Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
HERO.
Alright, it’s not like I agree with Hurley or can relate to her about everything, but I was tempted to make that comment several times while reading just for her speaking out. This series of essays was compulsively readable, on the whole, and although it focuses a lot on the struggles of writing and getting published at the beginning, I feel like there are a few essays here that should be read by everyone.
Plus there are cannibalistic llamas.
I’m thinking I should start reading her blog. And actually get around to reading some of her fiction.
Alright, it’s not like I agree with Hurley or can relate to her about everything, but I was tempted to make that comment several times while reading just for her speaking out. This series of essays was compulsively readable, on the whole, and although it focuses a lot on the struggles of writing and getting published at the beginning, I feel like there are a few essays here that should be read by everyone.
Plus there are cannibalistic llamas.
I’m thinking I should start reading her blog. And actually get around to reading some of her fiction.
Boring. Didn't make it past the second section. The first section was full of aphorisms and no new info. The critical essays in the second section were marginally more interesting, but I've heard similar points made on Tumblr with more articulate and captivating arguments. Felt like elementary commentary and conclusions.
The day has come when I've finally finished this collection. I didn't dislike it. In fact, there are some essays here that are stellar, but after reading feminist theory for years, this feels introductory. I am and at the same time am not the target audience.
I'm also not a fan of slapping a bunch of blog posts together and calling it a day, and this seems to be a very popular cop out within the industry recently. The same happened with Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist. It makes collections repetitive and a bit simplistic, because blog posts, especially those designed to sell something, are not the same things as essays. They have very different goals in mind, different lengths, different literary techniques. Essays should be pithier, should make you think for days and change your worldview. But people like this format, it sells and garners awards, so maybe I'm an old dinosaur who doesn't understand how the genre is evolving.
Hurley has done well and reached many people, so I'm glad she was recognised by the community with her Hugo for this collection, even though I think some essays lack nuance, or self-awareness, or feel like Hurley has learned the theory but doesn't really understand the problem in her heart. And that's okay, we all need to grow. I don't know if I'll keep on reading essay collections like this one, but between this and her short stories I'm more than willing to give her novels a try.
Individual reviews/summaries below for future reference.
*************
Part I: Level Up
1. Persistence, and the Long Con of Being a Successful Writer
What makes an author successful (repeatedly published and generating regular income from it) is being persistent after as many rejections as it takes. Not groundbreaking and not fully honest on how privilege informs being able to weather the bad times, but surprisingly relatable for academics. It sets the tone of resilient fighting for the collection, and ties in with the "She Persisted" movement.
2. I'll Make the Pancakes: On Opting In -and Out- of the Writing Game
The foil of the previous essay, acknowledging not everyone can opt in.
3. What Marketing and Advertising Taught Me About the Value of Failure
A very American way of thinking about rejection. I didn't care much for this, and learn from your mistakes isn't a groundbreaking lesson to tell the world. But her voice is convincing - I guess because Hurley works in marketing besides writing fiction.
4. Taking Responsibility for Writing Problematic Stories
This is what has sold me the collection. Hurley buried her gays in her first novel, a fan told her so, she acknowledged it at the time and has tried to avoid repeating the same mistake and to make due reparations through this essay.
5. Unpacking the "Real Writers Have Talent" Myth
On the shock of realising that you're not as special as you thought you were (i.e. you're not the only one who is talented) and that talent is not directly translated into success, whatever that is (this might be part of the previous essay). It also addresses the amount of effort necessary to acquire talent, that Hurley doesn't consider an innate quality.
Part II: Geek
6. Some Men Are More Monstruous Than Others: On True Detective's Men and Monsters
By the time I became aware of True Detective, it was already well known that it wasn't as deep a show as it wanted to be, that it was dangerously sexist, and that it wasn't that good, so I didn't watch it. And after this essay, I'm so glad I didn't. It sounds like an infuriating celebration of the morally ambiguous and broken noir hero as the only valid expression of masculinity and Hurley isn't here for it.
7. Die Hard, Heterae, and Problematic Pin-Ups: A Rant
My only exposition to Die Hard comes through Jake Peralta in Brooklyn 99, so I'm not aware on whether there is male gaze. Hurley dissects the ubiquitous use of pin-ups in sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero comics marketing and pointedly shows the damage male gaze can cause by linking it to heterae, escorts of Classic Greece. For those who try to sell the idea of pornography/prostitution as empowering.
8. Wives, Warlords, and Refugees: The People Economy of Mad Max
I watched a Mad Max a long time ago, wasn't a fan and thus didn't watch the latest addition to the franchise, in spite of the fantastic critics it received. But it sounds like they did a good thing with Fury Road. I understand now the influences of 80s movies in Hurley's (short) fiction.
