November | 2012 | chronicles of harriet

IS STEAMFUNK JUST ‘BLACK’ STEAMPUNK? – The Illusion of Genre & Subgenre

29 Nov 2012 30 Comments

by Balogun in Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Steampunk, Writers Workshop Tags: balogun, black speculative fiction, genre, steamfunk, steampunk, subgenre

IS STEAMFUNK JUST ‘BLACK’ STEAMPUNK? – The Illusion of Genre & Subgenre

Recently, while discussing the business of writing, a fellow writer took a jab at Steamfunk and the writers of it, saying “I’m not really into the whole making my own version of it bit. IF I see one more black Steampunk story that is nothing more than black Victoriana, I’ll scream.”

Mind you, this is from a person who doesn’t write Steampunk and who probably does not read much of it either, based on her comment. While she is an excellent writer, her excellence does not make her qualified to give an intelligent analysis of something she does not do. She was incorrect in her assessment of Steamfunk, thus her ‘screams’ – which are sure to come, as more “black Steampunk” will, indeed, be written – will make her look silly, like a man running around shouting “The world is gonna end December 21^st!”…on December 22^nd.

And this is the danger of genre and subgenre. A person reads the definitions of the genre and thinks he or she knows what it is. I would argue that if you do not do a thing – and, in the case of a literary subgenre, that would be faithfully reading and / or writing it – you cannot really know it.

“No participation, no right to observation”, as we say in the ‘hood (I don’t know if the affluent area of Hyde Park in Chicago – where I picked up these words of wisdom – qualifies as the hood, but you get the point).

Another saying, I learned in that Hyde Park ‘hood was “Each one, teach one”, thus I will now define genre and subgenre for those who may not know what they are.

A genre is a classification of artistic works into descriptive categories. A subgenre is a sub-category of a specific genre, and can apply to literature, music, film, theater, video games, or other forms of art. Subgenres break down genres into more specific subjects.

The concept of genre emerged around 300 B.C.E., when Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato organized various written works into three categories. Numerous genres have been added since, and the list of subject matter continues to grow.

Due to the amount of artistic material in the world today, subcategories of major topics make searching material easier. Genres and subgenres are also powerful marketing tools for publishers and distributors of artistic works. When singer Anthony Hamilton first came on the scene in 1996 with his album XTC, he was hailed as a neo-soul artist, because that was the rage at the time, as people sought a return to the days of “real” music. The XTC album found moderate success, however, as people were not too keen on taking a risk on buying neo-soul at the time, nor were record companies keen on putting their marketing dollars behind neo-soul, because it was just that – neo…new.

Literature became one of the first topics to be listed into separate genres and subgenres. Before the subgenre was introduced there were only a select number of categories to choose from, including romance, horror, thriller, science fiction, and mystery.

As writers put their unique spin on the stories within these categories, publishers closely observed what types of stories sold the most and decided they would sell more books if they created a niche that would attract a specific type of reader within those broad genres. Thus, the subgenre was born. Romance stories are now broken down into the subgenres of contemporary, erotic, historical, regency, gothic, paranormal and young adult. Horror fiction adopted categories such as psychological, supernatural, and Lovecraftian. Science fiction is now broken into such subgenres as hard, soft, space opera and, of course, Steampunk (which is also often categorized as a subgenre of Fantasy or as ‘Science Fantasy’).

Film and theater often have similar types of categories as literature because they are both based on written works.

Modern technology has assisted in the growing popularity of subgenres – check out Netflix and you will find several subcategories of film under each of the twenty categories. The subgenre feature is the primary search format that Netflix customers use in order to find movies.

Another problem with genres and subgenres is that they lead to bullying from self proclaimed ‘genre experts’.

Recently, I posted a short story, Lazarus Graves: The Scythe of Death, which was my experimentation with Dieselpunk. A reader told me he loved the story, but I should not say what I wrote is Dieselpunk because it is definitely Pulp Fiction. I answered him the same way I answer anyone who has taken the time to read one of my stories – “Thanks.”

If he says the story is Pulp – which is actually a style, not a genre or subgenre – and he likes it, then the story is Pulp. If a reader tells me he or she likes my Dieselpunk story, then it’s Dieselpunk. I just write what I like to read and let the readers and publishers decide what it is. When I began writing Steamfunk, I just wanted to write a story similar to one of my favorite television shows – Wild, Wild West – with Harriet Tubman as the protagonist. When my publisher said Moses: The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman is a great Steampunk story.” I shrugged and responded “Thanks.” Then, I turned to my wife and said “I guess I finally have a name for what I have been writing.”

I have since accepted that I primarily write what is called Steampunk / Steamfunk and Sword & Soul, but I mash-up these genres and others, because I continue to write what I want to read and what I feel others will also enjoy. And I remain bully-proof, by agreeing with all who read my work that the genre is whatever they want, or need, it to be.

Others are not so bully-proof, however. Recently, author Gail Carriger suffered at the e-hands of e-bullies when she dared to call her bestselling series, The Parasol Protectorate, Steampunk. The genre-police felt her work did not qualify as Steampunk and should be classified as “Bustlepunk” – a term used to describe a softer, “girlier” version of Steampunk.

As we say in the ‘hood – “For real?

My advice for writers is – write first; worry later. Do not fixate on what genre or subgenre you are writing. Just tell the story you want to tell to the best of your ability. And while you should not argue with those who try to define your work as this or that subgenre, because they happen to enjoy this or that subgenre and also enjoy your work, you should not allow the genre-police to bully you, either.

Should you adopt a genre or subgenre as your own, then learn all you can about it; practice it; master it…so that you can turn it inside-out, upside-down and sideways if you so desire. I write Steamfunk and Sword & Soul because, for one, there is a deficit of stories told from an African / Black perspective in Steampunk and Sword & Sorcery and secondly, because I like to write without the restrictions of genre. Both of these sub-subgenres are malleable and alive, thus they are being defined as we write stories within their categories. If I want to mash-up Steamfunk and horror, it’s fine. If I want to have my Sword & Soul hero use an arsenal of Steamfunk gadgets, it’s okay.

As we say in the ‘hood – “It’s cooler than a Polar bear in an igloo, with air conditioning during a snowstorm, baby.”

My advice for readers is – READ! Oh yeah, and stay humble. Do not perceive yourself as the defender of some genre, attacking those whose writing within that genre is not what you view as ‘authentic’. Heed my words – they can save you from a ton of embarrassment and a world of hurt.

Now, in regard to “Black” Steampunk – Steamfunk is not a gimmick – we do not use “Blackness” as a selling point, we just tell great stories, with heroes that we want, and need, to see; heroes that everyone can relate to. It is not “Victoriana” – an outlook and design style from the Victorian era (1837–1901) – and neither is Steampunk (more on that in a future post). Furthermore, Blackness is not homogenous. There is not just one way of being “Black”.

As we say in the ‘hood – “Miss me with that shit.”

THEY MAKE MURDER…FUN? The Greatest Detectives in Television, Fiction & Film

25 Nov 2012 15 Comments

by Balogun in Adventure, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Steampunk, Thriller Tags: Alex Cross, balogun, black speculative fiction, detective, John Luther, milton davis, Mystery Dinner Party, sherlock holmes, steamfunk, Steamfunk Mystery Dinner Party, steampunk

THEY MAKE MURDER…FUN? The Greatest Detectives in Television, Fiction & Film

With the Steamfunk Mystery Dinner Party coming up in February, I have been reading and watching more murder mysteries as of late, which is really saying something because, after speculative fiction, mysteries are my favorite.

I like puzzles. I enjoy solving problems. Whenever I am bored, I like to read a good detective novel, or watch a murder mystery on television or the big screen. I always try to unmask the culprit before the end.

Sometimes I am right; sometimes, I am (happily) way off.

Over the decades, I have developed a list of my favorite detectives. The list is ever-growing and – at present – is as follows:

Sherlock Holmes

The world’s first “consulting detective”. While Edgar Allen Poe’s C. August Dupin was the first police detective, working diligently to solve the Murders in the Rue Morgue – the first modern murder mystery story – he was not nearly as brilliant as the flawed Victorian, nor as renown.

Recently gaining even greater popularity with the Sherlock Holmes movie and its sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, the world’s most famous detective continues to show up Scotland Yard in the BBC’s acclaimed Sherlock and solves mysteries in America in the CBS series, Elementary.

Holmes has even seen a revival in graphic form, with the digital comic book, Watson and Holmes, in which a Black Sherlock Holmes and John Watson solve cases in urban America and with the interactive novel, Steampunk Holmes, in which Holmes and Watson are born again Steampunks.

Hercule Poirot

Agatha Christie’s idiosyncratic Belgian police inspector turned London private investigator. With his signature mustache carefully trimmed and waxed, Poirot uses his “little gray cells” to solve the most baffling of crimes, such as the one in Murder on the Orient Express, considered one of the greatest detective novels of all time.

