SethH
Hi there, and welcome to a special author interview episode of the Hugo's There podcast. I'm your host, Seth Heasley, and I'm joined by returning guest Christine, host of Hugo History. Hi, Christine.
Christine
Hello.
SethH
Thanks for being here. And we are going to be today in conversation with Max Dosser, author of Nostalgic Futures, the reactionary fantasies of speculative fiction fandoms.
Christine
of course
SethH
So hi, Max. Thanks for joining us.
Max
Alright, thanks for having me.
SethH
Yeah, thanks for I think you reached out directly to me. or through your people.
Max
Yeah, it was it was me. I was very... Very excited about the possibility of joining.
SethH
Nice, nice. And I thought, since Christine is kind of doing a similar thing that I'm doing reading through all the the Hugos and has more of an academic background than i do i thought she might be interested in this project as well
Christine
I wish. I totally am and I appreciate being invited.
SethH
Nice, nice. So, Max, why don't you kind of introduce yourself? What do people know about you?
Max
Om. So hi, I'm Max Dosser. I... I'm the editor of Flashpoint Science Fiction. It's a... an online magazine where we publish Science fiction and fantasy stories, 1000 words or less.
Max
Every other week, we've been doing that since. 2021 started I started building it in the pandemic with my best friends Thomas J. Griffin. and Kevin Pabst. Thomas is the co-editor along with me and Kevin's are artist.
Max
And so I've been doing that. I'm also, I got my PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2024. I worked at Vanderbilt University for two years after that. And I'm currently at. Wittenberg University in Ohio.
Max
I teach you a lot of courses on communication, on media. and one of my favorite classes to teach is a media ecology class where the final Third of the course is reading and watching science fiction text and thinking about how they use the technology in these imagined world to create new realities and how we can apply the theories we've talked about.
Max
from Stuart Hall, from bell hooks, from a variety of other scholars. to that. World. What? how we that can teach us. about our own world. So I really enjoy.
Max
Teaching, reading, writing, and editing science fiction and fantasy.
SethH
Nice. Nice. Are any of your lectures available for the viewing public?
Max
I think I have. None of my... Like. lectures from class are, but I do have one conference presentation from during the pandemic.
Max
about Avatar The Last Airbender. and how fans discuss. the disability representation in it compared to how disability scholars discuss it and how there's very much a conflict between these fans and these scholars and what we can learn from that so
SethH
Hmm.
Max
Not a traditional lecture, but it is. I think it's interesting.
SethH
Nice. So... How did this book come about, Speculative Futures?
Max
Yeah, that's ah that's a really great question. it's It's kind of a long story, so I apologize if I'm...
SethH
No worries
Max
too long-winded just feel free to cut me down just to the important bits. But when I started my dissertation, I was writing about... film and television music and the communicative role. of those but my first semester in the program at Pitt.
Max
I had to take this pro seminar class in which we would read two readings by professors in ah the department and then pose questions to each other. And then choose one question and when we write like a five page essay on it.
Max
And one of the questions that was posed to me was, There was something along the lines of we talked about how anger can be a motivating force in social movements, but what about stuff like melancholy and mourning? And that question just kind of clicked for me of, oh, the sad puppies and the rabid puppies just kind of immediately made that connection. So I wrote.
Max
A five, I think it was a seven page paper. about that And then I just kind of tucked it into the drawer because... puppy gate science fiction fandom not really the same thing as film and television music
SethH
Mm-hmm
Max
And then over the summer, I was like, yeah, I like this idea. I'm going to expand it to... a much longer piece And they didn't really know what to do with it. And then the... insurrection at the U .S. Capitol happened. And i a lot of the rhetoric that was circulating about those groups and within those groups.
Max
felt very reminiscent to how I was describing the rhetoric within Puppygate.
Christine
Mm hmm.
Max
I was like, well what's the connection here? so like That shifted my entire trajectory. away from music more into what is the relationship between the effective attachments fans have to speculative fiction media and these logics of violence and exclusion that we see in reactionary groups.
Max
So I... cut the paper back down to an article size, published an article. then I expanded it back out to the dissertation. and then i use that dissertation as a seed for this book so it really all goes back to a question someone asked kind of offhandedly about anger, mourning, and melancholy and then grew into a dissertation and ultimately this book.
Christine
that' That's fun. I feel like that's how some of the best grad classes are where it just. leads to these incredible questions that just get in your head. um One of the things I really enjoyed about the book was how.
Christine
You talk about nostalgia itself. as a form of speculative fiction that a lot of these people fandoms political movements are You know.
Christine
Absolutely creating an imagined community. ah And creating, sorry, an imagined past. um In the conclusion, you actually argue thattor that histories are also narratives crafted to communicate a version of the past. um I am a historian.
Christine
That is what my PhD is in. And I'm like, a hundred percent. I feel like that actually ends up being some of the conflict that historians have with. let's say lay consumers of history because there's this idea that there's only one narrative of the past and you're like the past is complicated our sources are weird and sometimes you just put them together in different ways um so like
Christine
That for me, I don't know if I actually have a question here, but that for me was like one of the interesting parts about your book is just like how we construct narrative, how we construct memory. Oh, I do have a question.
Christine
Memory has actually been a fairly hot topic within science fiction in the last few years. Like I'm currently reading Mahmoud El-Sayed's Republic of Memory. There's like a really great series of novellas by Olivia Waite, I want to say, where it's about like people on a generation ship where like their bodies can be remade and they like.
Christine
just store their memories almost in a library. um What do you make of that? That's my question.
Max
but That's a really... That's a really interesting question. And, you know, I bring up the the stuff about history, particularly at the end when I'm trying to kind of move beyond just the realm of speculative fandom and connect it to like the US Supreme Court where Clarence Thomas is like, not all histories are created equal.
Christine
Sure.
Christine
Mm-hmm
Christine
Yes.
Max
So this idea of like memory and how memory is recurring. in these stories I think it's really interesting I haven't read either of the series you're talking about. the um The first one, Republican Memory, is next on my list after I finish.
Christine
yeah
Max
um, Chara and the Sun.
Christine
Yeah, I know. i just I just started it last night. But it... It feels almost like... this sort of focus on memory. in within science fiction is tapping into something that you are seeing and writing about in fandoms in your book. This idea that...
Christine
And maybe part of it is just that we are in this like very partisan age where it seems like people have very different visions of like what the present are based on like what their media is. And so like, there's just this desire by, you know, speculative fiction authors to write about that.
Christine
um Which I think is cool.
Max
Yeah, no, that's that's a really great... point in the great Question I do think that a big part of it is probably motivated by you know, alternative facts and like misinformation disinformation and just.
Christine
Mm-hmm.
Max
how Like I was in a faculty meeting. the other day and someone was talking about he He teaches a Holocaust history class. And he was talking about how in his classroom he brought up.
Max
how mass deportations equal mass death and how students got up and left the class after he said that.
Christine
Oh wow.
Max
And he's like, this isn't an opinion. This is fact. This is something. we've shown and someone else was like well why do you even need to say this if this is fact Like we don't need. to just convey Um, I don't know exactly how I said that makes it sound worse than it probably was even though it was like an odd comment but like the this idea where he responded like Well, people don't trust facts anymore.
Max
People have these various.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
stories that they tell right I mean even looking back when i was working on chapter one of the book and i was reading sam moskowitz's I'm the immortal storm. And how he brings up one. early fan club and he's like oh this is the only one that had a black person leading it.
Max
but he's not important to the story so anyway it kind of moves on it's like whoa why isn't he important to the story? Like this is a. an entirely different history than if that person was included maybe maybe not entirely different but choosing what we focus on what facts are real what facts are alternative
Christine
Totally.
Max
That's just so much in the zeitgeist right now that I think.
Christine
100%.
Max
With speculative fiction being a... a genre that's very much commenting on the present through writing about. the past and the future. It just makes sense that. authors are becoming more interested in what is our cultural memory and how can we see this cultural memory within the individuals and how their memories are being altered or changed or
Christine
Okay.
Max
Doubted.
SethH
It's interesting, when when i when you originally reached out and I saw the title, My initial reading of the title was, oh, this is going to be some. rah-rah thing about how great science fiction is and and how great science fiction fans are and what and what good they do in the world um because i did not immediately go to reactionary means bad um and and that's to be fair there is nuance
Christine
oh but Absolutely.
SethH
um but But I do want to talk about some of the kind of language that that's used. And you you used it, and I think people might have heard you say effective when what you said was affective.
SethH
um And you use that the noun. noun and adjective form of affect and affective.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
um differently than i've than I typically see, right? People... Really? Lots of times. people use effect when they mean affect and affect when they mean effect but those are kind of the verb forms right or um so can you talk a little bit about what you mean by that
Christine
Oh, I'm going to jump in for just a hot second because every time I read.
Max
Yeah, that
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
ah Effective. Oh, what was it? Effective responses. My head translated that as. Big feels. but Big feels about the thing.
Max
Yeah, which is not wrong at all, right? I think... So one reason I use the term affect is that there's a long tradition of affect studies within communication and cultural studies that I'm really drawing from.
Max
And there are... I think if you polled 50 affect scholars and ask them what affect means you would get 50 different responses some that are wildly different right so when i originally wrote the dissertation i had a like very deep dive into like this is the brian masumi camp and this is the other camp and this is the sarah ahmed camp
SethH
Nice.
Max
And I'm very much in the latter where I can understand. um Ahmed talks about how you can distinguish a physical reaction from kind of the emotion we use to name that. And that's really the difference between affect and emotion.
Christine
Hmm.
Max
or at least for some people it's like when you see a bear your body reacts and then we name how that body reacts and how this how our body is reacting will translate into the way that we are feeling.
Max
Right. And I think And I may be, you know. Some people may be like that's not what he's saying. But the way that Sarah Ahmed talks about it is, while we can distinguish between these two things, in practice they're the same.
Christine
Hmm.
Max
but There's no real difference between the bodily reaction and how we name.
Christine
huh
Max
said bodily reaction. So that's generally how I go. I use affect and emotion, not necessarily interchangeably, but not. not interchangeably. I'm talking about things like anger and what anger can do.
Max
And I look how anger is kind of saturated within. post and within movements. how people are using this emotions or how they feel connected to something and generally our connections are rooted in things like love or in hate so i use affect and affective very similarly to how i use how I would use.
Max
emotion and emotional attachments. I just part of it is like the academies.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
of there being a
SethH
yeah
Max
very long lineage of affect studies.
Christine
Yeah. like One of the things this makes me think about and what I thought about when I was reading a sort of your discussions about effective responses is that Like, ah you know, like many people, I have been in a lot of therapy. And I think that part of therapy is learning part of like what I have learned in therapy is learning to differentiate like those physical reactions versus.
Christine
how you name them because like we have lots of strong feelings and you talk about this in the book that like love and hate are not actually that far apart it's just like this really strong emotion and we put a different label on it um And I think that that's also something that's...
Max
right
Christine
kind of an important point that you are making in the book in that like There are movements that are trying to harness. these emotions for particular goals um and that You know.
Christine
As I was reading the book, I like... I kept thinking about how. Like... throughout the history of science fiction. um or speculative fiction, or just... fandom like there are seems to be like we have these like restrictive binaries that people keep wanting to have like there be two camps you know is it is it literary or is it more like actiony? Is it something message driven or is it fun? Is it escapism? Is it politics? And like.
Christine
you know You were talking about these things historically within the genre, which I really enjoyed, but like it really reminded me of like current debates about like cozy fiction versus either harder sci-fi or weird sci-fi or things like that.
Christine
At the end, I was sort of left wondering, like, is this just how humans engage with art? like That we always want to create this like. Like, I mean, there's like the stuff we white like, and then we want to give it this label. It's almost like, again, like labeling our emotions. Like I like this. And then I want to put a label on this thing. And some of that label is marketing like that, you know.
Christine
publishers want to put labels on things so that people can find things they like so people will buy stuff but like i don't know is this a permanent part of fandom we will always be like recycling these debates with slightly different terminology
Max
that's a that's a really interesting question it makes me think about like romanticy
Christine
oh
Max
where Romanticy is now, you are either like a defender of Romanticy or it's smut. right and doesn't belong on the fantasy shelves right it's generally just these like like you said, this dichotomy, when in reality, there are a lot of people.
Max
in the middle right and i think that
Christine
As a historian, I'm always like everything is messy. but we do we don't even do like fear like the political scientists the sociologists they like theories we're like mm i don't know about that everything is messy anyways sorry
Max
Yeah.
SethH
Yeah. Well, and and how can we ah how can we say what the stuff is that we don't like if we don't have a name for it?
Christine
Sure.
Max
right Yeah. and i think that's that's a like big thing and you know i won't get into the psychology of it but something about when we We can only...
Max
contain so much knowledge so we often use labels to say like oh this fits with this box and this fits with this box which is why stereotypes exist right because we just kind of like see something that fits it with something else we put it in the same box without understanding or like really engaging with the nuances and then once we're finally like okay let's open up this box and see okay these things are not the same then we create new dichotomies and say okay within this box we have
Christine
Um...
Christine
Sure.
Christine
m
Max
like before it was like science fiction or not science fiction and now we have hard science fiction or soft science fiction and then we have cozy and then you know it's like always just kind of like going in and saying this is one thing and then this is a thing that it is not
SethH
Mm-hmm.
Christine
I... It almost makes me think about how Like...
Christine
Humans tend to fight more about the things that are- closer together but not the same like i'm thinking about sort of like you know different branches of christianity wanting to fight about what is correct versus like Christians just being like, nah, I don't even like, I'm not too worried about what the Buddhists are doing.
SethH
Yep.
Christine
That's just different, you know, but I'm real mad about what the church down the street is doing.
SethH
Mm hmm.
Christine
um Yeah, it just seems to be like... something about people.
SethH
Yeah. So. In the first chapter, you kind of go through the the origin of speculative fiction fandom. which was really interesting to me. And it's it's something that kind of in reading older science fiction, you...
SethH
you understand too it's When you go back and you think about the the early... um The internet of the time, which was writing letters into magazines, you know. um it it's It's fascinating, that entire...
SethH
sort of beginning of fandom, but... I was surprised how quickly there was. controversy between what kind of science fiction the different fandoms wanted.
Max
Yeah, and there's you know almost immediately there's the new fandom versus the Futurians. They have this very... different idea where the Futurians are like, we need to use science fiction and science fiction fandom to make a more socially just world very much kind of like using the communism that drove a lot of that movement whereas new fandom is saying like nope It should just be fun. Just be escapist. We don't want any of this.
Max
kind of politics in here but then like the the fiction that they're pointing to is you know, like H .P. Lovecraft, where... Is this not political? Right. You know, the idea of like.
Christine
you
Max
And this gets to with the sad puppies and rabid puppies too. Like what is message fiction?
SethH
Right.
Max
you know. I had beers at...
SethH
Message fiction is something that has a message you don't like.
Christine
Yes.
Max
Exactly. Right.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
There's this great. a book by Elizabeth Sandifer. um the neo the basilisk I'm near reactionary. I forget exactly what it's called, but it's has this section talking about Puppygate.
Max
where Sandifer says, talks about one of the nominees that Box Day promoted, which is very much a like Catholic parable. And she asked like, How is this not message?
Max
Is it because you are also Christian, right? Versus like this being messaged because it features a black person. right just this It's more identity politics than anything else.
Christine
Yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
and I found it. Fascinating that. you don't see these exact same arguments but you see so much of this Like from the very beginning and then throughout, like I, when I found that Jerry Meyer letter, which was.
Max
1980. when that was written. I just thought this was this fascinating. letter where mayor comes up with like some traditional criticisms like oh it's not written as well as other genres it's repetitive blah blah blah also it's racist and sexist And then all the responses were like.
Max
We'll ignore this part and just talk about how you said it doesn't have good science.
Christine
ah
Max
And then an editor was like, Well, we want it to be repetitive because that's what people buy, right? And there's kind of like ignoring certain things because like this isn't what we want to touch versus these are the things we will engage with.
Max
And that's just been from you know the 30s Onto today. There's just so much of this like cycles of repetition going back to what we we're saying like this is one thing and this is another and i like this one thing and I want to reject or get rid of this other thing.
