Mind Meld was a feature on the website SF Signal, curated by Paul Weimer. For each Mind Meld, Weimer would send a question to several authors and fans, asking for their answers, which would then be published together. This page provides my answer to one of the Mind Melds I participated in, along with a listing of the other authors who responded to that particular question.Question: An overwhelming number of fantasy and science fiction novels borrow from the same Western European cultural tropes, images and ideas. From the Hobbit to A Game of Thrones, a lot of novels and stories do not look beyond some overused cultures and civilizations as inspirations or even settings.
Our question for this week’s fearless panelists
Q: What Civilizations and cultures are neglected as inspirations in Fantasy and Science Fiction?
Participants: Daniel Abraham, Justina Robson, Rene Sears, James MacDonald, Karen Lord, Lyda Morehouse, N.K. Jemisin, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Ian McDonald
Steven H Silver is the editor of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus, the publisher of ISFiC Press, editor of three anthologies for DAW Books, and the author of several short stories. He recently edited a two volume collection of Lester del Rey’s short fiction for NESFA Press.
Because the majority of speculative fiction in the English language is written by and for people whose culture is based on Western Europe, the majority of cultures represented in the field are based on those civilizations, whether Roman or Celtic or Greece. However, even when an author turns their attention to a non-Western civilization, in writing about it in (or using it as the basis for) a work of speculative fiction, they have a tendency to view the culture through the lens of that same Western civilization which informs so much of the average reader’s world view.
Several science fiction authors over the years have explored other cultures, and although there have been some egregious examples (Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan stories spring to mind), other authors have been able to write about different cultures with respect and accuracy, using foreign cultures to tell their stories, from Raymond Feist & Janny Wurts’s Korean based Empire Trilogy to Kara Dalkey’s Indian-based Blood of the Goddess trilogy. Other authors have made good use of their own cultures as the basis for their speculative fiction, whether it is Nalo Hopkinson or Tobias Buckell using the Caribbean, Somtow Sucharitkul’s use of Thailand, Nnedi Okorafor and Nigeria, or Ekaterina Sedia and Russia.
In a lot of cases, a potentially interesting historical culture has only left behind tantalizing hints about day to day life and beliefs, nothing tangible enough to form the basis of the type of culture needed to create the background for a work of speculative fiction. Therefore, the Angkor Wat society, or Timbuktu traders, or the Clovis culture (a moniker which always makes me think of Merovingians in America), are not ripe for fully realized settings in science fiction or fantasy.
One problem with writing in a foreign culture is the potential for cultural misappropriation, especially when there are people who belong to that culture who feel that an author’s use of their heritage is disrespectful or outright incorrect in its representation. For this reason, writing about long-dead, or extremely altered, historical cultures provides a degree of safety for the author. When writing about any culture that isn’t one’s own, the author should be careful to do their research and treat the culture with respect. Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward offer a writers workshop, Writing the Other, and have an accompanying book, Writing the Other: A Practical Guide to help authors with the complexities of writing in a foreign culture.
But the focus on the Mind Meld is supposed to be on some of the under-represented cultures, which are legion, that speculative fiction could make use of. Some intriguing cultures which spring to mind include the Basques, the Armenians, any of a number of different African and Asian cultures. While certain major cultures around the world do find themselves used in various ways, including India, Brazil, and Russia, many of the different cultures surrounding those areas are overlooked. There isn’t a lot of SF that draws from Bangladesh, Uruguay, or Kazakhstan. And, of course, each of those and so many more cultures can draw from history. The only stagnant culture is the dead one (and even then, our understanding can continue to change).
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