We See a Different Frontier: A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology Read online

  We See a Different Frontier

  A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology

  Edited by Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-Ayad

  Acknowledgements

  Preface, Aliette de Bodard

  Introduction, Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-Ayad

  The Arrangement of Their Parts, Shweta Narayan

  Pancho Villa's Flying Circus, Ernest Hogan

  Them Ships, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  Old Domes, J.Y. Yang

  The Gambiarra Method, Fabio Fernandes

  A Bridge of Words, Dinesh Rao

  Droplet, Rahul Kanakia

  Lotus, Joyce Chng

  Dark Continents, Lavie Tidhar

  A Heap of Broken Images, Sunny Moraine

  Fleet, Sandra McDonald

  Remembering Turinam, N.A. Ratnayake

  I Stole the D.C.'s Eyeglass, Sofia Samatar

  Vector, Benjanun Sriduangkaew

  Forests of the Night, Gabriel Murray

  What Really Happened in Ficandula, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz

  Afterword, Ekaterina Sedia

  Contributors

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Gratitude is due to our generous copy-editors and proofreaders, Paul Graham Raven, Maureen Kincaid Speller and Valeria Vitale.

  Our eternal thanks to the many people who supported the fundraiser which enabled this anthology to happen at all, especially:

  Kathryn Allan, Barbara Baker, Jacques Barcia, Ryan Baumann, Jennifer Marie Brissett, Nathalie Boisard-Beudin, Tobias Buckell, Regina de Búrca, Karen Burnham, Sharon Carr, Siobhan Carroll, Caroline-Isabelle Caron, Paolo Chikiamco, John Chu, Alicia Cole, Pedro Dobbin, Regis Donovan, Rudi Dornemann, Berit Ellingsen, Kate Elliott, Tom Elliott, Micaiah Evans, Matthew Farrer, Suzanne Fischer, Fish, Sjef van Gaalen, Juan Garcés, David Haddock, Rebecca Harbison, Dr. M.J. Hardman, Sarah Heile, Sandra Heinen, Peter Hollo, L.S. Johnson, Serge K. Keller, Angela Korra’ti, William Kimeria, Alex Lambert, Nathan Lea, Ann Leckie, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, K.L. Maund, Rory McCann, Kirstyn McDermott, Martin McGrath, Todd Meister, Anil Menon, China Miéville, Rafael Monteiro, Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, Catie Murphy, Next Friday, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Siobhan NiLoughlin, W. Olin-Ammentorp, Colum Paget, Richard Palmer, Kathryn E. Piquette, Rrain Prior, Giseli Ramos, Paul Graham Raven, Ian Sales, Elizabeth Sanford, Gabriel Squailia, Tricia Sullivan, Rachel Swirsky, Sam Tayag, Kevin G. Toth, Cheryl Trooskin-Zoller, Genevieve Valentine, Jetse de Vries, Nikki Walters, Frances Watson, Mark Webb, Rob Weber, Cel West, Helen Wickham, J.Y. Yang, Zeborah, Stephanie Zvan…

  …and the astonishingly generous, beautiful and mighty Hiran Patel.

  Preface

  Aliette de Bodard

  “Colonialism” is one of those words that has a sharp divergence of meaning. In the West, it mostly refers to some vague exactions Western countries might have committed in the past (but at the same time lifting other countries out of barbarism and handing them SCIENCE!); said exactions having no bearing on anything but dusty corners of history that no one else is much interested in. In short, a page that has been turned—and that everyone does their best to forget ever happened.

  Outside of the West, the word, of course, takes on another meaning. It is a painful legacy that has destroyed and shaped entire countries; that has ignited painful and divisive wars of independence; and that still holds sway today. For those of us with connections to the world outside the West, we know that colonialism is not dead; that the expatriates coming to Asia or other developing countries and living like kings are just new iterations of the colonists; that the worldwide dominance of English as spoken in the US or in the UK, the vast reach of Hollywood movies and US/UK books like Twilight, Harry Potter or Fifty Shades of Grey, is another instance of cultural imperialism, recalling times when children were sent to English, American or French schools and made to feel ashamed of their own ancestors’ achievements.

