Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts

Monday, December 31, 2012

Books I Read in 2012

It seems like everyone's putting up their 2012 best-of lists, so I wanted to join in on the fun! Most of the books I read hadn't been published this year, but whatever. I decided to come up with my own categories and highlight the books that I found particularly memorable, whether for good or for ill. These are all my personal opinions based on my very particular set of pet peeves and preferences, so please don't take these mini-sort-of-reviews as assessments of quality — they're basically just me ranting and raving about my reading experience.

Let's start out with a good one:

The Only 5-Star Rating


So I guess this would be my favorite book of the year (and yes I am super stingy with 5-star ratings, and even 4-star ones). Unfortunately, since I read it in February (which was a long time ago and before I started writing status updates while reading), I don't quite remember all the details. But I do remember that it made me cry (which isn't hard to do), and that it impressed me (which is), and that I loved the unconventional story structure. I am such a sucker for nonlinear story lines. I don't think I really fell in love with the protagonist and the love interest, but they didn't annoy me, which is actually saying a lot considering how picky I am. I do remember being moved by the relationships and the way we found out more and more about the group of kids from the past. Great read.


Made Me Laugh the Most


Dude, this book made me crack up SO much. I've been slowly and haphazardly making my way through the Discworld novels (I'm fortunate my library carries many of them), and while some of them turned out to be duds (at least to me), this one was a blast. I laughed so hard that my friend thought I was completely nuts, and that just made me laugh more. And it happened more than once! Ahh, Granny Weatherwax is so badass. I liked her a lot in the Tiffany Aching series, which I'd read before (love that series, particularly A Hat Full of Sky), but in this one she was just absolutely hilarious, and definitely made me eager to pick up all the rest of the witch books in the Discworld series. (Incidentally, the runner-up for this category is a Discworld book as well: Going Postal, featuring Moist Van Lipwig.)


Pissed Me Off the Most


This year I abandoned 30+ books while reading, but this particular DNF probably annoyed me the most out of all of them. I ranted about the green eye thing on my blog and the cultural appropriation stuff on Goodreads (with some great input and discussion from my friends — their posts are very much worth reading, more so than mine, haha). The disappointment hurt, a lot. I'd hoped so badly for this to be an amazing YA Asian fantasy because we definitely need more of those, but instead we got an author who doesn't think "exoticism" and "appropriation" are real things and that it should be ok for him to make stupid mistakes about someone else's culture and language just because he wanted his novel to have an aesthetic that's not overdone. Sigh.


Favorite Series


I don't manage to finish many series, since I frequently give up after disliking the first one, or get too lazy to hunt down each book, or worry the sequel will ruin the first book, or whatever. But I managed to check out all three books in the Chaos Walking trilogy from my library this year, and I thought this series was great in spite of all those elements I usually dislike: cliffhangers, protags that annoyed me, a romance I didn't much care for, weird dialect. But the experience of reading these books is just so intense I couldn't put them down; I felt exhilarated by the roller-coaster ride despite the fact that my fondness for the protags deteriorated rapidly over the three books. I think this was because my increasing dislike for them was balanced by my growing sympathy for the villains, which amazed me. There were characters I'd absolutely hated at first who grew on me and earned my compassion. By the end of the series, I wanted happy, redemptive endings for the villains even more than I wanted the protagonists to stay alive. Ultimately, I loved the masterful characterizations and the edge-of-your-seat pacing. I definitely didn't expect to like this series so much.


Favorite Historical Fiction


This book isn't for everyone, as there isn't much of a plot, and the voice of the main character didn't really fit her age. But I loved this book because I adored Calpurnia so, so much. I love science, and I love smart, strong-willed female characters, and this book had both. I very much enjoyed reading about Calpurnia's interactions with her family, her scientific outings with her grandfather, and the way she fought against the prescribed roles for women and girls. She is a feminist scientist in the making, which is AWESOME, and she completely won my heart.


Most Miserable


I don't even remember how this book made it to my to-read list, but I probably thought, "Huh, Harry Potter plus Narnia for grownups, sounds good," and made a note to look for it at the library. But I had no idea that it'd actually be about a miserable, selfish, hateful young man who makes a lot of stupid, self-absorbed decisions and mopes around being angsty all the time and then acts in such an jerkass way that terrible things happen to the one decent-ish character in the entire book. But it takes place first at a Harry-Potter-ripoff-magic-boarding-school and then in a Narnia-ripoff-fantasyland, so I guess that accounts for the description. It was so freaking depressing to read, and I hated pretty much everyone in the book (they mostly all hated themselves and each other, too). I was just like WHAT THE HECK IS THIS CRAP and was so disappointed and depressed and angry when I finished (plus relieved that it was over, I guess). Not to mention very, very miserable as well.


Favorite High Fantasy


I've had this on my to-read for a while, but it was Maya's recommendation that really spurred me to get it from the library. And I really enjoyed it! Vin was a great protagonist — smart, capable, brave, had to work for her skills, and wasn't whiny. I rooted for her throughout the book, and it was great to see her inner and outer transformations and growing relationships with her co-conspirators. All the plotting, cons, secrets, and mysteries were right up my alley. Plus, it had an interesting and unique magic system. Over all, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book, and I look forward to reading more by this author. (Also, I ended up recommending this book to a friend and we read it at the same time, so I'm relieved it was good and that we both liked it!) (Longer review for Mistborn: The Final Empire here.)


Most Relieved I Liked


I bought the 5-book Lyra series bundle for Kindle because of a Cyber Monday sale, and also because I adore Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles (particularly Searching for Dragons) and very much enjoyed her Mairelon series. The first four books were a little disappointing, though -- they weren't as good as her latter books, and the ratings for those ranged from 1.5 to 2.5. But I'd heard that The Raven Ring was the best, so I was hoping it'd be good. And I ended up liking it, even though it has a prophecy and a love triangle, both of which are usually things I don't like. But Wrede handled both those elements really well and while I didn't love those elements, they didn't frustrate me. Most of all, I loved Eleret — smart, sensible, capable, practical. Ah, definitely my kind of character. Seriously, I was so relieved after I finished this book and liked it, because I would've been so sad if I didn't like any of the Lyra books, given how much I enjoy Wrede's later work! (Longer review for The Raven Ring here.)


Everyone Loved But Me


It's kind of sad how many of the books I've read this year are contenders for this category. Ultimately I decided to go with Daughter of Smoke and Bone because of how popular it is and how little I liked it. I know a lot of people absolutely adored this one, but I just could not get over how the romance in this book turned the characters into people I hated. I found them to be shallow, stupid, and selfish, and I just couldn't bring myself to root for them. I know a lot of people like Taylor's writing, and I did like it in Lips Touch, but the descriptions of how enthralled these characters were by one another's beauty seriously put me off the prose in this one. I did find the worldbuilding interesting, but since characters and plot are what matter most to me when reading, in the end I did not enjoy this book the way most other readers did. I'm still very curious about how the series will end, though! I'm secretly hoping Karou and Akiva will actually not end up together, haha. (Longer review for Daughter of Smoke and Bone here.)


