camillealexa (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} camillealexa) wrote,@ 2008-10-28 16:29:00 |
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SF Carnival blog Part IV: Where Tina Connolly and I veer into the uncharted frontier of Cozypunk.
Part I: a conversation with A Dude
Part II: a conversation with An Editor
Part III: Q/A with author Jessica Reisman
Part IV: in support of the 22nd SF Feminist Carnival and SpaceWesterns.com, writer/artist /actress Tina Connolly and I talk about women, westerns, and the uncharted frontier of Cozypunk. Tina Connolly's short fiction and poetry appear in Helix, AEon, Strange Horizons, Asimov's, and Diet Soap.
Q - What, in your opinion, characterizes a space western?
A - I'd say the use of a frontier -- some place on the border between lawful and lawless. Also, dust. You can tell a frontier by the dust.
Q - I'm building a white-box frontier planet just for you, Tina; a hermetically sealed frontier world with gunslinging, twangy accents, and watering holes. But absolutely no dust. Dust will be Verboten in my 'verse.
A - Hypo-allergenic space westerns! Excellent.
Q - What do you think draws people to this particular sub-genre? (The space western sub-genre, not the hypo-allergenic sub-genre.)
A - I think for some of the same reasons that post-apocalyptic stories continue to be fun to play with. And why Robinson Crusoe/Survivor stories will always be tantalizing. With the western tropes, you get to make up places where rules aren't clearly established; where the inhabitants have to rely on their wits and morality is pared to both the most important questions, and conversely, dissections of honor. Westerns have the battle between those who like the world lawless and those who try to bring order. And they have the battle between the natives and intruders. All of which gives you lots of room to play around with interesting themes, while having dramatic showdowns at high noon.
Q - P.S. -- There is no noon in my hermetically dust-free universe, either. All time is kept according to the number of hunger pangs experienced between one nap and the next. There is lawlessness, yes, but on a very erratic and hyper-personalized schedule.
A - The role of sugar crashes in one's decision to go lawless cannot be overestimated. Without regular meals, the number of my dramatic showdowns greatly increases. My family can attest to that.
Q - What do you think of when you think of women characters/roles in space westerns -- anything particularly appealing? Anything off-putting? What & why?
A - I first think of Heinlein, so of course the obvious answer is room for improvement. Space westerns have progressed in the last half century, still; room for improvement.
Q - Tina, it occurs to me that your story "The Bitrunners" (first appearing in Helix, now available on Transcriptase) actually embraces many of the elements we're talking about with space westerns: lawlessness, a posse, a hostile offworld landscape, the struggle between order and its absence, between an old set of moral codes and a new one forged for a new environment. Sure -- it's got a very urban feel, not what we ordinarily think of as frontier, but the grittiness and rough quality to the lives of the characters have a space western feel to them. Definitely not hermetic or dust free.
A - Thanks, Camille. That story did occur to me when you brought up the subject of Space Westerns. I definitely enjoy working with gritty, lived-in futures, and The Bitrunners reflects that. I also loved writing the cons in Bitrunners - and con men (or semi-ones like Maverick) are a staple of westerns I've always loved.
Q - Anything you'd like to add to this discussion from a writer's perspective? A woman writer's perspective? A woman SF writer's perspective?
A - This is the part where I ramble wildly, but while I was thinking about these questions I got on a sidetrack about coziness. Lately I seem to hear many post-apocalyptic stories referred to as cozy. That seems right to me (about certain stories), though I'm still not totally sure why. Is it because the world you slip into is reduced to eat/drink/survive? Is it a cozy because, in a way, you remove the hard questions, and you imagine yourself as being Crusoe, cleverly figuring out how to survive? Then once you've mastered survival, there's nothing more you can be expected to achieve. You've reached a pinnacle. Hm. Anyway, that's when I wondered if there is a coziness to some space westerns. You combine looking forward with looking back. The cantina in Star Wars is a familiar western tavern, for all it's filled with aliens. Is the coziness simply a byproduct *whenever* you combine familliar ideas? Is it something to fight, or embrace? I think I could argue that coziness is an assurance that you'll be absolutely taken care of over the course of the story, and in that case, that could be a element to punk out, taking it to extremes. Hm. Cozypunk. The next big thing. You heard it here first.
Q - Wow! That was even more rambly and tangential than I was prepared for, your advance warning notwithstanding. I'm interested in the idea of coziness in fiction. Please remind me to get you to tell me more about it later over a couple beers. Not now, though -- I have to go start my new Cozypunk dustfree feminist space western. Later, dude!
