© yarnspinnerr
The sign said “No Entry” in two languages, but Allen saw the young couple approach the main doors from the side and go in any way. He knew the sign was directed at him, not him personally, but you had to be a member in good standing of the Party to even be considered.
The event was held in a different city each year, and today it was in Mumbai, but the administrators lived in the U.S., and their influence was everywhere.
Officially, segregation didn’t exist, but when “his kind,” as they often referred to non-Party members, tried to petition for even ancillary status, they were rebuffed. Since they’d taken control of the political structure, entertainment, all news venues, they hadn’t felt it necessary to use him as a punching bag anymore, but they still called him a “Nazi” from time to time.
His kind wasn’t allowed at any of the popular venues including WorldCon. They didn’t think it was possible for a cisgender, white male from Montana to be a science fiction fan.
I wrote this for the 179th FFfAW Challenge hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a piece of flash fiction between 100 and 175 words long. My word count is 175.
I’ve been chronicling the whole WorldCon 76 meltdown and recovery, as well as the latest shots fired at conservatives who, for some reason, are not only thought of as “Nazis,” but not considered worthy of being science fiction fans. So I thought I’d write yet another tale of the dystopia where prejudice is alive and well and running the world.
Yes, I know. I rant about this a lot, but now that this year’s WorldCon is officially over, I’ll find something else to focus my attention on.
To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.
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Let them have their awards and conventions. In time the Hugo award will be as much a reflection of the real SF fan as the Academy awards are of the mainstream movie goer.
Real sf fans know that sf/f knows no boundaries. Real sf fans know there is room enough for everyone at the table. And if the publishers won’t print stuff we want to read, we’ll go some place else to find our stories – like the growing Indie world – or write our own.
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This is what just amazes me. Living in Idaho, and having worked with a whole lot of software developers and network engineers who grew up as Idaho farm boys, I know a lot of conservative, religious, science fiction fans. At my current day job, one of the controls developers is constantly letting me borrow books from his SciFi collection. He’s also a farmer and raises chickens and turkeys.
The folks at these Cons act like all SF/F fans are young, progressive urbanites, people of color, LGBTQ+, and members of various disadvantaged groups, and yet there are plenty of SF/F readers who live in the “wild, wild west,” the midwest, and the south. If all their promoted authors and fiction content eventually caters only to those populations, they’re going to alienate an enormous body of SF fans, and awards like the Hugos will mean less and less, until all it will be in the end is a badge signifying a progressive in good standing.
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Science Fiction fans can be really brutal cliques that don’t take kindly to ‘others’ sharing their passion – and social media is the perfect platform for them in the modern world to express their views.
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I guess I never experienced this when I was growing up and reading tons of SciFi novels and watching SF TV shows and films, but you’re right. In the past month or so, I’ve experienced a whole other side to the industry and the fans, mainly via twitter, and they can be vicious indeed. That said, I think those most vocal and spewing the most vitriol, are minority of high visibility authors and fans. I mentioned to Wyldkat that at least in the U.S., there are most likely huge bodies of SF fans who don’t fit their particular profile. In the end, any author depends on their books and stories being purchased for their income, and if the WorldCon brand (for lack of a better term) of author continually alienates that audience, their income stream is going to take a really big hit.
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Sad… =(
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Indeed, Brenda.
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I hope that in the future, sci fi is bigger than any organised group, freedom is the ability to read widely and freely.
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I don’t think anyone can stop us from reading any book available, but the problem is when the organizers and participants of SF professional or fan organizations including WorldCon start identifying the people they disagree with as Nazis, and I wrote about how the people who are being called “Nazis” are not actually Nazis or anything like them, start promoting exclusion or even violence against such people. A few of these so called “Nazis” staged a protest at WorldCon, and a fellow named Patrick S. Tomlinson, AK @shealthygeek, posted this thread on twitter: https://twitter.com/stealthygeek/status/1030232999218958336
Yeah, he’s a real charmer. He’s an author, but the one novel of his I could find on Amazon after a very quick search has gotten mixed reviews. That latter bit doesn’t make him a bad person, but based on his comments on twitter, he is either greatly misguided in assuming all conservatives and religious people are Nazis, or he’s got other “issues.”
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My Steel Panther-loving neighbor told me he voted for Gary Johnson… because, he said, the government needs reforming. Not a lot adds up.
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There is prejudice of all kinds just about everywhere. Sadly. Great story, James!
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Thanks.
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I knew about this in a vague way. Never thought it has reached such levels.
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This story is fiction, so it hasn’t gone that far yet. Also, Joy Pixley has returned from this year’s WorldCon with a completely different point of view.
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although not a real fan of sci fic stories, this really has given me a chance to read more on this subject. great write up James
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Thank you. I appreciate your kind comments.
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