Favorite Fan Fiction


I don't usually read fanfic, but I saw this review by Livia Blackburne and decided to give it a try. And guess what, I really liked it! In fact, I may have liked it better than the original Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (don't kill me!). I mean, this Harry is brilliant, and he's trying to turn Draco to the good side by teaching him about genetics, and he's doing experiments to discover the rules of magic with Hermione (both Ravenclaw, of course), and Professor Quirrell lets all the students compete in a giant mock-war with generals and traitors. The plot may not be the strongest element, and the writing isn't the best either, but the fanfic is full of nerdy goodness that I found incredibly fascinating and fun, so I was never bored. Plus, I liked the fanfic take better than the original take for so many aspects of Harry and the wizarding world. The story by turns made me laugh, made me think, and moved me to tears. Over all, a wonderful reading experience that gave me a lot to think about.


Side Character Who Stole My Heart


So for most of these other books, my comments tend to focus on the main character, because how I feel about the main character has a very good chance of determining what I feel about the entire book (although an amazing twisty plot or well-executed nonlinear story structure or laugh-out-loud humor can win me over as well). It's rare for me to latch on to a side character so strongly, so the last spot on this post goes to a character from the last book I read (and probably the last book I'll read this year): Raan, vessel of Maara of the Scorpion Clan. I love Raan so freaking much, you guys. She's spirited, clever, tricky, brash, and is fiercely determined to stand up for her own right to life when everyone else demands her death. I love that she rebels against the gods and tradition and the ritual of human sacrifice, and searches for a way to save her clan without the need for her own death. She drinks and swears and is always running away, struggles so much with her prescribed role of a vessel, somehow become friends with the other vessels despite their complete opposite views, and then, in the end, does what she thinks is best even though it costs her so much — and even then she never stops fighting. Just, love. (And best of all, she doesn't spend most of the book mooning over men when she has so much more at stake!) Anyway, Raan was the one who made Vessel a worthwhile read for me, and I so wish she had been the protagonist instead. Then this book would've been competition for Jellicoe Road! ;) (Longer review for Vessel here.)


So yeah, those are a few of the books I read in 2012 that made an impression on me, for better or for worse. I'm looking forward to reading more books in 2013 — and hopefully I'll be better at choosing books I like!

Feel free to steal one of the categories I've used above, or make up your own, and tell me about one of your 2012 reads that was memorable, whether in a good or not-so-good way!

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Part 3: Green-Eyed Asian Love Interest

Sorry for the long wait between Parts 2 and 3, but here it is! Part 3 of my series on thoughts I had about YA Asian fantasies and green eyes that kept me awake and made me waste my rare opportunity to sleep in on a weekday. Here are Part 1 and Part 2 if you haven't read them already.


So as I thought about how I wanted to go about writing Asian characters in fantasy, I decided I didn't want to write about a fantasy version of Ancient China. And I also didn't want to go the route of Ash and have the characters be Asian in my head but not apparent to anyone who's only read the story and not any notes by me. And since the characters in Ash are supposedly Asian but the love interest has green eyes, that made me think of an upcoming (or is it out already?) YA Asian fantasy that actually has a green-eyed Asian love interest, and that was the main thing that made me so mad I couldn't fall asleep.

This book has been getting a lot of buzz, and you may have recognized it as Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff, in which case you'd be right (points for you!). Ok, so I have to admit I have not read this book either (I know, I'm doing an awful lot of commenting on books I haven't read, haha), and only thought of it in my half-asleep stupor because, a few days before, I'd read Nafiza's awesome review of it on GoodReads.

Here's the relevant excerpt from Nafiza's review.
So, here’s the thing, as far as I know, Japanese people (you’ll have to forgive me for the assumption that the setting is a mythical Japan, all evidence points to that) do not have green eyes. Yet the samurai who features so prominently in Yukiko’s dream has green eyes. (She met him for half a minute and that was it, insta-lust, she didn’t even see his face, just his eyes and she was gone!) I initially got excited because hey, gaijin slave promenading as a samurai! Interesting stuff! Right? Wrong. No explanation given there but maybe it’s just me being extra picky on the details. 
Oh hey look, a green-eyed Japanese love interest! In an Asian fantasy! Finally, I'm talking more about the green-eyed part of my initial tweet.

So, I understand that there actually ARE some East Asians with green or blue eyes (hazel/green would be a lot more common than grass-green or sky-blue). But the vast, vast majority of East Asians have brown eyes. So what's the message behind giving the Asian love interest green eyes? Our culture already tells green-eyed people that their eyes are beautiful, but we rarely see media telling us that Asian features are beautiful, and Asian males especially don't get enough love. And there are so many slurs and jokes about Asian eyes already. Why is it ok to take away this awesome opportunity to present Asian features as desirable and beautiful and turn it into an ode to green or light-colored eyes that we already see all the time?

But maybe it's not really about how green-eyed people are better than brown-eyed people. Maybe it's about that struggle when you look different from everyone else. Maybe it's about internalizing what society tells you is the norm and hating the non-voluntary non-conformity that shows up in the mirror. Maybe it's about how it feels to be called a freak by your family and outcast for something you have no control over, and being seen as a dirty foreigner despite your loyalty to your people. Maybe it's about having someone else look past your appearances and loving you for who you are. Maybe it's about struggling to come with grips with identity when you're neither accepted by your people nor by those for whom green eyes are not so rare. Maybe it's about fighting the conventional standards of beauty and believing you are attractive when everyone who matters in the narratives you see is praised for features you don't have.

But from what I can tell from the review, the Asian protagonist takes one look at his gorgeous green eyes (half a minute, according to Nafiza) and falls desperately in love with him. WTF??? Insta-lust is terrible enough as a trope in YA fantasy (see my list of pet peeves), even worse when based pnly on a single physical trait. Don't people notice this problematic message that green eyes are inherently soooo attractive that, even someone who hasn't been conditioned by the media to think of them as gorgeous, and have never seen anything like it, will of course fall over herself for this trait? (Not saying that green eyes aren't attractive, because they can be very pretty, but people who'd never seen them before would probably freak out or be taken aback at first rather than rhapsodizing about their beauty.) And if an Asian girl in an Asian fantasy is going to fall for one physical trait, of COURSE it's going to be one that's more commonly found among non-Asian people. Heave forbid she finds a brown-eyed Asian man attractive! WTF.

I remember how it felt to think that I could never be like a fantasy heroine because I wasn't white and my eye color wasn't special enough. Whenever my sister, friend, and I played princess, we always made our alter egos white — blonde, brunette, redhead. Green, blue, gray eyes. Because only white girls get to have magical adventures and be princesses, and of course they only marry other white people. Even our pretend maids were white. I don't think there was a single PoC in our entire make-believe kingdom, which sounded right to us because, hey, that's just how fantasy magic kingdoms are, right?