Upon Agatha Christie’s death, in 1976, the New York Times published a painting of the famous, dandy detective on the front page along with his obituary…the only fictional person to receive such an honor. The headline reads: “Hercule Poirot Is Dead: Famed Belgian Detective, Hercule Poirot, the Detective, Dies”.

The article starts thus: “Hercule Poirot, a Belgian detective who became internationally famous, has died in England. His age was unknown.” Regarding his health, the reporter, Thomas Lask, said: “The news of his death, given by Dame Agatha, was not unexpected. Word that he was near death reached here last May.”

The last novel starring Poirot was Curtain, released to the public on October 15, 1976, two months after Agatha Christie’s death. The novel was written – along with Christie’s other famed detective, Ms. Jane Marple’s last story Sleeping Murder – in the mid-1940′s, to be published at a later date.

Batman

Batman was never just a costumed crime-fighter. From the beginning, he was “The World’s Greatest Detective”, who combined the inductive reasoning of Sherlock Holmes (not deductive reasoning–we will explore the differences in the next post) with extraordinary prestidigitation, stealth, martial and technological skills.

In fact, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 (1939) and did not get his own title for a year.

The first Batman story, The Case of the Chemical Syndicate, was originally written in the style of the pulps, and Batman showed little remorse over killing or maiming criminals. Batman proved a hit character, and he received his own solo title in 1940, while continuing to star in Detective Comics (D.C.). By that time, Batman and the company’s other major hero, Superman, quickly became the cornerstones of the company’s success.

Since then, Batman’s huge popularity has continued to grow in several films, graphic novels, animated television series and films, comic strips and in a campy 1960s live-action television show.

Columbo

Columbo, was a Los Angeles police lieutenant working in Homicide. He solved his cases through extremely dogged and careful pursuit of all clues. Columbo’s razor-sharp analysis would always be hidden by a seemingly shambling, disorganized nature that always made the criminal underestimate him and make mistakes.

Unlike most detective shows, Columbo was never a whodunnit. At the beginning of each episode, we saw the murderer carefully execute his plan. Already knowing who was responsible, we were left to derive our enjoyment from the battle of wits that would follow: Columbo vs. the murderer.

In each episode, Columbo’s would also make vague comments about his wife and his past and would whistle the song, This old man came rolling home – clues to unravel the mystery of the Lieutenant himself.

Precious Ramotswe

From author Alexander McCall Smith comes Mma Precious Ramotswe, protagonist of the spectacular No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series of novels and HBO series, with actress / singer Jill Scott starring as Precious Ramotswe.

Mma Ramotswe is Botswana’s first woman detective. Unlike other “traditionally-built” (i.e. voluptuous) beauties of Botswana, Ramotswe has been interested in solving puzzles and mysteries since childhood.

She retaining many traditional values, is suspicious of technology and holds quite old-fashioned ideas about decency. As a detective, Mma Ramotswe is primarily intuitive and quite maverick in her methods. Less concerned with the law and more so with moral values, she does not often get involved with the police and prefers the traditional laws and customs of her people.

Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins

Author Walter Mosley’s African-American WWII veteran, turned private investigator, Easy Rawlins is refreshingly human, even in sometimes disappointing ways. He’s a proud man trying to cope with the social injustices of his time, as well as his own personal demons and he doesn’t always do a great job of it. He can, at times, be cruel or petty and sometimes a bit too easily led astray by temptations of the flesh. His obsessions with acquiring wealth and privacy sometimes lead him into making poor decisions. His faults, however, are tempered by his passion to rise above what has been pegged as his station in life and by an innate sense of what is right and especially what is wrong.

In 1995, the novel Devil in a Blue Dress was made into a Hollywood movie, starring Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins. The movie also featured a chilling performance by Don Cheadle as Easy’s best friend and sometimes sidekick, the stone-cold killer, Mouse.

Beginning in 1990 with Devil in a Blue Dress, the eleventh novel in the Easy Rawlins series, Little Green, releases in 2013.

Dr. Alex Cross

Another African-American detective featured in a series of twenty novels and three films, Detective Alex Cross is the brilliant brain-child of author James Patterson.

Dr. Cross is a forensic psychologist who first works for the Washington D.C. police Homicide Division and later joins the F.B.I.

Dr. Cross is the protagonist of twenty novels and has been played extraordinarily well by Morgan Freeman in film adaptations of the novels Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls. Dr. Cross was also portrayed by Tyler Perry in the film, Alex Cross…umm…no comment.

After receiving a doctorate in psychology from Johns Hopkins Univesity, Dr. Cross started a private practice and worked as a psychologist for two years. He eventually decided to become a policeman after he became disillusioned with the politics of the medical community and because the people in his neighborhood could not afford his psychological services, while white people would not see a “black shrink”.

Dr. Cross never expected to like police work, however, he became obsessed with solving crimes and soon became one of the best – and most sought after (for consultations and assistance with solving crimes) – detectives in the country.

Dr. Cross lives with his grandmother (Nana Mama) and three children, Damon, Janelle (Jannie), and Alex Jr. (Ali). His wife, Maria Simpson Cross, a social worker, was murdered.

Harry Dresden

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden is the protagonist of fifteen novels, several graphic novel adaptations and a television series.

The Dresden Files is a series of “urban fantasy” novels, by author Jim Butcher, about Chicago’s first – and only – hardboiled, wizard private investigator.

Harry’s arsenal includes: a leather duster enchanted with protective magics; a rune-carved staff; a blasting rod (a wooden stick used to give him finer control over his evocation magic), a shield bracelet; a silver ring, used to channel blasts of kinetic energy; and his mother’s silver pentacle amulet. He also carries a variety of pistols and revolvers for those times when “magic just doesn’t cut it.”

Ella Clah

The Navajo woman detective, created by married writing team, David and Aimee Thurlo, Ellah Clah works to solve crimes while struggling to heal the rift that has grown between traditional and non-traditional beliefs in the Navajo community, in her family and within herself.

Ella works as an FBI agent out of Los Angeles. Her father, a Christian minister and her mother, a woman who kept to the traditional Navajo ways, allowed both of their children – Clifford, Ella’s older brother and Ella – to choose their own paths.

Clifford chose the more traditional way and studied to become a hataalii – a Navajo holy man, who protects the nation and community by performing rituals, rites and blessings. Ella left the reservation, went to college in California and became an FBI agent.

Ella returns to the reservation when her father is murdered, discovering that her father had been engaged in building a new church on the reservation. The project had split the community between traditional and non-traditional Navajos. A primary suspect in the murder is Ella’s brother, Clifford.

Ella, forbidden by her supervisor to get involved with the investigations, works behind the scenes, trying to solve her father’s murder.

John Luther

Detective Chief Inspector John Luther begins the BBC psychological crime drama series, Luther, working for the British Serious Crime Unit and goes on to become a key member of the Serious and Serial Crime Unit.

While Luther is obsessive, possessed, fixated and sometimes violent, he is also a genius and a dedicated police officer.

Luther has paid a heavy price for his dedication and has never been able to prevent himself from being consumed by the darkness of the crimes with which he deals. For Luther, the job always comes first. His dedication to solving cases and bringing criminals to justice is a blessing and a curse – for him and for those close to him.

Brilliantly portrayed by actor Idris Elba, Luther is my favorite detective and Luther is my favorite television series.

Di Renjie

Based one of the most celebrated officials of the Tang and Zhou Dynasties of China, Di Renjie, also known as Detective Dee, is the protagonist of several mystery novels, two television series and the popular martial arts mystery film, Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame, an action-packed, visually breathtaking mystery starring some of China’s top acting talent, including singer / actor Andy Lau in the titular role.

Breathtakingly choreographed by martial arts master and fight choreographer / actor, Sammo Hung and directed by master filmmaker Tsui Hark, this intricately plotted whodunit is set in an exquisitely realized version of ancient China.

On the eve of her coronation as Empress, China’s most powerful woman is haunted by a chilling murder mystery: seven men under her command have burst into flames, leaving behind only black ash and skeletal bones. Recognizing this as a threat to her power, she turns to the infamous Di (Dee) Renjie, a man whose unparalleled wisdom is matched only by his martial arts skills. As Di battles a series of bizarre dangers, he unveils a chilling truth that places his life, and the future of an entire dynasty, in peril.

Encyclopedia Brown

Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown is a ten-year old boy genius who puts his talents to work fighting crime in the small town of Idaville. Idaville is so famously tough on crime that “Hardened criminals had passed the word: ‘Stay clear of Idaville.’” This came as a result of the work of Encyclopedia – eternal fifth-grader, voracious reader (hence the nickname), and ace private eye. During the school year, Encyclopedia’s father, the police chief of Idaville, recounts his toughest cases over dinner. Without fail, Encyclopedia solves those cases before dessert. In the summer, Encyclopedia hangs out his friends and foils the nefarious plans of countless child criminals – young Moriarties to his young Holmes.