Part I: a conversation with A Dude
Part II: a conversation with An Editor
Part III: Q/A with author Jessica Reisman
Part IV: in support of the 22nd SF Feminist Carnival and SpaceWesterns.com, writer/artist /actress Tina Connolly and I talk about women, westerns, and the uncharted frontier of Cozypunk. Tina Connolly's short fiction and poetry appear in Helix, AEon, Strange Horizons, Asimov's, and Diet Soap.
Q - What, in your opinion, characterizes a space western?
A - I'd say the use of a frontier -- some place on the border between lawful and lawless. Also, dust. You can tell a frontier by the dust.
Q - I'm building a white-box frontier planet just for you, Tina; a hermetically sealed frontier world with gunslinging, twangy accents, and watering holes. But absolutely no dust. Dust will be Verboten in my 'verse.
A - Hypo-allergenic space westerns! Excellent.
Q - What do you think draws people to this particular sub-genre? (The space western sub-genre, not the hypo-allergenic sub-genre.)
A - I think for some of the same reasons that post-apocalyptic stories continue to be fun to play with. And why Robinson Crusoe/Survivor stories will always be tantalizing. With the western tropes, you get to make up places where rules aren't clearly established; where the inhabitants have to rely on their wits and morality is pared to both the most important questions, and conversely, dissections of honor. Westerns have the battle between those who like the world lawless and those who try to bring order. And they have the battle between the natives and intruders. All of which gives you lots of room to play around with interesting themes, while having dramatic showdowns at high noon.
Q - P.S. -- There is no noon in my hermetically dust-free universe, either. All time is kept according to the number of hunger pangs experienced between one nap and the next. There is lawlessness, yes, but on a very erratic and hyper-personalized schedule.
A - The role of sugar crashes in one's decision to go lawless cannot be overestimated. Without regular meals, the number of my dramatic showdowns greatly increases. My family can attest to that.
Q - What do you think of when you think of women characters/roles in space westerns -- anything particularly appealing? Anything off-putting? What & why?
A - I first think of Heinlein, so of course the obvious answer is room for improvement. Space westerns have progressed in the last half century, still; room for improvement.
Q - Tina, it occurs to me that your story "The Bitrunners" (first appearing in Helix, now available on Transcriptase) actually embraces many of the elements we're talking about with space westerns: lawlessness, a posse, a hostile offworld landscape, the struggle between order and its absence, between an old set of moral codes and a new one forged for a new environment. Sure -- it's got a very urban feel, not what we ordinarily think of as frontier, but the grittiness and rough quality to the lives of the characters have a space western feel to them. Definitely not hermetic or dust free.
A - Thanks, Camille. That story did occur to me when you brought up the subject of Space Westerns. I definitely enjoy working with gritty, lived-in futures, and The Bitrunners reflects that. I also loved writing the cons in Bitrunners - and con men (or semi-ones like Maverick) are a staple of westerns I've always loved.
Q - Anything you'd like to add to this discussion from a writer's perspective? A woman writer's perspective? A woman SF writer's perspective?
A - This is the part where I ramble wildly, but while I was thinking about these questions I got on a sidetrack about coziness. Lately I seem to hear many post-apocalyptic stories referred to as cozy. That seems right to me (about certain stories), though I'm still not totally sure why. Is it because the world you slip into is reduced to eat/drink/survive? Is it a cozy because, in a way, you remove the hard questions, and you imagine yourself as being Crusoe, cleverly figuring out how to survive? Then once you've mastered survival, there's nothing more you can be expected to achieve. You've reached a pinnacle. Hm. Anyway, that's when I wondered if there is a coziness to some space westerns. You combine looking forward with looking back. The cantina in Star Wars is a familiar western tavern, for all it's filled with aliens. Is the coziness simply a byproduct *whenever* you combine familliar ideas? Is it something to fight, or embrace? I think I could argue that coziness is an assurance that you'll be absolutely taken care of over the course of the story, and in that case, that could be a element to punk out, taking it to extremes. Hm. Cozypunk. The next big thing. You heard it here first.
Q - Wow! That was even more rambly and tangential than I was prepared for, your advance warning notwithstanding. I'm interested in the idea of coziness in fiction. Please remind me to get you to tell me more about it later over a couple beers. Not now, though -- I have to go start my new Cozypunk dustfree feminist space western. Later, dude!