But having only white people in fantasy is pretty messed up. Let's write an Asian fantasy! Let's have a kick-ass girl protagonist! Let's have a hot love interest! But here's a problem  —  black hair, brown eyes are just so unattractive and boring, and you know how Asians all look the same, how would any reader ever be able to figure out who I want them to see as "special"? Oh, I know! Everyone knows that in a fantasy kingdom, if you have light, special eye colors (mega points for violet!) that means the author is pointing you out as a special snowflake. So... I'll just give my Asian love interest green eyes! Now they don't all look the same, and anyway it's much easier for readers to relate to being attracted to brilliant sea-green eyes than to boring, dull, squinty, dung-colored brown eyes. Ugh.

Look, I think it's great that people find green eyes attractive; I think green eyes are nice, too. But the media is already white-centric enough with their standards of beauty and I'm disappointed that the author chose to go this route and, rather than making most of the chance to present something other than typically white characteristics as attractive and desirable, instead chose to add another voice to "aren't people with light-colored skin/eyes/hair just SO BEAUTIFUL AND SPECIAL??" That particular camp is already loud enough, thank you very much. In fact, it's kind of drowning out the other voices.

I mean, if you're going to write an Asian fantasy, is it too much to ask that you let go of your white-centric ideas of beauty while you write about Asian characters in an Asian culture? There are few enough Asians in YA fantasy, please don't force your white-centric aesthetics on one  — especially if it's only for omg-special-snowflake-insta-lust.

So yeah, now you know why green eyes made me so mad I couldn't fall back asleep. :P

P.S. And for those people who want to point to Japanese anime and manga (aka the author's primary source of research) and say, "How come you're not calling them out for being full of Japanese people with weirdly-colored hair/eyes/crazy features?", the context is totally different. I assure you that Japanese people are in no danger of being whitewashed or underrepresented in Japanese media.

P.P.S. For those of you interested, here's a great review by Cyna pointing out other problematic cultural/linguistic/gender issues in Stormdancer. Definitely worth a read!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Portrayal of Science in YA Spec Fic

So, a (very long) while ago, I wrote a post on human cloning (which I put a lot of work into and think you may benefit from reading! :D *hint hint*) and promised a follow-up regarding my thoughts on science and YA spec fic.

Lest you think I'm a fiction-hater, let me say up front that I adore reading fiction, particularly fantasy. I love spec fic and think that imagination, creativity, and emotional resonance in stories are all important and valuable.

But I also love science and the way it allows us to understand the universe as it actually is, rather than viewing it through superstition or wishful thinking. In case you couldn't tell from my human cloning post, I am a big fan of rational thought.

Sometimes these two things come into conflict because people often confuse fiction for fact. I am all for writing about unicorns and elves and colonies on Mars,  because people, for the most part, do not confuse those as applicable to our reality. They're not going to read a book and start believing that we really do have unicorns and elves and colonies on Mars (at least, not yet), and that's why I'm perfectly ok with incredible, non-existent technology and other fantastical elements. But less obviously fictional elements can be more problematic. When fiction influences people's attitudes toward existing technologies or scientific concepts in such a way that contradicts reality as known through science, that's when I get annoyed.


Last year, I read a YA sci-fi novel and barely blinked at the alien or currently-non-existent technology. What really bugged me was when the author presented erroneous information about how mutations and genes work in a context that is relevant to issues today. (This really stuck out to me because, in college, I took a course on genetics and liked it so much I made it the emphasis of my molecular and cell biology major.) Not only was the explanation about how genes work not very relevant to the main plot, but it can be misconstrued as being scientific fact, thus encouraging unfounded fear of existing technologies. And this, to me, is both unfortunate and irresponsible.

And I'm not the only one who noticed this in the book. Here's a great post by Sean Wills about the importance of getting the science right, and I am in full agreement.

What intrigued me, though, was that the author chimed in in the comments section to say she didn't get anything wrong. Her statement of "genetically modified corn caused widespread sterility," as expressed in her novel, struck me as unscientific and incredible, so I was very interested in seeing her justification of her statement.

Ultimately, though, I found that her defense doesn't hold up to scrutiny. While the concepts she referenced were scientific, stringing up a number of truths does not necessarily mean that your conclusion is therefore also true and scientific, especially if each step in the argument is incredibly implausible and there are several missing steps.

If I were to do the same thing, here's how it'd look: "First of all, electromagnetic waves can affect the brain! Especially solar radiation. And frequent flyers are often exposed to solar radiation. And guess what, there's an area of the brain called Wernicke's area that controls use of speech! THEREFORE, in my sci-fi story that takes place in a future world where everyone's a constant jetsetter, it is TOTALLY PLAUSIBLE that a whole generation of people were exposed to excessive solar radiation that affected Wernicke's area in the brain, so they all got Wernicke's aphasia and walked around talking in a way that sounds totally nonsensical to us."

I hope that illustration conveys why her argument fell flat for me. All my links are "real science" too, but that doesn't make my conclusion any more scientific, due to the many gaps in logic, especially the lack of conclusive studies. While it is true that there are likely to be some risks to both genetically modified food and radiation exposure due to frequent air travel, negative portrayals of existing technology based on simplistic, implausible, and ultimately unrealistic cause-and-effect scenarios aren't helping anyone; rather, they merely spread misinformation and encourage unfounded fear. (No, you're not going to get Wernicke's aphasia through radiation exposure from frequent flying or become sterile from ingesting GM corn. Doesn't mean those things are perfectly safe (what is?), but there's no conclusive evidence about the negative effects. No reason for knee-jerk reactions, either.)


The funny thing, though, is that sometimes I don't even catch all the science!fails in novels. In another YA sci-fi novel, the author had character A give an explanation that defied the laws of physics and had character B accept it, no questions asked.

In my defense, it was incredibly obvious (to me) that there was no way any explanation character A gave at that point would actually be true, despite the fact that (or maybe because) it was set up to seem like a BIG SHOCKING REVEAL. (Due to my experience as a reader, I recognized that the reveal had to be fake for there to be somewhere for the plot to go for the rest of the trilogy. Plus, this novel in particular had an especially predictable plot.) So it's kind of funny that I didn't realize how unscientific the explanation was because I'd already dismissed it out of hand from a story perspective. It's possible the author meant for that exchange to showcase the lack of formal education/incredibly gullibility of character B, but I rather think that the author, like me, knew it was a fake explanation and so didn't think to check for scientific accuracy.

But still, fake science = BAD, because although I didn't notice it, a lot of other readers did, and for some of them, it interfered with their enjoyment of the book. And although it's not as horrible for people to have mistaken ideas about space travel as about genetic engineering (given the difference in exposure in most people's day-to-day life), it would kind of suck for some teen to get that wrong on a physics test, haha. (And yes, this author also had, ah, interesting ideas about genetics, and that bothered me WAY MORE than this physics slip up.)