Encyclopedia’s major nemesis, however, is Bugs Meany, ringleader of a gang called The Tigers and as tough and thuggish as they come.

Encyclopedia’s sidekick is the tomboyish Sally Kimball, who is Encyclopedia’s version of Mouse – “She was the only one, boy or girl, under twelve who could punch out Bugs Meany.”

Accompanied by a large supporting cast – notorious poachers, motorcycle-riding teenage troublemakers, glamorous movie stars in town for the weekend – Encyclopedia, Sally, and Bugs star in twenty nine books and an HBO cable series.

Those are my favorites. Which detectives do you most admire? Which novel, series, or movie detective is your favorite and why?

The Mystery Behind Why We Love A Mystery

23 Nov 2012 3 Comments

by Balogun in Adventure, atlanta, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Steampunk Tags: balogun, milton davis, murder mystery, role-playing, science fiction, steamfunk, Steamfunk Mystery Dinner Party, steampunk

The Mystery Behind Why We Love A Mystery

Most of what we regard as entertaining is mysterious; suspenseful. Watch television, or read a book and you will see what I mean – Will the Falcons defeat the Bears? Will Mr. Gold / Rumpelstiltskin finally surrender to his dark side? Will Shaquita Love finally kill Pimpalicious and “come up”?

We aren’t sure how the story or the game will turn out, and we become very interested in finding out.

Why?

Uncertainty is not on most people’s list of pleasant experiences. If suspense builds on our uncertainty, then why is it possible to enjoy seeing a mystery movie or reading a suspenseful book?

But as much is uncertainty attracts us, we are still found returning to books and movies we have seen before and reading / watching them more than once. Why? You already saw the movie…you…know what is going to happen, but still you are sitting on the edge of your seat. How? Why?

Things that make you go “Hmm…”

The human brain is specifically adapted to adopt the perspective of others as it assesses situations. We are social beings, with the capacity to see and even feel the world as others see and feel it.

The ability to adopt perspectives that we know are fictional is basic to the human imagination and our imaginations entail feelings as well as thoughts – we not only imagine the scary serial killer who grinds up human teeth and uses the powder to flavor his morning tea, but are terrified of him or her.

As I stated in an earlier post, the brain does not know the difference between fantasy and reality. That is why we can care about a story we know to be fictional. It also explains how we can feel suspense even when we know how the story ends. Knowing the ending doesn’t interfere with our ability to place ourselves in the situation of the characters in a story, and once we do that, we can suspend our knowledge of the ending in the same way we suspend our knowledge that the situation is fictional.

Murder Mysteries have fascinated us for well over a century. Whether you want to be in the middle of the unsolved case or just be a bystander, you are sure to enjoy it.

Join us on Friday, February 22^nd, 2013, and discover just how much you enjoy it, as we step back in time, to the Age of Steam, and experience the Steamfunk Mystery Dinner Party!

Be the first person to solve the murder mystery and receive a free, signed copy of the Blacktastic new Steamfunk! Anthology!

Come in your Steamfunk gear. We are also giving a signed copy of Steamfunk! to the person with the (Steam)funkiest costume!

6:30pm – 9:30pm

Southwest Arts Center – Black Box Theater

915 New Hope Road, SW

Atlanta, GA 30331

Steamfunk Detectives: Origin of the Murder Mystery Game

18 Nov 2012 4 Comments

by Balogun in Adventure, atlanta, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Steampunk Tags: balogun, cluedo, murder mystery, mystery dinner, role-playing, sherlock holmes, steamfunk, Steamfunk Mystery Dinner Party, steampunk

Steamfunk Detectives: Origin of the Murder Mystery Game

Murder mystery games are generally party games wherein the party-goers must solve a murder, determining who among them is the murderer and how and why the murder was committed. A typical murder mystery game opens with a ‘death’ and the rest of the time playing is devoted to investigation and solving the murder.

To understand the origin of murder mystery games, we must start at the very beginning and examine the origins of murder mystery fiction.

The first fictional detective was Edgar Allen Poe’s “August Dupin” in Murder in the Rue Morgue, which was published in 1841. A year later, reality followed fiction and the London Metropolitan Police appointed their first detective force, consisting of eight men.

In 1860, the UK experienced the rise of masses of amateur sleuths after the murder at Road Hill House – the first murder to be extensively reported in the press.

On June 30, 1860, three-year old Saville Kent, was found with his throat slit in the privy of Road Hill House, a Victorian manor. The only suspects were the members of the household – Saville’s father and mother, his siblings, the nursemaid, and the household staff. The disturbing murder set the British public on edge and they clamored for more information on the case.

The press responded to the public’s interest by printing hearsay and rumors as well as facts and the general public descended on the investigation like vultures, eager for any bits of juicy gossip.

Everyone had their ideas as to who killed little Saville Kent and how it was done, even to the point of contradicting the police force in the national press.

It was this case that inspired murder mystery fiction for over a century and even now, serves as a blueprint for modern murder mystery novels – a manor house, a murder, a seemingly respectable family with secrets, and a singular detective who leaves no stone unturned.

Wickie Collins’ Moonstone, released just eight years after the Road Hill Murder, is considered to be the original fictional murder mystery.

And in 1887, the world’s best known detective, Sherlock Holmes, stepped on the scene, courtesy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who, during his career, wrote 4 Sherlock Holmes novels and 56 short stories with Sherlock Holmes as the protagonist. By the way, for a Blacktastic take on the Sherlock Holmes franchise, check out Watson and Holmes, a digital comic by Karl Bollers and Rick Leonardi, in which Holmes and Watson are African-American.

Besides playing detective and reading murder mysteries, people during the Age of Steam were also lovers of all types of parlor games, many of which have survived until this day.

The origin of present day murder mystery games can be found during this era, beginning in the late 1800s, after the Road Hill Murder case. These games started out in the form of after-dinner entertainment and had such intriguing names as Murder in the Dark, Wink Murder and Jury.

In 1935, the first murder mystery boxed game known as Jury Box hit the market. Guests took the role of jurors examining the evidence from the fictional murder case presented to them.

In 1948, the first murder mystery board game, Cluedo – called Clue in North America – was released and has continued to be a popular entertainment for all ages.

The 1980s saw the birth of the murder mystery role-playing game. Back then, the scenarios were simple, the acting directions minimal and the games relied on the guests being comfortable ad-libbing responses to each other’s questions.

Those basic games have increased in complexity and fun and are the role-playing dinner party games we now know and love.

Join us on Friday, February 22^nd, 2013, as we step back in time, to the Age of Steam and experience the Steamfunk Mystery Dinner Party!

Be the first person to solve the murder mystery and receive a free, signed copy of the Blacktastic new Steamfunk! Anthology!

Come in your Steamfunk gear. We are also giving a signed copy of Steamfunk! to the person with the (Steam)funkiest costume!

6:30pm – 9:30pm

Southwest Arts Center – Black Box Theater

915 New Hope Road, SW

Atlanta, GA 30331

WHEN KEEPIN’ IT REAL GOES WRONG: Is Fiction More Powerful than Nonfiction?

14 Nov 2012 14 Comments

by Balogun in Adventure, atlanta, Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Film, Harriet Tubman, Historical Fiction, Horror, Martial Arts, Panel Discussion, Reviews, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Short Story, Speculative Fiction, Steampunk, Supernatural, Thriller, Uncategorized, Writers Workshop Tags: africa, afrika, balogun, black speculative fiction, fiction, nonfiction, ori, writers, Yoruba

WHEN KEEPIN’ IT REAL GOES WRONG: Is Fiction More Powerful than Nonfiction?

I am a “Conscious Brother”.

What is that, you ask?

“A Conscious Brother” is a Black man who possesses a knowledge of – and love for – his history, culture and people. He knows that, because of the color of his skin, he is – by law, or tradition – politically, economically and socially discriminated against and he works – in a myriad of ways – to fight against said discrimination. Of course, there are also “Conscious Sisters”.

I hang out with Brothers and Sisters who are both “conscious” and not-so-“conscious”.

Now, talk to most “conscious” people and they are intelligent and very well read. Most of us can quote Chancellor Williams’ Destruction of Black Civilization from cover-to-cover. I have read everything from Soledad Brother to Flash of the Spirit. Our shelves are filled with great works of nonfiction.

I love to read nonfiction. Hell, I even wrote a nonfiction book – Afrikan Martial Arts: Discovering the Warrior Within.

I also love to read – and write – fiction.

After forty years of voracious reading and after nearly three decades of studying the workings of the brain and the mind, I have come to the realization that fiction is a more powerful tool – for learning and delivering truth; for shaping opinions and for affecting change – than nonfiction.

