Tag: science-fiction

500: “Welcome Comfort” (Becky Chambers)

                “And to that end, welcome comfort, for without it, you cannot stay strong.”
                -Becky Chambers, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

                One of the fun parts about this project is that people start sharing their favorite quotes with me.
                Years ago my friend and I sat talking about kids, and how we both thought that no one really knows a kid’s gender until they’re old enough to start saying, “This is me.” I said that meant I didn’t know what to do. What to say. My friend, trans and mid transition, started telling me about cool picture books with gender diverse kids. We talked about one (I can’t find it now! Someone tell me the name!) with a kid who’s picking out all sorts of different outfits—shorts one day, a dress another, a dragon costume another. If the kid feels themself in the book, they can say, I’m like that. If not it’s still a fun story about fun people.
                Lately, when people tell me about the art they’re loving, I’ve been thinking about that book. About how so many of us are looking around for the yes or the maybe or the bright that helps us share what we’re experiencing, and so come closer in the ways we want to.
                My younger sibling called me this morning. They asked, “At what point do you quit?” They’ve been planning a certain path for the next few years, and they’re not sure anymore if their plan feels livable. They called again tonight, just back from running around in the rain with some friends. They sounded a lot happier. We chatted. I told them I was struggling with an uproar draft, and they gave me Becky Chambers’ quote. I wondered if this welcome, friendly, relationship-woven comfort was something they were reaching for, given where they were. In the picture book, in the way of picture books, looking for what we need, for what feels right, plays out in something colorful and touchable. All those clothes. In my life, that looking often plays out with people and words and art. Tired and snuggled next to my partner, because it’s still chilly where we love, I wondered if that welcome, friendly, relation-woven comfort was something we’ve also been needing. It’s wonderful how our reaching for what makes us possible can help make our loved ones possible, too.

by Azlan

495: “Wibbly” (Martha Wells)

                “‘You can do this, babe. You’re a bulkhead.’
                ‘I’m a wibbly bulkhead,’ Arada muttered.
                (The wibbliness was why I trusted Arada. Overconfident humans who don’t listen to anybody else scare the hell out of me).”
                -Martha Wells, Network Effect

                I’ve been feeling pretty wibbly lately.
                With the historical moment we’re standing in, with the situation so many of my loved ones are in, with my own work—pretty wibbly, that’s me. If I were a wall on a spaceship (I love stories with spaceships, and there’s plenty in Network Effect) I’d be worried about how well I was going to hold up. Which is why it’s wonderful to stumble back across this line from Martha Wells.
                Back in college, I remember one of my friends looking at someone laying out how everything had to be, and saying, “Where’s their blessed doubt?” Doubt—uncertainty—I hadn’t usually seen such things held out as important parts of what made people people. And for me, like for my friend, they are. I’m not saying there isn’t work to do (or that I don’t intend to work at it). But I am trying to find a new space and love with which to hold my wibbliness. I am trying to turn toward the kind of trust and connection that doesn’t deny it, but instead weaves with it. If you’re feeling the same, I hope you find some of that space, love, and connection, too.

by Azlan

483: “And Watched The Heart” (Aliette de Bodard)

                “Thuỷ stood in her cabin in The Goby in the Well, her bots arrayed on her shoulders and clinging to her wrists, and watched the heart of the nebula.”
                -Aliette de Bodard, “Mulberry and Owl,” We’re Here (and also here in Uncanny Magazine)

                I almost always write about a quote from something I’ve finished reading. Or at least, I often think of it that way, which is weird, because I’ve never actually finished reading any of the stories that I love most. They swirl and come back, less single events and more waves & eddies & seaspray & quick sips & long drinks. In any case, tonight, I’m thinking about de Bodard’s line because I’m just starting to read “Mulberry and the Owl.” Half a page in something pulled me away. And there’s something lovely about story beginnings, something that connects to why I like fiction and speculative fiction in particular.
                Years ago I heard Stanford neuroendocrinologist Robert Sapolsky lecture about human interest in “newness.” One of his suggestions was that an individual’s interest in newness tends to wear out overtime— if an American hadn’t tried sushi by their early twenties, his research found, the odds were they never would. If they didn’t have a piercing by their early twenties the odds were they never would. Similarly his research indicated that Americans tend to set their taste in music by their teens or weary twenties. One interesting nuance: Zapolsky said that if you set out to be a beginner in anything—pick up the harp, which you have no idea how to play, and deeply start learning—your interest in newness across the board tends to go up. A regular, purposeful practice of being a beginner brings you back to new beginnings.
                Like short story opening lines. Like all opening lines, maybe, if you read them that way. I start reading and I’m a beginner in this world, because Thuỷ has bots arrayed on her arm. (What kind of bots, I wonder?). Because I’ve never looked at the heart of any nebula. (What does Thuỷ see?). Because reading this I’m listening, wondering: who is this? What community web do they live in? What matters to them, and as we gaze into this nebula, what’s possible?

by Azlan