So, even though it can sometimes be fun/funny to read about the fantastical science of writers' imaginations (recent read: Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake — not YA, but her ideas about genetic engineering are hilariously absurd), and sometimes most people don't notice, it's important to get the facts right. Most people can't tell fact from fiction in books and movies (I'm not always so great about it, either), and given the terrible state of science literacy in the US, I can't stress enough that I wish writers would be more conscientious about presenting science and technology as accurately as possible so as not to propagate unfounded fear/disgust of advancements.

Controversial scientific subjects like cloning and genetic modification should ideally have their merits and risks addressed scientifically and not according to writers' runaway imaginations. Fiction affects people's attitudes and thoughts, and I wish writers would take their ability to influence reader opinions more responsibly by not promoting counter-factual ideas (not to mention it really takes me out of the story when I notice scientific inaccuracies). Feel free to make up things and talk about technology that doesn't exist today if you're going to be all like THIS IS EVIL AND BAD in your book. (Also, read Sean Wills' post on genetics if you're going to be writing about that — yup, I discovered Sean Wills while researching for this post and I'm now a fan.) Fiction, creativity, and imagination should be celebrated and valued, but let's not be responsible for propagating lies and falsehoods about science and technology, mkay?

Friday, August 10, 2012

Part 2: Asian by Authorial Decree

This is my second post about some thoughts I had about YA Asian fantasy while I was half-asleep during last week's typhoon day. You can find Part 1 here if you haven't read it already. Also, quick warning: this one is LONG.


Part of my last post was about how to help readers identify characters in a fantasy as Asian without sticking to a mythical Ancient Asia as the setting. And when I was thinking about this instead of sleeping in like I'd planned to, I recalled a blog post by Malinda Lo that talked about race and Asianness in her lesbian Cinderella fantasy, Ash, which doesn't sound very Asian as far as the world-building. (Disclaimer: I have not read Ash. Curse you,  my sleep-addled brain, for prompting me to write blog posts about books I haven't read.)

Let's start out with some quotes from her post:
It’s been my experience that most humans in fantasy novels are white, and when you think about it, the descriptors that we Americans (or people of Earth) use about race simply do not apply in most fantasy fiction. There are no African Americans in fantasy because there is no Africa (usually). So what do you do?
I must disagree with what she's saying here about fantasy and race. Yes, most humans in fantasy novels are white. But just because everyone is white in most fantasies, that doesn't mean it's right or desirable. And I don't think the main reason for the overwhelming whiteness is because there are no useful words for race in fantasy fiction (for example, N.K. Jemisin does an awesome job writing about black people in fantasy). I think it's obvious that you don't have to use the word "African American" in your fantasy in order to include black characters, and I'm a little surprised she would think so.
So I guess I have two different rules. In a fantasy world where there is no racial distinction, describing race is unnecessary, although I see my characters through my Earthbound eyes as being Hapa. In Earthbound fiction, race cannot be left up to the reader’s imagination, because I believe it is fundamental to a character’s identity.
I absolutely do not buy her claim that there is no racial distinction in fantasy; there is no racial distinction only because EVERYONE IS FREAKIN WHITE. So yes, I agree, it's hard to do things differently from the way we've seen them done, and it's hard to figure out how to write PoCs in fantasy when there hasn't been tons and tons of precedents to draw upon, like there is for fantasies about white people. But that doesn't mean it's not possible. It just means it takes more work, and thought, and trial-and-error. (And I'm really glad that she did write PoCs into her second book, Huntress, which I'll cover later in this post.)

I also do not agree with her distinction between how things work in fantasy and how things work on Earth; fantasy is written by and for people who are "Earthbound." Which means there are real-life implications of how race is (or isn't) described in a work of fiction, and why I think it's so important that there are more characters in fantasy that are identifiably PoCs.
I want readers to imagine the Charming that they would fall in love with, because everyone has different tastes. But for me, she’s Asian. Except she has green eyes, because, frankly, I’ve always liked green eyes and she’s Charming, you know, and that’s how I see her. So I guess to be specific using terms we are familiar with, she must be biracial, or Hapa. And so is Cinderella, because she has brown hair.
(Aha, so here's where the green eyes start sneaking in.) In this paragraph, she's saying that she wants readers to cast her characters themselves, and that for her she sees Charming as Asian. But, you know, biracial — because of the green eyes. Which makes no sense, because how am I supposed to cast Charming as an Asian with brown eyes if that's what I'd want? So the whole "let readers imagine whatever they want" thing doesn't really work because the text still gets in the way (although some people, it must be said, have no problem reading characters as white no matter what the text says). And I find it interesting that she says the characters must be biracial due to brown hair and green eyes, since it IS possible for Asians to have brown hair or green eyes, even if not biracial, as a reviewer points out later in this post (though it's certainly rare).

Honestly, the whole "up to the reader to decide" thing is problematic, because we read so many fantasies in which everyone is white that most readers, even PoCs, will assume everyone's white as the default. Which is why the solution is not to just leave out all descriptions and let it be completely up to the reader, because colorblindness = no racial distinction = everyone is white, and we already have more than enough of that.
Can you imagine how bizarre it would be to insert the term “biracial” in a fantasy novel? 
Actually, no, I do not think it would be bizarre at all. It's better than "half-breed," which is not all that uncommon in fantasy.
(In case anyone is wondering, I am also of a mixed-race background, which may be why I started out with that as the default option for my characters. There are other characters in the book who are distinctly Caucasian, though.)
Huh. How nice that there are characters who are distinctly Caucasian, so we don't get confused and accidentally cast them as PoCs in our minds. How about characters who are distinctly Asian? I know there are Asian characters in Huntress, which is supposed to take place in the same world as Ash, but hundreds of years before. Are there any distinctly Asian characters in Ash or did they all disappear by the time of Ash, à la Firefly? From what she says about the lack of racial distinction, though, I'm not optimistic; but maybe someone who's read the book can tell me what's in the book.


Although that blog post was the one I thought of that morning, Malinda Lo actually wrote an updated post on race in Ash, which clarifies some of her points. Though I have to say I'm still not fully on board with the newer version:
When I wrote Ash, I had a mental image of what my characters looked like. In my imagination, they appeared to have Asian features. However, there is no Asia in Ash’s world (it’s a fantasy world), so there is no way they could actually be Asian. 
I fail to follow the logic here. What, people in Ash's world can't be Asian because there is no Asia, but they can be "distinctly Caucasian"... uh, because the Caucus mountains exist in Ash's world? What? That makes no sense. Why can there NOT be any characters who share physical resemblance with people who, on this world, would be termed Asian, but there CAN be characters who share physical characteristics with people who, on this world, would be termed Caucasian, when it's a fantasy world without either Asia or Europe? It is totally unfair that all fantasylands that are not explicitly modeled off a particular time and place somewhere in Europe still tend to have all white characters, since that's the fantasyland default, whereas the only way to get Asian characters is to specifically model your world on somewhere in Asia (or an amalgamation of everything you can think of that sounds semi-Asian, which is even worse).
But also — and this is very important: My opinion is only my opinion. I think that sometimes readers tend to give too much credence to an author’s thoughts about her own work. Every reader brings his or her background to a book, and a book’s meaning is always a negotiation between the reader (and her experiences) and the story itself. What the author says outside the pages of the book is largely irrelevant.
Oh good; I'm in full agreement here. Yay! :)
For those who are still confused about why I see the characters as having Asian features, though, I will say this: It probably stems from the fact that I’m Chinese American and I live in a diverse place (California). There are Asian American faces next to Latinos next to white people next to African Americans, and yet we are all (mostly) Americans. This is the world I live in, and it makes sense to me that this is also the world I envisioned in my fiction.
Can someone let me know if the characters in Ash can actually be read as racially diverse? Or are they just racially diverse by authorial decree? Because that, to me, still wouldn't fly. Racially diverse in the author's head but not in the text = white in everyone else's heads. Which is really sad, and says a lot about our culture, but it just means that not talking about race in fantasy is not the answer.

