Guest Post: Unite Sci-Fi Fans Around The World

We are pleased to share a guest blog post from Hugo-winning fanzine editor RiverFlow. 

Hello science fiction fans attending the 2024 World Science Fiction Convention in Glasgow. First of all, have you heard of Chinese sci-fi fandom? If so, what examples can you give?

Hugo-winning fanzine
Zero Gravity News.

Science fiction fans in China were excited when Zero Gravity News won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine last year. See “Introducing Chinese sci-fi fanzine Zero Gravity News” to learn more about the fanzine.

Yes, in fact, there is a very large group of science fiction fans in China, but few people have collected and collated their materials. I have been working on this since 2020, and have written some articles to introduce the collection.

The earliest Chinese Fanzine was born in 1988. In the 1990s, many science fiction fans were employed and writing in their leisure time, but in the 21st century, these contributions were mainly completed by students. Because workers are busy with their lives and families, it is difficult to find time to organize related activities. So I wrote a book, History of Chinese University Science Fiction Association, to introduce Chinese science fiction fans to the rest of the world. The thousands of photos and hundreds of thousands of words are enough to prove the rich history of this group.

The Chinese Science Fiction Fan Association organizes articles, comments and other activities, runs its own Fanzine (I have more than 200 kinds of statistics about this history), and initiates fan organizations (I have more than 350 records of the establishment of student groups and more than 200 social meeting groups). But like most organizations around the world, these organizations have a short life span, and although there are a lot of them, few are longstanding, which I will describe in several subsequent articles.

The magazine you are seeing now is machine translated from the 10th issue of Zero Gravity Newspaper, which includes many young Chinese science fiction fans’ review and understanding of their science fiction experience. How do Chinese science fiction fans discover and learn about science fiction? What did science fiction bring to them? What did they gain? You can read about it in their memories. Because time is limited, only a small number of articles are included, and they are all machine translated, but this is much better than before, so that Chinese science fiction fans are seen, which is important.

At the same time, I am also doing one thing, which is to collect science fiction information and materials from all over the world, translate them into Chinese, and introduce them to Chinese science fiction fans. After I finished my self-summary of Chinese sci-fi fans, I thought I’d look outside. Chinese scholar Sanfeng said in the first issue of World Science Fiction News, a magazine introducing foreign science fiction information in China, “View the world science fiction and build a science fiction world view”, which I think is very reasonable.

At present, I have found 202 articles from 108 countries and organized Chinese science fiction fans to translate them. Now I can say that every continent in the world has a wealth of science fiction conferences, science fiction works, science fiction organizations, science fiction magazines, etc. Most of the other half of countries and regions are either economically poor or have small populations.

In the context of the history of different countries, different languages and peoples will unite with each other/accept foreign languages for historical reasons. You can see the competition between Turkish and Russian in Central Asia, the prevalence of French and Arabic in some African countries, the exchange of Spanish in Latin American countries, and the anger of Southeast Asian countries over the loss of their own cultural traditions. The Dutch and Belgian languages are common, and the former Yugoslavia regularly hosts science fiction conventions to unite fans from several other countries.

The world science fiction center is probably found currently in the United Kingdom and the United States, since so many works are translated into English. Almost all science fiction writers in continental countries are seeking the English publication of their works, eager to be seen by the British and American world and incorporated into the mainstream discourse system.

The question of whether the world’s science fiction center will shift will take a long time to answer, but at this stage, the relationship between English-speaking science fiction and non-English-speaking science fiction is like the relationship between mainstream literature and genre literature, and genre literature is to be absorbed by mainstream literature, and that is the situation. That doesn’t change just because you have a World Science Fiction Convention (which is essentially a gathering of science fiction fans, right?). At best, it gives the authorities some reason to bring together science fiction institutions and science fiction awards that were originally scattered around the world to promote dialogue and cooperation.

In this world, there are many people engaged in science fiction organizations, science fiction conferences, science fiction publishing, science fiction translation, and science fiction research, including in languages other than those that are dominant. But in most cases, unless there is a British-American nationality/an international speaker of English who has connections in the United Kingdom and the United States, it is possible to use their status to make a voice for their own country.