9. Tea, Bodies, and Business: Remaking the Hero Archetype
What comes to mind when you think of a hero? Hurley unpacks why we immediately think of a strong guy and then explains why she thinks starting panels on female heros or female writers or whatever only contributes to normalising male as default and others these female heros/writers/protagonists as exceptions. A really good one, especially for being this short.
10. A Complexity of Desires: Expectations of Sex and Sexuality in Science Fiction
It's all there in the subtitle: the default is a heterosexual male, but should it be? (No.) But quite a repetitive essay that seems more like a way for Hurley to understand herself and her writing process better. One of the weakest ones so far, even if she cites Joanna Russ and how she struggled to recognise desire for other women because she couldn't imagine herself as a woman being with other women, but could imagine doing so if she fantasised with being a man.
11. What's So Scary about Strong Female Protagonists, Anyway?
To this day, SFPs in our media still have to perform femininity and conform to a heteropatriarchal sexual ideal, while their male counterparts don't. Example, Buffy could either kill or bed Angel or Spike, so the tension is primarily sexual, not mortal. A reflection on whether that might be the reason why SFPs are pushed as one of the few acceptable 'feminist' archetypes and why we should stop idealising them as feminist icons.
12. In Defense of Unlikable Women
I agree 1000% with the fact that we shouldn't measure how good a heroine is in terms of how likable she is, especially when we don't do this for men. But Claire Messud said it better in her interview. Anyway, it's not bad to keep saying this until it sticks.
13. Women and Gentlemen: On Unmasking the Sobering Reality of Hyper-Masculine Characters
If we write badass women, we still make them kind and nurturing, but we don't if we write badass men. If we write badass women as we would men, we suddenly realise we're writing monsters. Twist: acclaimed badass men (like Mad Men's Don Draper, or Conan, or Rambo, or Frank Miller's Batman or *fill in your own example*) have been monsters all along and wouldn't make for a very stable society. Again, I don't think this surprises anyone, but maybe it's worth repeating.
14. Gender, Family, Nookie: The Speculative Frontier
The nuclear family is a modern invention, same as the (fictional) specialised gender roles of hunter-male vs. gatherer-female. So why do we keep reinforcing it through fiction? Why not explore other family and gender dynamics, especially in an innovative genre such as science fiction? Very short essay, but something I never tire of hearing because the number of people that subconsciously rely on these myths is staggering.
15. The Increasingly Poor Economics of Penning Problematic Stories
The democratization of the means of production for games, comics, and, to a lesser extent, films and shows, has allowed the creation of more diverse media, so now as consumers we don't need to put up with shitty stereotyping anymore and can choose better representations, although not all of them are perfect. Hurley seems surprisingly optimistic about this trend.
16. Making People Care: Storytelling in Fiction vs. Marketing
When Hurley shows you "marketing tricks" she loses me. She knows what she's talking about; she works in marketing. But it reads very patronising. If you tell a story, people will remember and you will sway them. If you try to win them with logic and facts, no one will care. Hardly groundbreaking or secret.
17. Our Dystopia: Imagining More Hopeful Futures
"We’ve imagined our way into this dystopia, so let’s imagine our way out."
Since all of us are enormously influenced by the media we consume, even if we aren't aware of it, we've been buying the dystopic futures we predicted in the second half of the twentieth century as the only possible outcome, so are we becoming complacent with our nightmarish present? Hurley encourages sci-fi writers to present other, more hopeful, versions of our futures so that we can change our present.
18. Where Have All the Women Gone? Reclaiming the Future of Fiction
A fantastic essay about how women's writing has been suppresed and erased historically, based on Joana Russ' How to Suppress Women's Writing, which I've wanted to read forever. We're all liars, or exceptions, or had help, or should be doing something else. And it doesn't solely apply to writing, sadly. One of the best essays in the collection so far.
Part III: Let's Get Personal
19. Finding Hope in Tragedy: Why I Read Dark Fiction
I can't relate to this completely, but I understand why Hurley reads dark fiction, as catharsis for her very real life problems. I was in a dark place for most of the past four years, and I love reading haunting stories with quiet sad endings. So tragedy is also my comfort reading, but in a different way.
20. Public Speaking While Fat
Fatphobia is real and damaging, and it affects women's body image even more than we'd like to admit. Roxane Gay says it better, but Hurley's comment on how people complimented her when she got out of ICU after nearly dying because she was so skinny is a good wake up call. Thin is not always healthy. Striving for thinness at the cost of everything else and equating thinness with personal value are horrible things to do.
