I’ve often found myself frustrated that the stories I pick up are always from the point of view of the starship captain and not the person who swabs the decks. Everything seems to be about millionaires and industry leaders, super-stars. Once I asked a writer why he didn’t write more “everyman” characters and he said it was impossible to write a character with a day job because the character wouldn’t have the resources to take off and chase the plot.
WELL. I beg to differ. I suppose it depends on what you want from a story. World-spanning, world-saving adventure may require a private jet, but there can be thrilling drama in catching the space bus, too.
My friend Charles Oberndorf had a good rejoinder to this, he said, “Workers build the world. If you want to get at the heart, the crux of your fictional word, they are the characters with their hands on it.”
So this past weekend, I proposed and moderated a panel on Blue Collar Science Fiction. Tamora Pierce mentioned that writing from a blue collar perspective was just plain easier, because those were the people she knew and could identify with. Eric Leif Davin, a historian by trade, pointed out the importance of fiction in building class-consciousness, which is sadly lacking in our current society.
At the end of the panel I was asked if I would post my blue collar reading recommendations to my blog. Here they are!
Open Port is an anthology specifically of working class science fiction tales that I just heard about from a twitter friend! Putting it at the top of the list because it’s new(ish) and you never know when these things go out of print!
Mack Reynolds — anything by him, he was a Marxist in the golden age! Caveat: he was writing in the golden age. Historically important but quality varies.
The nice thing is that a lot of his work is on Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/25744
Samuel R. Delany – especially Nova, which presents a rich future world of work. He’s awesome, and we once spent an hour rhapsodizing about Magic Mike XL together when we were supposed to be talking to Charlie O.
N. K. Jemisin — anything by her! I especially love “The City Born Great” which I read twice… I forget where first, but the second time in her collection “How Long ‘Til Black Future Month?”
Sam Miller — not just a great current writer, also a community organizer! His Nebula-nominated story “We Are the Cloud” shows an intimate picture of at-risk youth in New York City, but you probably know him from “Things With Beards” — damn that story was good.
Annalee Newitz – the novel Autonomous shows not just a variety of laboring individuals, including robots, but a very believable exploration of how a law’s unintentional consequence is almost always putting the poor man down.
Andy Duncan is a beautiful writer with an Appalachian voice that will soothe anything inside you, but I include him on this list for his novelette “Joe Diablo’s Farewell” in his World Fantasy Finalist collection “Agent of Utopia.” It’s about Native American Steel Workers in the 30s and it’s a delicious read.
Brook Bolander‘s Nebula-winning novelette “The Only Harmless Great Thing” mixes alternate history with an alternate future in a world where Elephants can talk and were used to paint radium. You’ll be singing Arlo Guthrie songs for months when you’re done with it.
She needs to update her website. It doesn’t mention her NEBULA.
C. J. Cherryh has some gritty space operas, notably Downbelow Station, and I found a few very blue collar stories in her Collected Stories, especially “Highliner” which is about a group of construction workers repairing a futuristic arcology. From @quartzen on twitter: “several of her Alliance/Union books like Merchanter’s Luck, the duo Heavy Time and Hellburner, Rimrunners focus on people living financially marginal lives and working”
Maureen McHugh, my old workshop mate, of course, had communes in New York in her novel “China Mountain Zhang” and underwater construction in “Half the Day is Night,” though “Nekropolis” is probably her most blue collar novel as the protagonist is a penniless servant.
Some other works/authors that didn’t necessarily make it into discussion and I have more difficult-to-read notes on:
Joan Vinge
Elizabeth Bear
Something called “The Foundry”? The Foundry Engine? Help me out, someone. It was talked about a few times and I failed to write it down.
“The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” by Michael Chabon (We talked some about the policeman/detective character that crosses class boundaries and this came to mind. Also there’s actually a union in it.)
“Countdown City”
“Under the Skin” by Michael Faber
Thomas Disch 334 (Named after the apartment building address where it takes place. Haven’t read it but it was recommended by someone else. I’ve read some Disch, though, and he’s a good, poetic writer.)
From @karen_kisner – “Jim Hines has Terminal Alliance and Terminal Uprising. Sub title is Janitors of the Post-Apocalypse Book 1 and 2”
(And of course you can check out my stories… I recommend “Quirks” as particularly blue collar, but honestly very little of my stuff isn’t.)
