphere. It SHOULDN'T matter whether she's a woman or a man, but it totally does". And I baffled as to why someone's gender is still *such* an issue, when most of the rest of our society has moved on from caring overly much about someone's gender, so long as they can do the job. Almost every SF fan I know who listed what and how many books they read last year included a breakdown of how many female authors, and books by female authors, they read. Why? Why is the issue still *so* important, *so* unresolved, in the 21st century when most of the rest of society has moved on?

This part of the comment not aimed specifically at Graham; please, before anyone starts up with the "but I can provide anecdotal evidence of instances where society (or individuals) are evil/bad/wrong on gender issues", pay attention to the bits where I said "in general" or "at large" or "most of", and see the big picture not the small one, ta :-)

[kate_nepveu]

And I baffled as to why someone's gender is still *such* an issue, when most of the rest of our society has moved on from caring overly much about someone's gender

I see from your userinfo that we don't live in the same country, but even taking society to mean English-speaking Western Europe and North America . . . my experience of society is a lot different from yours. Which is my answer to your question.

Yes, I read your last paragraph.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Well I did the female authors thing for my 9 books of last year, but only tongue in cheek because everyone else did. ;-)

[twic.myopenid.com (from livejournal.com)]

I wonder if it's a matter of induced polarisation. The continued existence of a substantial hard core of unreconstructed and barely-reconstructed (pebble-dashed?) sexism at one end of SF induces a continuing hardcore feminist response at the other end. In larger society, the former has been eroded and sidelined, and so the latter has stood down, but for some reason, this hasn't happened in SF. If this is true, and if there is still a sexist hardcore, why? I blame the ultraconservative borderline-autistic simplistic-worldview military-SF wing of Fandom. The Americans, that is.

There's also a sampling effect here. The planetary system centred on the Harrison - Sleight binary is deeply concerned with issues of gender equality, and hence those within its Hill sphere will do things like post female author counts, link to reports of OUTRAGE and discussions of gender issues, and generally take a firm line on this sort of thing. However, it's not clear that other regions of Fandom have this particular bee in their bonnets. I mean, i've never seen any mention of genderology on Pat's Fantasy Hotlist, for example.

-- tom

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

This is getting old -- not your observations, the incompetence of the publisher, who should know better.

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

this is sure to be included on many SF awards shortlists

Only alongside Atalanta Nights. For goodness sake, Baen are better with female authors than that - and the Grauniad has better copy editors.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

Baen, I was boggled to find recently, published the pb of Joanna Russ's The Zanzibar Cat, which would certainly go into my top five list of feminist sf books.

[jamiam.livejournal.com]

In 1984...

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Jim Baen also serialized Joanna Russ's We Who Are About To... when he was editor of Galaxy.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Drifting away from female authors, Eric Flint once said on rasfw "I'd have to agree that the image of "Barry Malzberg" as the author on a cover with the Baen logo is indeed... a bit mind-boggling."

And Baen published this. (http://www.baen.com/author_catalog.asp?author=BNMalzberg)

Marketing and publicity

[jjarrold.livejournal.com]

Hi there - some of you know me as a literary agent who ran SF imprints in London publishing for fifteen years before starting up the agency. As it happens, I'm Jaine Fenn's agent, and we've both been watching this thread with interest.

As I've said elsewhere on LJ about the error on the spine - 'Principals' instead of 'Principles' - I've been around publishing too long not to be aware that mistakes happen. Of course it's annoying for all involved.

On the mention that Jaine is a woman (gosh) and that Gollancz feel this book could make award shortlists...well, be aware that most of these proofs will go to people who do not know the genre and its history as well as you and I do; they are largely meant for the general bookshops and mainstream reviewers. And I can tell you from my own experience that if you have ANYTHING that can be used as a hook to interest the Head Buyer of SF at W H Smiths, who purchases every SF and Fantasy title that appears in WHS across the UK, and can also gain interest in the world outside the SF coterie, you use it. Both those points - Jaine's gender and the possibility of awards - are exactly that. It would be good if publishers could design the wording on proofs for the specific recipient, but it ain't going to happen - it would be far, far too expensive. So there is one proof run and I am personally very glad that they have produced a proof. Many books do not receive this attention and expenditure. It shows that the publisher is behind the specific book and behind SF in general, and to be honest I think that is far more important. Jaine's editor is Jo Fletcher, and you can be sure that Jo would not have used wording she felt was derogatory to Jaine or to women.

One final point: it's a pity that all this reaction relates to the cover of the proof, and not what is inside: the book. The words. Do read that, and enjoy it!

[(Anonymous)]

There's always a lot of talk about gender in this vast sea of whiteness.....

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Trust me, if Gollancz were, say, promoting an Asian author because Asian sf writers are rare, and good ones even rarer, so this book is bound to get nominated for awards, I'd be talking about that as well.

[jjarrold.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, I didn't read it like that at all! I don't see that as saying it will reach award shortlists because Jaine is a very good SF writer who is a woman, I took this as two separate statements.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I would have thought that if it was two separate bullets; but it wasn't. The way it's written suggests there's an inference from her being a woman to her being shortlisted.

[jjarrold.livejournal.com]

Well, everyone will read it as they see it. I'm certainly not in the business of being an apologist for any publisher, since my clients are the people I represent. I'm simply saying what I see - and making points about the reality of everyday publishing, of course.

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