21. They'll Come for You... Whether You Speak Up or Not
Again, a very American essay. Astounding how the belief of the self-made successful entrepreneur is so widespread in the States. We live in society, so we all owe our wellbeing to everyone else, whether we want to or not. Being neutral is going along with whatever the people in power want, so we should really think what it means when we keep our heads down.
22. The Horror Novel You'll Never Have to Live: Surviving Without Health Insurance
Healthcare in the US will forever be a horror story. Why do the rest of us try to copy their model?! It's broken beyond belief, not something to strive for.
23. Becoming What You Hate
Hurley reflects with distaste on things she's done that she hates having to do. We all do this, I think, so it's a very relatable essay in a way. But it's not extremely eloquent. And it's grounded on an internet meltdown and minor scandal of someone posing as someone else to harass other people. It reads as what it was originally: a rambling blog post with a bit of (incosequential and not very appealing) gossip.
24. Let It Go: On Responding (or Not) to Online Criticism
In a word: don't. Responding to online criticism, especially if you're an author, is a NO. Don't engage if you're the one with power in a power imbalance, or only do so to apologise. And if you're not an author, be very sure that you're not engaging a troll, because some of them, especially in the age of gamergate and sad puppies, are out there to drive you to kill yourself because they're literal psychopaths.
25. When the Rebel Becomes Queen: Changing Broken Systems from the Inside
Hurley says she was the first to get the pitchfork when an author messed up, but she is now finding it difficult to process that she is the one who needs to be called out, who has power and a platform big enough for her shortcomings to affect people. It's honest and maybe even remarkable, since not so many people are that self-aware.
26. Terrorist or Revolutionary? Deciding Who Gets to Write History
Hot take: revolutionaries are socially acceptable terrorists, aka, winners write history. Even though it sounds like I'm making fun of this essay, I actually wrote a similar one for one of my uni classes. Understanding that we present violence under a positive light when it's convenient to us is a good realisation to have.
27. Giving Up the Sky
Beautiful memoiristic essay about her past in Alaska and how the hustle is neverending for writers. Again, kinda relatable for scientists.
Part IV: Revolution
28. What We Didn't See: Power, Protest, Story
"There is nothing more political than erasure. Than unseeing."
Hurley is concerned with erasure at a very deep level. Her academic interest lies in resistance movements and her most famous essay is about how different the past was from what we normally imagine. This grounds all of that on a very personal experience of encountering difference when she was young and about her visceral reaction to staring.
29. What Living in South Africa Taught Me About Being White in America
Segregation still exists in the USA even though the Jim Crow laws were abolished decades ago. It might not be as apparent as the segregation of the apartheid, but it's there. It was designed to be so.
30. It's About Ethics in Dating
Hurley shines with a brighter light when she writes about experiences that she understands firsthand. Gamers on social media can be a trash fire from time to time, and gamergate was the prime example of everything that's wrong with the community. At the time, I read reaction posts and watched Anita Sarkeesian vids, so nothing here is news to me. But I know people who weren't aware of gamergate when it happened and explaining it always get a certain reaction. This essay does a good of job of contextualising the abuse.
31. Hijacking the Hugo Awards
And same for the Sad and Rabid Puppies takeover of the Hugo nominations. At the time, it felt like we had slided into a different reality, one worse than the one we had lived until then. I'm not sure we have recovered. Soon after, Trump was elected president in the States and the far right started having increased support. Both the virulent reaction to diversity in media and awards, and it's dismissal by many as inconsequential (as a result of moral licensing I'd venture to say) seems like sampling of how a large swath of the population was feeling and where we were headed.
32. Dear SFWA Writers: Let's Chat About Censorship and Bullying
Again, a very depressing essay about the mindset of the powerful in the science fiction community back in 2013. It signalled worse things to come. Now, thanks to Twitter, mainly, censorship is starting to lose its meaning. Those with power can't be censored, they're the ones who exert that power. At best, they can be inconvenienced by people pointing out what's wrong with their opinions, which is a very different thing.
"It was OK, because no one disagreed with you. You came to believe that what you believed, and what you said, was true. It was the narrative. [...] In fact, a lot more of them likely gritted their teeth and bore it than you could ever imagine. But by stating your opinion without getting disagreement or pushback, a funny thing happened. You started to believe that your narrative was the only narrative."
33. With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: On Empathy and the Power of Privilege
The logical continuation of the previous essay when Jonathan Ross was suggested for hosting the Hugos, the fans rejected him and it all went up in flames when no one measured their tone or checked what censorship means.
34. Rage Doesn't Exist in a Vacuum
When you see someone disproportionately angry at something, think again, this something has been building up continuously for a very long time, especially on the internet, where we see brief snaps of other people's lives.
