I don't have a racefail icon, so I use my "Fuck you, Marvel, I hate you" icon instead.
So, this isn't a creepy concept at all.
I want to love it, because mammoths! And Patricia C. Wrede's fantasy and regency series were so much fun, but a fantasy novel where North & South America were totally devoid of people when Europeans got here, especially a novel that's about pioneers in the (empty of pre-existing habitation) American West has potentially icky vibes all over it.
The American West being empty of Native Americans is a fantasy that white settlers in the past not only really wished was true, but did their level best to make a reality. We deliberately gave people blankets that carried the smallpox virus to try and wipe them out. We shot hundreds of thousands of buffalo and nearly wiped them out not out of blind greed and the fond belief that there would always be more buffalo, but as a deliberate attempt to exterminate the Wests' buffalo herds so that the Native American nations who depended on them in order to continue their way of life would be deprived of them (seriously -- it was two horrific attempts at extermination for the price of one). American soldiers massacred men, women, and children. We took children away from their parents and sent them to school were they were forceably "civilized," by which I mean "forced against their will to give up their own culture, sometimes via violence and abuse."
In light of that, the idea of a fantasy story about an America where Native Americans were just... never there is deeply problematic. Here is a better explanation of why it's a problem. And another better explanation. And those posters are not the only people who are offended (there is some further failing on the part of professional SF writers in the comments there, as seems to be de rigeur in imbrolgios now).
It might be possible to do an Empty America hypothesis in a way that wasn't racially insensitive and hurtful, but it would be extremely difficult, even if you were removing Native Americans from the picture specifically in order to write a novel that examined all the ways in which their absence would dramatically alter world history. Which, on balance, it does not sound like Wrede is doing. Granted, I haven't read her book yet, and don't plan to despite the temptation of mammoths, (because a) creepy, and b) poor worldbuilding) but others who have read it have stated that she's not examining all the logical consequences of an unpopulated America but is presenting American history as Pretty Much the Same but With No Indians. This pains me. [ETA:![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sami does some explaining here on why it's painful].
I'm not even touching the part where there's no slavery but American culture is still somehow the same, which idea causes the historian part of me almost as much active pain as the fact that the book reportedly has no people in the Western Hemisphere prior to the 15th century yet still, somehow, has cultivated crops like corn. Who's supposed to have grown the corn and transformed it from a tiny grass-like plant to big familiar ears of corn via centuries of selective cultivation? The magical mammoths? Bad alternate history. Bad.
Also, if magic prevented human migration across the Bering landbridge and thus the spread of Clovis culture across North America, there would still be people from Polynesia sailing across the Pacific Ocean to South America. People got to this hemisphere in more than one way (dude, if you can learn this from wikipedia, there is no excuse for ignoring it). And the most recent theory on the extinction of the mammoth is that mammoths were wiped out by the climate change that marked the end of the ice age, not by human predation. Taking the people away from North America would still not get you mammoths roaming free on the Great Plains. You'd have to prolong the ice age by thousands of years to achieve that.
Not that the discussion of ways in which to do Empty America as a serious AH experiment that the controvercy over this has spawned wasn't intellectually fascinating (if also full of examples of people being either clueless or insulting, including me, for all I know). It was, and deeply so. Especially the guy who decided that what the world really needs is a book where intelligent terror birds roam free on the Great Plains and are ultimately domesticated by native Americans and trained to herd animals. Because I don't think I can adequately describe how much I wish that book existed instead of this one. Or any book with less racefail and more humans coexisting with giant terror birds, really.
Note, because the issue has come up in several posts on this topic already: Any trollish comments will have their replies frozen, though not necessarily immediately (it's dependant upon me noticing the trolling and how often I check my email). Trolling = using racial slurs, defending people who use said slurs, and/or calling anti-racist activists trolls, saying that we're engaging in censorship by crisicizing this book, or repeatedly asking why this is a bad thing when there are totally alternate histories that kill off white people (that has already been explained, if you follow the links above). Cussing at people, including using the words ass or arse, will also get you frozen. ("This is fucking horrible" =/= cussing at people. "You're a fucking asshole" = cussing at people)
Post not mirrored on LJ because on the off chance there are comments to this, I want them in one easy-to-monitor place. Anonymous commenting is enabled for those without Dreamwidth accounts, but I ask that you please sign anon comments with some kind of identifier, be it Alan Smithee or Irving Forbush or your own pseudonym
So, this isn't a creepy concept at all.