Just look at this AMAZING review of Ash by an Asian-Canadian, Yuan. Unlike me, she's actually read the book (XD), and here are some excerpts:
I’m not sure how much I was affected by the fact that I read this post by Malinda Lo wherein she said that she imagined her cast as Asian before having read the novel. I tried, and I tried to buy it, that the cast were Asian but I just couldn’t. I wrestled with this in myself and wondered why can’t I imagine this fairy tale world with people who look like me. It’s most definitely not because one of the girl has green eyes and the other girl is a brunette because I know Asians who have such features and they are most certainly not mixed. And I think, after reading Zetta Elliott’s review of Ash, a large part of it had to do with the way beauty is described in this novel. It felt to me like a very white standard of who is considered beautiful, from the “jeweled” glittering, awesomely coloured eyes to the “golden” silken hair to the “ethereal” paleness of the skin, all used as examples of beauty. This, plus the European-inspired pseudo-medieval setting made me equate the general populous of this novel as white. I’m so resigned and used to medieval fantasy excluding all non-white persons from their stories, and this novel failed to show a “medieval” fantasy that can include non-white characters. 
Though, as an aside, if I streeeeeeeeeetch my imagination, I can kind of picture Kaisa as Asian, due to her name and the bit about her being from the “South” which I may be reading too much into it. (Even I feel like I’m grasping at straws over this.) Though, any of these tiny little hopes were largely crushed by the eyes thing; her Very Awesome Green Eyes of Awesome is off-putting. (Not that I don’t think green eyes are nice, but it’s such a white beauty standard thing, to emphasize Awesomely Coloured Eyes.) 
YES YES YES, especially about what she says regarding green eyes and white beauty standards. ([spoiler alert] That's going to be the main point of Part 3 of my series, so keep that in mind, and stay tuned!)


So yeah, Ash is kind of a fail on the Asianness front, at least for me, based on her blog posts on the subject. But I kept looking for other mentions of race and fantasy on her blog after I read the previous two, and, believe it or not, read this awesome post on Huntress AFTER I'd written Part 1 of this series on my blog. (Good thing I found it, too, or I'd look like an idiot for criticizing her for Ash without giving her any credit for Huntress.) It's scary how much her post talks about the same things I talk about in mine.

I mean, look at this paragraph:
The Kingdom in Huntress is influenced by Chinese and Japanese culture, but it is not China or Japan. It is a fictional fantasy world that also must eventually become the fantasy world in Ash, because Huntress is set several centuries earlier. So it simply could not be the kind of “Asia” that exists in movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.1Also, there were elements of the fantasy world in Huntress that were simply not Chinese: there is no homophobia, for one thing, and there isn’t nearly as much sexism as there was in imperial China.
And that's exactly what I said I wanted! A world that's not China or Japan, but still has Asian influences, and not so strictly that it makes it difficult to tell the kind of story you want to tell. (Although I do wish she hadn't made it set in the same world as Ash because of the problematic issue of all the Asian people somehow disappearing.)

But I'm not sure how I feel about this:
I know that if the cover had depicted a white girl or even no girl at all, probably even more readers would never have guessed that the characters look Asian.
Hm. I don't know if the characters were specifically described as Asian-looking in the book (since I didn't read all of it — shame, I know) and she's making a statement about how easy it is to whitewash characters in our heads, or if she purposefully didn't emphasize the Asianness of her characters and this is exactly the effect she was going for. I have mixed feelings if it's the latter. On one hand, sure, it's good not to make Asianness super obvious by exoticizing it. But on the other hand, if the only reason people realize the characters are Asian is because of the cover, then is the author somehow failing to convey her vision through the actual text? Or is it the fault of our white-centric culture? How obvious should Asianness be?

And also, what influenced her thoughts on race in fantasy? (And in a direction I can get on board with!) How did she come to change her mind about people being allowed to look Asian in a fantasy world that doesn't have Asia in it? What happened to her "let readers cast the characters how they like" idea — can they still do that with an Asian girl on the cover?

Lots of questions, as you can see. But I'm mostly just happy that there's another fantasy with Asian people in it and an Asian girl on the cover. Because that is AWESOME and necessary (regardless of my personal feelings for the actual story).

And I love what she says about exoticism:
What makes something exotic? It can certainly be philosophy or beliefs, but more often, I think exoticism resides in things you can actually see or hear. Clothing, food, music, architecture: these are the external markers of difference. So I decided to minimize, when possible, the descriptions of these things in Huntress, except when I was making a point. For example, when Taisin visits the royal palace, I describe some of the palace to show how luxurious it is compared to what she’s accustomed to. When Taisin and Kaede dine with the king, he has a very grand feast of delicacies that ordinary folks don’t get.
Otherwise, the things that might seem “exotic” to an outsider are actually considered “normal” to an insider. Kaede is an insider in her world, so she’s not going to find most of it terribly exotic. The clothes she wears and the way the students at the Academy do their hair are pretty ordinary to her. The spiritual and philosophical beliefs that provide the backbone to the magic that Taisin practices aren’t going to seem unusual to Taisin.
That's a great point about writing descriptions in general. It should be in your character's PoV, and people don't usually pay a lot of attention to things that are normal and ordinary for them. This is awesome advice about bringing in Asian influences without making them too exotic.
Hopefully, they don’t seen too unusual to the reader, either. This can result in a few different reactions, of course. There are readers who won’t see the Chinese influence at all because it’s presented as entirely normal, and besides, they’re reading a fantasy novel where magic happens — maybe it’s all made up. 
I'd have to disagree a tiny bit here, though. Just because something is normal to the characters doesn't mean it's going to be normal to the readers, since sometimes authors use this technique to shock readers with how desensitized or accustomed characters may be to situations that are disgusting or horrific to the reader.

However, I love the idea that Asianness doesn't have to feel exotic, because there's so much made-up and strange elements in fantasy anyway that readers are more accepting of unfamiliar concepts and influences, which definitely helps when you want to work in concepts or world-building that aren't already known to the majority of readers — which can be Asian-inspired.