However, after the relevant people step down, the situation may turn to another way, as the old saying goes, maybe this is how the world works, but if each person can leave something in his term of office, I think it will definitely be more and more rich. It should be said that the internationalization of science fiction in non-English speaking countries is currently dominated by established international communicators of British and American English.

The transfer of power over discourse is a long process, which requires writers with enough strength, readers and communities with enough interest, theorists with enough power to subvert the current system, and science fiction activities for writers, readers and scholars to communicate with each other. None of these things is easy.

It’s just that there’s a chain of disdain that seems to be happening all over the world, first of all defining science fiction as a type of children’s literature, and then defining science fiction as secondary literature, so reading a recent comment from a Nepalese science fiction reader on a collection of their own science fiction, it’s not children’s literature, it’s science fiction, I think this kind of reflection is very good. When can science fiction literature really stand up and no longer be subject to contempt, but can be regarded as both adult literature and children’s literature.

Anyway, I hope that Chinese science fiction fans can be more united, but also hope that the world science fiction fans can be more united, there are really many people in the world who agree with science fiction, I hope that we can keep in touch, find each other, in the process of viewing the world science fiction to establish their own science fiction world view.

Have fun in Glasgow!

The Word For "World" Isn't America

In China they honour works of science fiction with the Galaxy Award, the Atorox Award is presented annually to the best Finnish work of SFF, Australia’s Ditmar Award recently celebrated 50 years of recognizing Aussie sci-fi, Japan has the Seiun Award, Canada the Aurora, New Zealand the Sir Julius Vogel Award, Netherlands the Paul Harland Prize, in Croatia they present the SFera Award … we could go on.

The Ditmar Award is almost
as old as the Nebula, and
recently recognized 
J.S. Breukelaar's "The Bridge."
(Image via BlackGate)

These national awards support science fiction fandom by platforming works that express the local concerns and national character of their host nations. Although neither Julie E. Czerneda, Candas Jane Dorsey, or Karl Schroeder have been honoured by the Hugo Awards, they’re truly great authors and we’re glad that the Aurora Award has recognized them. Their creative works speak to and for Canadians.

So why is there no national award recognizing the best science fiction published by authors from the United States?

It could be argued that this is a reflection of American exceptionalism or imperialism.

The Hugo Award — when it was established in 1953 — may have billed itself as celebrating the world’s greatest science fiction, but that was for a limited definition of “world.” This was a “world” that extended no further north than Toronto, no further east than London, and no further south or west than Los Angeles. American cultural hegemony was baked into the DNA of the award.

An American national SFF award was not seen as necessary, because the Hugos existed.

To date 84.2 per cent of all winners, and 84.5 per cent of the authors represented in the prose categories (short story, novelette, novella, novel and series) were born in the United States. If anything, these statistics understate the level of American dominance, given that the non-American 15 per cent includes figures like Isaac Asimov (born in Russia), Algis Budrys (born in Germany) and Ursula Vernon (born in Japan). If the goal of the Hugo Awards is to represent the best science fiction in the world, then we cannot limit ourselves to works by American authors.

It can be argued that American dominance might have eased slightly in recent years. But even over the most recent three awards ceremonies, 76 per cent of Hugo finalists in the prose categories were still Americans.

Despite a slightly increasing global reach of Worldcon over the past 20 years, clearly, the award’s early focus on America and on American SFF remains.

And this now feels like a disservice to the genre as a whole. The list of iconic SFF writers who did not primarily write in English, and who consequently never got even a whif of Hugo recognition is long. Among others, we’d mention Japan’s Kobo Abe, France’s Pierre Boule, Brazil’s Jerônymo Monteiro, France’s Bernard Werber.

Elia Barceló is among the best-known Spanish
authors and has published best-selling works of SFF.
But the Hugo Awards have yet to recognize her work.
(Image via Zendalibros.com)

The lack of an award for Best American Science Fiction means that the Hugo is the primary award that American science fiction fans and authors pay attention to, lobby for, and consequently dominate. Thus, the award for the best science fiction on Earth is usually awarded to American authors, and consequently reinforces the perception that American science fiction is the beginning and end of the genre.

Put another way, the lack of an American SFF award ends up disprivileging non-American authors.

But it’s a sword that can cut both ways.