Max
I think the difference is now that a lot of You know, we have social media. We have a way to make the thing that we don't like our opinions about it much louder.
Christine
Mm-hmm.
Max
and can act on it in a way that You know, you were talking about like writing letters into magazines. and like coming up with fanzines and things like this that had a much more limited audience than When you post something and it gets retreated. retweeted by you know some very popular. reactionary influencer.
Max
And then all of a sudden, Gamergate goes from a small thing to... you know, is on the national news. Right.
SethH
Hmm. There was another another terminology question here that used the term revanchist. Forgive me if I'm not pronouncing it correctly. I've only ever seen it in print.
Christine
Yeah, I really like that part where you talked about revanchist nostalgia versus...
Max
The same, actually.
Christine
I forget forgot what the other one was. Reactive maybe?
Max
but Irrestorative.
Christine
Restorative nostalgia, yeah.
Max
Yeah, so this came from... it The first time I saw revanchist or revanchist or how However, I have also only ever seen it.
Christine
I think that both of those are correct
Max
Yeah, I've only seen it in my own writing and the writing of I forget his name. It's Smith. I believe, but he's writing about like urbanism and kind of this like revanchist movement from like.
Max
white communities when black people started moving in and they're not only
SethH
Mm hmm.
Max
wanting to get rid of them but punish them for even like blemishing the space i thought this was this really interesting idea when you apply it to nostalgia where to Just to get to what Christine was saying, like restorative nostalgia.
Max
There. Svetlana Bohm describes that there's reflective nostalgia and restorative nostalgia. Those are two modalities where restorative is thinking about Oh, this is how things used to be. I want it back like that. now. Like I want to recreate the past in the present. and It's what leads to a lot of conspiracy theories, a lot of...
Max
you know national revivals and things like that whereas reflective nostalgia is saying this thing happened It's gone. I can mourn it and then I can move on. still kind of. Looking back fondly on it, but maybe not. Bing.
Max
Maybe not trying to recreate it. And Revancha's nostalgia fits much more. with restorative where it's trying to bring back a past but it also wants to punish those who made that past or made that restoration necessary so looking back and they're like science sci-fi used to be just fun it used to be just white straight guys writing it, which, you know.
Max
very debatable version of sci-fi's history. But they're saying this is what it used to be. It used to be so great. And now we're seeing queer people. We're seeing black people. We're seeing people of color. We're seeing women winning awards in writing. We don't just want to go back to what we used to have. We want to get them out.
Max
We want to punish them. We want to, as Fox Day said, blow a hole in the Hugo Awards so they can never be awarded. Again, never get this acclaim never get the monetary boost never have the careers that they would if they were involved in this.
Max
right so it's this idea where it's moving from just recreating the past. to trying to recreate something and then hurt the people that they deem responsible.
Christine
Oh, um So one of the things, since we you were bringing up terminology, one of the things I was curious about, I mentioned this before we started recording, is that you're you're clearly engaging with the field of fan studies. um I don't actually know anything about fan studies.
Christine
as a field. um and when i was making notes about this i almost wrote as a genre which made me laugh um
SethH
Same.
Christine
But like... In the... in in your intro you were talking a bit about how fan studies has shown that fans are not passive and uncritical but that a lot of fan studies focuses on fandoms as progressive and transgressive like fandoms are always trying to like move things push things forward push things in a new way and you are kind of in this book are being like not all fandoms are progressive um is that sort of like
Christine
Is this? I'm sort of curious about like the development of fan studies. over time like how people have scholars have talked about fans and how that's changed over time like was there a point where fans were seen as just like receptors of Um, uh...
Max
Yeah.
Christine
of of like media and then at some point people were like oh no they they do stuff. They comment, you know, they're more active. Like, can you just talk a little bit about that?
Max
Yeah, no, that's that's a really great question. So I think it was like in the late... I think 1988. and 1992 were like major years for fan studies scholarship.
Max
where they were the first time like John Fisk, Henry Jenkins, Camille Bacon Smith. We're all saying, hey, we've been dismissing fans as just kind of consumers who are just kind of mindlessly buying whatever.
Max
Durr being so. Right. there's a new star wars movie they're gonna buy it they're gonna watch it That's it. That's all fans do. And those early scholars were saying, well, actually, they're doing a lot more than that. They're writing fan fictions. they're them creating convention they are you know doing these fanzines or writing letters to the creators they're being very productive.
Max
alongside their consumptions we're kind of challenging this idea of fans it's just being like you said passive you know consumers, that they were active producers and consumers at the same time.
Christine
who
Max
And a lot of what they talked about were fandoms like Star Trek. Star Trek is like the fandom that people talked about for a long time. And they're like, look at the fan fiction. They're including women in lead roles. They're including queer relationships. They're like having disabled characters. Look how transgressive and progressive they are.
Max
And a lot of the early stuff was focused on that looking at them being active producers and them going against and kind of pushing culture forward And then there's a second wave that's more kind of... Well, now we need to talk to the fans. Let's interview them.
Max
right so they kind of like got into and that we want fans perspectives alongside just our critical readings of their work
Christine
Sure.
Max
and there are some scholars that call this like the fandom is beautiful phase when they're like this is all fandom is such a beautiful expression of culture and they're trying to really Um.
Max
Be progressive, be transgressive, all this stuff. And then there was a shift that came. I don't know exactly. When? probably in like the late 2000s, early 2000s. Actually, I think it's... Right around 2015, Rebecca Wanzo wrote this piece where she's like, why don't we talk about black people?
Max
why don't we talk about black fans and that's because like fan studies really ignored sports studies or sports fandom because sports fandoms was
Christine
oh
Max
pretty explicitly racist so they were like really much focused on a selected group of fandoms that were progressive and transgressive and I forget which scholar.
Max
said it, but part of that is because They were fans of that. so that's what they knew so that's what they were writing they were a part of these communities
Christine
Yeah, totally. And it also kind of makes sense to me that like some of the people that want to write about like sort of fandoms of you know star trek maybe they're not sports fans so it never even occurred to them to compare those two worlds it's sort of like you get a historian who they only speak a certain number of languages so they can't really do comparative things with someplace else that they don't speak that language yeah
Max
Right.
Max
Exactly.
Max
Exactly. So then around this time, there's become a growing movement to kind of reconsider, I think Rukmini Pondi and Mel Stanfill are two that I really draw from a lot in my book, who are saying, okay, let's reconsider how we engage with racism. Let's reconsider how fans are engaging with gender, because it's not as progressive as it seems. Let's reconsider. And that's really where kind of this shift to where I'm becoming a part of, where there are
Max
Now more people are kind of examining how fandom can be beautiful. right but it can also be profoundly ugly that's the The new Mel Stanfill book, maybe not new anymore. Mel publishes a book every year, it seems like.
Max
But they their latest book is... called fandom is ugly, kind of pushing back against the fandom is beautiful phase.
Christine
like this is getting so meta for me because like Seth and I are fans. Um. But we both engage in certain kinds of acts of popular criticism.
Christine
Like Seth has a podcast. I do as well. But I also write for a couple of fanzines. You are. also a fan max but you also are a author so you're a creator within the field and then i feel like hovering over that you're a scholar of sff and fandom like
Max
Right.
Christine
How does that all work in your head? How does that work for you, sir?
SethH
okay
Max
Yeah, that is a ah terrific and difficult question, right? I think in you know, I think that... If someone else, and one thing I say in the book is like,
Max
I could write this about historical fiction, I could write this about something else, but I don't because that's not really what I am. a fan of right i am I am in the world of Puppygate. I am in the world of Not My Jedi and all these other controversies. So that's really where I was drawn to.
Max
Because that's what I knew. And I think that there's like kind of there's a valid criticism of like, why are you?
Christine
mm-hmm
Max
Not talking about blank. It's like. I don't know about blank. I mentioned Alabama football in here. And I'm like, my best friend had to tell me about this stuff because I know nothing about college football in general.
Christine
100%.
Max
Yeah. So it's just the idea of like being a term that people use is like an ACA fan, like an academic fan.
Christine
oh
Max
where you are.
Christine
I like it.
Max
Yeah, you have to both think about okay i'm engaging in these communities but am i like influencing them by the things that i'm posting and i'm writing and then i'm writing about
Christine
Yeah.
Max
them in a way that maybe I have directed some people to act or respond so it gets into this kind of and one way that I've tried to avoid that is I just don't post on social media or really anywhere.
Christine
Oh. First.
Max
I'm a very, I'm i'm a lurker.
Christine
Okay.
Max
I am. like i say in here i'm a raccoon that like digs in the trash cans to find interesting things because
Christine
I enjoyed that.
Max
Because I just don't. I don't want to ever see Mike. People would be like, oh, like. max is saying this and then go and look at it be like well max was posting in this a lot right he's like commenting on these fan fictions that he's writing about or he's like
Christine
you need ah You need a persistent pseudonym that is not related to your academic profile, sir.
SethH
a
Christine
We need to go back to the old days of the internet.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
so I'm also curious Like... How much of like... I guess, especially sad puppies and rabid puppies. did you like Was that something you were actively paying attention to at the time?
Christine
um because like for me my relationship to sci-fi is a bit weird like i feel like i read some sci-fi like i'm almost 50 and i read some sci-fi and fantasy when i was like a teenager and i loved some of it but i also bounced off a lot of the women not really seeming like people in a lot of it um and then I want to say sometime around, like...
Christine
probably like 2013 to 2015 so like right in the sad puppies era is when i started re-engaging in part because it was exciting to me. that were all these new authors and like when i started reading nk jemisin it was like super excited about that kind of stuff and so i actually completely missed the sad and rabid puppies i only saw references to it and then eventually you know read up on it so i was just curious like is that something that you were like watching at the time or
Max
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's... a great question and I I feel like I was like a lot of... um young college. students because i was you know i was in grad school my master's program when sad puppies happened and my roommate at the time was thomas griffin who i co-edit Flashpoint with.
Max
He was really much very much into the genre and he was trying to get me to read more of it so he would like give me brent week's books i'm like oh these are great like who else can i read and he was kind of pulling me into it and he would It would just kind of like come. Because we.
Max
our bedrooms were downstairs in the main living room was upstairs and i would just walk upstairs he'd be like oh here's the new thing that happened in public gate today so i heard about it but i didn't really know who the players were it was just kind of something that i would be told about
Christine
Sure.
Christine
Mm hmm.
Max
and then not think about again for No. four or five years after that.
Christine
o
Max
until i was in my phd program and then like it tickled my brain i was like oh sad and rapid puppies like i need to look more into that so i did not
Christine
Yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
I did not follow it at the time, but I knew about it. as it was happening because of Thomas.
Christine
Okay. Seth, how about you? Was that something like I don't actually know when you started to get more involved in SFF fandom?
SethH
Yeah, it was it was mostly after that. It was it was kind of you know like 2017 was when I started the podcast.
Christine
oh
SethH
And i was I was podcasting. I was doing podcasting before then, but and i had a friend who's a little better plugged into like reads file 770 and that kind of thing um and he would occasionally mention it but i had gotten it so jumbled up in my head i thought that the sad puppies and rabid puppies were on opposite sides i didn't realize that it was just you know oh No, you're right, but also even worse you know with the rabid puppies, right?
Christine
Mm-hmm
Christine
ah
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
Let's be more destructive about this.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
right
SethH
um So I did miss a lot of that. um And it's interesting because I do have. I have a variety of friends of different ages. I'm in my 50s and some of my friends are older, some are younger. and um And like my...
SethH
and nephew is a big science fiction reader and so we'll talk about what he's reading and really enjoying and then i have my other friend who's older who really I won't say identifies with the sad puppies, but really prefers older science fiction.
SethH
It's the stuff he grew up with.
Christine
hu
SethH
It's the stuff that's comforting for him. Right. And there's nothing wrong with having comfort reads that.
Christine
Yeah.
Christine
No.
SethH
appeal to you when you were nine, right?
Christine
Mm hmm.
SethH
and and still enjoying those and wanting to defend some of that.
Max
right
Christine
Mm hmm.
SethH
It's where it gets toxic is when you're trying to make. changes or cheat the system or blow it up altogether.
Christine
Yeah. Yeah. because
Max
Yeah.
Christine
I do think like... I think that sometimes, especially when people like something and it's like a book that really affected them, as especially from like their childhood, if someone else attacks that book, they feel personally attacked and that they have a lot of trouble separating those. two.
SethH
Mhm.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
Yeah. No, and I think those are both really great points. One thing I tried to emphasize about the last jedi in particular i think this connects to your point seth is like they're lots of valid criticisms of the last jedi like i love the movie but i recognize that there are many faults in it so i'm not saying like oh you don't like it you are reactionary you are you know, a white supremacist, right?
Christine
uh-huh
SethH
Yeah.
SethH
Mm.
Max
I i think that's one thing that I really don't want to get lost in the book, to be like, if you are not on this side that I am saying, then you are automatically this terrible.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Sure.
SethH
Right.
Max
person. But...
SethH
Right.
Max
I think there's a way that kind of this And I try to get to this particularly in that chapter where a lot of times these valid criticisms or even just defending things that you like a lot.
Max
against criticism can then lead into either identification with reactionary groups or you're just trying to find more in defense of it or more that you don't like about something else. And then you read something and you're like, oh, this is by Ben Shapiro. like Actually, I kind of like this.
Max
isn't what i was saying but he's on my side so like am i now
SethH
Right.
Max
identifying So I think that's one thing. that I definitely want. a nuance to be taken from this book that you both brought up is that just because you are defending a past object or a beloved thing that other people no longer like does not i'm not then saying you are a racist or you are a men's rights activist or anything like that it's more
SethH
red
SethH
Yeah, yeah.
Christine
Well...
Max
Yeah.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
I thought that like one of the important points you made is that like SFF doesn't inherently have an ideology.
Max
Mm hmm.
Christine
It can be used to advance all kinds of ideologies and often the same piece of fiction or media can be read in... different ways and like maybe the Maybe the problematic activity is in saying, no, it can only be read one way and my way and the other ways are wrong.
Christine
Like, it's totally cool to criticize and critique things.
Max
Exactly.
Christine
But yeah, like sort of that that reductionism is.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
yeah
SethH
Yeah, and you can reduce authors down too, right? Like like early early in the book, Max, you mentioned Robert Heinlein, right?
Christine
sure
SethH
A lot of troubles. I mean, it's not surprising, somebody of his era having a lot of problematic thoughts. but in a lot of his different books you know there's there's like double star i don't have you heard that one christine
Christine
I have.
SethH
Like I really enjoyed that.
Christine
It was an early, it was his first Hugo winner.
SethH
And I was like, this is surprisingly. Sorry, go ahead.
Christine
I'm pretty sure that was his first Hugo winner.
SethH
Yeah, yeah. and I read that one. I'm like, that's surprisingly progressive for this guy who I know from this other work. and it it still of course has a man slapping a woman
Christine
Yeah, yeah
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
yeah like he like Heinlein as much as like part of but the reason I dislike Heinlein is because he gets so much he takes up so much of the oxygen when we talk about classic science fiction um but like He was very progressive on issues of like race and sexuality.
SethH
Yes.
Christine
He was like very. Like he was. very like significantly like very heterosexual he was not comfortable with gay shit um and you know later in life he gets like he uh he like legitimately has a bit of a freak out about like communism and so like kind of ends up in this a little bit like
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
too excited about totalitarianism place but i think for me it's just like like all of those attitudes are totally like
SethH
Mm-hmm.
Christine
expected for the historical context in which he is coming out of but he just takes up like such a huge space partially because like his a lot of his novels have been made into movies and people like them that it's like ah can we talk about some other people like Clifford Sinek is a delight you know
SethH
Yeah. Yes. Definitely.
Max
Yeah, wasn't that the the podcast you two did on the city?
Christine
It was.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
I got Seth to read it.
Max
Yeah.
SethH
Yep. Yeah.
Christine
Dogs.
Max
Yeah.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Or the city, sorry.
Max
the
SethH
Yeah, that's great.
Max
Yeah. And I think that's a, you know, a great point about like collapsing authors. I bring up Brandon Sanderson in the book just because he's, you know.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
He's very, he's contemporary. He's very popular. And I, I showed two different readings of one scene, but you're right about like Heinlein, like strangers in a strange land. has like multiple genders like three genders and like the puppies are still like holding him up it's kind of this like idol of
SethH
Mm hmm.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
Right.