Recently, I asked one of my “conscious” friends why – out of over a thousand books – not one is a work of fiction and why he doesn’t allow his children to read fiction.

His answer?

“All that Star Wars, Dungeons & Dragons, Steampunk shit ain’t real, bruh. I keeps it real, son…for myself and definitely for my seeds (“children”). I got no interest in those ‘escapist’ hobbies, yo.”

Sadly, many Black people – particularly those who consider themselves to be “conscious” – feel that Science Fiction, Fantasy and role-playing games are pointless; useless; a waste of time; and maybe even harmful.

But they’re wrong.

My time spent playing role-playing games, reading comic books and storytelling during my childhood and teen years were crucial, formative experiences that were as real and memorable as my time spent running track, competing in the Academic Olympics or grappling on the sparring mat.

Once an event has passed into memory, it is the feeling of accomplishment, reward, mutual achievement and victory that is important. How I feel these feelings is irrelevant. The triggering event does not matter.

To fully understand this, let’s examine what the brain is – and how it functions – a bit deeper.

The Human Brain is the Most Complex Entity in the Known Universe

Our brains are organs of staggering complexity, having approximately 100,000 miles of capillaries…and it can grow more. Your brain has 100,000,000,000 cells. It also has 100,000,000,000,000 to 500,000,000,000,000 connections between those cells and no matter where you are at in your own brain development, you do not even use a fraction of 1% of your brain’s capacity.

Your Non-Conscious Thinking is 5 Times Stronger Than Your Conscious Thinking

Your brain thinks in six different areas at the same time. You have six parallel processes going on at once. Only one of these is your conscious process. The other areas of your brain are not accessible by your conscious brain. You have a different set of neurons that comprise your conscious thinking and you cannot directly access your non-conscious thoughts.

You have a powerful friend or foe in your non-conscious brain. It is 5/6 of your thinking power. Because you cannot directly control or access your non-conscious brain, you have to work at some techniques that will help you control it.

Your Non-Conscious Brain Sees, Hears, Smells, and Touches.

I am sure you have all heard of subliminal pictures. Your conscious mind cannot perceive a picture that lasts for less than about 1/50,000 of a second. However it is proven that your non-conscious brain does see and remember it. Scientists monitoring your brain activity can tell what picture your non-conscious brain saw by observing the firing patterns in your brain when one of these pictures is flashed in front of you. Your non-conscious brain is aware of everything that is going on around you. It is drinking in the world to a much higher degree than your conscious mind. Just because you are not aware of it at the conscious level, does not mean that you are not thinking about – and reacting to – it.

Your Non-Conscious Brain Treats Everything as Real

Notice how when you are watching a scary movie, you actually get scared? You react emotionally even though your conscious brain knows it is not real. The same thing is true for fiction.

You experience fear, happiness, sadness and other emotions when you watch a movie or read a book because your non-conscious brain is watching the movie too and it does not know the difference between fantasy and reality.

Your non-conscious brain believes that everything it thinks, sees, hears and feels is real. It cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy or between the truth and a lie.

The Power of Fiction

Is fiction good for us? We spend huge chunks of our lives immersed in novels, films, TV shows, comic books and other forms of fiction. Some see this as a positive thing, arguing that imaginative stories cultivate our mental and moral development. However, others argue that fiction is mentally and ethically corrosive. That it is a bundle of lies, while nonfiction is the truth.

This controversy has been flaring up ever since Plato tried to ban fiction from his ideal republic.

In 1961, FCC chairman Newton Minow said that television was not working in “the public interest” because its “formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons” amounted to a “vast wasteland.”

What Minow said of television has also been said – over the centuries – of novels, theater, comic books, and films: They are not in the public interest.

Fiction does, indeed, mold us. The more deeply we get into a story, the more potent its influence.

In fact, fiction is more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally and this makes us malleable – easy to shape.

Fiction enhances our ability to understand other people; it promotes a deep morality that cuts across religious and political creeds. More peculiarly, fiction’s happy endings make us believe that the world can be more just than it is right now.

Fiction giving birth to the belief that a better world is attainable may even help explain why humans tell stories in the first place.

As the psychologist Raymond Mar writes, “Researchers have repeatedly found that reader attitudes shift to become more congruent with the ideas expressed in a [fictional] narrative.” For example, studies reliably show that when we read a book that treats white men as the default heroes, our own views on white men are likely to move in the same direction – we view them as heroes. History, too, reveals fiction’s ability to change our values at the societal level, for better and worse. For example, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin helped bring about the Civil War by convincing huge numbers of Americans that Black people are…people, and that enslaving us is a crime against God and man. On the other hand, the 1915 film The Birth of a Nation inflamed racist sentiments and helped resurrect an all but defunct Ku Klux Klan.

Fiction can, indeed be dangerous in the wrong hands because it has the power to modify the principles of individuals and whole societies.

However, virtually all storytelling, regardless of genre, increases society’s empathy and reinforces an ethic of decency that is deeper than politics.

Psychologists have found that heavy fiction readers outperform heavy nonfiction readers on tests of empathy, even after the psychologists controlled for the possibility that people who already had high empathy might naturally gravitate to fiction.

One study showed that children ages 4-6, who were exposed to a large number of children’s books and films, had a significantly stronger ability to read the mental and emotional states of other people. Similarly, psychologists recently had people read a short story that was specifically written to induce compassion in the reader. They wanted to see not only if fiction increased empathy, but whether it would lead to actual helping behavior. They found that the more absorbed subjects were in the story, the more empathy they felt, and the more empathy they felt, the more likely the subjects were to help when the experimenters “accidentally” dropped a handful of pens. Highly absorbed readers were twice as likely to help out.

It appears that ‘curling up with a good book’ may do more than provide relaxation and entertainment. Reading fiction allows us to learn about our social world and as a result fosters empathic growth and appropriate social behavior.

While fiction sometimes dwells on lewdness, depravity, and simple selfishness, storytellers virtually always put us in a position to judge wrongdoing. More often than not, goodness is endorsed and rewarded and badness is condemned and punished. Fiction generally teaches us that it is profitable to be good.

Furthermore, traditional tales – from heroic epics to sacred myths – perform the essential work of defining group identity and reinforcing cultural values, acting as a kind of social glue that binds fractious individuals together around common values.

On the continent of Africa, history, culture, the sciences, social norms and religious practices are imparted through storytelling and the storytellers – Babalawo, Iyanifa, Sanusi, Djeli – are held in the highest regard and are figures of great power, authority and respect.

The traditional African man and woman have long understood the workings of the brain. Indeed, the study, state and function of the three levels of the brain and mind – or “Ori” – are of the utmost importance in traditional Yoruba society. The more stories – called Ese (sounds, ironically, like “essay”) – a Yoruba knows, the more knowledgeable, wise and understanding he or she is considered to be.

The Yoruba “keeps it real, son.”

And so should you.

Read your nonfiction…then get “real” and pick up a novel.

Preferably, one written by me (just keeping it real).

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Where, on the map, is YOUR Fantasy?

08 Nov 2012 10 Comments

by Balogun in Adventure, Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror, Reviews, Role Playing Games, Short Story, Speculative Fiction, Supernatural, Thriller, Uncategorized Tags: africa, african, afrika, afrikan, balogun, black speculative fiction, changa's safari, charles saunders, Dossouye, fantasy, fiction, Griots, imaro, meji, milton davis, Once Upon A Time in Afrika, racism, sword and soul, writers

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: Where, on the map, is YOUR Fantasy?

“Map Fantasy” is an umbrella term I use for the Fantasy subgenres of High Fantasy, Heroic Fantasy / Sword & Sorcery and Sword & Soul. If you ever see a book whose cover depicts a guy fighting a dragon, or a freakishly muscled warrior staring off into the distance as a buxom woman kneels at his feet, crack that mug (in Chicago, where I grew up, we call objects “mug”) open and I bet the first thing you find in there is a map. You have just discovered a book of “Map Fantasy”. Now, there are exceptions; my own Sword & Soul novel, Once Upon A Time in Afrika does not have a map (although it does have a glossary). So do not send me any rants or “I told you so”-s. If you still do, know that you are crazier than a mug (yep, we use it like that, too).

Genre is primarily a marketing tool that publishers use to attract a certain demographic of readers and brick-and-mortar bookstores (yes, some still exist) use to categorize books on their shelves. Secondarily, genre is convenient shorthand – based on typical tropes and themes – to tell readers what type of book they are about to read.

So, what are the tropes of Map Fantasy?

In general, Fantasy uses the magical or the spiritual as an element of setting or plot. Oh yeah, and people wield Big Ass Swords.