  When we read science fiction stories where colonists leave their home and hearth, and make first contact with funny-looking aliens, we are uncomfortably reminded of the days where English or French or Dutch colonists came to foreign shores, marvelled at odd and weird customs, and gradually took over everything under the pretence of “civilizing” barbarians. Colonialism is, to an extent, embedded in modern science fiction; and it is no coincidence that most SF is produced by Western Anglophones and fails to concern itself with the point of view of people outside of the dominant sphere—or, if it does, it speaks in their name without regard for what they really think. Depictions of developing countries tend to be produced by Western Anglophones, and to focus on abject poverty, corruption, or any other negative sides that apparently make living in a developing country unbearable. This is not the voice of a country’s inhabitants; of those who have pride in where and how they live.

  The stories in this anthology are not this kind of science fiction. They are the voices of the invaded; of the colonized; of the erased and the oppressed; of those whom others would make into aliens and blithely ignore or conquer or enlighten. I hope you enjoy reading them, and that they will make a different world and a different viewpoint take centre-stage for you.

  Introduction

  Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-Ayad

  The new is terrifying. Not because it is this way and not another way, but because it is new.

  —Vilem Flusser

  A specter haunts a world. This is not a misquotation of Marx; there is a specter, but an infinity of worlds, as all of us who write and read science fiction know too well.

  The specter in question, as the epigraph from Czech-Brazilian philosopher Vilem Flusser reflects, is the new. Flusser, a disciple of Martin Heidegger, wasn’t afraid of new experiences. He couldn’t afford to be: having lost all his family in the German concentration camps at the beginning of World War II, he emigrated to Brazil, where he stayed for thirty years, first working at a Czech import/export company, and later entering the Brazilian intellectual community, publishing, teaching at several schools, and finally becoming Lecturer for Philosophy of Science at the Escola Politécnica of the University of São Paulo. He stayed in Brazil until 1972, when he moved to France after the Brazilian military coup d’etat, dying in a car crash in 1991 on the way to his native Prague to give a lecture.

  Flusser’s case was and is still being replicated all over the world, not only by Jewish refugees, but by millions of immigrants who cross borders every day: according to the NGO Rescue.org, there are right now (as of February 2013) about 42 million displaced people in the world. One in every 170 persons in the world has been uprooted by war. This is the largest category of vulnerable people in the world. About one third of them are officially recognized refugees because they have crossed an international border. The other two thirds are so-called internally displaced persons, or IDPs, because they are still within their own country.

  * * *

  The Future Fire, as a magazine, has long sought to publish speculative fiction at the inclusive and progressive end of the social and political spectrum. In 2010 there was an active push in the direction of including more marginalized voices by advertising and publishing two themed issues of the magazine, on feminist science fiction and queer science fiction respectively. An agenda and focus on political content and underrepresented themes should never be at the expense of quality; the magazine publishes only the very best stories it can. In other words, TFF will never try to increase the proportion of minority authors
in the publication by being less demanding than one would be with works by straight, white, cis, male, Anglophone writers, but rather by actively seeking out and encouraging authors of the kinds of stories one is looking for; Claire Light’s polemical online article “Editorial Work Is HARD, Asshole!” makes this point both powerfully and usefully. (http://clairelight.typepad.com/seelight/2009/08/editorial-work-is-hard-asshole.html>)

  After a year-long hiatus in 2011, therefore, TFF advertised for two guest editors to help produce themed issues and reach new communities of authors as well as readers. From nearly a dozen proposals, the team selected Lori Selke (whose Outlaw Bodies anthology appeared in late 2012) and of course Fabio, whose proposal for an issue on the theme of colonialism, focusing on the voices of real colonized peoples, struck so many chords with what TFF was trying to do.