But hands-down, here is my favorite excerpt from all three of her blog posts:
Ultimately, I think my project with Huntress was a fairly Asian American one. I am Asian American, and I move through the world as an Asian American. Kaede’s world has elements of both Asia and America in it, and I like that. 
And that is EXACTLY what I want for myself, too. I love that she's writing fantasies as an Asian American and admire her for the evolution of her thoughts regarding race in fantasy. I hope that I'll also be able to write fantasies that reflect my worldview and experiences as an Asian American. It's not easy, as there isn't a whole lot of precedent, but I'm excited that Asian-American fantasies featuring Asian characters have been growing in number, and I can't wait to read more of the novels in this category. And one day, maybe, I'll add my own to the number.

What are your thoughts about race in fantasy? Do you automatically cast everyone as white when you read, unless (or maybe, regardless of whether) race is otherwise specified/suggested? Or do you try to read all characters who are not specifically described as white as PoCs because that's how much you're hoping for PoC representation?

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Part I: Asian-American Fantasy

So remember how in my last post I mentioned the very high probability of getting a day off from work because of Typhoon Saola? Well, work and classes did end up getting canceled in Taipei last Thursday, which is awesome as I strongly prefer snuggling in my dry, warm bed to braving the storm in order to get to work. I'd fully planned on sleeping in, but somehow I woke briefly in the morning, started thinking about my Camp NaNo project, then about YA Asian fantasies, then about green eyes in said fantasies. And as I laid in my bed and thought about these things, I got angrier and angrier, to the point I couldn't fall back asleep — which I'm usually awesome at (much to the annoyance of my parents).

Since my cryptic tweet wasn't rant-y enough for me to feel like I've fully expressed my thoughts on this topic, here is part one of my long, rambly blog post on some of my thoughts regarding reading and writing Asian-influenced fantasies. I originally dumped everything in one post, but it turned out SUUUUUPER long, so out of consideration I split it into a series of three posts. (Aww, so sweet.) I'll get to green eyes in parts 2 and 3; part 1 is more general. (And if you want to see my previous post on this subject, see: For My Fifteen-Year-Old Self.)

[Note: when I use the word "Asian" I'm often referring specifically to "East Asian," but sometimes writing it out the more specific, longer way is awkward, so in most cases I leave out the "East."]


I want to write a fantasy with Asian characters, but I don't want to write a fantasy version of one specific time and place in Asia.

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to take inspiration from a particular culture/time/place. Writers do so with non-Asian influences, too, setting their stories in fantasy versions of Renaissance Italy, Medieval France, or Victorian Britain. But in most cases when a fantasy world doesn't correspond to one specific era or place in history, everyone's automatically white, because that's how it goes in generic fantasyland. Which makes me think the main hint for readers that the characters in a fantasy could possibly look similar to East Asians in our world is if the story takes place in a world recognizable as fantasy Japan/China/Korea. Another case of white = generic/normal, PoC = specific/exotic.

Which kind of sucks. I wonder if I could pull off writing Asian-looking characters that aren't set in a fantasy version of ancient China or Japan or Korea. That's my goal, because I love fantasy and would like to read something that includes representations of Asian-Americans. I mean, I'm Taiwanese-American and grew up in the States with first-generation immigrant parents, and I still occasionally get culture shock living in Taiwan. I don't want to write a fantasy set in Ancient China just so I can have Asian characters — many of the values and worldviews and traditions of that period would feel largely foreign and unfamiliar to me, not to mention rather bothersome for the kind of protagonists and plots I like. I want setting and characters that appeal to my imagination, which has been influenced by both Western and Eastern cultures.

But there's a risk in not sticking to one particular time and place (and researching the hell out of it) as inspiration for an Asian fantasy. After all, there are writers who don't know anything about Asian cultures, don't do their research, and just pick out all the Asian-sounding elements they can think of (I mean, it's all the same as long as it's somewhat Asian, right? Who cares if those elements come from all different countries and time periods? Or aren't even authentically Asian?) and throw them together for that exotic Oriental feel (ugh). And then they end up looking like idiots who have no respect for other cultures and only appropriated Asianness because they wanted an exotic atmosphere. And I definitely don't want to be one of those writers. But I also don't think that the only acceptable way to write Asian-inspired fantasy is to stick to what's historically true during one particular dynasty in one particular country, because that would be totally unfair given all the fantasies out there that don't directly correspond to any particular time or place in history.

So, I'm not sure how to balance everything. I want to make up my own fantasyland with both Western and Asian influences, and still convey to readers that the characters are not white people who all just happen to have dark hair and brown eyes. (Or, like, at least most of the readers. As evidenced by recent events, there are people who will think all the characters are white no matter what you do.) And I don't want to have to describe anyone as having "almond-shaped eyes and pineapple-colored skin" (uh, not that people actually use pineapple as a description, but you know what I mean). I can probably increase the chances my characters will read as Asian by putting more obviously Asian elements into the world-building, but I'm not sure how I can do so without coming across as an irresponsible masher-upper or making it so overwhelmed with traditional Asian culture that it no longer feels mine.

And some people might ask, "But why would anyone bother making their characters anything other than white if they're in a made-up fantasyland that's not obviously a mythic historical Asia? It only makes sense to have Asian protagonists in clearly Asian-inspired fantasies with strictly Asian cultures and values.* Anything else should just have white characters." And then I will want to rip out my hair, which may prompt them to feel bad enough that they say, "Well, you can throw in an Asian secondary character/sidekick, if you insist."

Sigh. Anyway, I'm unsure how to do the world-building correctly to get the effect I want. Or maybe I'm just over-thinking it and it's actually not as complicated as I'm making it out to be.

If you have any thoughts/comments/suggestions on this topic, it'd be greatly appreciated! I definitely don't have all the answers, so any ideas would be awesome. Also, can you think of any examples of Asian protags in fantasy that's not set in a mythical version of Ancient China/Japan/Korea? Did it work for you, and what clued you in to the characters' ethnicity?

*And sometimes, even when it's clear the world/culture/characters are all Asian, they still get whitewashed. Ugh.

P.S. Here is an AMAZING post about writing non-Eurocentric fantasy that you should read: I Didn't Dream of Dragons.

P.P.S. Part 2 can be read here. Part 3 coming soon! I know I say "soon" all the time, but this time I specifically mean that I will get them both up by the end of next week.

P.P.P.S. Also, I totally need to get back to actually writing my Camp NaNo project, rather than writing about writing it. :P

Sunday, May 13, 2012

On Human Cloning

About a month ago, I became slightly obsessed about the issue of human cloning. I meant to write a blog post about it to let out some steam, but, as you can see, it took me a while. And not only is the post longer than I expected it to be, it is also totally off-topic for this blog.

So feel free to ignore this post, jump to the comments and chime in with your favorite clone movie/book, or just read the TL;DR below:

If human cloning ever becomes possible, clones will not be copies of people or soulless drones as some sci-fi may lead you to think, but individual human beings that can be thought of as someone that is similar to a twin (same DNA as another individual) + IVF (artificial implantation) + time delay (needs 9 months gestation after successful implantation).

