Last weekend, Nnedi Okarafor and I did a really fun, wide-ranging panel on politics and sf for Tor Books’ TorCon, moderated by Kayti Burt; it was the closing panel, and Tor has transcribed some of the highlights.
Nnedi talked about how her writing process always starts with characters: “I’ve been writing about this particular character for a pretty long time, and she’s kind of existed in different ways and stories, but writing about her—it started with her.”
And we discussed how sf can present “challenging issues and diverse world views for conversation and change.”
Nnedi talked about how genre is a “skewed lens” to see painful issues with new eyes, “and when you see it with new eyes, you can see more.”
I talked about how sf can give you a (possibly false and sometimes harmful) story to reach for when you need to understand what’s going to happen in moments of crisis or extremis:
“As pulp writers, science fiction writers don’t want to confine themselves to man-against-man or man-against nature, we like the plot-forward twofer, where it’s man-against-nature-against-man, where the tsunami blows your house over and your neighbors come over to eat you. That kind of story of the foundational beastiality of humans does make for great storytelling, but it’s not true. That’s not actually what happens in crises.
“In crises, the refrigerator hum of petty grievance stops and leaves behind the silence to make you realize that you have more in common with your neighbors. It’s when people are are their best.”