  Fabio wanted to talk about something that, if not exactly new, is still far from being considered normal within the Anglo-American SF sphere of influence: alien cultures. As in us, the aliens from Earth. Foreigners. Strangers to the current dominant culture.

  The project was as yet untitled, but Fabio already had the title of a story that he just couldn’t get out of his mind: Bruce Sterling’s “We See Things Differently”. A decade ago, this story was translated and published in Brazil and he remembered the powerful impression that it caused when he first read it. We (Fabio and Djibril) remixed this title in the spirit of the cyberpunks (and how better than to use the name of a story written by one of the leaders of the Movement? A tip of the hat to you, Bruce), mashing it up with the other idea that kept coming back to us: that canard of science fiction cliché, “The Final Frontier”. We wanted to turn this colonial image on its head, hence the combination of the two titles: We See a Different Frontier.

  In a world crisscrossed by electronic leylines, we can’t afford to let ourselves be guided by old geopolitics. Not in our business. To quote another philosopher (the last one!), Ludwig Wittgenstein, “The limits of my language means the limits of my world.” The emergence of a new science fiction around the world which is not restrained by the borders of First World countries, or even by the English language, means the limits of our world are being shattered. There is still a long way to go, but honorable predecessors like Cosmos Latinos and So Long Been Dreaming have proved that we can make this world smaller and richer.

  We felt that this issue needed to attract the very best stories, and in particular to pay the authors fairly for their work (TFF is a non-profit making magazine, and pays only $20 per story). This was especially important since we hoped to hear from many voices who are often unheard in Anglo-American mainstream science fiction, and paying a fair rate for this fiction was essential if we wanted to be consistent with our social and political stance. We therefore set up a Peerbacker project, which allowed supporters to pre-order copies of the print issue and/or contribute larger quantities to help us pay professional rates for fiction. The support from the speculative fiction community was incredible.

  We calculated that with $3,000 we could pay a professional rate of $0.05 per word for an average of 7-8 stories (after paying for all the rewards and administrative costs of the fundraiser). Dozens of people, including some big names in speculative fiction, helped to spread the word about the appeal, wrote guest blog posts for us, allowed us to write guest posts for their sometimes large readerships, donated books and other goodies for giveaways and contests or helped in so many other ways, in addition to contributing generously to the fund. As well as being astonishingly generous and profoundly moving, this is clearly a sign that the theme of colonialism and the exposure of under-represented voices in speculative fiction are things that many people care deeply about. Within six weeks we had so far exceeded our target that we were able to pay professional rates for the fifteen stories you see in this volume.

  The call for submissions summarized what we were looking for in this anthology:

  It is impossible to consider the history, politics or culture of the modern world without taking into account our colonial past. Most violent conflicts and financial inequalities in some sense result from the social-political-economic matrix imposed by European powers since the seventeenth century—even powerful countries such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) have to be viewed through the filter of our history to fully appreciate their current circumstances. The same is true of art and literature, including science fiction; as Rochita Loenen-Ruiz eloquently explained (http://djibrilalayad.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/decolonizing-as-sf-writer.html), “it is impossible to discuss non-Western SF without considering the effects of colonialism.” Cultural imperialism erases many native traditions and literatures, exoticizes colonized and other non-European countries and peoples, and drowns native voices in the clamour of Western stories set in their world. Utopian themes like “The Final Frontier”, “Discovering New Worlds” and “Settling the Stars” appeal to a colonial romanticism, especially recalling the American West. But what is romantic and exciting to the privileged, white, anglophone reader is a reminder of exploitation, slavery, rape, genocide and other crimes of colonialism to the rest of the world.