"We have a strange habit of falling back on “civility” as if every social movement was entirely civil. Like unions didn’t bust up on scabs. Like Nelson Mandela didn’t blow shit up. Like MLK would tell us all to shut the fuck up, and women never chained themselves to the fences in city squares, stormed political buildings or committed acts of arson and violence in an effort to achieve suffrage."
35. Why I'm Not Afraid of the Internet
Because Hurley's grandmother survived Nazi-Occupied France and by comparison, 21st-century nazis using social media can't physically hurt you so you're safe. Okay. Pretty awkward essay after having dissected the very real life effect of people speaking up on the internet during gamergate or Sad/Rabid puppies. It comes across as a huge lack of self-awareness: for all of her essays trying to cast herself as the hero or as part of a resistant movement, Hurley acknowledges that her role is limited to speaking up on social media, which is important enough. But then maybe realising that she doesn't get the same sort of backlash as other people and asking why would be a better essay. Maybe even though Hurley says she doesn't perceive herself as holding any kind of power, it'd be better to acknowledge that she's letting some privilege go unchecked. "There’s a future I’m meant to be a part of. We are building it one narrative at a time." Pretty suspect phrasing, especially on the light of other essays.
36. We Have Always Fought: Challenging the "Women, Cattle, and Slaves" Narrative
Best essay in the whole collection. I loved it when I first read it and I've loved it again 3?4? years later.
I'm also not a fan of slapping a bunch of blog posts together and calling it a day, and this seems to be a very popular cop out within the industry recently. The same happened with Roxane Gay's Bad Feminist. It makes collections repetitive and a bit simplistic, because blog posts, especially those designed to sell something, are not the same things as essays. They have very different goals in mind, different lengths, different literary techniques. Essays should be pithier, should make you think for days and change your worldview. But people like this format, it sells and garners awards, so maybe I'm an old dinosaur who doesn't understand how the genre is evolving.
Hurley has done well and reached many people, so I'm glad she was recognised by the community with her Hugo for this collection, even though I think some essays lack nuance, or self-awareness, or feel like Hurley has learned the theory but doesn't really understand the problem in her heart. And that's okay, we all need to grow. I don't know if I'll keep on reading essay collections like this one, but between this and her short stories I'm more than willing to give her novels a try.
Individual reviews/summaries below for future reference.
*************
Part I: Level Up
1. Persistence, and the Long Con of Being a Successful Writer
What makes an author successful (repeatedly published and generating regular income from it) is being persistent after as many rejections as it takes. Not groundbreaking and not fully honest on how privilege informs being able to weather the bad times, but surprisingly relatable for academics. It sets the tone of resilient fighting for the collection, and ties in with the "She Persisted" movement.
2. I'll Make the Pancakes: On Opting In -and Out- of the Writing Game
The foil of the previous essay, acknowledging not everyone can opt in.
3. What Marketing and Advertising Taught Me About the Value of Failure
A very American way of thinking about rejection. I didn't care much for this, and learn from your mistakes isn't a groundbreaking lesson to tell the world. But her voice is convincing - I guess because Hurley works in marketing besides writing fiction.
4. Taking Responsibility for Writing Problematic Stories
This is what has sold me the collection. Hurley buried her gays in her first novel, a fan told her so, she acknowledged it at the time and has tried to avoid repeating the same mistake and to make due reparations through this essay.
5. Unpacking the "Real Writers Have Talent" Myth
On the shock of realising that you're not as special as you thought you were (i.e. you're not the only one who is talented) and that talent is not directly translated into success, whatever that is (this might be part of the previous essay). It also addresses the amount of effort necessary to acquire talent, that Hurley doesn't consider an innate quality.
Part II: Geek
6. Some Men Are More Monstruous Than Others: On True Detective's Men and Monsters
By the time I became aware of True Detective, it was already well known that it wasn't as deep a show as it wanted to be, that it was dangerously sexist, and that it wasn't that good, so I didn't watch it. And after this essay, I'm so glad I didn't. It sounds like an infuriating celebration of the morally ambiguous and broken noir hero as the only valid expression of masculinity and Hurley isn't here for it.
7. Die Hard, Heterae, and Problematic Pin-Ups: A Rant
My only exposition to Die Hard comes through Jake Peralta in Brooklyn 99, so I'm not aware on whether there is male gaze. Hurley dissects the ubiquitous use of pin-ups in sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero comics marketing and pointedly shows the damage male gaze can cause by linking it to heterae, escorts of Classic Greece. For those who try to sell the idea of pornography/prostitution as empowering.
8. Wives, Warlords, and Refugees: The People Economy of Mad Max
I watched a Mad Max a long time ago, wasn't a fan and thus didn't watch the latest addition to the franchise, in spite of the fantastic critics it received. But it sounds like they did a good thing with Fury Road. I understand now the influences of 80s movies in Hurley's (short) fiction.
