The following quote is from a Steven Barnes interview given by Locus magazine. Steven Barnes, as many of you may know, is one of a small number of black science fiction writers. Steven Barnes defined science fiction as a "celebration of northern European logic systems, belief systems, Christianity and democracy..." I say science fiction is a blank slate open to any and all persons with a desire to record the content of their imaginations. It just so happens that the primary inscribers have been of European descent. Otherwise, the slate harbors no bias, confers no value judgements, rejects no contributors on the basis of race or gender. My question to the distinguished members of this forum is this: Having read Steven Barnes' definition of science fiction and mine, how do you define science fiction?“Science fiction is to a large degree a celebration of northern European logic systems, religious systems, belief systems -- Christianity and democracy and so on -- and all you have to do in order to succeed to a degree is build upon that pre-existing structure. Coming in from outside, if I use those tropes I am in essence reinforcing the very system that has worked so hard for so long to keep people like me in their place. So I have to create new images, a new emotional language, and bridges of understanding. ... What I chose in Lion's Blood was to use alternate history, invert the relative positions of white and black by creating a world in which Africa developed faster than Europe. I could have done that by doing the 'Butterfly flapping his wings in Siberia' bit, saying, 'Well, a meteor hit 20 million years ago' or 'a dinosaur sneezed out of his left nostril instead of his right....' No, no, no. That would not anchor it into the existing mythology, and would allow readers to dismiss it if the emotions grew too painful. So I used Socrates not drinking the hemlock back in 400 BC, Alexander the Great taking the throne of Egypt, because everyone knows them. By using established tropes and images, then constructing my own literary edifice with them, I was able to build a bridge from the ordinary experience of white Americans to the experience of black Americans, and simultaneously create a work where black Americans could read for the first time about a world in which they were the winners.”
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