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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   45539 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022

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I was under the impression that the most popular sci-fi was by-and-large written by straight white males who are, if not necessarily MAGA republicans, then at least very politically incorrect(eg, John Ringo, Orson Scott Card, David Weber). Is it any real surprise that with that backdrop there is an impetus for the wokes to try to promote already woke stuff as a replacement whether or not it makes any sense?

Plenty of sf classics were written by leftists though? Gibson, arguably the father of cyberpunk, is even woke now.

I'm not even sure what baseline you could pick that would make your proposition true. Straight white men are already a pretty unwoke demo.

But I don't know the numbers, you may be right that conservatives are very overrepresented in sf classics.

I was under the impression that the most popular sci-fi was by-and-large written by straight white males who are, if not necessarily MAGA republicans, then at least very politically incorrect

If we count Hispanic men and conservative leaning black women as "white" and "male" yes. Remember that this is the beef that instigated the whole "sad puppy" affair. The original complaint was that the alleged concern was never about diversity, it was crushing dissent and the competition, and I feel that history has vindicated that position. In essence the whole Hugo controversy from 2013 - 2016 can be summed up as the board of directors at Tor and Del Rey looking to get the Baen crowd canceled for not being woke enough. They may have succeeded, but the cancellation does not seemed to have hurt Baen's sales. Turns out that there is a market for old fashioned (IE "unwoke") pulp fiction and Baen has been happy to fill it.

I don’t have much difficulty wrapping my head around a Hispanic white.

I was unaware of the black women in sci-fi thing.

the most famous example I know is Octavia Butler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_E._Butler

I don't think Ringo or Weber are particularly popular? The current bestselling sci-fi book published in the last year is Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith, per Publishers Weekly (Adam Christopher). Behind that, Becky Chambers and Silvia Moreno-Garcia are shipping the most volume for non-star wars sci-fi properties published in the last year. This hardly seems like there is a lot of volume on new books from 'politically incorrect' white male authors. Closest thing is maybe Ernest Cline with Ready Player Two last year?

As most producers and consumers of fiction now are women, by a fair margin, I don't find this too surprising.

Why would you use the current demographics of the industry as evidence about the past demographics of the industry when the topic is the changing demographics of the industry?

I'm not making any contention about the past demographics of the industry. Tired claims of entryism or institutional capture depend on there being a mismatch against revealed consumer preferences. Said mismatch does not exist.

The post you were replying to was about the past demographics of the industry. Are you claiming that Sci fi has never been dominated by white men?

Also "tired", particularly without any evidence behind it or even an explanation of what you think specifically is tired, is consensus building. And data from after the entryism is not revealed consumer preference, so I would appreciate it if you could define those terms so I know what you mean.

This is a claim that really needs evidence. For example, you've cited volume, but didn't mention any hard numbers.

Here it is copied from the PW letter, units are for the four-week period ending 22-7-30 (I have removed titles not published in the last 12 months):

| Title                         | Author               | Publication Date | Units  |

|-------------------------------|----------------------|------------------|--------|

| Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith | Adam Christopher     | Jun 2022         | 11,409 |

| A Prayer for the Crown-Shy    | Becky Chambers       | Jul 2022         | 6,009  |

| Star Wars: Brotherhood        | Mike Chen            | May 2022         | 5,747  |

| The Daughter of Doctor Moreau | Silvia Moreno-Garcia | Jul 2022         | 5,731  |

PW would be pulling from NPD Bookscan like everyone else, but unfortunately I don't have access to them

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