I approach this as both a disability activist and a fan, and inevitably also as a straight, cis, white, male, because I can't help having been born those things. There is so little SF/F, particularly at novel length (my preference) that comes through with a view of disability that I don't find problematical that I'm having to reach back to Elizabeth Bear's Jenny Casey books (a decade old now) to find a portrayal of disability that doesn't seem to me in some way problematical or just plain lacking in any basic understanding of disability*. With so few books in the genre getting it right, I'm not prepared to exclude a book based on the author's ethnicity or whatever. Doesn't mean I won't read anything written by any other author who happens to get it right, no matter their ethnicity, gender, sex or orientation, but if only one book gets it right this year, and from what I've read in previous years that is a very real possibility, then I'm not prepared to deny myself the one chance to see my disabled identity reflected in the page, no matter who wrote it.
* John Scalzi came damn close last year with Lock-In, but on reflection there are elements of locking the crip away in the attic that are problematic.
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I approach this as both a disability activist and a fan, and inevitably also as a straight, cis, white, male, because I can't help having been born those things. There is so little SF/F, particularly at novel length (my preference) that comes through with a view of disability that I don't find problematical that I'm having to reach back to Elizabeth Bear's Jenny Casey books (a decade old now) to find a portrayal of disability that doesn't seem to me in some way problematical or just plain lacking in any basic understanding of disability*. With so few books in the genre getting it right, I'm not prepared to exclude a book based on the author's ethnicity or whatever. Doesn't mean I won't read anything written by any other author who happens to get it right, no matter their ethnicity, gender, sex or orientation, but if only one book gets it right this year, and from what I've read in previous years that is a very real possibility, then I'm not prepared to deny myself the one chance to see my disabled identity reflected in the page, no matter who wrote it.
* John Scalzi came damn close last year with Lock-In, but on reflection there are elements of locking the crip away in the attic that are problematic.