CORA Diversity Roll Call is a bi weekly meme, co- hosted by Susan at Color Online and Ali @ Worducopia. This week, its Susan's turn. The Roll Call : Science Fiction and Fantasy "Your assignment: spotlight science fiction and fantasy titles where people of color are the leads, works by people of color in these genres or discuss your thoughts about race in these genres. Do you notice the absence of color? In what ways is race portrayed in fantasy and science fiction beyond using traditional racial terms like black and white? If the book covers prominently features people of color, does it affect your perception? Are we more comfortable with imaginary characters versus different race in these works?"
This meme is hard for me since I didn't grow up reading science fiction and fantasy. I asked two of my co-workers who read this genre for titles featuring characters of color, they couldn't help me. My first thought was damn really. Even in an alternate reality color is ignored. If literature was a math problem ignoring color would be the constant variable. IC =X
Here are a few YA Sci fi/fantasy titles featuring characters of color.
Rogelia's House of Magic byJamie Martinez Wood
City of Fire (City Trilogy) by Laurence Yep -(Sept) the author has many books out
Silver Phoenix: Beyond the Kingdom of Xia by Cindy Pon
The Comet's Curse: A Galahad Book by Dom Testa- This final title made the list because there appears to be an Asian guy on the cover. I am hoping there is actually an Asian character, but I don't know.
The Shadow Speaker Nnedi Okorafor -
Invisible Touch by Kelly Parra
City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende
Marvelous World #01: The Marvelous Effect by Troy Cle
Magic or Madness (Magic or Madness Trilogy #1) by Justine Larbalestier
Dread Locks (Dark Fusion) by Neal Shusterman
Tantalize by Cynthia Leiti Smith
47 by Walter Mosley
The Ear, the Eye and the Arm by Nancy Farmer
Stacy Whitman did the roll call as well with a foucs on MG/YA reads. So if you what more Sci fi/ fantasy featuring poc check out her list. Everything on this list is YA expect Jemisin's title which is slated to come out next year.
10 comments:
Thanks for all these suggestions, Doret! Butler's really the only sci-fi writer I've read & taught, but these newer titles look interesting...
Looks like you managed to come up with some good ones! This Roll Call was surprisingly difficult.
This one was hard but I was able to add to my list twice, so that made me happy.
As much as I appreciate this list, the thing I'm going to remember most from your post is: If literature was a math problem ignoring color would be the constant variable. IC =X
LOL! So true! Thanks for posting!
Thanks, Claudia was starting to worry my math logic fell flat.
Nope, it cracked me up as well, though I didn't comment on it.
Hey, there! thanks for the shout-out! One thing, though -- my book's not YA. (I suppose it could work as YA, since the protagonist is only 19 and teenagers tend to "read up", but that's not how it's being marketed, to my knowledge.)
Also, there's a great list to add to yours here, via the Carl Brandon Society, the organization dedicated to increasing representation for PoC in SF/F. =) They're a little behind on their awards, but if you dig through the site you'll see that they also do periodic lists of Asian American/Pacific Islander SF, Hispanic SF, etc. Good stuff.
Thanks for the link, feel free to come back.
I almost put not YA but I figured, let people click over and find out for themselves. Sounds like a great book.
Thanks for this list--it adds several books to my TBR pile!
Thanks for the list! The only one I've read is City of the Beasts, which sadly I wasn't too crazy about. The diversity aspect was great, though.
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