Confession: I’m part of the problem

[datista]

After the write-up on current media having few depictions of disabled people, I had one of those uncomfortable moments of cognitive dissonance as I realized I don’t have any disabled characters in my fantasy or scifi work. I have a number of characters (main and secondary) who are disabled in my contemporary fiction

Comments

[tylik]

I am reminded of Heinlein's genetically engineered dogs in Starship Troopers, and the really close relationships they had with their human partners. Not a theme much explored, except that one of the recruiter / placement officers didn't think the main character was enough of a dog person to do well in the K9 corp. (And had almost not survive the death of his own canine partner.) Actually, huh, pretty much all of the veterans were portrayed as having substantial physical damage, though with extremely good prosthetics. Not the main character, and not a lot of discussion of what their lives were like, though the implication was that it was really common.

[datista]

I keep meaning to sit down and read Starship Troopers instead of just watching the film. I think "barely surviving the loss of the dog" is more common in service dog and military dog handlers than most suspect. The bond of a working partnership is really tight. They're finally taking the military working dogs out of country for treatment, and as their handlers come awake from their own surgeries, they're asking after their dogs, not after themselves.