4 ms·
The author just sounds ignorant, and seems to have jumped up at Cixin Liu. Western fans have always welcomed authors like the Strugarsky brothers and Stanislaw
by sn41 8y ago
The author just sounds ignorant, and seems to have jumped up at Cixin Liu. Western fans have always welcomed authors like the Strugarsky brothers and Stanislaw Lem, and Japanese scifi. He also seems to be forgetting pioneers like Ursula Le Guin, authors from a diverse Western background.
Moreover, even traditional well-known Western fiction has had diversity in characters. I am Indian, and off the cuff, can recall the following "historical" Indian figures/settings in Western scifi:
- Captain Nemo, in "20000 Leagues Under the Sea", was the erstwhile Maharaja of Bundelkhand, India
- "Around the World in 80 days" - Phileas Fogg, the main character, rescues and later marries an Indian, "Aouda".
- The programmer of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, is Dr. Chandra, from UIUC
- One of the most famous antagonists in the Star Trek universe is Khan Noonein Singh, a Sikh character
- One of the five scientists in Carl Sagan's "Contact" is Indian (Devi?)
- "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein has Agra, India as a pivotal plot venue.
- Yizahi 8y agoKim Stanley Robinson - Red Mars trilogy - half of the crew are russians, japanese etc. After colonisation even more diverse etnicities arrive. James Corey - The Expanse - main characters include Indian, Polynesian, whole premise of the book is "nationality" conflict. Belters especially. Jemisin - The Broken Earth trilogy - again, different looking people as main characters, racial conflicts and so on. Ann Leckie - Ancillary series - ambiguous gender characters as main characters, racial conflicts etc. I'd say that western sci-fi is rather progressive in character diversity.
- teh_klev 8y agoAlastair Reynolds - Poseidon's Children trilogy - African nations (and the Chinese and Indians) are the world's foremost technological powers and space faring nations. Also ELEPHANTS IN SPACE!
- Yizahi 8y agoAlso forgot: Kim Stanley Robinson - Years of Rice and Salt - plague kills off whole Europe, and then all middle east and far east nations are main entities for the whole book.
- narag 8y agoLouis Wu - Ringworld, described as mixed race and of course aliens. The inhabitants of Ringworld (as seen in sequels) are also very diverse.
- dtx1 8y agoMost "Western" Sci Fi has been very diverse in it's characters as most non-dystopian futures assume a very globalized earth. Let's take star trek for example * TOS has been on the forefront of this with basically the whole bridge crew beeing a commercial for space diversity, even going so far as having a russian officers during the cold war on the bridge. * The first Chief engineer of the TNG Enterprise was an Indian only to be replaced by Geordi La Forge (a blind black man). * DS9 dealt with race and diversity on so many levels, i can't even begin to count. * VOY just happened to have a very diverse crew, it was never explored much just...accepted? * ENT same as voyager just a little less "on the nose"
- dtx1 8y agoJust reminded myself of this: In the model 2001: A Space Odyssey the moon station has a "sovyet" and an "american" entrance which both lead to the same room. The main character notices this with releave instead of annyoance.
- saiya-jin 8y agoStar trek was interesting in this, you can see how creators tried for diversity as much as current norms at the time allowed. In 60s, captain (aka main hero) had to be postercard white american, no way around it. TNG had a caucasian french captain (played by british actor, tells something about what creators thought about audience). DS9 had an african-american captain. Voyager a woman.
- rsynnott 8y ago> In 60s, captain (aka main hero) had to be postercard white american, no way around it. And indeed, it is even stated at one time (albeit possibly by an unreliable character) that women _could not be Starfleet captains_.
- rsynnott 8y agoI think Star Trek was actually fairly timid about this compared to contemporary and older novels. TOS pushed the envelope a little bit, but the rest were mostly just hitting contemporary norms. Notoriously, they were very skittish about LGBT characters, even at a time when gay people were showing up in sitcoms etc without anyone getting too upset. Novels are a whole different story, though; Clarke, le Guin etc were very much more progressive.