Author: jameswharris

How Many Readers Avoid Books Based on a Writer’s Gender?

By James Wallace Harris, Thursday, November 3, 2016

I often see comments on the web where readers attack book list makers for not having enough titles by women or people of color. Sometimes the comment sections get rather heated over the topic, especially when people using Twitter get involved. How common is this sentiment? Statistically we know that women and people of color aren’t represented equally in society. How often do readers avoid books because of their prejudices? How often do buyers select books to read based on their desire to promote equality? Today, far more women and people of color are succeeding on the bestseller lists than ever before. Is that because some readers are choosing to purchase books by writers to promote diversity, or because readers are interested in great stories and pay little attention to authors? My best guess is readers are mostly indifferent to who wrote a book, all they want is to forget the world and immerse themselves in a compelling work of fiction.

Hugo award novel 2016

I bought The Fifth Season because it won the Hugo Award this year, and it got amazing reviews. I do assume there are readers out there that chose not to buy this novel because it was written by a woman, but how many people still think that way? I suppose the misogyny of the Donald Trump campaign is evidence that the figure could be large, but looking at lists of best sellers and books that have been made into movies recently, I wonder how large.

I do believe movies, television shows, and novels can spread the acceptance of diversity. But how many people consciously choose a book to broaden their outlook? I’m not sure if book lists created to promote diversity have much impact. I do think what has impact is success. A blockbuster movie or bestselling novel that brings people closer together will change society. But does making lists of them help change society?

As a list maker, I have some evidence to apply towards these questions. After reading many essays and comments by people advocating there should be more women writers on lists of science fiction books, I created a list of science fiction  books by women writers for the new version 4 of Classics of Science Fiction. Our list is generated by studying 65 other lists, and we’ve been doing this for over thirty years. The trend we see is more women writers are being read. However, I’m not sure readers are selecting books to read because they are written by women. I think more women are writing great stories readers want to read.

When I look at our stats page, the only list that people are interested in is the Classics of Science Fiction by rank. We also offer the list ordered by author, title and year published, plus this time, the most popular science fiction books by women writers. Any list other than rank gets damn few hits. Our lists aren’t that popular to begin with, so I tend to doubt many readers buy books based on lists, other than best seller lists. And our rank list is somewhat like a bestseller list, books that succeed over time. Readers seem interested in long term popularity, but that might be nostalgia. I think most readers prefer new books. I don’t see any indication in our stats that readers focus on authors. The popularity of a novel is everything. I do know authors have fans that read all their books, but our readers don’t seem to care to check our author list to see which books by their favorite writers made the list.

I’m disappointed that our list of science fiction by women writers gets so few lists. I thought it was a well made list. Promoting great stories worthy of reading. I hope the lack of hits isn’t because science fiction readers are prejudice against women writers. The most popular book on our rank list by total citation lists, The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin, had been on 43 of the 65 lists we studied. I like to assume it proves most readers aren’t bias by gender, but favor great storytelling.

I’m a lifelong liberal. I’d like to believe I’ve never avoided a book because a woman wrote it. But I have to admit that growing up I read very few science fiction books by women writers. As a teen I read Andre Norton, Leigh Brackett, Zenna Henderson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, Madeleine L’Engle, Judith Merril, C. L. Moore, and a few other women writers. But to be completely honest, none of my favorite science fiction novels back in the 1960s were written those women. My two favorite authors growing up were Robert A. Heinlein and Samuel R. Delany. I knew little about them personally. Second tier was Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. I didn’t like all their books, but the SF books I loved best were mainly by these five guys. Did their gender influence me? I don’t know. I do know my current all-time favorite novel is The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. And even though I think Gilbert is a fascinating woman, her book is my favorite novel because of the story.

And to be totally upfront, I wrote this essay to get people to read the list, “Science Fiction by Women Writers,” and hopefully try the books on it. I like list making. I want them to be useful. But I’m also learning the limits of their appeal and value. Lists are very popular on the web, but I’m starting to wonder if readers are becoming indifferent to them.