In High Fantasy, Elves, dwarves, Halflings and other non-human, albeit humanoid, races often abound and an epic quest is quite common. Of course, the recounting of this quest usually requires multiple books. The Lord of the Rings and the role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons are examples.

Before The Lord of the Rings and High Fantasy, there was Heroic Fantasy, which began with the pulp hero, Conan, the Barbarian, whose “mighty thews” first appeared in Weird Tales magazine in 1932.

Back then, speculative fiction wasn’t as clearly defined by genre and subgenre. Fantasy and horror often lay in the same bed, so Heroic Fantasy was bloody…very, very bloody and magic was – and often still is – wielded solely by the forces of “darkness”.

Sword & Soul – African-inspired Map Fantasy – is less confined by tropes and can include elements of both Heroic and High Fantasy. Sword & Sorcery can be quite bloody and magic is often wielded by the forces of good and evil.

Let’s examine these subgenres a bit closer and see how they are similar and how they differ.

Their Covers

Covers are an easy way to tell the subgenres apart.

On High Fantasy covers, look for men and women wielding swords and dressed in shining armor – women are usually dressed in the compulsory chainmail bra – and fire-breathing dragons, unicorns and electricity-wielding Lords of Darkness. You might also find a Castle, looming in the misty distance, or a wizard with a long, white beard and a pointy hat.

On Heroic Fantasy covers, you will find nearly naked men burying their axes and swords into the skulls of other bloody, mostly naked men, or into the pallid flesh of some creature that looks like it crawled out of the Devil’s toilet. You will also find full-breasted, nearly naked women kneeling at the hero’s feet, with her arms wrapped around his mighty thews. Oh, and as for those creatures that crawled out of the Devils toilet, those mugs usually have mighty thews, too.

On the covers of Sword & Soul novels, you may find the things you find on the covers of High and Heroic Fantasy, with one huge difference:

The hero will be Black.

The Effect of Saving, or Finding, a Mug

Whether saving a princess or finding nine powerful, magic rings, the heroes of High Fantasy will also save the world. High Fantasy is usually driven by its setting and the world is all-important.

Heroic Fantasy is less magnanimous. The effects are usually personal. If Conan saved the world, it’d be by accident, and he might curse Crom for allowing him to do so, because, in Heroic settings, the world isn’t worth – or is beyond – saving. Heroic Fantasy is usually character-driven.

In Sword & Soul, the heroes are usually of higher morals than the heroes – or anti-heroes – of Heroic Fiction. They may – or may not be concerned with saving the world, but whether the characters or on a seafaring safari, wandering a vast continent, or battling for the hand of a princess in a grand tournament, they are, most certainly, character driven.

The Setting

In High Fantasy, the world – yes, the entire world – looks, smells, sounds and acts like Medieval Europe. The places of good are rolling shires and an occasional stony underworld ruled by dwarves as strong – and sometimes as hard – as the stone and ore they mine. Kings are brave and wise and the people are hardy and simple. Of course, there is a Dark Lord just waiting to pass a shadow over the land.

Heroic Fantasy is a bit more willing to experiment. Medieval Europe abounds, but there are also other earth-based societies on the fringes. These societies are usually barbarous, grimy wildernesses (how a wilderness can be grimy is beyond me), swarming with thieves, or exotic lands in which cultists make sacrifices to naked deer-headed goddesses or monstrosities that would make Cthulhu soil his knickers. Farms? Hell, agriculture? There is none. I guess plant-life has a hard time growing when it’s watered with blood.

Sword & Soul is usually set in a city or village based on a real city or village found in ancient Africa. The people in the story are usually based on the real people who populated the real setting the story is based on. Thus, most writers of sword and soul are well-versed in history, or, since they are a lot who often communicate with each other and freely exchange information, they contact another writer who is well-versed in history, particularly African history.

Its Inhabitants

In High Fantasy, humans are generally the baseline. Humans can be bad or good, in league with the Dark Lord, ambitious, timid, brave, or cowardly. Basically, they’re people. White people. Other non-human races exist and their existence is usually a stereotypical one. Dwarves are drunken, hardy louts who never forget a friend or enemy; Elves are usually arrogant and quite delicate, despite the fact they have lived, for eons, in the forest; Orcs are evil, stupid, dark-skinned brutes who are, most likely, servitors of the Dark Lord.

On occasion, one of the other humanoid races will “rise above” his or her stereotypical nature and act more human (i.e. more white). This “exceptional humanoid usually becomes the sidekick of the protagonist, eventually earning the respect of all and proving that all people can transcend their “lowly” upbringing.

Where High Fantasy stories usually veil their racist messages in the actions of its humanoid races, Heroic Fantasy shrugs its shoulders and screams “Who gives a crap?” as it openly embraces its racism and sexism. Jungle-residing cannibals, mysterious and treacherous “Orientals” and sexually insatiable witches are fodder for the mighty thewed heroes’ swords, clubs, axes and penises. Non-humans are rare. If they do exist, they are usually monstrosities best left unnamed.

In Sword & Soul, humans are usually the baseline. However, non-humans also often exist and inhabit the world. These non-humans may be heroes, villains, or just weary travelers looking for a bed and a hot cup o’ joe.

Monsters of various sorts exist in all three milieus. Vampires, demons, zombies and strange creatures, whose bodies are half in our world and half in some other world, roam the planet. In High Fantasy, monsters are varied and quite common. In Heroic Fantasy, monsters are usually less common and a lot meaner. In Sword & Soul, monsters are usually based on creatures from African folklore and are thus stranger – and often more frightening – to Western readers.

Magic

In High Fantasy, magic can be rare, like in The Lord of the Rings, or it can be so widespread that one has magical steeds and magical weapons and magical burger joints. Magic is used to heal the sick and feed the poor, or to infect the healthy with a plague and turn the poor into a shambling horde of zombies. It might be hereditary, or it might be learned from a wise old wizard or an arcane text.

In Heroic Fantasy, on the other hand, magic is usually rare, unpredictable, and is often evil. It is accessible to anyone who is willing to sell a bit of his or her soul to some demonic entity. In fact, Heroic Fantasy is often concerned with the triumph of the sword over sorcery.

In Sword & Soul, magic is linked more to the spiritual than to the arcane. Magic is usually the gift – or curse – of some god, or of some powerful ancestor. It can be as common as it is in High Fantasy, but is always more common than it is in Heroic Fantasy.

The Hero

In High Fantasy, the protagonist is often marked by ancient prophecy to rise to greatness and to remove the shadow that blankets all the mountains and shires. Often, the hero is an ignorant farm-boy, who happens to live somewhere out of the Dark Lord’s grasp. Usually, some town drunk or ne’er do well is secretly the person charged with protecting and teaching the boy when the time finally comes for the lad to take up his quest.

The hero of Heroic Fantasy is the anti-hero. The best of Heroic Fantasy’s heroes lives by a code of honor, but will go against that code if need be. Taking a quest because it is “the right thing to do” is unheard of. Quests, in Heroic Fantasy, are taken for the money, or for sex, or for revenge.

In Sword & Soul, quests are taken for the reasons in both High Fantasy and Heroic Fantasy, but the hero is usually more like the heroes of High Fantasy in morality and more like the heroes of Heroic Fantasy in attitude.

The Villain

We have already seen the Dark Lord throughout this work. Evil, in High Fantasy, is an ideal; a force that must be vanquished. The Dark Lord is an embodiment of that force, so he must also be destroyed. There are clear delineations of what is good and what is evil in High Fantasy; very black and white.

In Heroic Fantasy, the villain is usually just a tad bit more unpleasant than the hero. The hero, however does not wield magic and the villain does. He is not evil for evil’s sake. The villain in Heroic Fantasy most likely wants power, or booty (money and the other booty), and figures the best way to get it is by sending his horde of undead warriors to acquire it for him. If you had a horde of undead warriors at your disposal, you just might do the same.

In Sword & Soul, good and evil is more complex. This is probably because, in most traditional African societies, good and evil is not really dealt with; appropriateness is. If bandits invade a hero’s house and attempt to rape his mother, to do nothing, or to run and hide would be considered “evil”, because it is an inappropriate act in regard to the situation. To kill them all would be considered appropriate, thus good. If our hero runs next door and kills one of the bandits’ grandmother, then that would be considered inappropriate, thus evil. In Sword & Soul, the hero is often forced to deal with such complexities, which makes for some powerful storytelling.

Where do I get started?

By now, you are surely wondering where you can pick up some of these wonderful books to read (if not, you are crazier than a mug). While there are works from High and Heroic Fantasy that I enjoy – chief among them, Mad Shadows: The Weird Tales of Dorgo the Dowser by Joe Bonadonna, I have loved Sword & Soul since I sought it as a child while creating people that looked like me in the world of Dungeons and Dragons and finding Charles Saunders’ Out of Africa article as a young man in Dragon Magazine (I did not know Charles was Black back then) and I have grown to pen a Sword & Soul novel myself and several Sword and Soul short stories.