Max
Like... conservative. And like... reactionary sci-fi in the same way that when i because i read ender's game the whole series before i really knew much about orson scott card and i read the first two like particularly speaker for the dead or speaker of the dead i
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
I love Speaker for the Dead.
Max
Yeah. I'm like, this is a great book. And I feel like this is a pretty progressive book. And then I got to the third one. I'm like, okay, wait, now here's some stuff that I'm like pausing on. So I think they're like, you're saying they're.
Max
There are multitudes in. people it's just like there are multitudes and authors and the Oh yeah, go ahead.
Christine
Yeah. No, no, but
Max
But I was just... And that the... You know, it's too easy or it's very easy to boil them down and be like, this person now is in this camp and this person's in this camp. Going back to our earlier conversation about these dichotomies.
SethH
Right.
Christine
Bionaries.
Max
Yeah, bye now.
Christine
Yeah, dichotomy.
SethH
Well, and and over time, too, like if people show you who they are, believe them. Right. And so so it's not not like you can never get to that point where you're like, OK, I'm done. um You know, I like Speak for the Dead is one of my absolute favorite books.
Max
right
SethH
But I agree with you that that. In the totality of. of Orson Scott Card's writings, there's there's signs that are there that at some point you have to go, okay, the evidence is pointing towards that is who he is.
Christine
And.
SethH
um And then, of course, his his nonfiction writing. which Really tells you that.
Christine
Okay. Yeah. Well, because I feel like it's somehow related to this. like this reductionary nature, like ah that so this thing that people want to do with authors, I feel like it often happens when...
Christine
people do discover that an author is maybe terrible and then a lot of other people want to come out of the word board to be like yeah well i never liked their work and Like...
SethH
Right.
Christine
You know? Our appreciation of things can be, like, way more nuanced than that. Like, you may have loved things about Harry Potter. You may not have noticed some of the, like... stereotyping and things that like have now been identified as problematic in there or like you might have that might have just like gone past you and you loved other parts of it um and so it can also feel weird that you like do you have to like retcon your past you're like no no i didn't like it really or you know
Max
right
Christine
it's a little bit of a...
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
i I think about...
Christine
it That is also a thing that people want to do.
Max
Yeah, I think about the Harry Potter thing a lot because I opened the book with Bye. with a description of goodreads right and when i first got goodreads
Christine
o
Max
if there was a book that i had read in the past that i liked it got five stars right so like there are a lot of books that i read when i was younger and really really liked like i think i gave ready player one five stars and now it's like looking back i'm like oh like I don't think...
SethH
Same.
Max
that And then it's like, okay, well, like. If people will like read my. read this book and then they're like oh like let's look at his reviews and be like how does this kind of square with what he's talking about here i do think there's kind of this
Christine
We're gonna...
Max
idea of like we read things at a certain time maybe we're not aware of certain things and we really like it
Christine
Yeah. we're going to use that to create a narrative of who you are max that's the next step
Max
Exactly.
SethH
Right. Yeah, yeah So going back.
Max
Right.
Christine
well i mean i feel like wait sorry i feel like that actually happened with like
SethH
um
Christine
i can't remember his name the guy who shot the pharmaceutical executive people were literally analyzing like what he gave five-star reviews to to like be like oh is he a conservative or a liberal it's
Max
Louis Jean.
SethH
Right.
Christine
We are very reductive humans.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
I mean, it makes things make sense, but...
SethH
yeah Mm hmm.
Christine
Yeah. Sorry Seth.
SethH
I wanted to go back to to talking about the um sort of the Star Trek fandom. And and I've talked to people about talked to people who don't like Star Trek.
Christine
oh
SethH
the new trick right that's happening right now.
Christine
Hmm.
SethH
End. seeing people posting about how they don't like Trek when it's political. And and you go. Have you watched the show? I mean, because, and and I was talking to somebody about this recently and said, you know, the fact is that when you look back on the very, very obviously political allegory.
SethH
shows and on on the original trick where you had the guy whose one half of his face was white and the other half was black and the other guy had them on the other side and that was enough for them to be enemies. um You are to the point in your life where.
SethH
you're on the right side of that. You're on the right side of history. with with with that message. And so you're comfortable with it. But now there's something that's maybe pushing the boundaries a little past where you would like them to be. Fast forward 20 years, you might be on the right side of that now. But for right now.
SethH
it it feels wrong to you.
Max
right You know, we were. um I'm not sure if um you had hopped on at this point, yeah Seth, but Christine and I were talking about like Andy Weir's comments about Star Trek.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
And like how he wants to. Like how he views his work as apolitical and how he doesn't like the new Star Trek. He likes the old one where it's just kind of.
Christine
A lot of people got mad at him for that too.
Max
Yeah. that it popped back up because of Project Hail Mary.
Christine
oh
Max
And he's like, I miss. like i like star trek when they're shooting at each other and it's like it's not political but Then there's the whole idea of like, well, why are they shooting at each other? This is...
SethH
Right.
Max
a series that was created by gene roddenberry who was a signer of the like anti-vietnam Ward. Um, ad that i talk about in the book right there's like so so much about that that is very clearly like there are books written about how marxists star trek is but you know it's just kind of what is political what is not political and so often Like you're saying, what is identified as political then is the thing that is pushing things forward, whereas what we have accepted as
Max
Umnormal is no longer identified.
Christine
I'm just thinking, in what universe could Starship Troopers not be political?
Max
but this
SethH
Right.
Christine
Peace.
Christine
Um,
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
Yeah. And, you know, you get into con. conversations about you know, gender swapping or or race swapping. I think you mentioned the go Ghostbusters movie from 2016 and the review bombing, right?
Max
Hmm.
SethH
It's not a remake. of that older movie it never was a remake of that older movie it's it's a sequel it's sort of in the universe but there was no reason to be angry about that. and i I don't get it.
Max
Yeah.
SethH
um But there's, I think. kind of the looking at like the sad puppies, right? the I can understand some of it where you're like, if all of your life. All of the fiction that you read, all the comic books, all the movies, everybody looked like you.
SethH
That would be really comfortable. Right. And so when a little tiny bit of that is pulled away and so other people get the crumbs from the table, now that feels like lost to you. and you want to fight it. um and And, you know, it takes maturity to
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
to not feel that way.
Christine
And to understand what those emotions are and be like, oh, this is actually okay.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Like I can sit with my discomfort with this a little bit.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Um.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
And it's also like a skill you develop. Like you figure out how to do that. Like I, you know, sometimes when I read books that are set in cultures that are not my own, I i don't know those cultures.
Christine
So it takes me a little while.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
I don't feel. automatically comfortable in them um for me that's kind of what's interesting because i'm like how i don't know that much about chinese mythology so let's do this you know but
SethH
Mm hmm.
SethH
Mm hmm.
Christine
Um. But yeah. But some people, you can... ah I could see people having a negative reaction to those kinds of things.
SethH
Yeah, and you have to be prepared to do the work there.
Christine
i know
SethH
Right.
Christine
Yeah, there is some
SethH
of of how do I understand this?
Christine
Yeah.
Max
yeah One of my favorite. um Just a ah little bit in the book. is talking about Cracker Barrel. And how Cracker Barrel... introduced Impossible Sausage, so vegetarian friendly sausages.
Christine
How dare.
Max
And people got... were furious. because they're like you are making this into like you're ruining this like conservative image of what Cracker Barrel is. Like people were saying, make Cracker Barrel great again.
Max
But like you're saying, like.
SethH
oh boy
Max
They didn't take anything off the menu.
Christine
Mm-hmm
Max
but they were still serving the same things they were just kind of expanding it and
SethH
Right.
Max
I think the like the biggest thing is it wasn't. to be progressive it was to make more money.
Christine
Mhm.
SethH
Right.
Max
And it wasn't trying to send any message beyond just saying, oh, we can make more money if we serve people who don't eat. Me.
SethH
Mm hmm.
Max
so But there was this idea that because you're not making because you're making something for something else, you're now making less for me.
Christine
Yes.
Max
when in reality
SethH
Right.
Max
They're just making more in that. You know, we see that with the publishing industry. like The puppies are getting very mad that there are queer and people of color and... just a variety of identities in the publishing industry putting out books.
Max
But that doesn't mean... the other like the more traditional author the white cishet man is not still publishing books right we're just publishing more, the audience is growing so they're able to have more content. but the fact that it is not.
Max
The thing that they used to have on every shelf everywhere. then feels like they are losing something.
SethH
Yeah. Yeah, well, and like you mentioned the The line between fan and anti-fan can often be the a tiny little thing you the the the property the object that they're they're considering does one thing that they don't like and then all of a sudden you're not my jedi or hashtag black stormtrooper and and you're review bombing movies that you you used to love this franchise and now
Christine
Mhm.
SethH
You're an anti-fan.
Max
Yeah, it can be just like a bad object is what. um i call it in the book and what i've heard on the current
SethH
Mm hmm.
Max
Cornell Sandbox. I think that... It's either him or Jonathan Gray was the first person I heard use the term, but... this idea of something comes in and almost contaminates the object so then and then it's even
Christine
Mm hmm.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
like it's not just getting rid of that one thing but then there's the risk that it may return so sometimes you don't go back to being a fan even when you get rid of it i think about like star wars there are so many anti-fans of star wars because star wars introduce people of color right like people hated the acolyte for so many reasons Right.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
And then they canceled it. And they're like, hey, we're not doing that. anymore and then people were like well maybe you'll do it again So I still hate you.
SethH
Right.
Max
I'm still going to like constantly shit on you.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
just all the time because you did this one thing that even though you've decided not to do it anymore you're kind of like cowed. to the reactionary fans.
Max
I don't trust.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
that you're not going to do it again.
SethH
Yeah. Well, let's pull on that thread a little bit because we do definitely move there in in the book. um But there's also the... the spotlight amplification i think was the term he used for like ryan johnson quote tweeted somebody's criticism of of the last jedi And because his fan base is so much larger. It just gave the signal boost to the anti-fans.
Max
Yeah.
SethH
um and And so it... it's counterproductive. um and it seems like the impulse is is good but the effect is kind of negative.
Max
Yeah. that i think that happens and that's one thing that i was worried about With my book, like this is still like exposing a lot of reactionary ideologies, like discussing this, even if I'm trying to show like. how these are harmful Some people may read this and be like, oh, I do feel, I feel similarly.
Max
Right. And I think that.
SethH
Right.
Max
we see this a lot with or one of the first big examples of this was gamergate We're GamerGate. Like what's being talked about on national news and so much of the coverage was saying this is so terrible like look at how bad this is kind of being like let me show you how progressive and Good I am.
Max
by talking about how terrible this thing is but then other people saw this because it made it to national news and werere like hmm no actually
Christine
oh
Max
I too think that. And so the movement kind of grew and took on a lot more attention and gained a lot of followers because, you know, you're spotlighting it to refute it, to say it's bad, but by spotlighting it.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
by like you're saying of ryan johnson when he retweeted or Yeah, when he commented, rep replied to the men's only cut of The Last Jedi. There were so many people who followed him and so many people who liked or commented on his post that it got pushed into other algorithms. And the views of that film of that.
Max
Fan cut. like skyrocketed. because more people were watching it because they knew about it when before it was this like very small kind of minority of people who knew about it.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
niche
Christine
Yeah, like' it I feel like it goes back to a lot of the debates that... have been happening over the past like 10 years, about. platforming. different kinds of ideas like oh do we need to like debate the nazis to show that they're wrong or again just debating nazis give them this attention and i
Christine
So again, I am a historian. I just think that like our brains have not adjusted to. the reality of social media yet like as humans like You...
Christine
When you look back at at sort of like other major technologies in the past, like when radios were introduced, when like the novel was introduced, like printing press, like that also changed so much about how people saw the world. And it took a little while for stuff to settle down. ah It's weird to be living in the middle of one of those.
Christine
But yeah, I just, it's. I just, I feel like our human brains are like. Algorithms really screw us up.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
It's one of the reasons why I actually like blue sky of the social media is because it's just like. chronological you know there's nothing where it's like oh if somebody likes this a lot I'll see it or you know because you know you get Because that's the way that you end up with.
Christine
you know all kinds of things in your feed.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
You know, that it reminds me of, there's a pair of verses in the book of Proverbs in the Bible that are back to back, and I promise it's germane.
Christine
word
SethH
Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.
Christine
I believe.
SethH
And then the next verse is, answer a fool according to his folly or he will be wise in his own eyes um it's damned if you do damned if you don't right like according to the situation you have to decide is it worth it to engage this thing
Christine
yeah
Christine
oh
SethH
So it goes back thousands of years.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
That's really hard. Yeah. And like, again, looking back at the history of
Max
Yeah.
Christine
Fandom. No, the history of the genre, the history of the fandom of the genre. like I feel like we... constantly have these debates you know going back to the futurists and the What did they call themselves? The new fandom?
Max
the new fandom.
SethH
New fandom, yeah.
Christine
That's interesting to me. So like a couple of months ago, I read Uh, frederick poles uh the way the future was it's um it's a memoir but it's a memoir of his participation in fandom and also as an author and he was one of the futurians and so that was
Christine
like It's just this amazing kind of, it's it's a primary source because it's like it's very much his own story, and he clearly does not like Moskowitz and like some of these some of these other people. um But yeah, just it feels like, we again, we keep having this debate that you know you've got the the new fandom and the Futurians, and then in the 50s, 60s, you get the new wave versus...
Christine
the old wave i don't know what the other side is um and and now we're having this cozy versus
SethH
Hmm.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
question mark question mark um Yeah. We just do this.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
This is the thing we do, which I also think like it's important to analyze and look at these patterns over time. So by saying we always do this doesn't mean that I don't think it's important to like.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
think through how we do it because it's often really hard to notice these things in your own context but they can become much much more clear
SethH
Hmm.
Christine
When you look at them in other historical periods, you're like, oh, my God, why we're seeing people so mad about. you know I don't even know. Why were they so mad about this particular book?
SethH
Hmm.
Christine
Like, just don't read the book. And then you're suddenly like furious if someone has like said something about, you know, Neil Gaiman or whoever. um it's
SethH
Mm hmm.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
Yeah. it's So chapter four in the book is sort of a ah case study. in the video game industry for anti-fandom backlash backlash and response right where you had two different games that came under under criticisms for similar things and how leave.
SethH
the companies responded to that. I don't know if I don't want to. spoil it for for people who haven't read it um you know i i think it's enjoyable to read but Maybe we can talk a little bit about that.
Max
I will say, um of all the chapters, that was the hardest one to write.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
And there was recently a review of the book in Locus where chapter four was singled out as being, you know, a highlight. And I found that to be very rewarding because that one.
SethH
Hmm.
Christine
Oh that's great.
Max
was very difficult for me to put together, in part because the way I wrote it was different than the way I wrote the others. Revanche's nostalgia wasn't key to the the original draft of it until i came back later because the reviewer was like hey this is very prominent in these chapters but this one just feels separate so then i had to rework it to make that more of a central component but you know that's just kind of like behind the curtain type thing that that was the chapter that underwent the most revisions
Max
And so I was very happy that it. It's now my favorite chapter. I reread the book recently. to... no So I would remember the things I had said for this conversation.
Max
And when I got to that one, I'm like, oh yeah, I like this. I like this chapter. It's very good.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
Not to toot my own horn. but yeah i mean thank you but the i do think that this is a really interesting
SethH
No, I agree.
Max
The idea of like shame versus pride. and I think going back to the original conversation of like affect and emotion. I can't say what these people are feeling. Right. So.
Max
I don't know if they were actually shamed. but I also don't know if it matters like when there's this reactionary backlash to a queer relationship in Mass Effect and then BioWare.
Max
cuts all the queer content, or I guess not. all the queer content but the majority of the queer content from the s sequel That seems like a res- like a direct response to it being on Fox News and like all this kind of backlash that they got.
Max
They even, ignore one of the, Brian can. Kind Reagan? who i i quote in the book says like we There wasn't someone who was homophobic in the company. He was like, don't do this anymore. but we had to protect our profits right so it definitely feels like this kind of capitulation which then has followed by where through all of its games since then, right?