JWH

How Much Time Do You Spend Escaping Reality?

by James Wallace Harris, Monday, October 31, 2016

I often worry if I spend too much time escaping reality. Mostly I check out via television, books or daydreaming while listening to loud music. However, sometimes I just enjoy a sensual nap even when I’m not tired. I don’t allow myself drugs or alcohol, and my heart doesn’t allow mindless gluttony. I wonder why escapism wasn’t one of the original seven deadly sins? Or does sloth cover it?

Reality can be relentless. Sometimes we want to turn it off. What’s you’re preferred method? Some people have perfect lives. They love every moment of living. Other people need occasional breaks from reality. They want to take a few hours off and think about something different. Then, there are the sad souls, who need to completely abandon their wretched fates. From hobbies to heroin, how do you switch channels on reality?

desert2

This makes me think about all the ways we interact with reality:

  • Manipulate reality for our needs (gather food, find mates, clean house)
  • Study reality (science, history, journalism, philosophy)
  • Admire reality (meditate on the beauty of nature, enjoy works of art)
  • Add to reality (create a beautiful work of art)
  • Destroy/create (Cut a tree down to build a house)
  • Mess with our perception of reality (drugs, fantasy, delusions)
  • Turn off (sleep, become unconscious, inward meditation)
  • Escape (create an alternate reality in your head for entertainment)

I’m using the word reality in a specific way. It’s everything that’s outside of myself. I like to think of conscience beings as black boxes floating in an infinite objective reality. We exist in our box of subjectivity, gathering input through our senses, constructing a model of reality. Much like the Holodeck in the old Star Trek show. We never perceive reality directly, only by interacting with our model. Reality is too vast to actual grasp or perceive directly, but being realistic means working with an effective model. Escapism is when we consciously choose to ignore our inputs from the external reality and use our modeling mechanism to create fantasies. I’m never sure if escapist fantasies are how we wish reality was, or if we just prefer our substitute models of realities?

When I was growing up, I used science fiction to escape reality. My parents were alcoholics that should have divorced. Instead, they dragged my sister and I around the country hoping to find greener grass for themselves. I don’t blame them in the least, because I know they were just coping with reality the best way they could. Because of their alcohol abuse and my own experiments with drugs, I know about the paths of chemical escapism. But for this essay I’m not going to explore them. Those are negative forms of escapism. Are there positive forms of escapism? Is reading a great novel a positive form of escape? Or is it still an unhealthy negative way of dealing with reality?

Should we always face up to reality? Should we continuously keep our eyes focused on living in the now? When J. K. Rowling wrote her Harry Potter books was she escaping reality, or creating an artistic work of art for reality? Or a little bit of both? Happy people are often people who spend most of their time concentrating on being creative. Is building a house more reality based than writing a science fiction novel? Is a news junky living more realistically than someone who binges on The Walking Dead? Both spend endless hours watching TV.

Does watching TV always equal escapism? What about compulsive novel reading? Is taking a two-week Mediterranean cruise escaping reality or embracing it? Is sleep the body’s natural form of escapism, or a neutral state when we cease to exist in reality or subjectivity? We are taught by mindfulness instructors our thoughts get in the way. That idle brain chatter keeps us from seeing reality. They claim sitting quietly, ignoring our thoughts, but observing reality intently, is the best way to live in the now. Is that true? When is reading Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon a better choice?

Is living in the now, with a razor sharp focus on our inputs from reality more important than being creative?

Last night, my TV-buddy Janis and I binged on the first three episodes of Good Girls Revolt, an original series on Amazon, about women working at a fictionalized Newsweek in 1969. It’s based on the nonfiction book, The Good Girls Revolt: How the Women of Newsweek Sued Their Bosses and Changed the Workplace by Lynn Povich. The show is very entertaining – but it’s also making a statement about reality. So was this three hours of TV watching escapism or education? The story reminded me of Gail Collins’ When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present – because dozens of women changed reality by pursuing lawsuits for equal treatment under the law. However, did Janis and I improve the accuracy of our models of reality what watching Good Girls Revolt? Or were we each escaping from other things we should be doing? Both of us have projects and obligations that would have benefitted from those three hours.