This year, with Worldcon being held in China for the first time, there have been more nominating ballots than ever before received from science fiction fans whose first language is not English. There is consequently a real chance that the Hugo Award ballot may primarily celebrate Chinese-language works.

If this comes to pass, and if deserving works of American science fiction are denied recognition as a consequence, we should not blame the Chinese fans who engaged with the Hugos. The fault belongs with all of us in North American fandom for trying to have our award be global, but still wanting to be the only ones who can win it.

Regardless of what the shortlist looks like in 2023, the Hugos would be improved by the existence of a national science fiction award in the United States.

As much as Worldcon likes to think of itself as a “World” event, it seems pretty clear that for the first seven decades that it existed, the Hugo Award has steadfastly resisted the global reach of fandom.

If the Hugo Award is to be a truly “World” award, American fandom may need to relinquish it … by establishing an American award for American fiction.

Interview with Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, editor of Bridging Worlds

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki is an African speculative fiction writer, editor, and publisher based in

Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki at the 
2021 Worldcon in Washington, DC.
(portrait by Richard Man)

Nigeria. Among his numerous honours, he has won the Nebula award and is a multiple Hugo Awards finalist. This spring, he published Bridging Worlds, a non-fiction anthology with 18 essays, interviews, and reflections from Black writers examining the challenges of creating art during a pandemic. Ekpeki, who recently returned from Worldcon, chatted with blog contributor Olav Rokne in September.

How did Bridging Worlds come about? When did you first have the idea to put this together?

While in the middle of a project, the thing that always comes to mind is, what next? And that’s how it was. I was in the middle of editing the Dominion anthology when the idea for Bridging Worlds came to me. The experiences were immense and intense. Working with Zelda Knight, and so many other writers to compile, collate, their works, crowdfund for and produce the book. And while I was at it I thought if people only knew what we went through, how this felt. And I thought why shouldn’t they? And I knew each of the creators had a story to tell, the story of the story, the reality of the fiction they wrote. It was the middle of the pandemic year. They already told me those stories. Why they couldn’t send in their stories on time, or this or that which happened. And I thought, there’s the next project. Why don’t we tell these stories? And that’s how the Bridging Worlds anthology was born. Out of an intense need to not just tell our stories, the stories that we dream up, but the stories of ourselves. Of how we tell our stories. Black, African stories in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

What was your mission in getting this together?

The Black, and African experience is one that’s often minimized and overlooked. It usually takes more effort in a world that marginalizes us. And the world often doesn’t see or understand the effort it takes to create Black excellence or even just Black art, or anything African. The pandemic was no different. It marginalized us just as much as anything else. We died more, suffered more, we lost more. And in the midst of this, we created. Putting this together was so we could document some of that effort and those experiences. So the world could see, have a visible source to go to for those experiences. And the very publication process of this was part of that story.

I note that it’s available for free online; was this an attempt to get the word out more widely? Was there a specific audience you wanted to reach with this?

Ahhh. Every creative loves to be paid. No less marginalized ones during a deadly pandemic, the likes of which its deadly effects hadn’t been seen since the world wars. And with the work that went into collating, gathering and putting out the book, it’s definitely not by choice that it’s free. Black and African creators especially at a time like this, being the demographic hardest hit by the pandemic strongly deserved to get paid. And they were. From the contributing authors of essays, interviews, whatever they contributed, to the copy editors. The book however was made free after the depredations of nearly every force out there that sought to prevent the book from seeing the light of day. 

Both personal and institutional, there were many hindrances. From Amazon to Smashwords to Draft2digital seizing the proceeds from the sale and throwing the book out of their platforms, shutting down our accounts, to review bombing on Amazon and Goodreads, to death threats and online harassment. The only recourse was to make it free altogether. So it wasn’t to get the word out more widely, but to enable it to be born at all into the world, and see the light of day. In the end we had to do a crowdfunding drive to even pay the authors after our funds were illegally detained. As at the time of my writing this, up to 500 dollars of mine is still being held illegally by Smashwords/Draft2digital for no other reason than as they themselves admitted, that I’m Nigerian. You can read about the Amazon and Draft2digital issues there.

Meanwhile the book was made for anyone with an interest in the source and process of Black and African speculative fiction creation, in one of the most gruelling times we have faced in these modern times.