  We See a Different Frontier will publish new speculative fiction stories in which the viewpoint is that of the colonized, not the invader. We want to see stories that remind us that neither readers nor writers are a homogeneous club of white, male, Christian, hetero, cis, monoglot anglophone, able-bodied Westerners. We want the cultures, languages and literatures of colonized peoples and recombocultural (http://djibrilalayad.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/guest-post-i-didnt-know-i-was-alien-or.html) individuals to be heard, not to show the White Man learning the error of his ways, or Anglos defending the world from colonizing extraterrestrials. We want stories that neither exoticize nor culturally appropriate the non-western settings and characters in them.

  * * *

  We received many wonderful stories in the four months of the submissions period, and even after we had applied the filtering criteria—the story had to be on theme, it had to be beautifully written, and at least one of the editors had to absolutely love it—we had more than twice as many words as we could use. The process of whittling these down to the table of contents you see before you was not a straightforward one. For every story we rejoiced to buy, there was at least one story we wept to let go. There were stories that we both agreed instantly we had to have, but there were also stories that one or other of us hated and had to be talked into: in some cases these are the most interesting stories, the ones that push the boundaries, that tell a story that isn’t obvious, that were uncomfortable to our limited perspectives. For an editor seeking to diversify, to include under-represented voices, especially voices that are not her own, this is one of the most valuable lessons to learn: a story that you start out hating (or even just thinking, meh) might be the most exciting story you buy. Your instincts do not serve you well; they need to be tempered with reason, with surprise, and with the opinions of others, especially those who have experienced colonialisms and discriminations that you have not.

  The stories that appear in this anthology are all brilliant excoriations of one or another element of colonialism, racism, imperialism, cultural appropriation or exploitation. They range in tone from the cynically satirical, via charmingly fantastic and cheerfully brutal, to violently furious and vengeful. There are stories about repelling the invader from a foreign land, about dealing with the aftermath of abuse and atrocity, about making sure history does not repeat itself. There are protagonists who are rebels, terrorists or freedom fighters; antagonists who are patronising scholars, brutal soldiers, white-guilty children of colonists, businessmen and moguls. There are hard science-fictional pieces, alternative realities, steampunk, dark fantasies, mundane SF, social observation and blistering biopunk adventures. We are reminded that the roles and rights of women, the poor, queer and trans folk intersect inseparably with issues of race and colonialism. That suppression of culture and especially language are common tactics in t
he repression of a people, and as effective as violence itself. That a colonized people is not necessarily defeated, its culture is not inferior or weaker or more backward or scientifically ignorant than that of the invaders. That our (Western) history need not dictate our future, but there are other narratives, other possibilities, other voices and other stories to tell. These stories need to be heard. These stories need to be read.

  The Arrangement of Their Parts

  Shweta Narayan

  Surat, 1076 AH / 1665 AD

  The Englishman’s workshop nestled close to his people’s fortified factory, outside its walls but well within its influence. A night guard watched over it—if keeping to the doorway, eyeing the street from his puddle of lantern light, and turning occasionally to spit paan could really be called watching.

  The guard had reason for complacency; plastered walls offered no handhold, and the workshop’s windows, set into the sloping roof, were too high and small for human reach. But the Artificer Devi had not worn human form in many years. She cut the wooden trellis out from one window, spread her tailfeathers for balance, and telescoped her neck to peer into the room.

  It could as well have been a butchery. The air was rank with stale machine oil. Moonlight spread flat on tile and whitewash, caught on gears laid out in disconnected imitation of their proper form. Inked and labelled diagrams, pinned to walls and tables, recorded the workings of legs, eyes, boilers; and on the main workbench a half-dismembered voicebox stood ready to play one cylinder of its speech. Its other cylinders stood in rows beside it, sorted by size instead of tone. Dead husks shaped the shadows: a soldier’s head pried open; pieces of a half-golden mongoose; the ungeared skeleton of a large cat, frozen before it could pounce.

  The trail ended here. Of course. Anything might be found in Surat, greatest port in the world, for a price.