Wild Unicorn Herd

beyondvictoriana:

lokisgift:

hawkschild:

Something I was reminded of:

Nobody ever talks about the problematic elements in the source material for Steampunk.

I tried to bring it up at a Steampunk-themed convention and got crickets and a room full of stinkeye. Nobody wanted to be reminded that one of the core tropes of the genre was White Male Is A Genius And Builds A Gadget/Robot, Then Goes And Conquers Those PoC Over There And Then Steals Their Treasures.

And damaging Victorian worldviews, morality, and social mores.

And these things DO leak into the revival of Steampunk. Or Neo-Steampunk. Or whatever we want to call it.

And people either don’t know the history of the genre or, if they do, they want to ignore it all.

LET ME THROW LINKS AT YOU

Silver Goggles - “Worn by the steampunk postcolonialist when engaging with issues of race, representation, diversity, and other such exciting adventures as one might find in our genial genre”

Beyond Victoriana - “the oldest-running blog about multicultural steampunk and retro-futurism—that is, steampunk outside of a Western-dominant, Eurocentric framework.”

Ay-Leen the Peacemaker makes zines about antifascism, asian-americans and anti-King Coal activism in steampunk.

Nisi Shawl is writing a steampunk novel set in the Belgian Congo (I LOVE HER)

Amal El-Mohtar is amazing, and has specifically talked about the problem of writing steampunk-without-steam, and addressed it in fiction: To Follow The Waves

(tl;dr I love all these people, and I will really be sad to miss WisCon this year)

 

Thanks so much for the rec! Let me throw some more at you:

Steampunk Magazine: THE first magazine about steampunk, founded by anarcho-anarchist Magpie Killjoy. They are very much into discussing the -“isms” of steampunk, and are actively pro-social justice and stuffs.

Steampunk Emma Goldman — Putting the politics into your steampunk and steampunk into your politics. And her Facebook too is worth a follow.

The Chronicles of Harriet — On the forefront of steamfunk, African/African-American steampunk, run by Balogun Ojetade

moniquill aka Monique Poirier, social justice blogger, Seaconke Wampanoag steampunk

jhameia aka Jaymee Goh — Owner of Silver Goggles. This be her tumblr.

There are other steampunks who are politically-conscious and want to talk about that. Many of them answered my question about steampunk & politics here: http://beyondvictoriana.tumblr.com/post/47042618748/what-role-do-feminism-and-queer-politics-have-in

Other folks, feel free to shout-out here too!

space-ndn:

wildunicornherd:

vicious, implacable alien entity invades earth, spreads plague; indigenous peoples of the world laugh and laugh

Check out Mindscape by Andrea Hairston.

WILL DO

shwetanarayan:

wingyswonky:

THIS BOOK HAS A QUEER, PoC, FEMALE PROTAGONIST 

IT IS A UNICORN OF A BOOK.

READ IT.

LOVE IT.

IT’S AMAZING.

It’s one of my favrite books evar. 

The narrator, *and* Le Guin’s gorgeous prose *and* it’s all about narratives and how they are true and how you can’t get what people mean without understanding their stories and

just *love*

She’s Indian and in a relationship with a Chinese woman and I think they’re both, like, Canadian? Maybe that’s wishful thinking. I read it a very long time ago…should pick it up again. It’s one of her more didactic works and the parallels to China/Tibet are very obvious, which some people like and others don’t. YMMV.

ink-runs:

a rec list of subjectively awesome under-appreciated YA bc all i get on tumblr is john green and thg and lately the mortal instruments and there is good YA i swear