9. Tea, Bodies, and Business: Remaking the Hero Archetype
What comes to mind when you think of a hero? Hurley unpacks why we immediately think of a strong guy and then explains why she thinks starting panels on female heros or female writers or whatever only contributes to normalising male as default and others these female heros/writers/protagonists as exceptions. A really good one, especially for being this short.
10. A Complexity of Desires: Expectations of Sex and Sexuality in Science Fiction
It's all there in the subtitle: the default is a heterosexual male, but should it be? (No.) But quite a repetitive essay that seems more like a way for Hurley to understand herself and her writing process better. One of the weakest ones so far, even if she cites Joanna Russ and how she struggled to recognise desire for other women because she couldn't imagine herself as a woman being with other women, but could imagine doing so if she fantasised with being a man.
11. What's So Scary about Strong Female Protagonists, Anyway?
To this day, SFPs in our media still have to perform femininity and conform to a heteropatriarchal sexual ideal, while their male counterparts don't. Example, Buffy could either kill or bed Angel or Spike, so the tension is primarily sexual, not mortal. A reflection on whether that might be the reason why SFPs are pushed as one of the few acceptable 'feminist' archetypes and why we should stop idealising them as feminist icons.
12. In Defense of Unlikable Women
I agree 1000% with the fact that we shouldn't measure how good a heroine is in terms of how likable she is, especially when we don't do this for men. But Claire Messud said it better in her interview. Anyway, it's not bad to keep saying this until it sticks.
13. Women and Gentlemen: On Unmasking the Sobering Reality of Hyper-Masculine Characters
If we write badass women, we still make them kind and nurturing, but we don't if we write badass men. If we write badass women as we would men, we suddenly realise we're writing monsters. Twist: acclaimed badass men (like Mad Men's Don Draper, or Conan, or Rambo, or Frank Miller's Batman or *fill in your own example*) have been monsters all along and wouldn't make for a very stable society. Again, I don't think this surprises anyone, but maybe it's worth repeating.
14. Gender, Family, Nookie: The Speculative Frontier
The nuclear family is a modern invention, same as the (fictional) specialised gender roles of hunter-male vs. gatherer-female. So why do we keep reinforcing it through fiction? Why not explore other family and gender dynamics, especially in an innovative genre such as science fiction? Very short essay, but something I never tire of hearing because the number of people that subconsciously rely on these myths is staggering.
15. The Increasingly Poor Economics of Penning Problematic Stories
The democratization of the means of production for games, comics, and, to a lesser extent, films and shows, has allowed the creation of more diverse media, so now as consumers we don't need to put up with shitty stereotyping anymore and can choose better representations, although not all of them are perfect. Hurley seems surprisingly optimistic about this trend.
16. Making People Care: Storytelling in Fiction vs. Marketing
When Hurley shows you "marketing tricks" she loses me. She knows what she's talking about; she works in marketing. But it reads very patronising. If you tell a story, people will remember and you will sway them. If you try to win them with logic and facts, no one will care. Hardly groundbreaking or secret.
17. Our Dystopia: Imagining More Hopeful Futures
"We’ve imagined our way into this dystopia, so let’s imagine our way out."
Since all of us are enormously influenced by the media we consume, even if we aren't aware of it, we've been buying the dystopic futures we predicted in the second half of the twentieth century as the only possible outcome, so are we becoming complacent with our nightmarish present? Hurley encourages sci-fi writers to present other, more hopeful, versions of our futures so that we can change our present.
18. Where Have All the Women Gone? Reclaiming the Future of Fiction
A fantastic essay about how women's writing has been suppresed and erased historically, based on Joana Russ' How to Suppress Women's Writing, which I've wanted to read forever. We're all liars, or exceptions, or had help, or should be doing something else. And it doesn't solely apply to writing, sadly. One of the best essays in the collection so far.
Part III: Let's Get Personal
19. Finding Hope in Tragedy: Why I Read Dark Fiction
I can't relate to this completely, but I understand why Hurley reads dark fiction, as catharsis for her very real life problems. I was in a dark place for most of the past four years, and I love reading haunting stories with quiet sad endings. So tragedy is also my comfort reading, but in a different way.
20. Public Speaking While Fat
Fatphobia is real and damaging, and it affects women's body image even more than we'd like to admit. Roxane Gay says it better, but Hurley's comment on how people complimented her when she got out of ICU after nearly dying because she was so skinny is a good wake up call. Thin is not always healthy. Striving for thinness at the cost of everything else and equating thinness with personal value are horrible things to do.