Max
There's, I think there has not been a game they've produced since Mass Effect 2 that has not had some reaction of why are you putting queer characters in there?
SethH
Yeah.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
like the biggest one was their most recent game veil guard because there was a ah character who Their story involves them discovering that they're non-binary. And people were just trashing the game so much before it came out because they knew that there was a non-binary character.
Max
And part of that is... They're like, oh, well, you got rid of it before, so maybe you'll do it. again. Whereas Naughty Dog kind of was like Oh, you didn't like this? Let me put more of it in.
Max
And again, I don't know if that's...
SethH
Right.
Max
That's how I'm reading the situation. People at Naughty Dog may be like, oh yeah, that wasn't. Like, we didn't even care. like no we had always planned to do this or whatever it may be but to me it felt very much like this reaction of we are proud and neil druckman the director of the game or the co-director of the first one and then the director of the second one has said like we are proud of the characters we feature in this we are proud of the game that we made.
Max
And then like. I think it's telling that when the... tv series kind of moved away from some of those things they did um druckman left the show
SethH
Hmm.
Max
but he's no longer involved in the third season. And I think some of that may have been some of the shaming that we saw.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
In the... nasa fact campaign right like they've completely changed the way abby looks from the game where she's extremely muscular and she's like
SethH
Right.
Max
very take charge to the way that she's portrayed in the tv show and i love kate Caitlin Dever. as an actress i think she does a great job as abby but it's definitely a different depiction of the character than it was in the game.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
in a way that almost feels like they are. now capitulating because it's not just Not just a video game anymore, and that's quotes for people who can't see me. right just a the video it's now a tv show that's going to have an audience that you know other people may reject to this so they're trying to get ahead or you know, do whatever. And I think Do whatever is a...
Max
A bad. Is a not precise way to say like they're trying to get ahead of the reactionary hatred that would be thrown at the creators and the actress. But it still happened.
Max
right like i think that was the thing with bioware that i said like
SethH
Right.
Max
they tried to get rid of it then they kept getting hate thrown at them and their characters and their actors. So then when they made the last of his TV show, they tried to get. ahead of some of this hatred and it didn't matter they still got hate mail they still got you know social media blitz like caitlyn devers still received hate mail and like death threats and all of this stuff even though they were almost seeming to try to capitulate so then the question is like why Why do it if it's going to happen?
SethH
Yeah.
Max
Anyway... Which is why I think Last of Us Part II is such a great... It kind of... counter example to this where they are saying Hey, we know what you said before and we don't care.
Max
if We're going to do it anyway. And now in their next game, Intergalactic, they seem to be pushing that.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
even further because they're like hey, now we're doing this again, but... for the first time in our company's history, I think. ah Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. um we're having a person of color as the lead character.
Max
Right. So like. going even further and kind of being like i know you're gonna hate this but we care about showing a wide range of representation and identities. And we're doing it anyway because you're going to hate us regardless.
SethH
Right.
Max
So.
Christine
but This is...
Max
Again, I'm just, oh. Go ahead.
Christine
Sorry, this is like bringing up something for me where like I'm thinking about Hmm. Within politics, there are all of these... Oh, like I'm thinking about what's the name of the the guy running for Senate in Texas, the Democrat.
SethH
Tallarico.
Max
Tallerico.
Christine
talrico like he recently made some some comments that were presented as anti-trans he was trying to kind of like split the difference like i'm i'm liberal but i also like want to grant that people's fears are are reasonable or what have our you and like a lot of liberals are like super super angry about it and he is still being presented as like this, like he only wants, he wants everybody to be trans by conservatives.
SethH
Right.
Christine
And and obviously I am. i am being reductionist in my portrayal of this but like It feels like... with a lot of these movements. You can't, like... The compromising is seen as...
Christine
it makes you suspect so it even if you try to compromise even if you're like okay we took the gay people out of the of the video game like The fact that you ever had them in. you are dead to us now and it doesn't matter.
Christine
And I don't know if there's a lesson there.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
like how to react to things um i'm sure that it doesn't always act like sort of acted exactly that way but it seems like there are a lot of examples where it does um
Max
m
Christine
To the extent that I feel like I've seen lots of discussions online where like you might have a politician who in the past had said some, let's say, homophobic things, but now is like. Oh, like. yeah i was young i was stupid like i you know i've realized that but like people like won't believe them it's like because like once you thought that thing you can never be trusted whereas like we all as individuals know like We change our minds all the time. And like some of what I think is happening here is that.
Christine
so much of the discourse is now performance that nobody trusts anything that oh you're just performing in a way and and i do feel like this is definitely a thread that you get at in the book but just like if everything is performance then everything is constructed and nothing is real um post-modernism has completely won and Where do we go from here?
SethH
Hmm.
Max
Yeah. And I mean, I think... Like. uh when uh i think Push back on. maybe some of the things I just said is like maybe the idea is Naughty Dog is just performing progressivity because their first game got a lot of rewards and a lot of money and like They realize that the people complaining were in the minority.
Max
So they're like going to cater more to that. um Adrian.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
Adrian Shaw talks about, you know, like you're only representable in so far as you're marketable. So the fact that.
Christine
Yes. Well... like and i've definitely heard like people will sometimes say bad things about quote-unquote virtue signaling and i'm like i i'm happy with like signal your virtue that is way better than signaling your vice like you know kind of maybe eventually you'll believe that thing if you signal it for a while but
SethH
okay
Max
Right.
Christine
Yeah. Like what is performance versus what is real and like. are those things completely separatable which i don't personally really think that they necessarily are.
Christine
I don't know
Christine
Sorry, Max, you have to solve humans.
SethH
Uh, Is there hope for for better in the future? Max. yeah i was I was hoping that there would be, ah at the end of the book, a ray of sunshine for going forward.
Max
I...
Max
So it's funny that you say that because when I got... reviews back on my book. One of the comments was said. said that I got too sunshiny at the end of the book.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
And that I needed to tamp. tamp that down. But I...
Christine
Interesting.
Max
I would say yes. Like one of the, another review I got, which. My editor and I didn't completely agree with, but I thought was interesting. They're basically saying you should write a different book. But it was saying there are so many studies about like reactionary content that have come out in the past 10 years. Like, why aren't we focusing on?
Max
like more progressive causes. Right. And like part of the book is being like, we've done a lot of that in fan studies. Like now we're trying to look on the other side, but it made me think like, I think there is.
Christine
sure
Max
And the next piece I want to... We're gone. is i'm calling it Right now... um um world's otherwise speculative fiction and the politics of possibility, where I want to engage with groups who are using speculative fiction to imagine a more...
Max
you know. i don't want to say utopian but more progressive and more accepting future so looking at game modders who are adding in queer relationships to games that don't have it looking at magazines like fire that are trying to you know promote voices that have long been absent from speculative fiction looking at the way people are using cosplaying to discover their gender and so sexuality right i think that there's a lot of great ways that people are building.
Max
And then ah the last one is like political activists. There's this book called Octavia's Brood. that was a collection of like short stories and just pieces where people are talking about using speculative fiction and Octavia Butler's influence on them.
Max
And I read that in my media ecology class. I have them read the opening chapter as we also read speech sounds. And I think that it's, you know, I think there's so much about speculative fiction where there is building this better tomorrow, a better today, right?
SethH
Yeah.
Max
based on Not saying, oh, we need to go back to the past, but saying. There were things wrong. in the past but we can imagine a better better future and you know to say christine if you virtue signal enough maybe you believe it if we think about building a better world enough maybe we'll actually build it Right.
Max
So.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
the next the next book i want to do It's kind of flipping the script and saying how are fans using this? in a progressive way right now that the pendulum in fan studies has kind of swung all the way from it's always progressive to now people are saying well this actually can be ugly and it can be reactionary say okay well like now let's think more about the ways that These fans not these fans in this book, but speculative fiction fans are.
Max
you know. making the world better and how they're doing that through an imagination of what could be. and what will be. So there is a ray of sunshine.
Max
It's just not written yet.
SethH
All right. okay Sounds good. well you know um Kind of moving into final thoughts here. and i I really enjoyed the book, and and I think it's an important one. You know, I i will put it on my ballot.
SethH
uh this year for uh best related work. I think this kind of kind of book really slots well in there.
Max
Thank you.
SethH
I like that you got a blurb from Jordan Carroll um on on the back of the book.
Max
Oh yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
jordan friend
SethH
I was lucky enough to get to chat with him at the the Hugo finalists after party last year in Seattle and tell him you know how important I thought the book was for speculative whiteness.
Max
Oh. Awesome.
SethH
um so So yeah. Peace. It was very good. Final thoughts, Christine?
Max
Thank you.
SethH
Sorry.
Christine
I have a question actually is about, not about the book, but it is about the fact that you seem. This could be wrong, but my... My initial perusal of your website leads me to believe that in your own fiction writing, Max, you seem to specialize in flash- fiction like that's what the journal is Can you talk a little bit about why flash fiction?
Max
Yeah, I mean, that's a that's a great question. I think... part of it is my So Thomas and I... We both. we're writing flash fiction and At the time, it was basically just daily science fiction that would publish it.
Christine
I know.
Max
right So we we liked kind of the challenge of having to write these compressed stories.
Christine
Hmm.
Max
And the the telling of full, beginning, middle, and end in just a thousand words. And now now Thomas and I are very much into drabbles, where it's just 100 words. We're just getting shorter and shorter until eventually...
SethH
Hmm.
Christine
What was that word? Into what?
Max
Drabbles?
Christine
Drabbles.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
Okay, that's not a word I speak.
Max
So there's a... There's a journal called, um, a hundred foot crow. um Edited by Victoria Brum. who we published in Flashpoint Science Fiction. And I'm sorry, Victoria, if I'm saying your last name wrong.
Max
But, um... We publish in Flashpoint a lot and Victoria has, like, publishes one 100 word story every week on Wednesday.
SethH
Wow.
Max
So part of it was we made Flashpoint because we just felt like there was a hole in the market for this short.
Christine
Okay.
Max
short form, but also it was just... I don't know, Thomas and I, at this point, we both have... um young daughters we are both like much more into our career and have less time so thomas still writes novels but i I find I have increased... Uh.
Max
I have less and less time for Fiction? I don't think flash fiction inherently... is easier.
Christine
No.
Max
But.
SethH
No.
Max
It is much... Much... I'm faster to write a 700 word story than a 70 ,000 word novel. So I'm able to. you know, get it get it done within my schedule and still have kind of the challenge of i want to convey this fantasy world or this You know, this futuristic.
Max
Setting.
Christine
Mm hmm.
Max
but I have so little time to actually paint the scenery. So what am I actually focusing on?
Christine
Yeah.
Max
I i just find it to be an interesting.
Christine
Hey.
Max
challenge.
Christine
I think that I noticed this because I have recently been trying to teach myself to appreciate short fiction and also sort of like I guess speculative poetry.
Christine
And for me. Uh uh. i've been having this discussion on there's a discord that's associated with uh the hugo spreadsheet of doom and i've been having this sort of discussion about like sometimes i'll read a short story and i'll be like well it was interesting but it didn't seem developed enough which seems like a very boring critique of short fiction because
Max
okay
SethH
Right.
Christine
how's it going to be?
SethH
It's short
Christine
So like part of it is like, well, how much of a feeling does it evoke? You know, I i guess if it feels like if it's missing something, then maybe it's. Maybe it didn't do its job well enough, but as I've started... literally moving into trying to read just a poem a day it's like okay this person had like 150 words. How did they...
Christine
How did they convey a specific feeling? Did they tell a story? and I'm just interested in how other people try to appreciate that kind of very short fiction um and i as someone who edits a flash fiction magazine I feel like you
Max
yeah
Christine
You read a lot of it, so maybe you have some thoughts there.
Max
the the biggest or the main reason that we will reject a story at flashpoint is that it is um the first chapter. of something, right?
Christine
Ah.
SethH
Mm.
Christine
Sure.
Max
like so often and i think this is holds true for short stories as well you just have more words for your first chapter is that And we we recently received a story where someone in their cover letter was like. i couldn't finish the story but i thought the beginning was good right and that's not
Christine
Yeah.
Max
not what we're looking for we're not uh
SethH
Yeah.
Max
um air and nothingness press is doing a call right now for endings so they only want like the last 2 000 words of stuff which i think is a very interesting idea but that's that's not what we want right we want ah a fleshed out beginning middle and end and it's
Christine
That's kind of cool.
Max
It's really difficult to do that in such a short amount of time. So I think what you're saying is. you know really important for like what is the feeling that's evoked we I'm very much drawn to stories that make Like.
Max
they get an emotional reaction to me thomas is really drawn to stories that use the limited space. to paint a beautiful picture.
Max
right Thomas is very much into the prose, I'm very much into the emotion, but then we both want there to be No. a character that either we root for or that we hate right to go back to this like effective connection that we talked about like we want there to be
Christine
Mm-hmm Yeah.
Max
something that we're rooting for either to fail or to succeed and
Christine
Hm.
Max
Flash Fiction's a... you know it's an odd duck because a lot of times people will submit like lists of things or like you know, epistolary type. things I don't know if that's the right word for what I'm thinking, not just letters, but like someone submitted a grocery list that we really liked and someone else wrote like the transcript of a radio broadcast.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
So you can do a lot of.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
interesting things with flash fiction that I think is harder to pull off in a much a longer format because you know reading a grocery list for 7 000 words you're like okay like good to the point but reading a grocery list for Um.
Max
600 words and then you can kind of get this emotional feeling at the end of like oh they're buying something for like their mother's funeral or something like that it's it can be very powerful and impactful so I just find that the emotion of flash fiction.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
Hmm.
Christine
It's interesting.
Max
I often feel more in those short pieces than I do for longer short fiction.
Christine
oh Does... Does flash fiction fall under a Hugo nominatable character category? ah category
Max
I'm Mary Rob... Mary Robinette Kowal. one. um best short story for a flash fiction piece about um the robot monkey
Christine
How many, like... So what is flash fiction? Like how many words are we talking?
Max
it um It depends on your journal. Like daily.
Christine
Of always? The answer is always.
Max
Daily...
Christine
ends.
Max
Hmm. Daily Science Fiction said that it was up to 1500 words.
Christine
Okay. All right.
Max
we so We say that it's 100 to 1 ,000 words.
Christine
Okay.
Max
Some places say that it's 500 to 1 ,000 words and that under 500 is microfiction.
Christine
Okay.
Max
but in
Christine
Oh, okay.
Max
In general, if you're in the under 1000. worried you're in the flash fiction.
Christine
It's probably from Ash Fiction.
SethH
Right, which is covered under the umbrella of...
Christine
I'm like, okay, microfiction. Wait, what?
SethH
of short story as well right
Christine
Yeah.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
i just like there's microfiction and then we're gonna like you know yeah just anyway
SethH
We're in nano fiction and Pico fiction after that.
Christine
nanofiction i read gigafiction give me a
Max
Yeah.
SethH
so but
Christine
Brick.
Max
but
SethH
Yeah.
Max
yeah
SethH
I think that's – I'm glad you – pulled on that thread christine of because i do want to say max where where can people find you
Max
Yeah. um So thanks. I think we're wrapping up. So thanks so much for having me and Seth and Christine for this great conversation.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
I'm on my website is just my name.
SethH
Absolutely.
Max
So Max Dosser, M-A-X-D-O-S-S-E-R .com. And then Flashpoint SF. is our magazine. We are I'm currently running a holiday contest. I imagine by that in the time anyone hears this, we will no longer be running that, but hopefully we will have other things in the future that people can submit to. And you can find me.
Max
and Flashpoint, you can find me at my website. End. I would love to hear from any and all. the listeners.
SethH
Well on that note Max it was really great having you. Thanks so much. This was an absolute pleasure It was a lot of fun.
Max
Thank you.
SethH
And Christine, thanks for being here.
Christine
Of course. Super fun to be involved.
SethH
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. is Very grateful to to have you here to answer questions while I was thinking of my next one. And not answer, to ask questions, yeah. So that was very cool All right.
SethH
Bye now.
