podcast friday

[sabotabby]

I know I've been going on a lot about Charles R. Saunders for an author whose books I still haven't read but. Here's a podcast about him! Wizards & Spaceships' "Charles R. Saunders ft. Jon Tattrie" talks about his life, his works, his mysterious death, and the politics that shaped his life, from the Black Power movement to the Vietnam War to bigotry in SFF publishing and to Black Lives Matter. It's really a wide-ranging, fascinating discussion and I hope you'll give it a listen and maybe even share it with people.

Happy Black History Month everyone!

Comments

[greylock]

Since I just finished the book. I guess I'll have to listen.

(I do suspect I've read one or two of his Dossouye stories that I can't find, and that he might not be as 'revolutionary' as is suggested, but I do have Imaro in my cart).

[sabotabby]

I mean, that kind of thing isn't generally my style BUT I think it sounds interesting enough to check out.

[greylock]

It is my style, and I'm interesting. I've read more than a few S&S writers and... they are very samey in setting. Some were absolutely cash grabs.

These I assume are not because they were written over decades, but even if they were, the setting is at least different.

Most of the "Africa-themed" stuff I have read in my life are very much not even remotely trying to attempting to be authentic. (The notables are Enid Blyton, Robert E Howard, and Philip Jose Farmer, and the Tarzan films)

[selki]

It was a very good podcast episode. One of the book clubs I'm in has read a couple of Saunders short stories and we were all disappointed with where one of them went (kind of psychic seducery/rapey). I think the revolutionary bit, for Saunders, was doing ANYTHING Black-representational and Black-centering in SFF, which is fair. We also read an essay by him which seemed to assert that there was no Black author SFF before him, which I took exception to, but I guess it depends on one's definitions and how available materials were for him at his time (the rest of the book club seemed to think my references to older pulp/horror/folk/ghost tales didn't count), and certainly writing his own when he couldn't find any was good. You might find him more revolutionary!

[sabotabby]

I think it's very important to put these things in historical context. I mean, I don't expect him to be Jemisin or Hopkinson, y'know?

[selki]

Sure! The podcast episode helped me a lot with that. Coincidentally, he was mentioned in his non-fiction capacity in a book I finished this weekend for another book club, *Beyond the Shores: A History of African Americans Abroad*, related to an article he wrote in Ebony about one of the expatriates in the book.