21. They'll Come for You... Whether You Speak Up or Not
Again, a very American essay. Astounding how the belief of the self-made successful entrepreneur is so widespread in the States. We live in society, so we all owe our wellbeing to everyone else, whether we want to or not. Being neutral is going along with whatever the people in power want, so we should really think what it means when we keep our heads down.
22. The Horror Novel You'll Never Have to Live: Surviving Without Health Insurance
Healthcare in the US will forever be a horror story. Why do the rest of us try to copy their model?! It's broken beyond belief, not something to strive for.
23. Becoming What You Hate
Hurley reflects with distaste on things she's done that she hates having to do. We all do this, I think, so it's a very relatable essay in a way. But it's not extremely eloquent. And it's grounded on an internet meltdown and minor scandal of someone posing as someone else to harass other people. It reads as what it was originally: a rambling blog post with a bit of (incosequential and not very appealing) gossip.
24. Let It Go: On Responding (or Not) to Online Criticism
In a word: don't. Responding to online criticism, especially if you're an author, is a NO. Don't engage if you're the one with power in a power imbalance, or only do so to apologise. And if you're not an author, be very sure that you're not engaging a troll, because some of them, especially in the age of gamergate and sad puppies, are out there to drive you to kill yourself because they're literal psychopaths.
25. When the Rebel Becomes Queen: Changing Broken Systems from the Inside
Hurley says she was the first to get the pitchfork when an author messed up, but she is now finding it difficult to process that she is the one who needs to be called out, who has power and a platform big enough for her shortcomings to affect people. It's honest and maybe even remarkable, since not so many people are that self-aware.
26. Terrorist or Revolutionary? Deciding Who Gets to Write History
Hot take: revolutionaries are socially acceptable terrorists, aka, winners write history. Even though it sounds like I'm making fun of this essay, I actually wrote a similar one for one of my uni classes. Understanding that we present violence under a positive light when it's convenient to us is a good realisation to have.
27. Giving Up the Sky
Beautiful memoiristic essay about her past in Alaska and how the hustle is neverending for writers. Again, kinda relatable for scientists.
Part IV: Revolution
28. What We Didn't See: Power, Protest, Story
"There is nothing more political than erasure. Than unseeing."
Hurley is concerned with erasure at a very deep level. Her academic interest lies in resistance movements and her most famous essay is about how different the past was from what we normally imagine. This grounds all of that on a very personal experience of encountering difference when she was young and about her visceral reaction to staring.
29. What Living in South Africa Taught Me About Being White in America
Segregation still exists in the USA even though the Jim Crow laws were abolished decades ago. It might not be as apparent as the segregation of the apartheid, but it's there. It was designed to be so.
30. It's About Ethics in Dating
Hurley shines with a brighter light when she writes about experiences that she understands firsthand. Gamers on social media can be a trash fire from time to time, and gamergate was the prime example of everything that's wrong with the community. At the time, I read reaction posts and watched Anita Sarkeesian vids, so nothing here is news to me. But I know people who weren't aware of gamergate when it happened and explaining it always get a certain reaction. This essay does a good of job of contextualising the abuse.
31. Hijacking the Hugo Awards
And same for the Sad and Rabid Puppies takeover of the Hugo nominations. At the time, it felt like we had slided into a different reality, one worse than the one we had lived until then. I'm not sure we have recovered. Soon after, Trump was elected president in the States and the far right started having increased support. Both the virulent reaction to diversity in media and awards, and it's dismissal by many as inconsequential (as a result of moral licensing I'd venture to say) seems like sampling of how a large swath of the population was feeling and where we were headed.
32. Dear SFWA Writers: Let's Chat About Censorship and Bullying
Again, a very depressing essay about the mindset of the powerful in the science fiction community back in 2013. It signalled worse things to come. Now, thanks to Twitter, mainly, censorship is starting to lose its meaning. Those with power can't be censored, they're the ones who exert that power. At best, they can be inconvenienced by people pointing out what's wrong with their opinions, which is a very different thing.
"It was OK, because no one disagreed with you. You came to believe that what you believed, and what you said, was true. It was the narrative. [...] In fact, a lot more of them likely gritted their teeth and bore it than you could ever imagine. But by stating your opinion without getting disagreement or pushback, a funny thing happened. You started to believe that your narrative was the only narrative."
33. With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: On Empathy and the Power of Privilege
The logical continuation of the previous essay when Jonathan Ross was suggested for hosting the Hugos, the fans rejected him and it all went up in flames when no one measured their tone or checked what censorship means.
34. Rage Doesn't Exist in a Vacuum
When you see someone disproportionately angry at something, think again, this something has been building up continuously for a very long time, especially on the internet, where we see brief snaps of other people's lives.