I want to love it, because mammoths! And Patricia C. Wrede's fantasy and regency series were so much fun, but a fantasy novel where North & South America were totally devoid of people when Europeans got here, especially a novel that's about pioneers in the (empty of pre-existing habitation) American West has potentially icky vibes all over it.
The American West being empty of Native Americans is a fantasy that white settlers in the past not only really wished was true, but did their level best to make a reality. We deliberately gave people blankets that carried the smallpox virus to try and wipe them out. We shot hundreds of thousands of buffalo and nearly wiped them out not out of blind greed and the fond belief that there would always be more buffalo, but as a deliberate attempt to exterminate the Wests' buffalo herds so that the Native American nations who depended on them in order to continue their way of life would be deprived of them (seriously -- it was two horrific attempts at extermination for the price of one). American soldiers massacred men, women, and children. We took children away from their parents and sent them to school were they were forceably "civilized," by which I mean "forced against their will to give up their own culture, sometimes via violence and abuse."
In light of that, the idea of a fantasy story about an America where Native Americans were just... never there is deeply problematic. Here is a better explanation of why it's a problem. And another better explanation. And those posters are not the only people who are offended (there is some further failing on the part of professional SF writers in the comments there, as seems to be de rigeur in imbrolgios now).
It might be possible to do an Empty America hypothesis in a way that wasn't racially insensitive and hurtful, but it would be extremely difficult, even if you were removing Native Americans from the picture specifically in order to write a novel that examined all the ways in which their absence would dramatically alter world history. Which, on balance, it does not sound like Wrede is doing. Granted, I haven't read her book yet, and don't plan to despite the temptation of mammoths, (because a) creepy, and b) poor worldbuilding) but others who have read it have stated that she's not examining all the logical consequences of an unpopulated America but is presenting American history as Pretty Much the Same but With No Indians. This pains me. [ETA:
sami does some explaining here on why it's painful].I'm not even touching the part where there's no slavery but American culture is still somehow the same, which idea causes the historian part of me almost as much active pain as the fact that the book reportedly has no people in the Western Hemisphere prior to the 15th century yet still, somehow, has cultivated crops like corn. Who's supposed to have grown the corn and transformed it from a tiny grass-like plant to big familiar ears of corn via centuries of selective cultivation? The magical mammoths? Bad alternate history. Bad.
Also, if magic prevented human migration across the Bering landbridge and thus the spread of Clovis culture across North America, there would still be people from Polynesia sailing across the Pacific Ocean to South America. People got to this hemisphere in more than one way (dude, if you can learn this from wikipedia, there is no excuse for ignoring it). And the most recent theory on the extinction of the mammoth is that mammoths were wiped out by the climate change that marked the end of the ice age, not by human predation. Taking the people away from North America would still not get you mammoths roaming free on the Great Plains. You'd have to prolong the ice age by thousands of years to achieve that.
Not that the discussion of ways in which to do Empty America as a serious AH experiment that the controvercy over this has spawned wasn't intellectually fascinating (if also full of examples of people being either clueless or insulting, including me, for all I know). It was, and deeply so. Especially the guy who decided that what the world really needs is a book where intelligent terror birds roam free on the Great Plains and are ultimately domesticated by native Americans and trained to herd animals. Because I don't think I can adequately describe how much I wish that book existed instead of this one. Or any book with less racefail and more humans coexisting with giant terror birds, really.
