Mike Ashley

[silk_noir]

I did a little looking around on Mike Ashley, editor of The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing Science Fiction. (See previous post). Seems he's been doing this editor thing for a while, and has a whole bunch of Mammoth short story collections running around.

Comments

Women in SF

[anonymous]

It seems the male-only content of my MAMMOTH BOOK OF MINDBLOWING SF has caused quite a bit of angst, and a lot of questions have been asked. Since the one on this blog is direct, I thought maybe I'd comment

Re: Women in SF

[anonymous]

Thanks Marguerite,
I suspect that whatever I try and say in my defence may be unsatisfactory for some, and I have to confess that many of the comments I have been reading have taken me aback. Some seem to believe I went out of my way to exclude women or non-white writers, which couldn't be further from the truth.
I may be naive, but I am certainly not biased or prejudiced.
Anyway, I'm sure everyone will have their say. All I can say is that if my exclusion of women writers or non-white writers has caused offence, then I can only apologise for that. It was not intended and I shall certainly learn from the experience.

Mike Ashley

Re: Women in SF

[shinetheway]

The problem is, with a biased system (I refer to a bias against women and against people of color, which exists in SF, America, the West, and 99% of the globe) it's not enough to "not go out of your way" to exclude women or POC. When you operate by the terms of a biased system, you are exhibiting bias yourself--it's just not as obvious to you because you're surrounded by affirmations of your actions, both explicit and implicit. However, it may be very obvious to those who are directly affected by it. Being blind to one's privilege does not mean that that privilege doesn't exist

Re: Women in SF

[rosefox]

This is brilliant. Thank you.

Re: Women in SF

[zvi_likes_tv]

Ashley,

The point isn't that you said, "Bwahahahaha! I will continue the White Man World Domination Conspiracy through my science-fiction anthology!" It's that, in constructing this anthology, you (a) don't appear to have reached out substantively to authors not of a certain (white male) type, presumably because you assumed that, if asked, they couldn't write the hard science SF you were looking and (b) were not, apparently, concerned about the makeup of your TOC as the project developed, even though it was 100% male and white.

(Assuming that all of the white men you solicited to submit in the anthology both submitted and accepted, that's a ratio of 5:2 white men:not white men asked to contribute, by your report. You really think white men make up roughly two-thirds of "mindblowing" SF authors working today? Or were you relying on a network of previous contacts, which tends to replicate inequities already in the system?)

Re: Women in SF

[icecreamempress]

t's that, in constructing this anthology, you (a) don't appear to have reached out substantively

He didn't have to "reach out substantively"--he just needed to read the big-ticket mainstream stuff being published. Most of the stories in the anth are reprints, and I refuse to believe that the representatives of Nancy Kress, C.J. Cherryh, Ted Chiang, S.P. Somtow, Octavia Butler, Connie Willis, Karen Joy Fowler, Tobias Buckell, and Samuel Delany (just to name a few) were contacted and refused permission for reprints.

Re: Women in SF

[maevele]

I think, if you were being honest with yourself, the fact that the ToC turned out as it did proves that although you may think you are not biased, your subconscious is. Not that you're a horrible person bent on oppressing women, but as a white man, in a genre that was dominated by white men for a long time, white and male perspectives are a default condition of 'great stories' in you subconscious.

Re: Women in SF

[teenygozer]

I used to read The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction back in the 70s. I remember reading an essay (possibly written by Asimov, not sure) about the latest crop of new writers, all of whom were women except for James Tiptree Jr. The reviewer patted all the women writers on the head for their wonderful effort, but lavished his greatest praise on Tiptree, saying that he was obviously the best of the bunch.

I guess this is like a return to the days when a woman had conceal her sex in order to get published?

Re: Women in SF

[gkr]

I looked at the table of contents of a number of your other "mammoth" anthologies, and all of the ones I saw underrepresented women, some severely.

• ... Extreme Science Fiction (19 stories, 1 female authors, 1 unknown to me author)
• ... New Comic Fantasy (32 stories, 5 female authors, 1 unknown to me author)
• ... New Jules Verne Adventures (23 stories, 4.5 female authors)
• ... Sorcerer's Tales (23 stories, 5 female authors)
• ... Science Fiction (22 stories in Google Books listing, 1 female author)

Re: Women in SF

[gkr]

My apologies if I miscounted and I'm off by one or two. I've done that before. I'm pretty sure the general trend is correct.

Re: Women in SF

[skywardprodigal]

I may be naive, but I am certainly not biased or prejudiced.

I think you're at the contact stage.

about Oscar Wao (who is way realer than Carl Brandon) is in regard to maybe why it may not really matter if editors/readers such as yourself stay there.

Re: Women in SF

[icecreamempress]

I may be naive, but I am certainly not biased or prejudiced.

Pick one. Either your bias is reflected in the selection for the anthology, or your lack of familiarity with the leaders in the field is reflected.

I'm willing to believe that your bias is unconscious, but it's clear from your choices, unless you're so unfamiliar with the field that you've never encountered the works of Delany, Chiang, Somtow, Butler, Kress, Cherryh, Willis, McMaster Bujold, just to name the big marquee draws.

Re: Women in SF

[darkerblogistan]

How dare you not have a perfectly balanced anthology that equally represents all members of the rainbow coalition. For shame! Unclean! Hsssssss!

Jk.

Re: Women in SF

[rachel_swirsky]

That's true. 100% to 0% is just like "not perfectly balanced."

Re: Women in SF

[darkerblogistan]

You do realize that there are about a million anthologies out there that are acceptably diverse, and that this one anthology does not exist in isolation?

Re: Women in SF

[rachel_swirsky]

Actually, that's not true. There is a constant demographic trend that minimizes the writing of women and minorities. Which is why you have, within the past year, more than one controversy about anthologies with no female or POC contributors. (And by contrast, no anthologies without gendered or race-oriented titles [women of, stories by black people] which just happen to quirkily contain stories only by women or POC.)