Thus, I give you a few must have titles to get you started:

Imaro, volumes 1 – 4 by Charles R. Saunders

Imaro is the tale of the titular outcast, wandering warrior and his search for a people and a community to call his own. Written by the Founding Father of Sword & Soul, Imaro is an exciting series that is often compared to the works of Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs, but, in my opinion, transcends all of the works of those authors and is some of the greatest writing in print.

Changa’s Safari, volumes 1 and 2 by Milton J. Davis

Driven from his homeland as a boy, Changa Diop travels the 15th Spice Trade world seeking wealth and adventure. Together with his companions and crew he crosses the Indian Ocean to fulfill his dreams and destiny. His dhows filled with the treasures of the East, Changa begins his journey home. But adventure waits with the winds, changing his fortunes and friendships in ways he could not have imagined.

Griots: A Sword & Soul Anthology by 14 Authors; Edited by Charles Saunders and Milton Davis

Fourteen writers; fourteen artists; one unforgettable anthology! In Griots, Davis and Saunders have gathered together fourteen stories, written by new and seasoned writers, to answer the question: What is Sword and Soul? Each story is accompanied by illustrations to give vision to the prose. A first of its kind, Griots is an anthology that lays the foundation and expands the definition of Sword and Soul.

Once Upon A Time in Afrika by Balogun Ojetade

Once Upon a Time in Afrika tells the story of a beautiful princess and her eager suitors. Desperate to marry off his beautiful but “tomboyish” daughter, Esuseeke, the Emperor of Oyo, consults the Oracle. The Oracle answers, telling the Emperor Esuseeke must marry the greatest warrior in all Onile (Afrika). To determine who is the greatest warrior, the Emperor hosts a grand martial arts tournament inviting warriors from all over the continent. Unknown to the warriors and spectators of the tournament a powerful evil is headed their way. Will the warriors band together against this evil?

“Magic and mayhem. Gods and glory. Witches and warriors. Once Upon a Time in Afrika has all this, and much more. It is Sword and Soul at its finest, casting a long shadow over the ‘jungle lord’ and ‘lost city’ motifs that have previously prevailed in fantasy fiction set in Africa”
-Charles R. Saunders, author of Imaro & Dossouye, creator of Sword and Soul

“Balogun Ojetade represents a powerful new voice in Sword and Soul. He’s a master storyteller with an engaging, exciting style. Once Upon a Time in Afrika is well worth the read.”
-Milton Davis, Author of the Meji duology and Changa’s Safari Volume One and Two

The State of Black Science Fiction: Filled with Possibilities!

06 Nov 2012 Leave a Comment

by Balogun in Adventure, atlanta, Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Film, Harriet Tubman, Historical Fiction, Horror, Panel Discussion, Reviews, Science Fiction, Short Story, Speculative Fiction, Steampunk, Supernatural, Thriller, Uncategorized, Writers Workshop Tags: alicia mccalla, Alien Encounters, atlanta, author, balogun, black speculative fiction, fantasy, fiction, film festival, horror, l.m. davis, Mahogany Masquerade, milton davis, Possibilities, sci fi, science fiction, speculative, State of Black Science Fiction, steamfunk, steampunk, sword and soul, valjeanne jeffers, wendy raven mcnair, Winston Blakely

While many are concerned with the state of the Union on this election day, my concern is with the state of Black science fiction…and fantasy…and horror.

In early 2012, author Alicia Mccalla spearheaded a blog tour called The State of Black Science Fiction 2012 to educate people on the wealth of speculative fiction written by and about Black people available for us to enjoy. This blog tour has since grown into a movement. A movement that has spawned many Blacktacular events, starting with The State of Black Science Fiction Panel at Georgia Tech to the most recent Alien Encounters III convention, which featured The Mahogany Masquerade and other State of Black Science Fiction-hosted panels, book signings and film screenings.

In fact, the State of Black Science Fiction 2012 blog tour and Steampunk activist and journalist, Jaymee Goh, were the inspirations for me to start this Chronicles of Harriet website.

When we decided to form a collective of authors called State of Black Science Fiction, we chose to do a collective story, called Possibilities that we would read at our presentations. Since that time, other authors have added stories and Possibilities has grown into a book, which is now available – for free – on Smashwords!

So, join artist Winston Blakely and authors LM Davis, Milton Davis, Margaret Fieland, Edward Austin Hall, Valjeanne Jeffers, Alan Jones, Alicia McCalla, Balogun Ojetade, Rasheedah Phillips, Wendy Raven McNair, and Nicole Sconiers as we explore the possibilities in the broad ranges of Science Fiction from Paranormal to Steampunk!

STEAMFUNK REFORMERS: Black Activists in the Age of Steam!

04 Nov 2012 7 Comments

by Balogun in Uncategorized, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Adventure, Steampunk, Dark Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Harriet Tubman, Writers Workshop, Panel Discussion Tags: steampunk, balogun, harriet tubman, speculative, sci fi, history, slavery, underground railroad, writers, abraham lincoln, afrika, africa, afrikan, african, steamfunk, Frederick Douglass, Mary W. Stewart, Sojourner Truth, Nat Turner

STEAMFUNK REFORMERS: Black Activists in the Age of Steam

Every month, in The League of Extraordinary Black People Series, we feature members of the League of Extraordinary Black People who fit specific Steampunk Archetypes. This month, we examine Reformers – the suffragettes; the revolutionaries; the protesters and abolitionists.

As always, your feedback is welcomed and encouraged.

Nat Turner

Although Nat Turner led his rebellion a bit before the beginning of the Steampunk / Victorian Era (1837 – 1901), it did happen during the Age of Steam, the period of industrialization, which actually takes place between roughly 1797 and 1914. Besides, Nat Turner’s rebellion fueled the abolitionist movement, thus he certainly deserves a place within ‘The League’.

By far the most notorious and successful slave rebellion was led by Turner in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831.

Born in Southampton County on October 2, 1800, Turner, who was the slave of Joseph Travis, was a preacher who had visions and felt divinely inspired to lead his people to freedom. He plotted his revolt for six months, sharing his plan with only four others.

On the day the revolt took place, Turner and his men gathered in the woods and then began what is known by many as the “Turner Insurrection” by attacking the Travis plantation and killing the entire family. Turner’s group, which had grown to 60, then stormed the county, killing at least 57 whites. As the revolt progressed, the ranks of Turner’s army continued to swell, rising to the hundreds within hours.

Finally, on their way to Jerusalem, Virginia, the county seat, where they had hoped to gain additional support and replenish their ammunition, most of Turner’s forces were caught and subdued. Thirteen slaves and three free Blacks were hanged, but Turner was not captured until two months later, after returning from hiding to free more of slaves.

Turner was hanged on November 11, 1831.

Harriet Tubman

Probably the most iconic of all Reformers, Tubman gained international acclaim as an Underground Railroad operator, abolitionist, Civil War spy and nurse, suffragist, and humanitarian.

After escaping enslavement in 1849, Tubman dedicated her life to fighting for freedom, equality, and justice.

Born Araminta (“Minty”) Ross in early 1822 on the plantation of Anthony Thompson, south of Madison in Dorchester County, Maryland, Tubman was the fifth of nine children of Harriet “Rit” Green and Benjamin Ross, both slaves.

From early childhood, Tubman was often hired out to temporary masters, many who were cruel and negligent.

One day, while working as a field hand, Tubman was nearly killed by a blow to her head from an iron weight, thrown by an angry overseer. The severe injury left her suffering from headaches, seizures and sleeping spells that plagued her for the rest of her life. They also left her with powerful and accurate visions.

In the late fall of 1849, Tubman took her own liberty. She tapped into the Underground Railroad, which was already functioning well on the Eastern Shore. Traveling by night, using the North Star as her guide, Tubman found her way to Philadelphia, where she sought work as a domestic, saving her money to help the rest of her family escape.

From 1850 to 1860, Tubman conducted approximately thirteen escape missions, freeing – by her own account – “thousands of slaves”. Among those she freed were her brothers, parents, and other family and friends.

Tubman brought many of her charges to St. Catharines, Ontario, where they settled into a growing community. Her dangerous missions won the admiration of abolitionists throughout the North who provided her with funds to continue her activities.

In early 1862, Tubman joined Northern abolitionists in support of Union activities at Port Royal, South Carolina. Throughout the Civil War she provided badly needed nursing care to black soldiers and hundreds of newly liberated slaves who crowded Union camps. Tubman’s military service expanded to include spying and scouting behind Confederate lines and she went on to become the most famous among the revered and feared Black Dispatches.