"We have a strange habit of falling back on “civility” as if every social movement was entirely civil. Like unions didn’t bust up on scabs. Like Nelson Mandela didn’t blow shit up. Like MLK would tell us all to shut the fuck up, and women never chained themselves to the fences in city squares, stormed political buildings or committed acts of arson and violence in an effort to achieve suffrage."
35. Why I'm Not Afraid of the Internet
Because Hurley's grandmother survived Nazi-Occupied France and by comparison, 21st-century nazis using social media can't physically hurt you so you're safe. Okay. Pretty awkward essay after having dissected the very real life effect of people speaking up on the internet during gamergate or Sad/Rabid puppies. It comes across as a huge lack of self-awareness: for all of her essays trying to cast herself as the hero or as part of a resistant movement, Hurley acknowledges that her role is limited to speaking up on social media, which is important enough. But then maybe realising that she doesn't get the same sort of backlash as other people and asking why would be a better essay. Maybe even though Hurley says she doesn't perceive herself as holding any kind of power, it'd be better to acknowledge that she's letting some privilege go unchecked. "There’s a future I’m meant to be a part of. We are building it one narrative at a time." Pretty suspect phrasing, especially on the light of other essays.
36. We Have Always Fought: Challenging the "Women, Cattle, and Slaves" Narrative
Best essay in the whole collection. I loved it when I first read it and I've loved it again 3?4? years later.
This used the f-word too much for me, but otherwise it was a fascinating collection of essays about feminism in a culture I feel a part of. I loved the voice of the reader.
Very good and very angry collection of essays.
A few things I think could be edited :
- A little too often Hurley says "women or people of colors" as if... Women of colors were just forgotten?
- The use of the word ghetto to talk about the fantasy and sf genre. (as in it's a ghetto genre)
-The use of the nword in a quote? I'm not sure how that works in print but as I listened to the audiobook it was a bit weird to hear
A few things I think could be edited :
- A little too often Hurley says "women or people of colors" as if... Women of colors were just forgotten?
- The use of the word ghetto to talk about the fantasy and sf genre. (as in it's a ghetto genre)
-The use of the nword in a quote? I'm not sure how that works in print but as I listened to the audiobook it was a bit weird to hear
Read for the Hugo Awards. Some interesting bits and pieces but a bit repetitive and nothing terribly ground-breaking.
If you’ve followed Kameron Hurley on social media for any decent length of time, you know she’s pretty outspoken about many issues relating to feminism, prejudice, equality, and the like. Aside from the fact that she’s written some great books, this is one of the reasons I keep following her. She’s got some good perspective on many issues that, sadly, often earn the ire of people who would rather keep to the status quo and not change things or work to end problems that result in unfair discrimination against various groups of people. She has a lot of things to say, and they’re worth listening to.
Which is why I love that some of her best essays were collected and published as a book. It’s a way to reach out and spread that word to those who maybe aren’t so big on social media, or just those who are browsing the bookstore one day and go, “Huh, I wonder what this is about.” Admittedly, it will probably have more appeal to those who are already fans of her writing, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t the chance that somebody in need of her words will stumble across it and have their thoughts rearranged a little bit.
Hurley talks about a variety of subjects in The Geek Feminist Revolution, ranging from how women are perceived and treated in the public eye, to healthcare, to relationship abuse, to racism, to how to react when someone calls you out on a screw-up (hint: it’s not to launch a long diatribe about why everyone else is wrong). I will say this right off the bat: some of these essays are not easy to read.
I will follow that with: every single one of them is worth reading.
Here’s the thing: the world is not a comfortable place. It’s less comfortable for those who are marginalized. And Hurley talks about that unflinchingly. She talks about nearly dying thanks to illness and poverty, and the subsequent high cost of just staying alive (something that, to one who lives in Canada, is so out of my realm of experience that I can only imagine what it must be like). She talks about myriad tiny ways that society expects certain things of women and punishes them when they fail to live up to ideals. She talks about perseverance when everything seems stacked against you, how you keep going when you have passions and goals because anything less is personally unacceptable, even when people seem to make it their mission to make you stop.
So no, this isn’t a comfortable book to read. But, like so much that needs to be said, it isn’t meant to be comfortable. It’s meant to give you a perspective other than your own, to bare unpleasant truths.
This book provoked a lot of thoughts in me. I could probably write an entire series of articles based on what entered my mind while reading this (though none of them would be as good as what Hurley said). Aside from visceral rage at some of the things Hurley has endured in her life, what struck me over and over again was the running thread of hope, even through the anger. You push on, because that’s how change happens. You stand up and speak out, because that’s how change happens. Nothing happens by doing nothing.