Hi there, and welcome to a special author interview episode of the Hugo's There podcast. I'm your host, Seth Heasley, and I'm joined by returning guest Christine, host of Hugo History. Hi, Christine.
Christine
Hello.
SethH
Thanks for being here. And we are going to be today in conversation with Max Dosser, author of Nostalgic Futures, the reactionary fantasies of speculative fiction fandoms.
Christine
of course
SethH
So hi, Max. Thanks for joining us.
Max
Alright, thanks for having me.
SethH
Yeah, thanks for I think you reached out directly to me. or through your people.
Max
Yeah, it was it was me. I was very... Very excited about the possibility of joining.
SethH
Nice, nice. And I thought, since Christine is kind of doing a similar thing that I'm doing reading through all the the Hugos and has more of an academic background than i do i thought she might be interested in this project as well
Christine
I wish. I totally am and I appreciate being invited.
SethH
Nice, nice. So, Max, why don't you kind of introduce yourself? What do people know about you?
Max
Om. So hi, I'm Max Dosser. I... I'm the editor of Flashpoint Science Fiction. It's a... an online magazine where we publish Science fiction and fantasy stories, 1000 words or less.
Max
Every other week, we've been doing that since. 2021 started I started building it in the pandemic with my best friends Thomas J. Griffin. and Kevin Pabst. Thomas is the co-editor along with me and Kevin's are artist.
Max
And so I've been doing that. I'm also, I got my PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2024. I worked at Vanderbilt University for two years after that. And I'm currently at. Wittenberg University in Ohio.
Max
I teach you a lot of courses on communication, on media. and one of my favorite classes to teach is a media ecology class where the final Third of the course is reading and watching science fiction text and thinking about how they use the technology in these imagined world to create new realities and how we can apply the theories we've talked about.
Max
from Stuart Hall, from bell hooks, from a variety of other scholars. to that. World. What? how we that can teach us. about our own world. So I really enjoy.
Max
Teaching, reading, writing, and editing science fiction and fantasy.
SethH
Nice. Nice. Are any of your lectures available for the viewing public?
Max
I think I have. None of my... Like. lectures from class are, but I do have one conference presentation from during the pandemic.
Max
about Avatar The Last Airbender. and how fans discuss. the disability representation in it compared to how disability scholars discuss it and how there's very much a conflict between these fans and these scholars and what we can learn from that so
SethH
Hmm.
Max
Not a traditional lecture, but it is. I think it's interesting.
SethH
Nice. So... How did this book come about, Speculative Futures?
Max
Yeah, that's ah that's a really great question. it's It's kind of a long story, so I apologize if I'm...
SethH
No worries
Max
too long-winded just feel free to cut me down just to the important bits. But when I started my dissertation, I was writing about... film and television music and the communicative role. of those but my first semester in the program at Pitt.
Max
I had to take this pro seminar class in which we would read two readings by professors in ah the department and then pose questions to each other. And then choose one question and when we write like a five page essay on it.
Max
And one of the questions that was posed to me was, There was something along the lines of we talked about how anger can be a motivating force in social movements, but what about stuff like melancholy and mourning? And that question just kind of clicked for me of, oh, the sad puppies and the rabid puppies just kind of immediately made that connection. So I wrote.
Max
A five, I think it was a seven page paper. about that And then I just kind of tucked it into the drawer because... puppy gate science fiction fandom not really the same thing as film and television music
SethH
Mm-hmm
Max
And then over the summer, I was like, yeah, I like this idea. I'm going to expand it to... a much longer piece And they didn't really know what to do with it. And then the... insurrection at the U .S. Capitol happened. And i a lot of the rhetoric that was circulating about those groups and within those groups.
Max
felt very reminiscent to how I was describing the rhetoric within Puppygate.
Christine
Mm hmm.
Max
I was like, well what's the connection here? so like That shifted my entire trajectory. away from music more into what is the relationship between the effective attachments fans have to speculative fiction media and these logics of violence and exclusion that we see in reactionary groups.
Max
So I... cut the paper back down to an article size, published an article. then I expanded it back out to the dissertation. and then i use that dissertation as a seed for this book so it really all goes back to a question someone asked kind of offhandedly about anger, mourning, and melancholy and then grew into a dissertation and ultimately this book.
Christine
that' That's fun. I feel like that's how some of the best grad classes are where it just. leads to these incredible questions that just get in your head. um One of the things I really enjoyed about the book was how.
Christine
You talk about nostalgia itself. as a form of speculative fiction that a lot of these people fandoms political movements are You know.
Christine
Absolutely creating an imagined community. ah And creating, sorry, an imagined past. um In the conclusion, you actually argue thattor that histories are also narratives crafted to communicate a version of the past. um I am a historian.
Christine
That is what my PhD is in. And I'm like, a hundred percent. I feel like that actually ends up being some of the conflict that historians have with. let's say lay consumers of history because there's this idea that there's only one narrative of the past and you're like the past is complicated our sources are weird and sometimes you just put them together in different ways um so like
Christine
That for me, I don't know if I actually have a question here, but that for me was like one of the interesting parts about your book is just like how we construct narrative, how we construct memory. Oh, I do have a question.
Christine
Memory has actually been a fairly hot topic within science fiction in the last few years. Like I'm currently reading Mahmoud El-Sayed's Republic of Memory. There's like a really great series of novellas by Olivia Waite, I want to say, where it's about like people on a generation ship where like their bodies can be remade and they like.
Christine
just store their memories almost in a library. um What do you make of that? That's my question.
Max
but That's a really... That's a really interesting question. And, you know, I bring up the the stuff about history, particularly at the end when I'm trying to kind of move beyond just the realm of speculative fandom and connect it to like the US Supreme Court where Clarence Thomas is like, not all histories are created equal.
Christine
Sure.
Christine
Mm-hmm
Christine
Yes.
Max
So this idea of like memory and how memory is recurring. in these stories I think it's really interesting I haven't read either of the series you're talking about. the um The first one, Republican Memory, is next on my list after I finish.
Christine
yeah
Max
um, Chara and the Sun.
Christine
Yeah, I know. i just I just started it last night. But it... It feels almost like... this sort of focus on memory. in within science fiction is tapping into something that you are seeing and writing about in fandoms in your book. This idea that...
Christine
And maybe part of it is just that we are in this like very partisan age where it seems like people have very different visions of like what the present are based on like what their media is. And so like, there's just this desire by, you know, speculative fiction authors to write about that.
Christine
um Which I think is cool.
Max
Yeah, no, that's that's a really great... point in the great Question I do think that a big part of it is probably motivated by you know, alternative facts and like misinformation disinformation and just.
Christine
Mm-hmm.
Max
how Like I was in a faculty meeting. the other day and someone was talking about he He teaches a Holocaust history class. And he was talking about how in his classroom he brought up.
Max
how mass deportations equal mass death and how students got up and left the class after he said that.
Christine
Oh wow.
Max
And he's like, this isn't an opinion. This is fact. This is something. we've shown and someone else was like well why do you even need to say this if this is fact Like we don't need. to just convey Um, I don't know exactly how I said that makes it sound worse than it probably was even though it was like an odd comment but like the this idea where he responded like Well, people don't trust facts anymore.
Max
People have these various.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
stories that they tell right I mean even looking back when i was working on chapter one of the book and i was reading sam moskowitz's I'm the immortal storm. And how he brings up one. early fan club and he's like oh this is the only one that had a black person leading it.
Max
but he's not important to the story so anyway it kind of moves on it's like whoa why isn't he important to the story? Like this is a. an entirely different history than if that person was included maybe maybe not entirely different but choosing what we focus on what facts are real what facts are alternative
Christine
Totally.
Max
That's just so much in the zeitgeist right now that I think.
Christine
100%.
Max
With speculative fiction being a... a genre that's very much commenting on the present through writing about. the past and the future. It just makes sense that. authors are becoming more interested in what is our cultural memory and how can we see this cultural memory within the individuals and how their memories are being altered or changed or
Christine
Okay.
Max
Doubted.
SethH
It's interesting, when when i when you originally reached out and I saw the title, My initial reading of the title was, oh, this is going to be some. rah-rah thing about how great science fiction is and and how great science fiction fans are and what and what good they do in the world um because i did not immediately go to reactionary means bad um and and that's to be fair there is nuance
Christine
oh but Absolutely.
SethH
um but But I do want to talk about some of the kind of language that that's used. And you you used it, and I think people might have heard you say effective when what you said was affective.
SethH
um And you use that the noun. noun and adjective form of affect and affective.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
um differently than i've than I typically see, right? People... Really? Lots of times. people use effect when they mean affect and affect when they mean effect but those are kind of the verb forms right or um so can you talk a little bit about what you mean by that
Christine
Oh, I'm going to jump in for just a hot second because every time I read.
Max
Yeah, that
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
ah Effective. Oh, what was it? Effective responses. My head translated that as. Big feels. but Big feels about the thing.
Max
Yeah, which is not wrong at all, right? I think... So one reason I use the term affect is that there's a long tradition of affect studies within communication and cultural studies that I'm really drawing from.
Max
And there are... I think if you polled 50 affect scholars and ask them what affect means you would get 50 different responses some that are wildly different right so when i originally wrote the dissertation i had a like very deep dive into like this is the brian masumi camp and this is the other camp and this is the sarah ahmed camp
SethH
Nice.
Max
And I'm very much in the latter where I can understand. um Ahmed talks about how you can distinguish a physical reaction from kind of the emotion we use to name that. And that's really the difference between affect and emotion.
Christine
Hmm.
Max
or at least for some people it's like when you see a bear your body reacts and then we name how that body reacts and how this how our body is reacting will translate into the way that we are feeling.
Max
Right. And I think And I may be, you know. Some people may be like that's not what he's saying. But the way that Sarah Ahmed talks about it is, while we can distinguish between these two things, in practice they're the same.
Christine
Hmm.
Max
but There's no real difference between the bodily reaction and how we name.
Christine
huh
Max
said bodily reaction. So that's generally how I go. I use affect and emotion, not necessarily interchangeably, but not. not interchangeably. I'm talking about things like anger and what anger can do.
Max
And I look how anger is kind of saturated within. post and within movements. how people are using this emotions or how they feel connected to something and generally our connections are rooted in things like love or in hate so i use affect and affective very similarly to how i use how I would use.
Max
emotion and emotional attachments. I just part of it is like the academies.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
of there being a
SethH
yeah
Max
very long lineage of affect studies.
Christine
Yeah. like One of the things this makes me think about and what I thought about when I was reading a sort of your discussions about effective responses is that Like, ah you know, like many people, I have been in a lot of therapy. And I think that part of therapy is learning part of like what I have learned in therapy is learning to differentiate like those physical reactions versus.
Christine
how you name them because like we have lots of strong feelings and you talk about this in the book that like love and hate are not actually that far apart it's just like this really strong emotion and we put a different label on it um And I think that that's also something that's...
Max
right
Christine
kind of an important point that you are making in the book in that like There are movements that are trying to harness. these emotions for particular goals um and that You know.
Christine
As I was reading the book, I like... I kept thinking about how. Like... throughout the history of science fiction. um or speculative fiction, or just... fandom like there are seems to be like we have these like restrictive binaries that people keep wanting to have like there be two camps you know is it is it literary or is it more like actiony? Is it something message driven or is it fun? Is it escapism? Is it politics? And like.
Christine
you know You were talking about these things historically within the genre, which I really enjoyed, but like it really reminded me of like current debates about like cozy fiction versus either harder sci-fi or weird sci-fi or things like that.
Christine
At the end, I was sort of left wondering, like, is this just how humans engage with art? like That we always want to create this like. Like, I mean, there's like the stuff we white like, and then we want to give it this label. It's almost like, again, like labeling our emotions. Like I like this. And then I want to put a label on this thing. And some of that label is marketing like that, you know.
Christine
publishers want to put labels on things so that people can find things they like so people will buy stuff but like i don't know is this a permanent part of fandom we will always be like recycling these debates with slightly different terminology
Max
that's a that's a really interesting question it makes me think about like romanticy
Christine
oh
Max
where Romanticy is now, you are either like a defender of Romanticy or it's smut. right and doesn't belong on the fantasy shelves right it's generally just these like like you said, this dichotomy, when in reality, there are a lot of people.
Max
in the middle right and i think that
Christine
As a historian, I'm always like everything is messy. but we do we don't even do like fear like the political scientists the sociologists they like theories we're like mm i don't know about that everything is messy anyways sorry
Max
Yeah.
SethH
Yeah. Well, and and how can we ah how can we say what the stuff is that we don't like if we don't have a name for it?
Christine
Sure.
Max
right Yeah. and i think that's that's a like big thing and you know i won't get into the psychology of it but something about when we We can only...
Max
contain so much knowledge so we often use labels to say like oh this fits with this box and this fits with this box which is why stereotypes exist right because we just kind of like see something that fits it with something else we put it in the same box without understanding or like really engaging with the nuances and then once we're finally like okay let's open up this box and see okay these things are not the same then we create new dichotomies and say okay within this box we have
Christine
Um...
Christine
Sure.
Christine
m
Max
like before it was like science fiction or not science fiction and now we have hard science fiction or soft science fiction and then we have cozy and then you know it's like always just kind of like going in and saying this is one thing and then this is a thing that it is not
SethH
Mm-hmm.
Christine
I... It almost makes me think about how Like...
Christine
Humans tend to fight more about the things that are- closer together but not the same like i'm thinking about sort of like you know different branches of christianity wanting to fight about what is correct versus like Christians just being like, nah, I don't even like, I'm not too worried about what the Buddhists are doing.
SethH
Yep.
Christine
That's just different, you know, but I'm real mad about what the church down the street is doing.
SethH
Mm hmm.
Christine
um Yeah, it just seems to be like... something about people.
SethH
Yeah. So. In the first chapter, you kind of go through the the origin of speculative fiction fandom. which was really interesting to me. And it's it's something that kind of in reading older science fiction, you...
SethH
you understand too it's When you go back and you think about the the early... um The internet of the time, which was writing letters into magazines, you know. um it it's It's fascinating, that entire...
SethH
sort of beginning of fandom, but... I was surprised how quickly there was. controversy between what kind of science fiction the different fandoms wanted.
Max
Yeah, and there's you know almost immediately there's the new fandom versus the Futurians. They have this very... different idea where the Futurians are like, we need to use science fiction and science fiction fandom to make a more socially just world very much kind of like using the communism that drove a lot of that movement whereas new fandom is saying like nope It should just be fun. Just be escapist. We don't want any of this.
Max
kind of politics in here but then like the the fiction that they're pointing to is you know, like H .P. Lovecraft, where... Is this not political? Right. You know, the idea of like.
Christine
you
Max
And this gets to with the sad puppies and rabid puppies too. Like what is message fiction?
SethH
Right.
Max
you know. I had beers at...
SethH
Message fiction is something that has a message you don't like.
Christine
Yes.
Max
Exactly. Right.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
There's this great. a book by Elizabeth Sandifer. um the neo the basilisk I'm near reactionary. I forget exactly what it's called, but it's has this section talking about Puppygate.
Max
where Sandifer says, talks about one of the nominees that Box Day promoted, which is very much a like Catholic parable. And she asked like, How is this not message?
Max
Is it because you are also Christian, right? Versus like this being messaged because it features a black person. right just this It's more identity politics than anything else.
Christine
Yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
and I found it. Fascinating that. you don't see these exact same arguments but you see so much of this Like from the very beginning and then throughout, like I, when I found that Jerry Meyer letter, which was.
Max
1980. when that was written. I just thought this was this fascinating. letter where mayor comes up with like some traditional criticisms like oh it's not written as well as other genres it's repetitive blah blah blah also it's racist and sexist And then all the responses were like.
Max
We'll ignore this part and just talk about how you said it doesn't have good science.
Christine
ah
Max
And then an editor was like, Well, we want it to be repetitive because that's what people buy, right? And there's kind of like ignoring certain things because like this isn't what we want to touch versus these are the things we will engage with.
Max
And that's just been from you know the 30s Onto today. There's just so much of this like cycles of repetition going back to what we we're saying like this is one thing and this is another and i like this one thing and I want to reject or get rid of this other thing.
Max
I think the difference is now that a lot of You know, we have social media. We have a way to make the thing that we don't like our opinions about it much louder.