In early June 1863, Tubman became the first woman to command an armed military raid when she guided Col. James Montgomery and his 2nd South Carolina black regiment up the Combahee River, routing out Confederate outposts, destroying stockpiles of cotton, food and weapons, and liberating over 700 slaves.

After the war, Tubman returned to Auburn, New York. There she rose even higher as a community activist, humanitarian, and suffragist, her humanitarian work triumphing with the opening of the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, located on her own property in Auburn, New York, which she eventually transferred to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1903.

Tubman remained active in the suffrage movement, appearing at local and national suffrage conventions, until the early 1900s. She died at the age of 91 on March 10, 1913 in Auburn, New York.

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was a prominent American abolitionist, author and orator.

Born a slave, Douglass escaped at the age of twenty and went on to become a world-renowned anti-slavery activist.

Douglass’ work as a reformer ranged from his abolitionist activities in the early 1840s to his attacks on Jim Crow and lynching in the 1890s. For sixteen years, he edited an influential black newspaper and achieved international fame as an inspiring and persuasive speaker and writer. In thousands of speeches and editorials, he levied a powerful indictment against slavery and racism, providing an indomitable voice of hope for his people and preacheing his own brand of American ideals.

Douglass welcomed the Civil War in 1861 and portrayed it as a moral crusade against slavery.

During the war, he labored as a propagandist of the Union cause, a recruiter of black troops, and an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln.

After the war, he continued to travel widely and lecture on racial issues, national politics, and women’s rights. In the 1870s Douglass moved to Washington, D.C., where he edited a newspaper and became president of Freedman’s Bank. As a stalwart Republican, Douglass was appointed marshal and recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia, chargé d’affaires for Santo Domingo and minister to Haiti.

Douglass died in 1895 after half a century of activism.

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in 1797 in Ulster County, a Dutch settlement in upstate New York.

Truth spoke only Dutch until around the age of nine when she was forced to speak English by John Neely, a cruel and brutal slave master, but she spoke with a Dutch accent for the rest of her life.

In 1799, the state of New York began to legislate the gradual abolition of slaves, which was to be put into full effect on July 4, 1827. Truth’s slave master had promised her freedom a year before the state emancipation, “if she would do well and be faithful.” However, he reneged on his promise, claiming an injury to her hand had made her less productive.

Infuriated, Truth escaped with her infant daughter, Sophia, later saying “I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right.”

Truth then immediately set to work freeing her five year old son Peter. With the assistance of Quakers, Truth made an official complaint in court. After months of legal proceedings, Peter returned to her, scarred and abused.

During this time, Truth had a life-changing religious experience, becoming “overwhelmed with the greatness of the Divine presence” and inspired to preach. She quickly became known as a remarkable preacher and soon changed her name from Isabella Baumfree to Sojourner Truth, telling friends, “The Spirit calls me East, and I must go.” She wandered in relative obscurity, depending on the kindness of strangers for food and shelter. She eventually met and worked with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles, giving her most famous speech at the Ohio Woman’s Rights Covention in Akron, Ohio, the legendary “Ain’t I a Woman?”

During the Civil War, Truth spoke on the Union’s behalf and helped enlist Black troops for the freeing of slaves. After the Civil War ended, she continued working to help the newly freed slaves through the Freedman’s Relief Association and the Freedman’s Hospital in Washington, D.C.

In 1870, Truth began campaigning for the federal government to provide former slaves with land in the “new West.” She spent a year in Kansas, helping Black refugees and speaking in white and Black churches to gain support for the “Exodusters” as they tried to build new lives for themselves.

On November 26, 1883, Sojourner Truth died in Battle Creek, Michigan at the age of 86.

Maria W. Stewart

Maria Stewart was a black abolitionist, feminist, author and educator.

Stewart was born in Hartford, Connecticut, as Maria Miller.

Orphaned by age five, she became an indentured servant, serving a clergyman. Using the clergyman’s extensive library, she taught herself how to read and comprehend. When she was fifteen, left the clergyman and went on to work for herself as a servant.

In 1826 she married James W. Stewart, taking not only his last name but also his middle initial. With her marriage to a shipping agent, she became part of Boston’s small free Black middle class. Stewart became involved in some of the institutions founded by that Black community, including the Massachusetts General Colored Association, which worked for immediate abolition of slavery.

Upon the death of her husband in 1829, she became convinced that God was calling her to become a “warrior” “for God and for freedom and “for the cause of oppressed Africa.”

In 1831, abolitionist publisher, William Lloyd Garrison published Stewart’s first essay, Religion and the Pure Principles of Morality, as a pamphlet. She also began public speaking, at a time when religious bans against women teaching prohibited women from speaking in public, especially to mixed audiences that included men.

In her first address, in 1832, Stewart spoke before an audience of only women at the African American Female Intelligence Society, an institution founded by the free Black community of Boston. She used the Bible to defend her right to speak, and spoke on both religion and justice, advocating activism for equality. The text of the talk was published in Garrison’s newspaper on April 28, 1832.

On September 21, 1832, Stewart delivered a second lecture, this time to an audience that also included men. She spoke at Franklin Hall, the site of the New England Anti-Slavery Society meetings. In her speech, she questioned whether free Blacks were much more free than slaves, given the lack of opportunity and equality. She also questioned the move to send free blacks back to Africa. Garrison published more of her writings in The Liberator and, in 1832, published a second pamphlet of her writings as Meditations from the Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart.

Stewart eventually made a move to New York, New York, where she remained an activist, supporting herself by teaching in public schools in Manhattan and Brooklyn, eventually becoming an assistant to the principle of the Williamsburg School. She was also active in a Black women’s literary group and supported Frederick Douglass’ newspaper, The North Star, but did not write for it. Stewart moved to Baltimore in 1853, where she taught privately.

In 1861, she moved to Washington, DC, where she taught school again during the Civil War. During that time Stewart was appointed to head housekeeping at the Freedman’s Hospital and Asylum in the 1870s. A predecessor in this position was Sojourner Truth. On December 17, 1879, Stewart died in the hospital in which she worked. She is buried in Graceland Cemetery in Washington, D.C.

I hope you enjoyed the latest in the League of Extraordinary Black People Series. Be sure to join us next month when we examine Aviators…yep…Aviators!

GREAT BLACK AUTHORS OF SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY: Past & Present

01 Nov 2012 22 Comments

by Balogun in Adventure, atlanta, Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Film, Harriet Tubman, Historical Fiction, Horror, Panel Discussion, Reviews, Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Short Story, Speculative Fiction, Steampunk, Supernatural, Thriller, Uncategorized, Writers Workshop Tags: author, balogun, black speculative fiction, charles chesnutt, charles saunders, fantasy, fiction, Henry Dumas, ki-khanga, LA Banks, milton davis, octavia butler, Pauline Hopkins, samuel delaney, sci fi, science fiction, speculative, steamfunk, steampunk, sword and soul, tananarive due, valjeanne jeffers, walter mosley, WEB Du Bois, wendy raven mcnair, writers, Zora Neale Hurston

GREAT BLACK AUTHORS OF SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY: Past & Present

Ask people to name Black authors of science fiction and fantasy and only a few names will be repeated, if any names are known at all: Octavia Butler…Tananarive Due…L. A. Banks…Walter Mosley. While, most certainly, these brilliant authors should be in everyone’s library, you are cheating yourself if you do not know of – or explore – the many other great Black authors of speculative fiction.

The Black presence and impact on the world of speculative fiction is a vast and powerful one. Some of these authors you may have heard of; some you may not have. Some will absolutely surprise you. All of them tell Blacknificent stories.

Let’s dive in and see just how deep this well of creativity is.

Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932)

Chesnutt published The Conjure Woman in 1899. The book, a series of loosely associated short stories, focuses on Uncle Julius McAdoo’s efforts to manipulate and dupe his northern-born, white employers, with hilarious results.

Like the famed trickster of the antebellum and postbellum-eras in America – High John the Conqueror – Uncle Julius overcomes an oppressive society through cunning, veiled courage and humor and his tales offer coded commentary on the psychological and social impact of slavery and racial inequality.

The stories Of Uncle Julius combine a good bit of magic – “cunjuhring,” “root wuk,” “goophering” – and creatures of the supernatural, placing it firmly in the realm of Fantasy.

Pauline Hopkins (1859-1930)

Pauline Hopkins was a prominent novelist, journalist, playwright, historian, and editor. She is considered a pioneer in her use of the romantic novel to explore social and racial themes.

Her novel, Of One Blood – also known as The Hidden Self – was published in a serialized version in The Colored American Magazine, beginning in 1902 and ending in 1903. The novel begins on a bitter Boston night, in the living quarters of Reuel Briggs, a Black scholar of mysticism. Hopkins goes on to concoct an intricate and engrossing tale of Asian mesmerism, ancient and mysterious African kingdoms, and metaphysical globetrotting. This book has all of the action, adventure and romance that you would find in a modern Fantasy bestseller.