It strikes me that your previous anthology Dominion was extremely successful. It seems to me like it would be tempting to take the easy route and follow that up with something very similar. One of the things that impresses me about Bridging Worlds is that you’ve taken a risk. Could you speak to that risk? To the fact that you’re tackling new ground here?

I consider myself a literary explorer. I want to enjoy and experience things across the entire gamut of the literary, starting with the speculative. That is why I am engaged in a wide range of activities like writing and editing, long and short fiction, non-fiction, slush reading, publishing, conrunning, organizing awards, presses, etc. Even in my fiction, you’ll notice this. O2 Arena my Nebula-winning story is mundane sci-fi as Geoff Ryman coined, where my Nommo-winning “Witching Hour” is fantasyish. “Mother’s Love, Father’s Place” is a historical fantasy and “Destiny Delayed” in Asimov’s and Galaxy’s Edge published this year is a genre blender. My latest story “The Magazine of Horror”, yet unpublished is epistolary, written as a series of letters between magazine editors and a submitter. 

Non-fiction anthology Bridging Worlds
includes 18 essays and reflections
on creativity in a pandemic.
(Image via ODEkpeki.com)

My editing is the same. After Dominion, an original fiction anthology, I undertook to do the first-ever Year’s Best African Speculative Fiction anthology, a Hugo, Locus, WFA & BFA finalist. It was a reprint anthology. And next was Bridging Worlds, an original non-fiction anthology, then I edited several collections with Interstellar Flight Press before returning to editing original fiction with Sheree Renée Thomas and Zelda Knight again in Africa Risen. I believe in exploring, charting and discovering new courses, to challenge myself to growth as you cannot find without risk. Rather than stagnating on the capitalist, hollywoodish attitude of being safe and dying on the altar of ‘never change a winning formula.’ The truest wins, are yet undiscovered and continued progress and the ongoing growth of the genre hinges on going outside our comfort zones to find what’s different, new, needed.

When you set out on this project, did you have a list of authors you wanted to speak to in mind? Was there anyone who you were particularly pleased said “yes” to participating in the anthology?

Well some of the contributors to Dominion who I interacted with already, then players I was aware of their immense work in and contribution to the Black and African speculative fiction space. Mazi Nwonwu of Omenana, Sheree Renée Thomas for her work across the genre editing and community building, esp as the first Black editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Zelda herself, my co-editor for Dominion who had been editing several mags and presses for half a decade before we worked together. Chimedum Ohaegbu of Uncanny, Shingai Njeri Kagunda and Lisa Yvette Ndlovu of Voodoonauts, Milton Davis who has done extensive work in the indie sphere, Eugen Bacon, Wole Talabi and Geoff Ryman amongst others. Virtually everybody on the project was truly special in their own way and had contributed immensely to the project.

One of the things I took away from reading this was Wole Talabi’s observation that the rise of hybrid and virtual conventions was breaking down some of the barriers that authors outside of the USA had in terms of promoting their work. To what extent do you think this is true?

I think it’s true to a very large extent. I talk about this myself. It created a bridge to the sff world that had formerly been unavailable. Many people underplay the effects of cons to the development of an sff creative. But it plays a huge role indeed as I talk about on my Twitter thread here. Ironically, with you.

Could you speak a bit to the distinctions between SFF from Africa and that from the Black diaspora? And why is it important to platform both?

Africa means different things to so many of us. And all forms of it and us are valid. So I always try to create that balance of voices and equal representation of Africa in all my projects. From Dominion to the Year’s Best, to Bridging Worlds, to Africa Risen. Africa as we say is not a monolith. The difference is in the flavours of our identity. And it can manifest in so many ways. But ultimately I consider us all part of a whole. And I believe in building bridges that connect and highlight those differences while celebrating them. That’s a major part of what my work is about.

In your interview with Chimedum Ohaegbu, you ask “What are your thoughts on the current state of Black and African speculative fiction on the continent and in the diaspora?” I’d like to direct the same question to you?