Christine
Mm-hmm.
Max
and can act on it in a way that You know, you were talking about like writing letters into magazines. and like coming up with fanzines and things like this that had a much more limited audience than When you post something and it gets retreated. retweeted by you know some very popular. reactionary influencer.
Max
And then all of a sudden, Gamergate goes from a small thing to... you know, is on the national news. Right.
SethH
Hmm. There was another another terminology question here that used the term revanchist. Forgive me if I'm not pronouncing it correctly. I've only ever seen it in print.
Christine
Yeah, I really like that part where you talked about revanchist nostalgia versus...
Max
The same, actually.
Christine
I forget forgot what the other one was. Reactive maybe?
Max
but Irrestorative.
Christine
Restorative nostalgia, yeah.
Max
Yeah, so this came from... it The first time I saw revanchist or revanchist or how However, I have also only ever seen it.
Christine
I think that both of those are correct
Max
Yeah, I've only seen it in my own writing and the writing of I forget his name. It's Smith. I believe, but he's writing about like urbanism and kind of this like revanchist movement from like.
Max
white communities when black people started moving in and they're not only
SethH
Mm hmm.
Max
wanting to get rid of them but punish them for even like blemishing the space i thought this was this really interesting idea when you apply it to nostalgia where to Just to get to what Christine was saying, like restorative nostalgia.
Max
There. Svetlana Bohm describes that there's reflective nostalgia and restorative nostalgia. Those are two modalities where restorative is thinking about Oh, this is how things used to be. I want it back like that. now. Like I want to recreate the past in the present. and It's what leads to a lot of conspiracy theories, a lot of...
Max
you know national revivals and things like that whereas reflective nostalgia is saying this thing happened It's gone. I can mourn it and then I can move on. still kind of. Looking back fondly on it, but maybe not. Bing.
Max
Maybe not trying to recreate it. And Revancha's nostalgia fits much more. with restorative where it's trying to bring back a past but it also wants to punish those who made that past or made that restoration necessary so looking back and they're like science sci-fi used to be just fun it used to be just white straight guys writing it, which, you know.
Max
very debatable version of sci-fi's history. But they're saying this is what it used to be. It used to be so great. And now we're seeing queer people. We're seeing black people. We're seeing people of color. We're seeing women winning awards in writing. We don't just want to go back to what we used to have. We want to get them out.
Max
We want to punish them. We want to, as Fox Day said, blow a hole in the Hugo Awards so they can never be awarded. Again, never get this acclaim never get the monetary boost never have the careers that they would if they were involved in this.
Max
right so it's this idea where it's moving from just recreating the past. to trying to recreate something and then hurt the people that they deem responsible.
Christine
Oh, um So one of the things, since we you were bringing up terminology, one of the things I was curious about, I mentioned this before we started recording, is that you're you're clearly engaging with the field of fan studies. um I don't actually know anything about fan studies.
Christine
as a field. um and when i was making notes about this i almost wrote as a genre which made me laugh um
SethH
Same.
Christine
But like... In the... in in your intro you were talking a bit about how fan studies has shown that fans are not passive and uncritical but that a lot of fan studies focuses on fandoms as progressive and transgressive like fandoms are always trying to like move things push things forward push things in a new way and you are kind of in this book are being like not all fandoms are progressive um is that sort of like
Christine
Is this? I'm sort of curious about like the development of fan studies. over time like how people have scholars have talked about fans and how that's changed over time like was there a point where fans were seen as just like receptors of Um, uh...
Max
Yeah.
Christine
of of like media and then at some point people were like oh no they they do stuff. They comment, you know, they're more active. Like, can you just talk a little bit about that?
Max
Yeah, no, that's that's a really great question. So I think it was like in the late... I think 1988. and 1992 were like major years for fan studies scholarship.
Max
where they were the first time like John Fisk, Henry Jenkins, Camille Bacon Smith. We're all saying, hey, we've been dismissing fans as just kind of consumers who are just kind of mindlessly buying whatever.
Max
Durr being so. Right. there's a new star wars movie they're gonna buy it they're gonna watch it That's it. That's all fans do. And those early scholars were saying, well, actually, they're doing a lot more than that. They're writing fan fictions. they're them creating convention they are you know doing these fanzines or writing letters to the creators they're being very productive.
Max
alongside their consumptions we're kind of challenging this idea of fans it's just being like you said passive you know consumers, that they were active producers and consumers at the same time.
Christine
who
Max
And a lot of what they talked about were fandoms like Star Trek. Star Trek is like the fandom that people talked about for a long time. And they're like, look at the fan fiction. They're including women in lead roles. They're including queer relationships. They're like having disabled characters. Look how transgressive and progressive they are.
Max
And a lot of the early stuff was focused on that looking at them being active producers and them going against and kind of pushing culture forward And then there's a second wave that's more kind of... Well, now we need to talk to the fans. Let's interview them.
Max
right so they kind of like got into and that we want fans perspectives alongside just our critical readings of their work
Christine
Sure.
Max
and there are some scholars that call this like the fandom is beautiful phase when they're like this is all fandom is such a beautiful expression of culture and they're trying to really Um.
Max
Be progressive, be transgressive, all this stuff. And then there was a shift that came. I don't know exactly. When? probably in like the late 2000s, early 2000s. Actually, I think it's... Right around 2015, Rebecca Wanzo wrote this piece where she's like, why don't we talk about black people?
Max
why don't we talk about black fans and that's because like fan studies really ignored sports studies or sports fandom because sports fandoms was
Christine
oh
Max
pretty explicitly racist so they were like really much focused on a selected group of fandoms that were progressive and transgressive and I forget which scholar.
Max
said it, but part of that is because They were fans of that. so that's what they knew so that's what they were writing they were a part of these communities
Christine
Yeah, totally. And it also kind of makes sense to me that like some of the people that want to write about like sort of fandoms of you know star trek maybe they're not sports fans so it never even occurred to them to compare those two worlds it's sort of like you get a historian who they only speak a certain number of languages so they can't really do comparative things with someplace else that they don't speak that language yeah
Max
Right.
Max
Exactly.
Max
Exactly. So then around this time, there's become a growing movement to kind of reconsider, I think Rukmini Pondi and Mel Stanfill are two that I really draw from a lot in my book, who are saying, okay, let's reconsider how we engage with racism. Let's reconsider how fans are engaging with gender, because it's not as progressive as it seems. Let's reconsider. And that's really where kind of this shift to where I'm becoming a part of, where there are
Max
Now more people are kind of examining how fandom can be beautiful. right but it can also be profoundly ugly that's the The new Mel Stanfill book, maybe not new anymore. Mel publishes a book every year, it seems like.
Max
But they their latest book is... called fandom is ugly, kind of pushing back against the fandom is beautiful phase.
Christine
like this is getting so meta for me because like Seth and I are fans. Um. But we both engage in certain kinds of acts of popular criticism.
Christine
Like Seth has a podcast. I do as well. But I also write for a couple of fanzines. You are. also a fan max but you also are a author so you're a creator within the field and then i feel like hovering over that you're a scholar of sff and fandom like
Max
Right.
Christine
How does that all work in your head? How does that work for you, sir?
SethH
okay
Max
Yeah, that is a ah terrific and difficult question, right? I think in you know, I think that... If someone else, and one thing I say in the book is like,
Max
I could write this about historical fiction, I could write this about something else, but I don't because that's not really what I am. a fan of right i am I am in the world of Puppygate. I am in the world of Not My Jedi and all these other controversies. So that's really where I was drawn to.
Max
Because that's what I knew. And I think that there's like kind of there's a valid criticism of like, why are you?
Christine
mm-hmm
Max
Not talking about blank. It's like. I don't know about blank. I mentioned Alabama football in here. And I'm like, my best friend had to tell me about this stuff because I know nothing about college football in general.
Christine
100%.
Max
Yeah. So it's just the idea of like being a term that people use is like an ACA fan, like an academic fan.
Christine
oh
Max
where you are.
Christine
I like it.
Max
Yeah, you have to both think about okay i'm engaging in these communities but am i like influencing them by the things that i'm posting and i'm writing and then i'm writing about
Christine
Yeah.
Max
them in a way that maybe I have directed some people to act or respond so it gets into this kind of and one way that I've tried to avoid that is I just don't post on social media or really anywhere.
Christine
Oh. First.
Max
I'm a very, I'm i'm a lurker.
Christine
Okay.
Max
I am. like i say in here i'm a raccoon that like digs in the trash cans to find interesting things because
Christine
I enjoyed that.
Max
Because I just don't. I don't want to ever see Mike. People would be like, oh, like. max is saying this and then go and look at it be like well max was posting in this a lot right he's like commenting on these fan fictions that he's writing about or he's like
Christine
you need ah You need a persistent pseudonym that is not related to your academic profile, sir.
SethH
a
Christine
We need to go back to the old days of the internet.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
so I'm also curious Like... How much of like... I guess, especially sad puppies and rabid puppies. did you like Was that something you were actively paying attention to at the time?
Christine
um because like for me my relationship to sci-fi is a bit weird like i feel like i read some sci-fi like i'm almost 50 and i read some sci-fi and fantasy when i was like a teenager and i loved some of it but i also bounced off a lot of the women not really seeming like people in a lot of it um and then I want to say sometime around, like...
Christine
probably like 2013 to 2015 so like right in the sad puppies era is when i started re-engaging in part because it was exciting to me. that were all these new authors and like when i started reading nk jemisin it was like super excited about that kind of stuff and so i actually completely missed the sad and rabid puppies i only saw references to it and then eventually you know read up on it so i was just curious like is that something that you were like watching at the time or
Max
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's... a great question and I I feel like I was like a lot of... um young college. students because i was you know i was in grad school my master's program when sad puppies happened and my roommate at the time was thomas griffin who i co-edit Flashpoint with.
Max
He was really much very much into the genre and he was trying to get me to read more of it so he would like give me brent week's books i'm like oh these are great like who else can i read and he was kind of pulling me into it and he would It would just kind of like come. Because we.
Max
our bedrooms were downstairs in the main living room was upstairs and i would just walk upstairs he'd be like oh here's the new thing that happened in public gate today so i heard about it but i didn't really know who the players were it was just kind of something that i would be told about
Christine
Sure.
Christine
Mm hmm.
Max
and then not think about again for No. four or five years after that.
Christine
o
Max
until i was in my phd program and then like it tickled my brain i was like oh sad and rapid puppies like i need to look more into that so i did not
Christine
Yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
I did not follow it at the time, but I knew about it. as it was happening because of Thomas.
Christine
Okay. Seth, how about you? Was that something like I don't actually know when you started to get more involved in SFF fandom?
SethH
Yeah, it was it was mostly after that. It was it was kind of you know like 2017 was when I started the podcast.
Christine
oh
SethH
And i was I was podcasting. I was doing podcasting before then, but and i had a friend who's a little better plugged into like reads file 770 and that kind of thing um and he would occasionally mention it but i had gotten it so jumbled up in my head i thought that the sad puppies and rabid puppies were on opposite sides i didn't realize that it was just you know oh No, you're right, but also even worse you know with the rabid puppies, right?
Christine
Mm-hmm
Christine
ah
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
Let's be more destructive about this.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
right
SethH
um So I did miss a lot of that. um And it's interesting because I do have. I have a variety of friends of different ages. I'm in my 50s and some of my friends are older, some are younger. and um And like my...
SethH
and nephew is a big science fiction reader and so we'll talk about what he's reading and really enjoying and then i have my other friend who's older who really I won't say identifies with the sad puppies, but really prefers older science fiction.
SethH
It's the stuff he grew up with.
Christine
hu
SethH
It's the stuff that's comforting for him. Right. And there's nothing wrong with having comfort reads that.
Christine
Yeah.
Christine
No.
SethH
appeal to you when you were nine, right?
Christine
Mm hmm.
SethH
and and still enjoying those and wanting to defend some of that.
Max
right
Christine
Mm hmm.
SethH
It's where it gets toxic is when you're trying to make. changes or cheat the system or blow it up altogether.
Christine
Yeah. Yeah. because
Max
Yeah.
Christine
I do think like... I think that sometimes, especially when people like something and it's like a book that really affected them, as especially from like their childhood, if someone else attacks that book, they feel personally attacked and that they have a lot of trouble separating those. two.
SethH
Mhm.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
Yeah. No, and I think those are both really great points. One thing I tried to emphasize about the last jedi in particular i think this connects to your point seth is like they're lots of valid criticisms of the last jedi like i love the movie but i recognize that there are many faults in it so i'm not saying like oh you don't like it you are reactionary you are you know, a white supremacist, right?
Christine
uh-huh
SethH
Yeah.
SethH
Mm.
Max
I i think that's one thing that I really don't want to get lost in the book, to be like, if you are not on this side that I am saying, then you are automatically this terrible.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Sure.
SethH
Right.
Max
person. But...
SethH
Right.
Max
I think there's a way that kind of this And I try to get to this particularly in that chapter where a lot of times these valid criticisms or even just defending things that you like a lot.
Max
against criticism can then lead into either identification with reactionary groups or you're just trying to find more in defense of it or more that you don't like about something else. And then you read something and you're like, oh, this is by Ben Shapiro. like Actually, I kind of like this.
Max
isn't what i was saying but he's on my side so like am i now
SethH
Right.
Max
identifying So I think that's one thing. that I definitely want. a nuance to be taken from this book that you both brought up is that just because you are defending a past object or a beloved thing that other people no longer like does not i'm not then saying you are a racist or you are a men's rights activist or anything like that it's more
SethH
red
SethH
Yeah, yeah.
Christine
Well...
Max
Yeah.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
I thought that like one of the important points you made is that like SFF doesn't inherently have an ideology.
Max
Mm hmm.
Christine
It can be used to advance all kinds of ideologies and often the same piece of fiction or media can be read in... different ways and like maybe the Maybe the problematic activity is in saying, no, it can only be read one way and my way and the other ways are wrong.
Christine
Like, it's totally cool to criticize and critique things.
Max
Exactly.
Christine
But yeah, like sort of that that reductionism is.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
yeah
SethH
Yeah, and you can reduce authors down too, right? Like like early early in the book, Max, you mentioned Robert Heinlein, right?
Christine
sure
SethH
A lot of troubles. I mean, it's not surprising, somebody of his era having a lot of problematic thoughts. but in a lot of his different books you know there's there's like double star i don't have you heard that one christine
Christine
I have.
SethH
Like I really enjoyed that.
Christine
It was an early, it was his first Hugo winner.
SethH
And I was like, this is surprisingly. Sorry, go ahead.
Christine
I'm pretty sure that was his first Hugo winner.
SethH
Yeah, yeah. and I read that one. I'm like, that's surprisingly progressive for this guy who I know from this other work. and it it still of course has a man slapping a woman
Christine
Yeah, yeah
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
yeah like he like Heinlein as much as like part of but the reason I dislike Heinlein is because he gets so much he takes up so much of the oxygen when we talk about classic science fiction um but like He was very progressive on issues of like race and sexuality.
SethH
Yes.
Christine
He was like very. Like he was. very like significantly like very heterosexual he was not comfortable with gay shit um and you know later in life he gets like he uh he like legitimately has a bit of a freak out about like communism and so like kind of ends up in this a little bit like
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
too excited about totalitarianism place but i think for me it's just like like all of those attitudes are totally like
SethH
Mm-hmm.
Christine
expected for the historical context in which he is coming out of but he just takes up like such a huge space partially because like his a lot of his novels have been made into movies and people like them that it's like ah can we talk about some other people like Clifford Sinek is a delight you know
SethH
Yeah. Yes. Definitely.
Max
Yeah, wasn't that the the podcast you two did on the city?
Christine
It was.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
I got Seth to read it.
Max
Yeah.
SethH
Yep. Yeah.
Christine
Dogs.
Max
Yeah.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Or the city, sorry.
Max
the
SethH
Yeah, that's great.
Max
Yeah. And I think that's a, you know, a great point about like collapsing authors. I bring up Brandon Sanderson in the book just because he's, you know.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
He's very, he's contemporary. He's very popular. And I, I showed two different readings of one scene, but you're right about like Heinlein, like strangers in a strange land. has like multiple genders like three genders and like the puppies are still like holding him up it's kind of this like idol of
SethH
Mm hmm.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
Right.