• White Cat by Holly Black: modern day urban fantasy noir with a MOC what else do you need ETA: HOLLY BLACK IN GENERAL OK
• Liar by Justine Larbalestier: a beautiful mindfuck of truths you won’t believe by a bi WOC narrator
• The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater: for an understanding between souls who eat and breath man-eating horses of the sea some like to call romance (do not go in expecting the hunger games whatever the description reads)
• Guardian of the Dead by Karen Healey: SUBVERTED PERSEPHONE - not explicitly but still. this book is entrenched in its New Zealand setting and built entirely on Maori myth
• Bartimaeus trilogy by Jonathan Stroud: it’s abt magicians and stuff and w/e ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THAT THAT THEIR POWERS COME FROM SLAVERY AND BARTIMAEUS XEMSELF JUST READ
• The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan: Supernatural set in the UK and this amoral pair of brothers get blackmailed by a pink-haired girl (who eventually becomes the heroine yay!) into helping her brother.
• Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor: a collection of short stories based on Western fairyfolk written to wring out tears of awe.
• Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey: there are no words [tw: torture, abuse, it’s extremely disturbing so prepare for everything tbh]
• Star Crossed by Elizabeth C. Bunce: a YA ASOFAI where religious sects fight for the throne centered on a thief with blood on her hands and magic in her veins. (it’s also a perfect winter read.)
• Ash by Malinda Lo: a lesbian retelling of Cinderella and this is intensely biased as i have a crush on cinderella’s love interest
• Eon by Alison Goodman: i can’t say anything for its authenticity but its world is based on ancient China and is a good deal less offensive than other ancient china recs i’ve seen, so for a change of setting.
• Devil’s Kiss by Sarwat Chadda: also set in the UK, it stars a Middle-Eastern girl Templer Knight raised in the business.
• Rampant by Diana Peterfreund: killer unicorns and the cloister of huntresses who kill them. that is all
• Everything by Courtney Summers: her protagonists range from the terrible to the flawed and it’s a breath of fresh air in a genre where all main characters must be Good. [tw: for some transmisogyny in cracked up to be]
• idk if she’s truly underappreciated on tumblr but i feel like no one reads her anyway and this is my list so
• Everything by Melina Marchetta: it’s the soul nourishment you didn’t know you needed. i advise you buy half her books if buying bc you’ll be lost after the first one.

thestoutorialist:

I’ve been tumbling primarily as a method of going “ooh shiny. Let me share.”  I’ve decided to be more intentional about who & what I’m reblogging.  Expect to see more dark skinned women, fatties, more gender variation, always more drag queens, and more superheroes who aren’t white.

I’ve been diving face first into reading YA books that have POC main characters and/or major characters who are POC.  The results are … mixed. Not because these stories can’t be awesome, but because more of us (POC) need to involved in the media created about us. Nothing about us without us.

It’s really clear when white authors put effort into making realistic POC characters or when they go “fuck it. Um. Lets have a hispanic girl in the series.  She was involved in gangs, shot some people, and then a nice white judge sealed her record and let her go.  Lets see she should have long braids, a tear drop tattoo and drop random spanish into conversations. Obviously she also a good dancer and will perform minor criminal activities the white chicks can’t.” 

This leaves me wondering does she identify as Latina, Chicana, or something else? Could she be Mestizo? Are there tejanos in her family? What about Dominican, Columbian, etc ancestry.  What cultures does this chick come form? Where does she live?

Most importantly, is the author really going to pretend a large public high school in LA will have exactly one student who is Latin@? OK then. (Daughters of the Moon, you are on notice)

Instead of that nonsense, I’m giving you <a href=”http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3463179-soul-enchilada”>Soul Enchilada by David Macinnis Gill</a> (link is to Good Reads) a YA novel whose lead is an afro-tejano young woman and her potential romance partner is a bruja in training. The story is solidly set in the land and culture of El Paso, TX.

There is snark, awesome cards, bantering, folk magic, the devil, Tejano culture, Coyote, and other delights like Supernatural INS (white vans and all). I loved this book and would gladly give this book to people.  Also kudos to the white author David Macinnis Gill for writing a great story which included people from diverse ethnic backgrounds. It’s easier to whinge than to make change, and I’m glad you did.

fuckyeahafricanmythology:

baltimorescifi: 

Hi. I know this is slightly outside of the realm of this blog, but I could really use your help. Can you recommend any books about daily life in medieval sub-saharan Africa? Anything about how people lived on the ground, day to day, in the Ghana/Mali/Songhai empires, would be incredible. There are so many books about the daily lives of Ancient Egyptians, and so few about the regular lives of the REST of the continent.

Short of that (a difficult request, I know), know any good books on contemporary daily rural/tribal life (basically, outside of cities) in sub-saharan Africa? If you could point in me in the right direction, I would be greatly appreciative.

Thanks, for both your help, and for running this great (and much needed) blog.

Not sure about this one if anyone knows please help baltimoresci-fi out

Hey, researchy people! Anyone?