Harry Potter? Twilight?

Nah, give me Of One Blood!

W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963)

Yes the W.E.B. Du Bois.

While most people know who W.E.B. Du Bois is – and if you don’t, you really need to brush up on your history – most do not know that Du Bois frequently wrote speculative fiction.

A couple of Du Bois’ speculative works include The Comet (1920) – which imagines what would happen if there were only two people left on the planet (a black man and a white woman) and Jesus Christ in Texas (1920) – in which Jesus returns as an enslaved African in Texas to set the enslaved free.

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)

A literary powerhouse of the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston is probably most well-known for her Blacktastic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. Also a cultural anthropologist and Mambo (diviner / spiritual leader) in the Haitian tradion of Vodoun, Hurston published two collections of African American and Caribbean folklore, Mules and Men (1935) and Tell My Horse (1938) respectively, that include extensive sections on Vodoun (“voodoo”) and Hoodoo – a form of African-American traditional folk magic.

Hurston’s experiences with such folklore and spiritual tradition found its way into much of her work. In the novel Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939), for example, Hurston recasts the biblical figure Moses as a powerful Hoodoo man, with a great command over the forces of magic.

Hurston challenges and subverts the predominant stereotypes of Vodoun and Hoodoo as “primitive magic” and “witchcraft”, giving us what she believed to be an authentic, African spiritual path to empowerment for those without power.

The result is a narrative of mythic status and import. Just as myths transcend the limitations of common life and imbue daily actions with universal significance, Hurston uses Vodoun and Hoodoo imagery and symbolism to create a modern American myth, grounded in the African diasporic traditions.

George S. Schuyler (1895-1977)

Schuyler was a satirist, and like many satirists, he created fantastical, alternate realities in order to deliver his social and political commentary.

In his 1931 novel, Black No More, The protagonist, Max Disher, becomes white after strapping himself into the revolutionary “E-Race-O-Later” machine (invented by Dr. Crookman) and begins to understand what it is like to live on the other side of the color line.

Henry Dumas (1934-1968)

A man of many hats, Dumas was a writer, a poet, did a stint in the military, was a teacher, and even worked a year at IBM. A poet of the highest order, poetic rhythms and structures infuse his prose. As a lover of all things Black, Dumas’ writing reflects his lifelong love of African American and African Diasporic folklore and musical traditions.

Echo Tree, an amazing collection of Dumas’ short, speculative works, features such stories as “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” a fantasy story, with elements of horror, set in an underground jazz club. The protagonist, Probe, tests a legendary instrument of immense power on a few unwelcome guests.

In Dumas’ works, magic offers a way of giving power to the powerless – to exact a kind of decisive justice, as when, in “Fon,” flaming arrows whiz from the sky and dispatch a group of would-be lynchers.

This is my favorite author and one of my greatest influences. After you read Echo Tree, I am sure he will be one of your favorites, too.

Virginia Hamilton (1934-2002)

Virginia Hamilton’s first novel, Zeely, was about two children who encounter a “Watusi” (Tutsi) queen on their uncle’s farm. She received numerous honors for her writing throughout her career, including the Coretta Scott King Award, the Edgar Allan Poe Award and a MacArthur Genius Grant, publishing more than 40 books in various genres for children, middle grade, and young adult audiences.

Though Hamilton’s works range in theme and content, much of it is, most certainly, speculative fiction. Hamilton deftly handles topics as diverse as aliens – Willie Bea and the Time the Martians Landed – and African goddesses – The Adventures of Pretty Pearl.

In one of my favorite works by Hamilton – the Justice Trilogy – a girl, Justice, and her twin brothers – all of whom possess incredible powers – are thrust into a desolate, post-apocalyptic world a million years in the future.

Samuel R. Delaney

One of the most prolific science fiction authors of the 20th century, Delaney’s body of work includes more than twenty novels, several novellas, and countless short stories.

Publishing his first novel, The Jewels of Aptor, in 1962 at the age of 19, Delaney has since gone on to win countless prestigious awards including the coveted Nebula and Hugo awards.

His science fiction novels include Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection, Nova, Dhalgren, and the Return to Neveryon series.

After winning four Nebula awards and two Hugo awards over the course of his career, Delany was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2002.

Delaney is currently a professor of English and Creative Writing at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he is Director of the Graduate Creative Writing Program.

Charles R. Saunders

An African-American author and journalist currently living in Canada, Saunders is best known as the founder of the subgenre of Fantasy called Sword & Soul, which is described by Saunders thusly, “Sword-and-soul is the name I’ve given to the type of fiction I’ve been writing for nearly 40 years. The best definition I can think of for the term is ‘African-inspired heroic fantasy’. Its roots are in sword-and-sorcery, but its scope is likely to expand as time passes.”

Saunders has inspired several generations of writers with his work, beginning with the four-volume Imaro series of Sword & Soul novels – about a skilled, fearless, wandering warrior who rivals (exceeds?) Conan – and continuing with the two-volume Dossouye series about a fierce woman warrior from Dahomey and her mighty war-bull, Gbo.

Saunders has also created a Blacktacular pulp fiction novel – and one of my favorites – Damballa, about a shadowy hero who fights evil in 1930s Harlem with unprecedented martial skills and a combination of African and Western science.

If you have not read any of Charles Saunders work, run, don’t walk, to your nearest computer and visit his website,
http://www.charlessaunderswriter.com/
!

Milton J. Davis

Author and publisher Milton J. Davis specializes in writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. He is the author of four Blacknificent Sword and Soul novels – Meji I, Meji II, Changa’s Safari, Changa’s Safari II – one alternate history novel – A Debt to Pay – contributing editor and publisher of Griots: A Sword & Soul Anthology and the long awaited, soon-to-be released Steamfunk! anthology.

His books, and the works he publishes, can be found at
http://www.mvmediaatl.com/
and on Amazon.

Valjeanne Jeffers

Valjeanne Jeffers is best known as the author of the erotic horror / fantasy series, Immortal. She is also author of the Steamfunk novel, The Switch II: Clockwork (Books I and II) the short works, Grandmere’s Secret, and Colony. She has been published in numerous anthologies including Griots: A Sword & Soul Anthology and the upcoming Steamfunk!. Contact Valjeanne at
http://www.vjeffersandqveal.com/
.

Alan Jones

Alan Jones is a native Atlantan, a former columnist for the Atlanta Tribune, and a Wall Street consultant.

Alan writes a brand of science fiction that blends fanciful characters and scenarios with generous doses of philosophy and social commentary. His book, To Wrestle with Darkness, is available at most major retailers.

Balogun Ojetade

A diverse writer and wearer of many hats, Balogun is the author of several short stories in the genres of Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction and of three novels – the Steamfunk bestseller, MOSES: The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman (Books 1 & 2); the science fiction gangster saga, Redeemer; and the Sword & Soul epic, Once Upon A Time In Afrika. He is also co-creator – with author, Milton Davis – of the soon-to-be-released role-playing game, Ki-Khanga™: The Sword & Soul RPG.

A long-time admirer of Harriet Tubman, in Moses: The Chronicles of Harriet Tubman, Balogun elevates this already heroic icon to super-heroic status when he pits her against the advanced technologies and enhanced abilities of the servants of a government that has turned its back on her and seeks to see her dead. Harriet, possessing extraordinary abilities of her own, enlists the aid of other heroes of history to make a stand against the powerful forces of evil.

Balogun is one of the leading authorities on Steamfunk – a philosophy or style of writing that combines the African and / or African American culture and approach to life with that of the steampunk philosophy and / or steampunk fiction – and writes about it, the craft of writing, Sword & Soul and Steampunk in general, at
http://chroniclesofharriet.com/
. His books are available on Amazon and at
http://www.mvmediaatl.com/
.

Wendy Raven McNair

Raven McNair is the author of Asleep, Awake, and the soon-to-be-released Ascend, a young adult fantasy trilogy about teen super-beings. McNair’s stories celebrate African American teen girls. Her novels are available at
http://wendyravenmcnair.com/
.

Alicia McCalla

Alicia McCalla is author of the Teen Dystopian, “Genetic Revolution” series of novels, which includes Breaking Free and Double Identity, which is scheduled for release in early 2013. Alicia’s work is available on amazon.com and through her website:
http://aliciamccalla.com/
.

Ronald T. Jones

Chicagoan, Ronald T. Jones, is considered by most to be a master of Military Science Fiction and his novels, Chronicle of the Liberator and Warriors of Four Worlds, are proof of that. His work is available on Amazon.

*NOTE: For more research on this subject, please check out the website of author L.M. Davis, who has done extensive research on authors of Black Speculative Fiction and is the author of the incredible Young Adult Fantasy Shifter Series of Novels:
http://shiftersseries.wordpress.com/
.

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