Beyond Selidor

Day Seventeen of the fandom meme prompts me to write about:

Q: A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

I don't tend to leave fandoms — as should be very obvious to anyone who's been reading my various posts for this meme, once I love something, I love it forever.

But my feelings about Isobelle Carmody's Obernewtyn series have decidedly cooled since she wrote the concluding book several years ago.

This is a series for which — along with a lot of Australian women of my generation — I felt a great deal of affection. It's almost as old as I am; the first book was published in the 1980s, and I grew up with the series. For years most fans assumed it would never be finished. And then, a couple of years ago, Carmody finally published its conclusion.

To say this book was met with disappointment would be an understatement. I don't think I know a single fan who was happy with how the series ended, and the forum Obernewtyn.net, the first fannish community I ever joined, was ablaze with critical discussions of the book's ending. I had begun to cool on the series a bit earlier than that, basically at the point that I realised a) because it had dragged on so long the political situation to which it had been written in response was no longer relevant (it is extremely influenced by its Cold War context, with the nuclear arms race playing a major role, and had to scramble to adjust to a post-9/11 'war on terror' context) and b) because Carmody began writing the series as a teenager she was no longer able to distance herself from the story and felt paralysed about finishing it because it would, metaphorically, be closing that childhood chapter of her life.

I'm still good friends with the people I met through the fandom — we just don't talk about the books all that much any more — and I did dip my toes into Obernewtyn fanfic waters in an exchange a few years back. Inevitably, that fic was a canon divergent fix it fic that overwrote and ignored the last book's ending.

( The other days )

*The title of this post refers to another incomplete (and unlikely ever to be completed) Isobelle Carmody series, The Legendsong, rather than Obernewtyn. Are you sensing a pattern?

This post is going to be a bit Isobelle Carmody-heavy. The final Obernewtyn book came out, and I am not okay.

Monica Tan interviews Carmody in The Guardian:

Elspeth’s question is how to exist in the world, to be what she is and to find people who would allow her to be what she is. I think it’s everybody’s question to find a place in the world and to find your tribe, but the world itself has to find a way to let groups of people exist with one another.

Fran Kelly interviewed Carmody on Radio National:

[Readers write to me saying] they feel they survived childhood because of those books.

I appreciated this post by Jill S, 'Dragons and poison chalices':

I’m gathering my community of support. We are small but mighty. And this community reminds me daily that there are people in the world who can support my dreams and don’t feel threatened by them. So when you find someone who cheers you on, wholeheartedly, without fear that you are going to diminish them, cling tight.

I highly recommend 'A Cup of Salt Tears', a new-to-me short story by Isabel Yap.

I appreciate the work that Natalie Luhrs does in keeping records, bearing witness, and holding people to account. This report on the recent World Fantasy Convention was excellent:

In my experience, when many con-runners talk about best practices, what they mean is the way it’s always been done–and the way they’re most comfortable doing it.

Mari Ness' post about problems with accessibility at the con (namely, that it was abysmal) is also an important read:

Because, unfortunately, this is not the first disability/accessibility problem I have had with conventions, or the first time a convention has asked/agreed to have me on programming and then failed to have a ramp that allows me to access the stage. At least in this case it wasn’t a Disability in Science Fiction panel that, incredibly enough, lacked a ramp, but against that, in this case, the conrunners were aware I was coming, were aware that I use a wheelchair, had spoken to me prior to the convention and had assured me that the convention would be fully accessible, and put me on panels with stages but no ramp.

Aliette de Bodard offers her thoughts on the (long overdue) decision to replace the WFA trophies with something other than Lovecraft's head:

It’s not that I think Lovecraft should be forever cast beyond the pale of acceptable. I mean, come on, genre has had plenty of people who were, er, not shining examples of mankind, and I personally feel like the binary of “this person was a genius and can do no wrong/this person is a racist and can therefore do nothing of worth” doesn’t really make for constructive discussion. (but see above for the “we should give everything a fair chance” fallacy. I’m personally not particularly inclined to give reading time or space to a man who thought I was an abomination, and I will side-eye you quite a bit if you insist I should). It’s more that… these are the World Fantasy Awards. They’re not the H.P. Lovecraft Awards, so there’s no particular reason for him to be associated with them: doing so just creates extra awkwardness.

And on a much lighter note, this story is just the most Australian thing ever: paramedics in Queensland have stopped asking patients the name of the prime minister, because nobody can keep track.

“We would ask patients that question because it gave us an idea of their conscious level and ability to recall events,” Mr Abood said. “But the country’s prime ministers are changing so often, it’s no longer a good indication of their mental status.”

Mr Abood once asked a patient to name the prime minister, only to be told: “I haven’t watched the news today.”

I had a good laugh at that.

So, I finished The Sending last night. I will get around to posting a proper review at some point, but these were the thoughts with which I left the book (note they are spoilery):

( spoiler-heavy )