Is living a binary condition – where we exist either interacting with reality or hiding from it? Aren’t our ambitions about how we wish to alter reality? Isn’t the desire to get rich, laid, or fed essentially wanting to alter reality? Think about that for a moment though. Picture yourself as an amoeba, swimming around looking for something to eat or mate (assuming amoebas mate). Our soul is programmed to interact with reality like any other creature in existence. Could escapism just be another bodily function? Could we be programmed to find food, shelter and mates, and when not doing either, just kill time?

Take virtual reality (VR) – which we’re told is the next big thing in entertainment. Could there be a more perfect form of escapism? Isn’t VR a rejection of reality? They should market it as AR – alternative realities. Who really wants to simulate actual reality? What people want are better realities to take their minds off the fact their bodies exist in a reality of growing threats.

If you start thinking about it, are most of the great forms of escapism based on alternative realities. Books, movies, comics, television, are all designed to move you mind out of reality into an artificial construction. Think of it as Noah Ark for your mind. You read a science fiction novel hoping when you finish reality will be more appealing, and you’ll want to get back to work.

Which reminds me of all those people who want to travel to other planets. Isn’t space travel the ultimate form of escape? Wasn’t the film Interstellar all about escape? Time to toss Earth in the trash heap and head someplace new. I’m a lifelong science fiction fan, but that philosophy seems ugly to me. If we can’t build a perfect civilization on a paradise planet, why think we could do better elsewhere?

Look at the explosion of heroin addiction, the expanding acceptance of legal marijuana, the endless stories of designer drugs, or just sit in your car outside a liquor store and watch the steady flow of customers. I suppose the folks who can’t find comfort in fiction turn to chemicals.

Of course, healthier people have work and hobbies, and rich folk have conspicuous consumption. People with talent have art, invention and science, Caring people have charities to keep their minds focused. But if you’re sick and poor, what do you have?

What’s amazing is the small number of people actually working on solving the world’s problems. Most people pick escapism instead. You’d think working on solving our problems would be an overwhelmingly attractive form of escapism. It could keep our minds busy for the rest of our lives. Of course, I still can’t get over the fact that 7 billion minds lack the imagination to turn this planet into heaven. Evidently, as a species we’re pretty bad at parallel processing – or cooperation.

It’s rather ironic that Iraq and Syria, once cradles of civilization, are now our best examples of civilization collapse? People over there are about as close to reality as it gets. Maybe the purpose of civilization is to provide security from external reality, so we have time to indulge in artificial realities. Work is essentially manipulating reality. Play can be enjoying reality, like swimming at the beach, but quite often play is indulging in artificial realities – television, movies, plays, books, games, sports.

Traditionally, work is a virtue, and play is a vice, or at best a short vacation from work. Western culture teaches that reality is something we conquer, and idleness is a sin. Is that still true? I’m retired, and don’t have to work anymore. Many people do think of retirees as a burden on society. A large segment of the working age population can’t get work. Maybe we need to make new ways to interact with reality, and consider them new virtues.

JWH

My New Binge Worthy Show: The Detectorists

By James Wallace Harris, Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Normally I watch new TV shows with my friends as a reason to get together socially. For a while now, I don’t have the patience to watch a lot of TV by myself. But last night my friend Mike told me about a series he’s watched three times already: Detectorists. I watched by myself the first six 30-minute episodes before going to bed at 12:32am. I was hooked. So far this charming British TV show has racked up 13 total episodes. It’s quite binge worthy, but it won’t be a long one. The show is about two English guys, Andy and Lance, who love to search for buried treasure with their metal detectors. Mostly they find old nails, low value coins, beer can flip tabs, and Matchbox cars. They hope to find gold from an ancient Saxon burial.  Andy and Lance belong to Danebury Metal Detecting Club (DMDC), along with six other eccentric endearing oddballs. Their rival club is even stranger.