I believe that African speculative fiction is strong. Stronger than it’s ever been and rising faster everyday. There is a lot of work to be done. A lot of gaps to be covered. A lot of firsts are still happening everyday. Recently, Nalo won the Sturgeon award, the first Black person to do so. I and Sheree Renée Thomas who edited Nalo’s Sturgeon winning work in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction will be the first Black finalists for the Hugo award, best editor short form category. I’ll be the first African-born Black writer to win the Nebula award and be a Hugo finalist. And so on and so forth. A lot more boons and deals could and should happen, to open for African writers in the continent and diaspora. And I am hopeful that as these firsts begin, more will follow until the floodgates are entirely thrown open.

One of the things I particularly liked about Bridging Worlds was how the essays were ordered and how the experience of reading it is structured. Nikhil Singh’s essay starts off the book with an absolutely gut-wrenching look at the stories of people who are among the most marginalized global citizens; a deeply felt piece of writing. Then we get some personal stories about how writers worked to stay creative, and then interviews and thoughts on people helping each other. The whole thing ending with Nicole Givens Kurtz’ metaphor laden piece about surviving and her final parting words “I am here. I am alive. Treading water.” Could you share some thoughts about how you selected the pieces in the book, and how the experience was structured?

It was more a selection of the people than the pieces. Having worked with a lot of writers in the field, I hand-picked those I identified had stories that the larger industry needed to hear. And so they crafted the stories that later appeared in the anthology after their selection. I also worked closely with them and a copy editor to ensure they were at the right place, that we were all satisfied with. Perhaps there’ll be another volume of the book, with an open call for essays as well this time.

What makes you proudest about Bridging Worlds? What choice that you made brings you the most joy?

For me, it’s the formulation of the idea, firstly. That’s where everything begins; as an idea, as a dream. Without that, nothing can happen. But if you can first dream it, then everything is possible after. A book like this, on this topic and form needed to exist. That and being able to follow through with the idea till it came to fruition, despite all the obstacles we faced with bringing it to conception. I’ve afterall had a number of good ideas. But not all of them were opportuned to see the light of day. Some died in the tunnels to being. I am exceedingly proud of the fact that this one could be carried to term.

The past two years have seen your works reprinted, published in one of the largest-circulation SFF magazines, and recognized by the two most-established SFF awards. What’s next for you? What are your next goals as an author and editor? (Am I out-of-line to be hoping that a novel is on the way?)

A novel isn’t on the way. It’s already here. I am done with the first draft of my novel, and already working on a graphic novel and some other works. I am also putting together a collection and some other special projects still in the works, that I hope will alter for the better, how we see and receive genre and Black/African speculative fiction forms. So collections, anthologies, novels, novellas, short fiction, everything is in the works. And also more non-fiction.

In your most recent few stories, you seem to be increasingly playing with the malaise of capitalism run amok. Why is this such fertile ground for storytelling? How much of “Destiny Delayed” should we read as poetic realism, and how much should we see as fable?

Well I’d say they are both actually. My stories are both rooted in the imaginary and real. And I believe that one of the biggest problems of the world today is greed. Not lack of but deliberately inefficient allocation or what is hoarding of resources. I believe mastering the malaise that is toxic capitalism will solve so many of the world’s problems and allow us to focus on solving problems that make humanity better instead of just what gives individuals more and takes takes away from all humanity. And I show the harm in toxic capitalism, hoping that the ugliness of what I show the world can make it turn away from its ugly path. You could say I’m hoping to change the world, make a better reality with my fiction.

Over the past three years, there’s been a clear evolution in your writing towards more formal narrative structures. What are your personal goals for your work as a storyteller?

At heart, my goal has been to tell stories, in all forms. Short fiction, long fiction, short non fiction, long fiction, writing, editing, panels, etc. I’m certain phases my work has moved through certain forms. But the goal remains the same, to tell stories that delight and instruct. That contribute to humanity effectively. And for that I’m willing to take my work through all the iterations of the art of the literary that have been discovered and not.

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. I’d really like to see this book get on the Hugo ballot next year.

We can hope. And nominate. Thank you as well for doing this.

Hugos Unlike Any Previous

The 2022 Hugo Awards seem likely to be unlike any previous Hugos, because the Hugo-nominating constituency will be unlike any previous.

As far as we are aware, there has yet to be a Worldcon in which the largest single contingent of the membership came from anywhere other than the United States. Likewise, as far as we can determine, there has yet to be a Hugo Awards at which the plurality of votes came from anywhere other than the United States.

