Diverse submissions - but are they diverse stories?

I've been trawling the submission requirements of some new science fiction magazines this week, and I've noticed an interesting development.  Quite a few carry diversity statements.  They're at pains to point out they welcome work from under-represented groups like .... well, all the usual suspects.

This is something I've seen gradually increasing during the last year, and it's a very welcome development.  But I'm wondering if it'll make any difference to my chances of success as an SF short story writer. Because encouraging submissions from people of diverse backgrounds is an easy win.  You can measure your progress and point to statistics to show the world how well you're doing.  You can make yourself look good on the VIDA count.  

But the thing is, diverse people also have diverse world views.  And if you're serious about attracting submissions from different groups of people, then you have to be serious about publishing diverse story content too.  But so far that doesn't appear to be happening.  I've read stories that support the patriarchal culture, marriage, and women relegated to the role of mother.  And work division on gender grounds.  None of these things describes my life, and these stories don't serve me or speak to me.

The thing is, as well as magazines honouring my physical diversity, I want them to honour my diversity of mind too.  For me, that means accepting stories which show the evil, exploitative side of sex, which question and challenge the religion of 'the family', and the notion that human breeding is a good thing. I want to see stories about reducing human population and increasing wildlife.  I want to see less about shiny tech and much more about the environmental consequences of making and using that shiny tech.

 

But I'm not seeing that.   A wandering multi-viewpoint story about UFOs outside a diner in the middle of nowhere America just doesn't do it for me.

Sorry, magazines,  must try harder.  Much, much harder.  You're supposed to be the place where we see brave new worlds.  But the future I see in your pages is more of the same, an extension of the culture we have today.  And the prospect of our current patriarchal, discriminatory, sex-obsessed culture extending into the future isn't one I find attractive.  And I certainly don't want to read about it in your magazine.

I'll pass on 'pushing the boundaries', thanks

"This magazine is looking for stories that push the boundaries in form and voice."  So a new SF magazine announced this week.  There goes another gimmicky market it's not worth me submitting to.

This isn't a question of lack of self belief, or of belief in my writing. It's a declaration of self-knowledge and strength.  I've read the starts of a lot of these "pushing the boundaries" stories recently.  And I've rarely got past the second or third paragraph before I'm bored silly.

Often the ideas in these stories are totally impractical.  Tech migh be able to do wonderful things very quickly, but I simply refuse to believe that the human body will be able to change its skin colour every day any time in the near future.  Biology  needs more time to evolve, but why would it evolve to do that?  What evolutionary advantage would it give us?

And that's my problem with a lot of these "pushing the boundaries" stories.  They haven't just pushed the boundaries, they've destroyed them.  So many of them have no points of reference with the science we know today,  and yes, I know we can't predict how radically tech will change our lives in the future.  But while the tech may change at lightning speed, human biology won't.  At least, not naturally.  Genetic modification might make some radical changes, but I suspect we'd find out what we  don't know about the process pretty quick.  And most likely in negative ways like terminal illnesses.

Others of these "boundary" stories have left me thinking "is that it?" when I've reached the end.  So  you've had one off-the-wall idea and spewed it onto the page.  But that's just an idea, not a story,  and ideas are a dime a dozen.

This is where I usually part company with the "pushing the boundaries" stories.  The envelope becomes so pushed that it's totally unrecognisable as an envelope.  Stories start somewhere, they progress somewhere, and they end somewhere.  Beginning, middle, end.  Not always presented in that order, but always there somewhere.  Without them there is no story.

Without them what's left is no more tnan a character or idea sketch showing off the shiny new idea. And I have a hard time caring about those.  So I'll pass on pushing the boundaries, thanks.

The moral in the military

For years I resisted reading any military SF.  The idea of reading about massive space fleets killing each other just wasn't for me.  I come from a family with no real connection to the military, and I had this misplaced idea that military SF would glamourise and glorify war.

I still haven't read much military SF, but what I have read was written by women: Elizabeth Moon and Karen Traviss. Both these authors do have connections with the military.  Elizabeth Moon was a 1st Leuitenant in the US Marine Corps the 1960s.  Karen Traviss is a former defence correspondent and journalist.

I started reading both writers' works unsure if I would like what I found there.  My objection to reading military SF was the same as to reading violent crime.  I don't want to read about blood and gore.  I don't want to read graphic descriptions of people being killed, whether it's by a murderer or the latest military hardware.

I'm sure such graphic books are out there.  But the books I've read by Elisabeth and Karen aren't among them.  Both authors' books are multi-viewpoint, and what surprised me was that some of these viewpoints were civilian.  Far from being a glorification of war, both authors' books explore the consequences of war and the fall-out from military engagement.

In Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War books we're told that an ansible platform is under attack,  and that 4,000 people live on it.  It has to be defended to save those lives,

In Karen Traviss's Halo: Kilo-Five books the whole of the third book is in effect a moral examination of terrorism and the legality of government action.  We're told that the supposed good guys, the UNSC, abducted small children and bioengineered them into super-soldiers.  We're shown how devastated one of the fathers who lost his child is.  So when he becomes a terrorist to find out the truth about his daughter's disappearance, where does the moral high ground lie?

Both authors have used the military format to explore moral issues, and to examine why we must protect civilian freedoms.  And that's my kind of military SF.  One that has its moral heart firmly in place.