Detectorists

The show is about metal detecting, but not excessively so – just enough to get me to price metal detectors on Amazon, but maybe not enough to turn me into a detectorist. I love shows about quirky sub-cultures, and this show is a doozy. It’s also beautiful, funny, endearing, and quite observant about ordinary people and their lives. The show also makes me want to move to rural England.

You can catch Detectorists on Netflix. Here’s a trailer. I thought I just let y’all know, at least my TV addict friends who are looking for another show to shoot up – especially one without gun porn. Warning, they do swear though. Not much, not as much as the women in my life. Another reason to love this show – the characters are ordinary looking, even homely, and definitely not CGI/surgically engineered beauty clones. This might be odd for me to say, but shows that promote gun lust and absurdly beautiful characters have jump the shark for me.

JWH

What I’ve Learned After Three Years of Retirement

By James Wallace Harris, Monday, October 24, 2016

October 22nd was the 3rd anniversary of my last day at work. The time has zipped by, but I feel I’ve already gone through several psychological phases. For the first year I used to occasionally revisit my old work place, but I don’t do that anymore. Even though I was at the university for over 35 years, I no longer feel part of that world anymore. I’ve entered a new territory, and I’m slowly learning to colonize it.

Joining Medicare feels like the gateway to the land of the aging. I don’t feel old, but I know I’m new old. I’m in the toddler phase for growing up to be old old. I now ask about senior discounts, and I notice just how much advertising is targeted to the elderly. Am I eventually going to need all that stuff? (Home catheterization, lift chairs, slim fit adult diapers, hearing aids, step-in bathtubs, electric stair chairs, medical alerts, motorized chairs, etc. – and all those zillions of drugs.)

Old-Pug

I now watch out for scams. I keep seeing stories on the news about con artists scamming the elderly. I don’t know if its my new wariness, but I sometimes do feel extra sales pressure at stores or from hired workmen. I screen all my house-phone calls. Even though I’m on the national do-not-call list, I still get lots of calls. I assume since most people have switched to cellphones, there’s far fewer landlines to cold-call. And they seem more desperate. Most of calls I get are about selling stuff to people my age. Is that direct marketing targeting, or are older Americans the only ones with land lines?

And I hate charity calls. I feel bad about saying no to worthy causes, but I resent they feel they have a right to call my house and interrupt my life. Because I’m one of the last people on Earth to have a landline, it means I get a lot of calls. I just don’t answer my phone anymore, letting my machine reply for me. Supporting charities that call my phone only encourages them to call more. It’s time that all telemarketing becomes illegal, even for charities. (I’ve had three calls while writing this essay this morning.)

I spend a lot of time alone. My wife still works out of town, so I only see her on weekends. I visit with friends, but I like being alone. I’m getting addicted to it. I love puttering around with my projects. I hate when strangers come to my door. I can feel myself evolving into a crotchety old man. I used to be polite to con artists, salesmen, and church people knocking on my door. Now I just get rid of them as fast as I can. I’m not mean, or rude, but cut their spiel off quickly. Who knows how nice I will be in ten years.

I love quiet – unless I want to play my music loud. And I love to play my music loud for an hour or two a day, especially when I nap. It’s emotionally uplifting to hear my favorite oldies when I’m coming in and out of consciousness of a nap.

And my taste in TV has taken a very weird turn lately. I don’t have the patience to watch movies anymore. I can watch them if I have friends over, but not alone. And I still love new TV shows if I’m watching with friends, but again, not alone. My attention span for TV has shorten. At night, when watching TV by myself, I’ve become addicted to seeing an old Perry Mason before going to bed. That’s about 45 minutes. Growing up Perry Mason was my mother’s favorite TV show, and The Fugitive was my father’s favorite show. I couldn’t stand either. I’ve always hated mysteries – either books, TV shows, or movies. But for some strange reason, since I signed up for Medicare I love Perry Mason. I can always spot who is going to get kill, but I never can guess the murderer. Are we supposed to figure that out? I always feel they’re pulling a fast one at the end, plot-wise. But I’m not sure I care. I love the show because it’s in black-and-white, has old 1950s and early 1960s cars, and all the actors and actresses aren’t beautiful and buff. They even have a fair amount of bald guys, wrinkled, and fat people. Folks I can identify with.