Even when the Worldcon was in Dublin two years ago, members living in the U.S. were the group

Even when the Worldcon was in far-off Helsinki,
there were more Americans than Fins in attendance.
(Photo by Tapio Haaja via Pixabay)

most represented in sales, with 2,750 of the 6,918 memberships (and 1,582 of the 4,190 in-person memberships) being purchased by U.S. residents. In Finland two years before that, 3,368 of the 8,748 memberships (and 1,141 of the 3,316 in-person memberships) were purchased by U.S. residents. At Japan’s 2007 Worldcon, 1,907 of the 4,010 memberships sold were purchased by U.S. residents. The complete and exact tally of how many people from each country bought memberships to Discon III is not available yet due to issues with the registration system, but similar patterns repeat in the demographic breakdown of every Worldcon for which we have found the statistics.

This dominance of American voters is reflected in the results of the Hugo Awards; almost 85 per cent of all Hugo-nominated fiction, and almost 85 per cent of all Hugo-winning fiction was written by U.S.-born authors (a statistic that’s even more revealing when one realizes that the calculation counts Isaac Asimov, Algis Budrys, and Manly Wade Wellman as not being U.S.-born.)

Editor and author Xueting
Christine Ni would be a
worthy inclusion on the Hugo
ballot. (Image via Amazon)

We predict that these statistics (which have remained fairly stable over recent decades) are about to change.

Rumours about a large number of supporting memberships being purchased in the days leading up to the 2023 Worldcon site selection vote were viral at Worldcon 2021. Turns out they were also accurate, with more than 2,400 Chinese residents purchasing supporting memberships for Discon III; approximately 1,600 of those memberships were purchased in the 10 days before the convention. The final vote tally was 2,006 votes for Chengdu to 807 for Winnipeg.

Science Fiction World prints more
than 200,000 copies every month.
(Image via CNBeta.com) 

We have trepidation about the Chinese government and its human rights record, but we also have respect for the fans and the bid committee behind the Chengdu Worldcon. As much as we would have preferred to see the 2023 Worldcon happen in Winnipeg, we are embarrassed to have seen the (sometimes racist) response we have seen towards the people working on the Chengdu Worldcon bid. Based on our attendance at related Worldcon 2021 sessions and conversations with members of both bids, the groups behind the 2023 bids seemed to be enthusiastic and professional, and backed by dedicated fans.

The Chengdu bid won this site selection vote through organizing, through outreach to convention runners, and through encouraging their local fans to purchase supporting memberships and to vote. As has often been pointed out by proponents of the Chendu bid, China is the country with the world’s largest number of science fiction fans. 

Based out of Chengdu, Science Fiction World (科幻世界) is the science fiction magazine with the largest circulation on Earth; comparable to the total of Analog, Asimov’s and the Magazine of Science Fiction & Fantasy combined. The 2,400 Discon III supporting memberships from China represent a fraction of a percent of the circulation of this one magazine.

Canadian author Derek Künsken
does well in North America ...
but more than a million people
read his works in China.
(Cover of the Chinese edition
of Quantum Magician via the
publisher)

The vast majority of these memberships were bought by people who have never previously participated in voting on the Hugo Awards, as this will be their first Worldcon memberships. And excitingly, they will be eligible to nominate works for the Hugos in 2022. Given that there are usually little more than 1,000 nominating ballots cast in a given year, these supporting members of Discon III could have an enormous influence on what makes the ballot at the Chicago Worldcon. We encourage them to nominate. 

The third-highest grossing movie worldwide in 2021 was the Chinese-language time-travel movie Hi Mom. Han Song has won the Chinese Galaxy Award six times, but remains little-known among English-speaking readers. Xueting Christine Ni has been tirelessly working to promote Chinese science fiction for years, and could be recognized in one of the editor categories. And some authors underappreciated by Hugo voters (such as Derek Künsken) have found a broader audience with their works translated for Chinese-language magazines such as Non-Exist Magazine. We might also hope that these new Hugo voters will not neglect the fan categories.

There is a real possibility that the 2022 ballot could be the most surprising Hugo Awards shortlist in years — and the least U.S.-centric to date.