Note, because the issue has come up in several posts on this topic already: Any trollish comments will have their replies frozen, though not necessarily immediately (it's dependant upon me noticing the trolling and how often I check my email). Trolling = using racial slurs, defending people who use said slurs, and/or calling anti-racist activists trolls, saying that we're engaging in censorship by crisicizing this book, or repeatedly asking why this is a bad thing when there are totally alternate histories that kill off white people (that has already been explained, if you follow the links above). Cussing at people, including using the words ass or arse, will also get you frozen. ("This is fucking horrible" =/= cussing at people. "You're a fucking asshole" = cussing at people)
Post not mirrored on LJ because on the off chance there are comments to this, I want them in one easy-to-monitor place. Anonymous commenting is enabled for those without Dreamwidth accounts, but I ask that you please sign anon comments with some kind of identifier, be it Alan Smithee or Irving Forbush or your own pseudonym
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So you could do it, and it would be interesting, but there would be so many changes (including a complete shift in the way the last couple ice ages happened, if Panama was open). Unless you just randomly say "nah, they didn't go extinct in the Interchange", but at that point you might as well just have dinosaurs... The mention of terror birds in 13th Child was the point at which I realized that the worldbuilding was going to be based entirely on "that would be cool!" rather than good SF building. Which means the only reason for the missing cultures was "that would be cool!"
The general level of bad science in this discussion is a marker of the overall level of letting prejudices override thinking.
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I'm just going to do this, instead: *facepalm*
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The rational for Native Americans being gone being that she wanted mammoths to still be around is like a red flag that she's basing her worldbuilding on outdated theories, for one, since the last I heard, the climate change explanation for the extinction of mammoths was well on its way to replacing "evil cave people hunted them to extinction" as the predominate theory.
And, of course, there's also "blocking acess to the Bering landbridge would prevent all human migration to the Western Hemisphere" and the "19th century American society would be recognizably the same."
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You only get one awesomeness exception or free handwave, though, and the trade off is that you have to justify everything else (ex: like Novik handwaving the European history + dragons but showing the social consequences of woman serving in the aerial corps). And "what if this minority group didn't exist" is not awesome and does not qualify for a "suspend your disbelief on this little detail, okay, it's necessary for the rest of the plot to work" handwave.
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*goggles*
That's all I have to say about that.
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It's not like Bear's book, which was apprently very well written and also contained problematic racial elements. It's fail made more fail-y by bad writing.
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Put it this way
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It's just the principle, really
So, no sci fi books, no fantasy books until these people either die out or get hit with a clue by four.
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SO MUCH FAIL.
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I've said that I'd read the book when my library got a copy, but the more I learn the more I just think it's not worth the effort I'd put into it. Wikipedia knows things that Wrede chose (blithely from all the evidence I've seen) to not research or just to ignore. Guns, Germs, and Steel, which has only been lauded from here to Mars and back, knows a lot of things that make clear that The Thirteenth Child is intellectually lazy. And no one should need to be told that it's deeply, deeply offensive.
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I just found out about her little "prepping the land for human habitation" remark and am just *done* with not being outright disgusted with Wrede. She's expended my will to think the best of her or this.
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Also, pfft, cliffnotes. I could tell you the details if you WANTED...
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Nice handling of Faerie, too, and interesting protagonists, and an examination of how magic affected history - it's not massively dwelt upon, but Wellington with a magician, awesome. Not a great variety or depth of female characters, even given the limitations of the period, but it's not horrible. And it deals with race, in a way I think is handled well. (Although I'm definitely not an expert on that.)
And it's an absolute doorstop, and has wonderful footnotes that go on for pages
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A Faire Wood Withering (1444) by Peter Watershippe. This is a remarkably detailed description by a contemporary magician of how English magic declined after John Uskglass left England. In 1434 (the year of Uskglass’s departure) Watershippe was twenty-five, a young man just beginning to practice magic in Norwich. A Faire Wood Withering contains precise accounts of spells which were perfectly practicable as long as Uskglass and his fairy subjects remained in England, but which no longer had any effect after their departure. Indeed, it is remarkable how much of our knowledge of Aureate English magic comes from Watershippe. A Faire Wood Withering seems an angry book until one compares it with two of Watershippe’s later books: A Defense of my Deeds Written while Wrongly Imprisoned by my Enemies in Newark Castle (1459/60) and Crimes of the False King (written 1461?, published 1697, Penzance) (footnote 4, chap. 39)
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