One thing I have to keep remembering about getting older, is young people often feel squeamish about our appearance. Of course, most of my women friends have a great deal of self-loathing for their looks. They often complain about themselves and others looking bad because of age. They find getting old depressing. It doesn’t bother me. At least not yet. I was never good looking to begin with. And I have started noticing the affects of age on my friends. But I prefer looking at old folks to young people. I have nothing against the young, but I just feel alienated from the world of youth. I’d love to move to a small 55+ community. Somewhere where it felt like thinning gray hair, sagging flesh, and baldness, was the norm.

Being retired means living with less stress. I want complete control over my environment and habits, and I want to avoid all surprises, which usually involve me breaking in some way, or the things I own breaking. Everything wears out. Being old is mainly about worry about wearing out. I’m having to spend hundreds on my HVAC this morning. A couple weeks ago I had to replace the roof. Too bad they don’t have Medicare for houses. I wonder which of us will go first, me or the house? I’m trying to time it so the house collapses around my body when my heart stops beating.

And like I said, I’m just a toddler at this getting old thing. What will it be like to be in my 70s, 80s, or 90s? I get the feeling I’ve got many more psychological phases to pass through.

JWH

Agoraphobic Writing

By James Wallace Harris, Monday, October 17, 2016

Recent essays written for other sites:

In many ways I prefer writing for this blog, Auxiliary Memory, than writing for other sites. I’m somewhat agoraphobic, so I spend most of my time at home. And the older I get, the stronger that tendency becomes. Now those feelings are carrying over to my writing. I’m inclined to become a writing hermit, and just write for this blog. I like having all my thoughts in one cozy familiar place.

fish-leaving-bowl

However, it’s mentally healthier for me to get out of my house and my blog. Sticking to my comfort zone can be debilitating.

Writing for Book Riot is interesting because I’m way out of my element. Most of their readers and writers are young, diverse, and I’m guessing, female. It’s a challenge to create something they will want to read – and I’m not sure I am. But I like the challenge. Trying to resonate with readers from other generations is educational, enlightening, and good for my literary agoraphobia.

Writing for the Classics of Science Fiction or Worlds Without End doesn’t take me far from home. I’m out of the house, but I’m only standing in my front yard next to the street. I created the Classics site with my friend Mike. And WWEnd is about science fiction and lists, matching my own quirkiness. Their readers I assume are SF/F/H bookworms and book collectors. Some are like me, old white guys remembering the science fiction we read growing up, but others are young, reading books and authors that are unknown to me.

I’ve always said blogging is piano practice for writing. But blogging tends to be cozy and comfortable. The more I remove myself from the story, struggling to write something objective and journalistic, the more I have to mentally push myself. I can actually sense a barrier. Age and ability has it’s limitations, and I often feel like I’m a fish in an aquarium scoping out the edges of an invisible force-field that holds me in.

Even though I want to push myself into new writing territory, I have to admit that I’m most comfortable writing about science fiction. It’s what I know. Whenever I write about something else, I have to do significant research – and that’s time consuming, requiring much mental effort, and psychic straining. It’s like weightlifting. I have to build up my muscles to handle the new load.

Whenever I read a magnificent work of nonfiction, I’m always impressed by the bibliography. That tells me how much work they did. Even when I write about other subjects I’ve been interested in all my life, I feel like I’m leaving the comforts of home. I assume everyone has a touch of agoraphobia about doing new things, but that might not be true. Are there people that are always willing to dive into unfamiliar waters?

Before my mother died, I got annoyed at her when she refused to leave her home, and it was obvious she couldn’t take care of herself. We tried to get her to live with us, but she refused. Nor would she consider assisted living. Now that I’m getting older I understand. I worry that I’m getting so attached to this house that I’ll never move again. I also think about just writing for my blog.

I figure I have another ten years to try new things, until I’m about 75. Because by then the urge to stay home will be too overwhelming – if it isn’t already.

JWH