Well ok, this isn't exactly accurate, of course, but closer to the truth than what you tend to see in sci-fi. For more information on cloning, including why that's not a perfect analogy, read on!

Intro & Backstory

I majored in Molecular & Cell Biology and currently work at at biotech startup, so I was excited to see biotechnology featured in Golden Eagle's A-to-Z series. In the comment thread, there were a couple comments of the cloning-is-scary variety, and while I did wonder whether those sentiments were based on a scientific understanding of cloning or just because it feels icky and unknown, I gave those commenters the benefit of the doubt.

Fast forward a week, and cloning is the subject of S.L. Hennesy's A-to-Z challenge: I for Ishiguro and The Island (finally read Never Let Me Go! And The Island is a fun film but omg the science is AWFUL). S.L. asks good questions about cloning, but a few of the responses revealed serious misunderstandings of what cloning actually means. (You may or may not have noticed my tweets on this subject.)

I noticed that some people were expressing opinions of cloning based on misrepresentations in the media rather than on cloning as a real science, so that's what prompted me to write this post. I'm hoping that a discussion of what human cloning is in biotechnology (as opposed to science fiction) can educate those interested in the subject as well as dispel common myths.

What is cloning?

When it comes to cloning, there are two types: therapeutic and reproductive. Therapeutic cloning is the cloning of tissues and organs through embryonic stem cells for research or medical use. Reproductive cloning is the cloning of a human being and is the topic of this post.

Here's how cloning works: take a donor egg and remove the nucleus (which contains most of the egg's original DNA), then fuse it with a cell (which contains new DNA) from the DNA donor. This process is called somatic cell nuclear transfer. Implant the resulting embryo into the womb of a surrogate mother, wait 9 months, and if all goes according to plan, you'll have a live, healthy, beautiful baby clone! (Not possible at this time, but you never know!)

What is a clone?

This baby will have pretty much the same genetic profile as the DNA donor (other than mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited through the egg). And really, this in itself should not be cause for alarm; I'm sure you know at least one pair of monozygotic (aka identical) twins, and just because they share DNA doesn't mean they're exactly the same in every way.

The fact that the embryo is artificially implanted would not be unique to cloning, either. In IVF (in vitro fertilization), embryos are conceived artificially in a lab, then implanted in the womb. After that, the embryo goes through gestation and birth just like everyone else.

The main difference that separates clones from twins or IVF babies is the process: asexual vs. sexual reproduction. I'll discuss the implications of this later in my post, but it can be useful to consider your clone as someone like an identical twin sibling who's younger than you by decades and likely to turn out very differently from you.


Now that we've gone over what cloning is, let's talk about a few common myths regarding human cloning:

1. Clones don't have souls!

If you think twins and people born through IVF have souls, then clones would have souls. Clones would have individuality, consciousness, personality, agency. They would not be an exact copy of the DNA donor because they would grow up in a totally different environment, and people are products of both nature and nurture (genes and external influences/environment). And whether the way you came to be was human-assisted or not should have no bearing on whether you are considered a human being.

This "clones don't have souls" sentiment makes me angry because saying a group of people have no souls is a way of dehumanizing them and stripping them of their human rights, which allows some people to feel they are justified in doing terrible things to them (see later point re: organ farms).

And if you happen to believe that people with less than 100% non-artificial origins are soulless, then I've got a newsflash for you — the soulless are already among us! And I think Louise Brown would have something to say about that.

(Side note: Honestly, everyone has their own idea of what constitutes as a soul, which makes it rather difficult to talk about in a meaningful way. According to neuroscience the concept of soul is irrelevant since it is unnecessary for a workable understanding of the mind, not to mention completely unsupported by evidence, which means it doesn't exist as far as science is concerned. But I know most people are very attached to the concept of souls — I suppose it's generally used as a term for empathy or identity or humanity, among its many possible definitions — so the reason I can't stand "clones have no souls" isn't because I think souls are real and clones have them, but because it's a dehumanizing rhetoric with no scientific basis whatsoever.)

2. I'd love to have clones to do all my work for me!

Ok, when people say this it means they are referring to sci-fi!clones and not science!clones. (Stealing the exclamation notation from Krispy, hehe.)

If cloning ever becomes possible, the clones will be born as babies 9 months after successful implantation, which means your clone will be ages younger than you (um, not implying that you're old or anything). Which means you'd have to wait a while for your clone to grow up and develop useful skills, and once that happens your clone might even demand compensation for doing your work (oh the horror!). Your clone won't be an extension of you and it would be absolutely inhuman to treat your clone as a slave (which is how people tend to want to treat their sci-fi!clones — by giving him or her all the undesirable tasks).

Plus, experiences that your clone has will not magically transfer to you — the two of you are separate, individual people, which means you can't get your clones to do your reading or exercising for you since it won't do you any good. But you might be able to bribe him or her into doing laundry. If you're nice about it.

3. We can copy ourselves and live forever!

A clone is not a full replicate of you, just an individual who happens to share your DNA profile. You will not be able to gain immortality through cloning any more than you can gain immortality through a twin. Your clone will have different experiences and memories and opinions and attitudes than you do, rather than be a copy of everything that makes you you.

You may think that memory transfer technology (something that doesn't exist at the moment) would take care of this problem, but even if it ever became possible, another person walking around with your memories would at most keep you alive from the perspective of other people. Once you die, you're dead, and it won't much matter if someone is there to pretend to be you or not (though some people may feel better if they can groom a clone to succeed them when they die). Ultimately, though, your consciousness will not magically transfer to your clone no matter how badly you wish it were possible.

4. Cloning = evil: evil dictators will create evil armies of evil clones!

Cloning is a tool, and as such it is neither good nor evil in itself. Clones would be just like any other human being — they wouldn't be evil just because they're clones, despite what certain sci-fi would have you think.

As for an evil clone army, clones would not submit to the will of the DNA donor just because they happen to share DNA. Conditioning would be a much better way to get the desired response, which means brainwashing existing people for your evil army would be significantly more practical than creating clones AND having to brainwash them.

And if you're a evil dictator, cloning yourself would just be a bad idea. Too easy for people to pretend not to notice when a clone kills you and takes your place, despite the age difference. Your clone will probably do a better job, too.

5. Clones are unnatural and subhuman!

"Test tube babies," aka children conceived in petri dishes during IVF, are not considered subhuman for not being conceived in a fallopian tube. Neither are individuals who share a DNA profile with another person. Why should a clone be treated as anything other than a regular human being? In most cases it wouldn't be immediately obvious if someone you meet is a clone. Even if the clone is being raised by the DNA donor, we all know people who look exactly like one of their parents even though they weren't cloned.

But it is true that people might be prejudiced against any clones that may come to be in the future and mistreat them out of ignorance. This is why it's important people have the right information, so that if cloning becomes a viable technology in the future, clones are afforded the rights they deserve.


And with that thought, I'll transition into some issues or considerations concerning the implications of cloning.