And in that, Hurley is inspirational. After finishing this collection of essays, I felt the following two things: 1) better educated, and 2) galvanized to work harder on my own projects, however much opposition I meet. It may seem like a selfish thing to take away from a book like this, but I can’t deny that I felt it. She makes me feel like I have a shot of achieving my dreams, of getting somewhere I want to be, if I just persevere.
This is the kind of book that opens up a wider world, even if it’s often a dark and painful one, to those who are willing to go into it with the understanding that they may read things that aren’t comfy and pleasant all the time. It’s a phenomenal collection of experience, of pain and triumph, suffering and success, and it’s one I fully intend to reread in the future, because Hurley has plenty to say that deserves more than a single look. Break out of your comfort zone with this highly-recommended set of essays! You’ll be a better person for it, in the end.
(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)
Which is why I love that some of her best essays were collected and published as a book. It’s a way to reach out and spread that word to those who maybe aren’t so big on social media, or just those who are browsing the bookstore one day and go, “Huh, I wonder what this is about.” Admittedly, it will probably have more appeal to those who are already fans of her writing, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t the chance that somebody in need of her words will stumble across it and have their thoughts rearranged a little bit.
Hurley talks about a variety of subjects in The Geek Feminist Revolution, ranging from how women are perceived and treated in the public eye, to healthcare, to relationship abuse, to racism, to how to react when someone calls you out on a screw-up (hint: it’s not to launch a long diatribe about why everyone else is wrong). I will say this right off the bat: some of these essays are not easy to read.
I will follow that with: every single one of them is worth reading.
Here’s the thing: the world is not a comfortable place. It’s less comfortable for those who are marginalized. And Hurley talks about that unflinchingly. She talks about nearly dying thanks to illness and poverty, and the subsequent high cost of just staying alive (something that, to one who lives in Canada, is so out of my realm of experience that I can only imagine what it must be like). She talks about myriad tiny ways that society expects certain things of women and punishes them when they fail to live up to ideals. She talks about perseverance when everything seems stacked against you, how you keep going when you have passions and goals because anything less is personally unacceptable, even when people seem to make it their mission to make you stop.
So no, this isn’t a comfortable book to read. But, like so much that needs to be said, it isn’t meant to be comfortable. It’s meant to give you a perspective other than your own, to bare unpleasant truths.
This book provoked a lot of thoughts in me. I could probably write an entire series of articles based on what entered my mind while reading this (though none of them would be as good as what Hurley said). Aside from visceral rage at some of the things Hurley has endured in her life, what struck me over and over again was the running thread of hope, even through the anger. You push on, because that’s how change happens. You stand up and speak out, because that’s how change happens. Nothing happens by doing nothing.
And in that, Hurley is inspirational. After finishing this collection of essays, I felt the following two things: 1) better educated, and 2) galvanized to work harder on my own projects, however much opposition I meet. It may seem like a selfish thing to take away from a book like this, but I can’t deny that I felt it. She makes me feel like I have a shot of achieving my dreams, of getting somewhere I want to be, if I just persevere.
This is the kind of book that opens up a wider world, even if it’s often a dark and painful one, to those who are willing to go into it with the understanding that they may read things that aren’t comfy and pleasant all the time. It’s a phenomenal collection of experience, of pain and triumph, suffering and success, and it’s one I fully intend to reread in the future, because Hurley has plenty to say that deserves more than a single look. Break out of your comfort zone with this highly-recommended set of essays! You’ll be a better person for it, in the end.
(Book received in exchange for an honest review.)
I think my problem with essay collections is that I only read the ones that I already agree with. When you spend 250 pages going "yep, duh, uh huh, okay, yep" it can only hover between mildly interesting and boring. Hurley is a great author, I just already agree with too much of what she's saying for this to be amazing.
Plus, I do wish that she was more specific when she speaks about events or people, looking up the footnotes is tedious. If you are going to include footnotes, one or two sentences more than just the internet address to an article would have been worthwhile.
Plus, I do wish that she was more specific when she speaks about events or people, looking up the footnotes is tedious. If you are going to include footnotes, one or two sentences more than just the internet address to an article would have been worthwhile.
Amazing. Kameron Hurley is brilliant and I want to read all the things she's ever written. This collection is easy and fun to read; it analyzes sexism, without ignoring racism and ableism and homophobia; and its take on the science fiction genre and community is engaging and fascinating. I wish she had been a little more intersectional in her analysis (recognizing that people of color=men, women, non-binary, gender nonconforming, etc. people and not only men), but otherwise, a really good analysis. I want to own this book.
In these current dark days it's refreshing to read something that is both inspiring and hopeful. Some of the essays I have read before, some are new to me but together made for a very thought-provoking whole.