Max
Like... conservative. And like... reactionary sci-fi in the same way that when i because i read ender's game the whole series before i really knew much about orson scott card and i read the first two like particularly speaker for the dead or speaker of the dead i
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
I love Speaker for the Dead.
Max
Yeah. I'm like, this is a great book. And I feel like this is a pretty progressive book. And then I got to the third one. I'm like, okay, wait, now here's some stuff that I'm like pausing on. So I think they're like, you're saying they're.
Max
There are multitudes in. people it's just like there are multitudes and authors and the Oh yeah, go ahead.
Christine
Yeah. No, no, but
Max
But I was just... And that the... You know, it's too easy or it's very easy to boil them down and be like, this person now is in this camp and this person's in this camp. Going back to our earlier conversation about these dichotomies.
SethH
Right.
Christine
Bionaries.
Max
Yeah, bye now.
Christine
Yeah, dichotomy.
SethH
Well, and and over time, too, like if people show you who they are, believe them. Right. And so so it's not not like you can never get to that point where you're like, OK, I'm done. um You know, I like Speak for the Dead is one of my absolute favorite books.
Max
right
SethH
But I agree with you that that. In the totality of. of Orson Scott Card's writings, there's there's signs that are there that at some point you have to go, okay, the evidence is pointing towards that is who he is.
Christine
And.
SethH
um And then, of course, his his nonfiction writing. which Really tells you that.
Christine
Okay. Yeah. Well, because I feel like it's somehow related to this. like this reductionary nature, like ah that so this thing that people want to do with authors, I feel like it often happens when...
Christine
people do discover that an author is maybe terrible and then a lot of other people want to come out of the word board to be like yeah well i never liked their work and Like...
SethH
Right.
Christine
You know? Our appreciation of things can be, like, way more nuanced than that. Like, you may have loved things about Harry Potter. You may not have noticed some of the, like... stereotyping and things that like have now been identified as problematic in there or like you might have that might have just like gone past you and you loved other parts of it um and so it can also feel weird that you like do you have to like retcon your past you're like no no i didn't like it really or you know
Max
right
Christine
it's a little bit of a...
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
i I think about...
Christine
it That is also a thing that people want to do.
Max
Yeah, I think about the Harry Potter thing a lot because I opened the book with Bye. with a description of goodreads right and when i first got goodreads
Christine
o
Max
if there was a book that i had read in the past that i liked it got five stars right so like there are a lot of books that i read when i was younger and really really liked like i think i gave ready player one five stars and now it's like looking back i'm like oh like I don't think...
SethH
Same.
Max
that And then it's like, okay, well, like. If people will like read my. read this book and then they're like oh like let's look at his reviews and be like how does this kind of square with what he's talking about here i do think there's kind of this
Christine
We're gonna...
Max
idea of like we read things at a certain time maybe we're not aware of certain things and we really like it
Christine
Yeah. we're going to use that to create a narrative of who you are max that's the next step
Max
Exactly.
SethH
Right. Yeah, yeah So going back.
Max
Right.
Christine
well i mean i feel like wait sorry i feel like that actually happened with like
SethH
um
Christine
i can't remember his name the guy who shot the pharmaceutical executive people were literally analyzing like what he gave five-star reviews to to like be like oh is he a conservative or a liberal it's
Max
Louis Jean.
SethH
Right.
Christine
We are very reductive humans.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
I mean, it makes things make sense, but...
SethH
yeah Mm hmm.
Christine
Yeah. Sorry Seth.
SethH
I wanted to go back to to talking about the um sort of the Star Trek fandom. And and I've talked to people about talked to people who don't like Star Trek.
Christine
oh
SethH
the new trick right that's happening right now.
Christine
Hmm.
SethH
End. seeing people posting about how they don't like Trek when it's political. And and you go. Have you watched the show? I mean, because, and and I was talking to somebody about this recently and said, you know, the fact is that when you look back on the very, very obviously political allegory.
SethH
shows and on on the original trick where you had the guy whose one half of his face was white and the other half was black and the other guy had them on the other side and that was enough for them to be enemies. um You are to the point in your life where.
SethH
you're on the right side of that. You're on the right side of history. with with with that message. And so you're comfortable with it. But now there's something that's maybe pushing the boundaries a little past where you would like them to be. Fast forward 20 years, you might be on the right side of that now. But for right now.
SethH
it it feels wrong to you.
Max
right You know, we were. um I'm not sure if um you had hopped on at this point, yeah Seth, but Christine and I were talking about like Andy Weir's comments about Star Trek.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
And like how he wants to. Like how he views his work as apolitical and how he doesn't like the new Star Trek. He likes the old one where it's just kind of.
Christine
A lot of people got mad at him for that too.
Max
Yeah. that it popped back up because of Project Hail Mary.
Christine
oh
Max
And he's like, I miss. like i like star trek when they're shooting at each other and it's like it's not political but Then there's the whole idea of like, well, why are they shooting at each other? This is...
SethH
Right.
Max
a series that was created by gene roddenberry who was a signer of the like anti-vietnam Ward. Um, ad that i talk about in the book right there's like so so much about that that is very clearly like there are books written about how marxists star trek is but you know it's just kind of what is political what is not political and so often Like you're saying, what is identified as political then is the thing that is pushing things forward, whereas what we have accepted as
Max
Umnormal is no longer identified.
Christine
I'm just thinking, in what universe could Starship Troopers not be political?
Max
but this
SethH
Right.
Christine
Peace.
Christine
Um,
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
Yeah. And, you know, you get into con. conversations about you know, gender swapping or or race swapping. I think you mentioned the go Ghostbusters movie from 2016 and the review bombing, right?
Max
Hmm.
SethH
It's not a remake. of that older movie it never was a remake of that older movie it's it's a sequel it's sort of in the universe but there was no reason to be angry about that. and i I don't get it.
Max
Yeah.
SethH
um But there's, I think. kind of the looking at like the sad puppies, right? the I can understand some of it where you're like, if all of your life. All of the fiction that you read, all the comic books, all the movies, everybody looked like you.
SethH
That would be really comfortable. Right. And so when a little tiny bit of that is pulled away and so other people get the crumbs from the table, now that feels like lost to you. and you want to fight it. um and And, you know, it takes maturity to
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
to not feel that way.
Christine
And to understand what those emotions are and be like, oh, this is actually okay.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Like I can sit with my discomfort with this a little bit.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Um.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
And it's also like a skill you develop. Like you figure out how to do that. Like I, you know, sometimes when I read books that are set in cultures that are not my own, I i don't know those cultures.
Christine
So it takes me a little while.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
I don't feel. automatically comfortable in them um for me that's kind of what's interesting because i'm like how i don't know that much about chinese mythology so let's do this you know but
SethH
Mm hmm.
SethH
Mm hmm.
Christine
Um. But yeah. But some people, you can... ah I could see people having a negative reaction to those kinds of things.
SethH
Yeah, and you have to be prepared to do the work there.
Christine
i know
SethH
Right.
Christine
Yeah, there is some
SethH
of of how do I understand this?
Christine
Yeah.
Max
yeah One of my favorite. um Just a ah little bit in the book. is talking about Cracker Barrel. And how Cracker Barrel... introduced Impossible Sausage, so vegetarian friendly sausages.
Christine
How dare.
Max
And people got... were furious. because they're like you are making this into like you're ruining this like conservative image of what Cracker Barrel is. Like people were saying, make Cracker Barrel great again.
Max
But like you're saying, like.
SethH
oh boy
Max
They didn't take anything off the menu.
Christine
Mm-hmm
Max
but they were still serving the same things they were just kind of expanding it and
SethH
Right.
Max
I think the like the biggest thing is it wasn't. to be progressive it was to make more money.
Christine
Mhm.
SethH
Right.
Max
And it wasn't trying to send any message beyond just saying, oh, we can make more money if we serve people who don't eat. Me.
SethH
Mm hmm.
Max
so But there was this idea that because you're not making because you're making something for something else, you're now making less for me.
Christine
Yes.
Max
when in reality
SethH
Right.
Max
They're just making more in that. You know, we see that with the publishing industry. like The puppies are getting very mad that there are queer and people of color and... just a variety of identities in the publishing industry putting out books.
Max
But that doesn't mean... the other like the more traditional author the white cishet man is not still publishing books right we're just publishing more, the audience is growing so they're able to have more content. but the fact that it is not.
Max
The thing that they used to have on every shelf everywhere. then feels like they are losing something.
SethH
Yeah. Yeah, well, and like you mentioned the The line between fan and anti-fan can often be the a tiny little thing you the the the property the object that they're they're considering does one thing that they don't like and then all of a sudden you're not my jedi or hashtag black stormtrooper and and you're review bombing movies that you you used to love this franchise and now
Christine
Mhm.
SethH
You're an anti-fan.
Max
Yeah, it can be just like a bad object is what. um i call it in the book and what i've heard on the current
SethH
Mm hmm.
Max
Cornell Sandbox. I think that... It's either him or Jonathan Gray was the first person I heard use the term, but... this idea of something comes in and almost contaminates the object so then and then it's even
Christine
Mm hmm.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
like it's not just getting rid of that one thing but then there's the risk that it may return so sometimes you don't go back to being a fan even when you get rid of it i think about like star wars there are so many anti-fans of star wars because star wars introduce people of color right like people hated the acolyte for so many reasons Right.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
And then they canceled it. And they're like, hey, we're not doing that. anymore and then people were like well maybe you'll do it again So I still hate you.
SethH
Right.
Max
I'm still going to like constantly shit on you.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
just all the time because you did this one thing that even though you've decided not to do it anymore you're kind of like cowed. to the reactionary fans.
Max
I don't trust.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
that you're not going to do it again.
SethH
Yeah. Well, let's pull on that thread a little bit because we do definitely move there in in the book. um But there's also the... the spotlight amplification i think was the term he used for like ryan johnson quote tweeted somebody's criticism of of the last jedi And because his fan base is so much larger. It just gave the signal boost to the anti-fans.
Max
Yeah.
SethH
um and And so it... it's counterproductive. um and it seems like the impulse is is good but the effect is kind of negative.
Max
Yeah. that i think that happens and that's one thing that i was worried about With my book, like this is still like exposing a lot of reactionary ideologies, like discussing this, even if I'm trying to show like. how these are harmful Some people may read this and be like, oh, I do feel, I feel similarly.
Max
Right. And I think that.
SethH
Right.
Max
we see this a lot with or one of the first big examples of this was gamergate We're GamerGate. Like what's being talked about on national news and so much of the coverage was saying this is so terrible like look at how bad this is kind of being like let me show you how progressive and Good I am.
Max
by talking about how terrible this thing is but then other people saw this because it made it to national news and werere like hmm no actually
Christine
oh
Max
I too think that. And so the movement kind of grew and took on a lot more attention and gained a lot of followers because, you know, you're spotlighting it to refute it, to say it's bad, but by spotlighting it.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
by like you're saying of ryan johnson when he retweeted or Yeah, when he commented, rep replied to the men's only cut of The Last Jedi. There were so many people who followed him and so many people who liked or commented on his post that it got pushed into other algorithms. And the views of that film of that.
Max
Fan cut. like skyrocketed. because more people were watching it because they knew about it when before it was this like very small kind of minority of people who knew about it.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
niche
Christine
Yeah, like' it I feel like it goes back to a lot of the debates that... have been happening over the past like 10 years, about. platforming. different kinds of ideas like oh do we need to like debate the nazis to show that they're wrong or again just debating nazis give them this attention and i
Christine
So again, I am a historian. I just think that like our brains have not adjusted to. the reality of social media yet like as humans like You...
Christine
When you look back at at sort of like other major technologies in the past, like when radios were introduced, when like the novel was introduced, like printing press, like that also changed so much about how people saw the world. And it took a little while for stuff to settle down. ah It's weird to be living in the middle of one of those.
Christine
But yeah, I just, it's. I just, I feel like our human brains are like. Algorithms really screw us up.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
It's one of the reasons why I actually like blue sky of the social media is because it's just like. chronological you know there's nothing where it's like oh if somebody likes this a lot I'll see it or you know because you know you get Because that's the way that you end up with.
Christine
you know all kinds of things in your feed.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
You know, that it reminds me of, there's a pair of verses in the book of Proverbs in the Bible that are back to back, and I promise it's germane.
Christine
word
SethH
Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.
Christine
I believe.
SethH
And then the next verse is, answer a fool according to his folly or he will be wise in his own eyes um it's damned if you do damned if you don't right like according to the situation you have to decide is it worth it to engage this thing
Christine
yeah
Christine
oh
SethH
So it goes back thousands of years.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
That's really hard. Yeah. And like, again, looking back at the history of
Max
Yeah.
Christine
Fandom. No, the history of the genre, the history of the fandom of the genre. like I feel like we... constantly have these debates you know going back to the futurists and the What did they call themselves? The new fandom?
Max
the new fandom.
SethH
New fandom, yeah.
Christine
That's interesting to me. So like a couple of months ago, I read Uh, frederick poles uh the way the future was it's um it's a memoir but it's a memoir of his participation in fandom and also as an author and he was one of the futurians and so that was
Christine
like It's just this amazing kind of, it's it's a primary source because it's like it's very much his own story, and he clearly does not like Moskowitz and like some of these some of these other people. um But yeah, just it feels like, we again, we keep having this debate that you know you've got the the new fandom and the Futurians, and then in the 50s, 60s, you get the new wave versus...
Christine
the old wave i don't know what the other side is um and and now we're having this cozy versus
SethH
Hmm.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
question mark question mark um Yeah. We just do this.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
This is the thing we do, which I also think like it's important to analyze and look at these patterns over time. So by saying we always do this doesn't mean that I don't think it's important to like.
SethH
Yeah.
Christine
think through how we do it because it's often really hard to notice these things in your own context but they can become much much more clear
SethH
Hmm.
Christine
When you look at them in other historical periods, you're like, oh, my God, why we're seeing people so mad about. you know I don't even know. Why were they so mad about this particular book?
SethH
Hmm.
Christine
Like, just don't read the book. And then you're suddenly like furious if someone has like said something about, you know, Neil Gaiman or whoever. um it's
SethH
Mm hmm.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
Yeah. it's So chapter four in the book is sort of a ah case study. in the video game industry for anti-fandom backlash backlash and response right where you had two different games that came under under criticisms for similar things and how leave.
SethH
the companies responded to that. I don't know if I don't want to. spoil it for for people who haven't read it um you know i i think it's enjoyable to read but Maybe we can talk a little bit about that.
Max
I will say, um of all the chapters, that was the hardest one to write.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
And there was recently a review of the book in Locus where chapter four was singled out as being, you know, a highlight. And I found that to be very rewarding because that one.
SethH
Hmm.
Christine
Oh that's great.
Max
was very difficult for me to put together, in part because the way I wrote it was different than the way I wrote the others. Revanche's nostalgia wasn't key to the the original draft of it until i came back later because the reviewer was like hey this is very prominent in these chapters but this one just feels separate so then i had to rework it to make that more of a central component but you know that's just kind of like behind the curtain type thing that that was the chapter that underwent the most revisions
Max
And so I was very happy that it. It's now my favorite chapter. I reread the book recently. to... no So I would remember the things I had said for this conversation.
Max
And when I got to that one, I'm like, oh yeah, I like this. I like this chapter. It's very good.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
Not to toot my own horn. but yeah i mean thank you but the i do think that this is a really interesting
SethH
No, I agree.
Max
The idea of like shame versus pride. and I think going back to the original conversation of like affect and emotion. I can't say what these people are feeling. Right. So.
Max
I don't know if they were actually shamed. but I also don't know if it matters like when there's this reactionary backlash to a queer relationship in Mass Effect and then BioWare.
Max
cuts all the queer content, or I guess not. all the queer content but the majority of the queer content from the s sequel That seems like a res- like a direct response to it being on Fox News and like all this kind of backlash that they got.
Max
They even, ignore one of the, Brian can. Kind Reagan? who i i quote in the book says like we There wasn't someone who was homophobic in the company. He was like, don't do this anymore. but we had to protect our profits right so it definitely feels like this kind of capitulation which then has followed by where through all of its games since then, right?