1. Clones would be born as or forced to become organ donors 

Sci-fi seems fond of this idea (see The Island, Never Let Me Go), but there are already children born as donors for their siblings even without cloning. Clones should not be treated any differently — people cannot be legally forced to donate their organs or tissues against their will, even if they're a perfect match for someone. (Yup, totally thinking of Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper.) This is called basic human rights, and I fail to see why it would not apply to clones like it would apply to any other person. Saying they have no souls and so it's ok to take their organs against their will is just total bullshit.

Reading Never Let Me Go was a particularly upsetting experience for me since I was in the middle of writing this post. [SPOILER-ISH WARNING] It made me so angry that the people in that world really thought clones didn't have souls and that it was ok to treat them as walking organ farms! @#$%#& I can't even.... [END SPOILER]

2. Designer babies and rampant narcissism

It's pretty unlikely that celebrities will turn to DNA donation since there isn't exactly an issue of rampant celeb egg or sperm donors. So there probably won't be too many designer babies in that sense. And even if you did get your hands on your idea of the perfect DNA (people being cloned without their consent may be an issue as well), the clone baby most likely will not turn out the same or achieve similar success as his or her genetic twin, since environment/experiences has a huge hand in how someone turns out.

As for saying that cloning yourself is narcissistic, well, if you think of it that way, so (in a sense) is propagating your own DNA through sexual reproduction. I don't really think it's an issue since people will be narcissistic with or without cloning, and if a gazillionaire feels like spending money on cloning, that's a personal choice. Much like deciding whether to have kids or not.

3. The clone may suffer psychologically

First of all, clones may grow up with intense pressure to be like their DNA donor. Those expectations can be stifling and negatively affect their psychological well-being. But honestly, even without clones there are overbearing, dictator parents who think they deserve absolute control over every aspect their children's lives. If people are giving clones that much undeserved pressure, it probably means they're uneducated about cloning and are selfish jerks who don't truly love their child. Clones, like children, are not copies or accessories or slaves to your expectations or ways for you to live out your fantasies vicariously!

Clones may also face prejudice from people who insist they are sub-human and soulless, and they may have to fight for equal treatment and their full human rights. This is why people need to be educated about clones so they don't face that kind of oppression if they ever come into our world. We have more than enough inequality to fight already.

Another issue that is not as avoidable: clones who are raised by their DNA donors would face complicated family relationships. A clone is more of a twin sibling than a son or daughter, so if a clone is raised by his or her genetic twin, the DNA donor would be socially a parent but genetically a sibling, and the grandparents would really be the genetic parents. That can kind of mess with your head, so it might not be a good idea for people to raise their own clones.

4. Cloning results in less genetic fitness than sexual reproduction

This is a major way clones would differ from twins and IVF babies. All babies today — including both fraternal and identical twins and IVF babies — are conceived through the fusion of an egg and a sperm. This is sexual reproduction, and it confers several advantages on the offspring of a population due to increased genetic variation, which is important for the evolution, disease- and parasite-resistance, and general well-being of a species as a whole. (Please keep it to yourself if you don't believe in evolution, because otherwise my head will explode.)

This means that while a few clones here or there would be ok, it would be a bad idea for Homo sapiens if cloning became the norm. Given the current biological landscape and our place in it, sexual reproduction is a way better evolutionary strategy than asexual reproduction.

5. Cloning is an inefficient process that's not well-understood

I think this is the biggest argument against cloning. To date there have been no proven human clones, and the process of cloning is a difficult, risky, even dangerous one that involves a large number of eggs, much trial and error, and the creation (and destruction) of many embryos. The technology is simply not advanced enough, and given that the process of researching said technology would result in the death of a large number of embryos and fetuses, it's unlikely that people will be enthusiastic about human cloning.

The issues I've listed above are relevant for IVF as well. IVF is a risky procedure that results in a low number of live births despite the large number of embryos that are generated and implanted. So what happens to the embryos that don't make it to birth? Sometimes the excess embryos are frozen, sometimes donated to scientific research, sometimes destroyed in the lab, sometimes aborted in favor of a sibling.

I agree that the ethics of creating and destroying embryos is controversial, but it wouldn't be unique to cloning (see therapeutic cloning in addition to IVF, and maybe even abortion in general). But there are issues unique to reproductive cloning that makes pursuing human cloning even more controversial, and one of them is our lack of understanding regarding the effects of using a somatic (non-reproductive) cell as the genetic material for an egg. In the past, cloned animals have suffered from a number of serious developmental abnormalities or shortened lifespans (we'll skip details about shortened telomeres and epigenetics). Until scientists have perfected the technique with animals, it would be best not to attempt cloning due to the high chances of bringing into the world a baby with serious abnormalities that will significantly affect his or her quality of life. And if we can't get it right with animals, then yeah, not a good idea to try it on human beings.

Why this rant?

Cloning comes with a lot of issues and I'm not saying it's awesome and we should all immediately embrace it. It's a dangerous process with complex consequences (probably why it's currently banned in many countries). Cloning won't be possible without significant scientific advancement, and it may not be something that's in our best interests to pursue due to the likelihood of serious complications for the first clones. But I hope that the controversy would be fueled not by misunderstandings of what cloning and clones are, but because of real and valid social/scientific/ethical implications.

It's not cloning itself I feel strongly about — I have no stake in whether cloning ever becomes possible, although I think it would be a great technological breakthrough if it ever becomes a safe and reliable process. But I'm pretty sure our society's not ready for clones, and given the serious biological, psychological, and societal problems that are likely to plague clones due to our general lack of knowledge and understanding, I'm glad, for the sake of those hypothetical clones, that they don't yet exist. Maybe one day, if we move past those issues... but I don't even know if that's even possible.

What I do feel strongly about is ignorant attitudes toward science and technology in general. It bothers me when people choose pure emotion or superstition over facts or reason in a discussion involving science. I think it's important for us as a society to think critically and logically about these issues because it can have strong ramifications for our future. I understand most people aren't scientists, and that's ok, but it makes me sad when people hold a fearful, suspicious, or dismissive attitude toward science and technology out of misunderstanding. And if this attitude is the norm, it will hold us back from future advancement and breakthroughs in science and technology that can improve our standard of living.

So I guess part of the reason I wrote this post, in addition to venting my thoughts and feelings, was to dispel some common misconceptions and introduce more science to the discussion on clones in the writing blogosphere. (Even though I'm fashionably — er, terribly — late. Sorry about that!) Plus, I learned a lot!

(Random side note: writing this post made me realize that although most sci-fi novels and movies get a lot of things wrong about cloning, at least they're starting to portray clones as people with thoughts and feelings and agency and individuality and humanity, so YAY for that! Though they should still get their science right.)

Anyway, now that I've (hopefully) gotten this clone thing out of my system, in my next post I'll write more generally about my thoughts on science in MG/YA speculative fiction, so stay tuned for that!

Did you learn anything new from this post? Got any thoughts on what I've said? Or if you prefer to go the non-controversial route, what's your favorite book or movie featuring clones? (I realize some of these may be spoiler-y, so consider putting warnings for the spoiler-sensitive!)


Further Reading / Sources