Max
There's, I think there has not been a game they've produced since Mass Effect 2 that has not had some reaction of why are you putting queer characters in there?
SethH
Yeah.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
like the biggest one was their most recent game veil guard because there was a ah character who Their story involves them discovering that they're non-binary. And people were just trashing the game so much before it came out because they knew that there was a non-binary character.
Max
And part of that is... They're like, oh, well, you got rid of it before, so maybe you'll do it. again. Whereas Naughty Dog kind of was like Oh, you didn't like this? Let me put more of it in.
Max
And again, I don't know if that's...
SethH
Right.
Max
That's how I'm reading the situation. People at Naughty Dog may be like, oh yeah, that wasn't. Like, we didn't even care. like no we had always planned to do this or whatever it may be but to me it felt very much like this reaction of we are proud and neil druckman the director of the game or the co-director of the first one and then the director of the second one has said like we are proud of the characters we feature in this we are proud of the game that we made.
Max
And then like. I think it's telling that when the... tv series kind of moved away from some of those things they did um druckman left the show
SethH
Hmm.
Max
but he's no longer involved in the third season. And I think some of that may have been some of the shaming that we saw.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
In the... nasa fact campaign right like they've completely changed the way abby looks from the game where she's extremely muscular and she's like
SethH
Right.
Max
very take charge to the way that she's portrayed in the tv show and i love kate Caitlin Dever. as an actress i think she does a great job as abby but it's definitely a different depiction of the character than it was in the game.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
in a way that almost feels like they are. now capitulating because it's not just Not just a video game anymore, and that's quotes for people who can't see me. right just a the video it's now a tv show that's going to have an audience that you know other people may reject to this so they're trying to get ahead or you know, do whatever. And I think Do whatever is a...
Max
A bad. Is a not precise way to say like they're trying to get ahead of the reactionary hatred that would be thrown at the creators and the actress. But it still happened.
Max
right like i think that was the thing with bioware that i said like
SethH
Right.
Max
they tried to get rid of it then they kept getting hate thrown at them and their characters and their actors. So then when they made the last of his TV show, they tried to get. ahead of some of this hatred and it didn't matter they still got hate mail they still got you know social media blitz like caitlyn devers still received hate mail and like death threats and all of this stuff even though they were almost seeming to try to capitulate so then the question is like why Why do it if it's going to happen?
SethH
Yeah.
Max
Anyway... Which is why I think Last of Us Part II is such a great... It kind of... counter example to this where they are saying Hey, we know what you said before and we don't care.
Max
if We're going to do it anyway. And now in their next game, Intergalactic, they seem to be pushing that.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
even further because they're like hey, now we're doing this again, but... for the first time in our company's history, I think. ah Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. um we're having a person of color as the lead character.
Max
Right. So like. going even further and kind of being like i know you're gonna hate this but we care about showing a wide range of representation and identities. And we're doing it anyway because you're going to hate us regardless.
SethH
Right.
Max
So.
Christine
but This is...
Max
Again, I'm just, oh. Go ahead.
Christine
Sorry, this is like bringing up something for me where like I'm thinking about Hmm. Within politics, there are all of these... Oh, like I'm thinking about what's the name of the the guy running for Senate in Texas, the Democrat.
SethH
Tallarico.
Max
Tallerico.
Christine
talrico like he recently made some some comments that were presented as anti-trans he was trying to kind of like split the difference like i'm i'm liberal but i also like want to grant that people's fears are are reasonable or what have our you and like a lot of liberals are like super super angry about it and he is still being presented as like this, like he only wants, he wants everybody to be trans by conservatives.
SethH
Right.
Christine
And and obviously I am. i am being reductionist in my portrayal of this but like It feels like... with a lot of these movements. You can't, like... The compromising is seen as...
Christine
it makes you suspect so it even if you try to compromise even if you're like okay we took the gay people out of the of the video game like The fact that you ever had them in. you are dead to us now and it doesn't matter.
Christine
And I don't know if there's a lesson there.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
like how to react to things um i'm sure that it doesn't always act like sort of acted exactly that way but it seems like there are a lot of examples where it does um
Max
m
Christine
To the extent that I feel like I've seen lots of discussions online where like you might have a politician who in the past had said some, let's say, homophobic things, but now is like. Oh, like. yeah i was young i was stupid like i you know i've realized that but like people like won't believe them it's like because like once you thought that thing you can never be trusted whereas like we all as individuals know like We change our minds all the time. And like some of what I think is happening here is that.
Christine
so much of the discourse is now performance that nobody trusts anything that oh you're just performing in a way and and i do feel like this is definitely a thread that you get at in the book but just like if everything is performance then everything is constructed and nothing is real um post-modernism has completely won and Where do we go from here?
SethH
Hmm.
Max
Yeah. And I mean, I think... Like. uh when uh i think Push back on. maybe some of the things I just said is like maybe the idea is Naughty Dog is just performing progressivity because their first game got a lot of rewards and a lot of money and like They realize that the people complaining were in the minority.
Max
So they're like going to cater more to that. um Adrian.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
Adrian Shaw talks about, you know, like you're only representable in so far as you're marketable. So the fact that.
Christine
Yes. Well... like and i've definitely heard like people will sometimes say bad things about quote-unquote virtue signaling and i'm like i i'm happy with like signal your virtue that is way better than signaling your vice like you know kind of maybe eventually you'll believe that thing if you signal it for a while but
SethH
okay
Max
Right.
Christine
Yeah. Like what is performance versus what is real and like. are those things completely separatable which i don't personally really think that they necessarily are.
Christine
I don't know
Christine
Sorry, Max, you have to solve humans.
SethH
Uh, Is there hope for for better in the future? Max. yeah i was I was hoping that there would be, ah at the end of the book, a ray of sunshine for going forward.
Max
I...
Max
So it's funny that you say that because when I got... reviews back on my book. One of the comments was said. said that I got too sunshiny at the end of the book.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
And that I needed to tamp. tamp that down. But I...
Christine
Interesting.
Max
I would say yes. Like one of the, another review I got, which. My editor and I didn't completely agree with, but I thought was interesting. They're basically saying you should write a different book. But it was saying there are so many studies about like reactionary content that have come out in the past 10 years. Like, why aren't we focusing on?
Max
like more progressive causes. Right. And like part of the book is being like, we've done a lot of that in fan studies. Like now we're trying to look on the other side, but it made me think like, I think there is.
Christine
sure
Max
And the next piece I want to... We're gone. is i'm calling it Right now... um um world's otherwise speculative fiction and the politics of possibility, where I want to engage with groups who are using speculative fiction to imagine a more...
Max
you know. i don't want to say utopian but more progressive and more accepting future so looking at game modders who are adding in queer relationships to games that don't have it looking at magazines like fire that are trying to you know promote voices that have long been absent from speculative fiction looking at the way people are using cosplaying to discover their gender and so sexuality right i think that there's a lot of great ways that people are building.
Max
And then ah the last one is like political activists. There's this book called Octavia's Brood. that was a collection of like short stories and just pieces where people are talking about using speculative fiction and Octavia Butler's influence on them.
Max
And I read that in my media ecology class. I have them read the opening chapter as we also read speech sounds. And I think that it's, you know, I think there's so much about speculative fiction where there is building this better tomorrow, a better today, right?
SethH
Yeah.
Max
based on Not saying, oh, we need to go back to the past, but saying. There were things wrong. in the past but we can imagine a better better future and you know to say christine if you virtue signal enough maybe you believe it if we think about building a better world enough maybe we'll actually build it Right.
Max
So.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
the next the next book i want to do It's kind of flipping the script and saying how are fans using this? in a progressive way right now that the pendulum in fan studies has kind of swung all the way from it's always progressive to now people are saying well this actually can be ugly and it can be reactionary say okay well like now let's think more about the ways that These fans not these fans in this book, but speculative fiction fans are.
Max
you know. making the world better and how they're doing that through an imagination of what could be. and what will be. So there is a ray of sunshine.
Max
It's just not written yet.
SethH
All right. okay Sounds good. well you know um Kind of moving into final thoughts here. and i I really enjoyed the book, and and I think it's an important one. You know, I i will put it on my ballot.
SethH
uh this year for uh best related work. I think this kind of kind of book really slots well in there.
Max
Thank you.
SethH
I like that you got a blurb from Jordan Carroll um on on the back of the book.
Max
Oh yeah.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
jordan friend
SethH
I was lucky enough to get to chat with him at the the Hugo finalists after party last year in Seattle and tell him you know how important I thought the book was for speculative whiteness.
Max
Oh. Awesome.
SethH
um so So yeah. Peace. It was very good. Final thoughts, Christine?
Max
Thank you.
SethH
Sorry.
Christine
I have a question actually is about, not about the book, but it is about the fact that you seem. This could be wrong, but my... My initial perusal of your website leads me to believe that in your own fiction writing, Max, you seem to specialize in flash- fiction like that's what the journal is Can you talk a little bit about why flash fiction?
Max
Yeah, I mean, that's a that's a great question. I think... part of it is my So Thomas and I... We both. we're writing flash fiction and At the time, it was basically just daily science fiction that would publish it.
Christine
I know.
Max
right So we we liked kind of the challenge of having to write these compressed stories.
Christine
Hmm.
Max
And the the telling of full, beginning, middle, and end in just a thousand words. And now now Thomas and I are very much into drabbles, where it's just 100 words. We're just getting shorter and shorter until eventually...
SethH
Hmm.
Christine
What was that word? Into what?
Max
Drabbles?
Christine
Drabbles.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
Okay, that's not a word I speak.
Max
So there's a... There's a journal called, um, a hundred foot crow. um Edited by Victoria Brum. who we published in Flashpoint Science Fiction. And I'm sorry, Victoria, if I'm saying your last name wrong.
Max
But, um... We publish in Flashpoint a lot and Victoria has, like, publishes one 100 word story every week on Wednesday.
SethH
Wow.
Max
So part of it was we made Flashpoint because we just felt like there was a hole in the market for this short.
Christine
Okay.
Max
short form, but also it was just... I don't know, Thomas and I, at this point, we both have... um young daughters we are both like much more into our career and have less time so thomas still writes novels but i I find I have increased... Uh.
Max
I have less and less time for Fiction? I don't think flash fiction inherently... is easier.
Christine
No.
Max
But.
SethH
No.
Max
It is much... Much... I'm faster to write a 700 word story than a 70 ,000 word novel. So I'm able to. you know, get it get it done within my schedule and still have kind of the challenge of i want to convey this fantasy world or this You know, this futuristic.
Max
Setting.
Christine
Mm hmm.
Max
but I have so little time to actually paint the scenery. So what am I actually focusing on?
Christine
Yeah.
Max
I i just find it to be an interesting.
Christine
Hey.
Max
challenge.
Christine
I think that I noticed this because I have recently been trying to teach myself to appreciate short fiction and also sort of like I guess speculative poetry.
Christine
And for me. Uh uh. i've been having this discussion on there's a discord that's associated with uh the hugo spreadsheet of doom and i've been having this sort of discussion about like sometimes i'll read a short story and i'll be like well it was interesting but it didn't seem developed enough which seems like a very boring critique of short fiction because
Max
okay
SethH
Right.
Christine
how's it going to be?
SethH
It's short
Christine
So like part of it is like, well, how much of a feeling does it evoke? You know, I i guess if it feels like if it's missing something, then maybe it's. Maybe it didn't do its job well enough, but as I've started... literally moving into trying to read just a poem a day it's like okay this person had like 150 words. How did they...
Christine
How did they convey a specific feeling? Did they tell a story? and I'm just interested in how other people try to appreciate that kind of very short fiction um and i as someone who edits a flash fiction magazine I feel like you
Max
yeah
Christine
You read a lot of it, so maybe you have some thoughts there.
Max
the the biggest or the main reason that we will reject a story at flashpoint is that it is um the first chapter. of something, right?
Christine
Ah.
SethH
Mm.
Christine
Sure.
Max
like so often and i think this is holds true for short stories as well you just have more words for your first chapter is that And we we recently received a story where someone in their cover letter was like. i couldn't finish the story but i thought the beginning was good right and that's not
Christine
Yeah.
Max
not what we're looking for we're not uh
SethH
Yeah.
Max
um air and nothingness press is doing a call right now for endings so they only want like the last 2 000 words of stuff which i think is a very interesting idea but that's that's not what we want right we want ah a fleshed out beginning middle and end and it's
Christine
That's kind of cool.
Max
It's really difficult to do that in such a short amount of time. So I think what you're saying is. you know really important for like what is the feeling that's evoked we I'm very much drawn to stories that make Like.
Max
they get an emotional reaction to me thomas is really drawn to stories that use the limited space. to paint a beautiful picture.
Max
right Thomas is very much into the prose, I'm very much into the emotion, but then we both want there to be No. a character that either we root for or that we hate right to go back to this like effective connection that we talked about like we want there to be
Christine
Mm-hmm Yeah.
Max
something that we're rooting for either to fail or to succeed and
Christine
Hm.
Max
Flash Fiction's a... you know it's an odd duck because a lot of times people will submit like lists of things or like you know, epistolary type. things I don't know if that's the right word for what I'm thinking, not just letters, but like someone submitted a grocery list that we really liked and someone else wrote like the transcript of a radio broadcast.
Christine
Yeah.
Max
So you can do a lot of.
SethH
Hmm.
Max
interesting things with flash fiction that I think is harder to pull off in a much a longer format because you know reading a grocery list for 7 000 words you're like okay like good to the point but reading a grocery list for Um.
Max
600 words and then you can kind of get this emotional feeling at the end of like oh they're buying something for like their mother's funeral or something like that it's it can be very powerful and impactful so I just find that the emotion of flash fiction.
Christine
Yeah.
SethH
Hmm.
Christine
It's interesting.
Max
I often feel more in those short pieces than I do for longer short fiction.
Christine
oh Does... Does flash fiction fall under a Hugo nominatable character category? ah category
Max
I'm Mary Rob... Mary Robinette Kowal. one. um best short story for a flash fiction piece about um the robot monkey
Christine
How many, like... So what is flash fiction? Like how many words are we talking?
Max
it um It depends on your journal. Like daily.
Christine
Of always? The answer is always.
Max
Daily...
Christine
ends.
Max
Hmm. Daily Science Fiction said that it was up to 1500 words.
Christine
Okay. All right.
Max
we so We say that it's 100 to 1 ,000 words.
Christine
Okay.
Max
Some places say that it's 500 to 1 ,000 words and that under 500 is microfiction.
Christine
Okay.
Max
but in
Christine
Oh, okay.
Max
In general, if you're in the under 1000. worried you're in the flash fiction.
Christine
It's probably from Ash Fiction.
SethH
Right, which is covered under the umbrella of...
Christine
I'm like, okay, microfiction. Wait, what?
SethH
of short story as well right
Christine
Yeah.
Max
Yeah.
Christine
i just like there's microfiction and then we're gonna like you know yeah just anyway
SethH
We're in nano fiction and Pico fiction after that.
Christine
nanofiction i read gigafiction give me a
Max
Yeah.
SethH
so but
Christine
Brick.
Max
but
SethH
Yeah.
Max
yeah
SethH
I think that's – I'm glad you – pulled on that thread christine of because i do want to say max where where can people find you
Max
Yeah. um So thanks. I think we're wrapping up. So thanks so much for having me and Seth and Christine for this great conversation.
SethH
Yeah.
Max
I'm on my website is just my name.
SethH
Absolutely.
Max
So Max Dosser, M-A-X-D-O-S-S-E-R .com. And then Flashpoint SF. is our magazine. We are I'm currently running a holiday contest. I imagine by that in the time anyone hears this, we will no longer be running that, but hopefully we will have other things in the future that people can submit to. And you can find me.
Max
and Flashpoint, you can find me at my website. End. I would love to hear from any and all. the listeners.
SethH
Well on that note Max it was really great having you. Thanks so much. This was an absolute pleasure It was a lot of fun.
Max
Thank you.
SethH
And Christine, thanks for being here.
Christine
Of course. Super fun to be involved.
SethH
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. is Very grateful to to have you here to answer questions while I was thinking of my next one. And not answer, to ask questions, yeah. So that was very cool All right.
SethH
Bye now.
