It’s the weekend! I’ve picked two longer works, both about… Axis war crimes, and the different interpretations of victors and victims. Yes, this is still my series of reviews on speculative fiction, you’ve read that right! I want to talk about both at length, so I will post the reviews separately, and over the course of two days (G-d willing).

Before we start, a different issue – I’m a bit annoyed to see that some of the stories I was sure would fit into the short story category run in the novelette category on this year’s Hugos. I had originally intended to concentrate on short stories, but many places don’t post word counts in story headers, and in some cases stories are split up over multiple pages, which makes them appear shorter… like this one, which is actually a novella, even longer than a novelette! So I’ll have to reorganize the list and group stories by length.

Shtetl Days by Harry Turtledove (an American Jewish man)

from Tor.com Originals, Apr 14 2011

This story looked like a quick read when I scrolled through the page (and I wasn’t really in the mood for anything longer), but when I actually started reading, I was quite surprised to see “Page 1 of 4″ and a link to the following page at the bottom.

I read on, and I was very happy I did. AWESOME happens right after that page break. I want to say as little as possible, but still something that will make you read the story, so I will just say that Turtledove takes the timeworn shtetl-kitsch clichés and subverts them masterfully, while still staying true to the sentiment that pervades them. Amazing, really.

There are some minor inconsistencies, for example when it comes to pronunciation, but (spoiler!) since the characters are historical reconstructionists, it’s perfectly understandable they would get at least a few things wrong.

I only had a small gripe with the story – as an Orthodox Jew, I’m uncomfortable with fully spelled out divine names included in works that come without warnings to treat the names respectfully. As this stands, readers will probably print out the story and toss the printout once they’ve finished, or read it in the bathroom, etc. all of which would be prohibited by halachah (Jewish law).

The author is secular and thus probably not particularly bothered by it, but I am! If you as a reader want to play it safe, the easiest way is to just leave the story in electronic format (which does not qualify as “writing” as per halachah) and read it that way. This also saves trees

Another minor gripe which has nothing to do with the story content:  sometimes there were extra spaces inserted before and after vowels with diacritics, I guess someone’s word processor goofed up there!

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Here is a beautiful Karliner nigun which demonstrates my point above. In practice, divine names are often hyphenated or substituted when not praying. In the video, you can hear people sing “Kah echsof” while the text reads Y-ah echsof”.

Here is another version (by Aharon Razel & co.) where they sing “Y-ah echsof”:

Due to health problems and work-related issues I haven’t been able to post much lately… I’ll try to make up for the delay, G-d willing. First, a bunch of links I thought would be worth sharing–

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An article where two YA authors talk about their experience trying to sell a YA novel with a gay protagonist has caused quite a furor lately. “The agent offered to sign us on the condition that we make the gay character straight, or else remove his viewpoint and all references to his sexual orientation.” A huge flamewar erupted with some people essentially claiming the authors were lying. Here is a summary.

Flamewars of this kind make me uneasy irrespective of my viewpoint being represented… but some people linked to resources I was previously unaware of, and these are definitely worth sharing.

I’ve found a list of YA spec fic with major LBGTQ characters, collated by LJ user tanuki_green. This particular entry looks especially interesting, to me at least: “Guardian of the Dead, by Karen Healey. An ambitious urban fantasy making thoughtful use of Maori folklore. A major supporting character is asexual.” (Edited to add: Wow, this review is… discouraging, to say the least. Sigh!)

And in case people were wondering about the state of queer YA, here is a post with actual statistics. A few quotes: “Less than 1% of YA novels have LGBT characters.” “50% of LGBT YA books are about boys, with only 25% about girls.” [The rest feature LGBT parents, multiple characters, etc.] “only 4% of LGBT YA books are about transgender or genderqueer characters.” – I assume asexual characters would be included in this category? (Edited to add: Dash made the point that it made little sense to group these categories together – I agree)

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Something completely different, here is a video game project I’ll be keeping an eye on. Warco is a first person shooter, except you shoot film, not guns: you play as a news correspondent in a war zone. I loved the photojournalist theme in Beyond Good and Evil (the game, not the book!) and this looks similar, except it’s set in a realistic setting.

Alas, with this type of game everything hinges on the storyline. It can be a gritty drama where you learn something about real-life war zones beyond “ooooo third world country getting destroyed!” (sigh) or it can be something totally failtastic, or something else entirely…

I think this would be a good opportunity to link to Binyavanga Wainaina’s satirical article on writing about Africa. (It also has a sequel!) …wow, I’ve even found a crowd-sourced “how to write about poor people”.

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And a third topic, here is a poignant essay on Martin Luther King’s impact, by HamdenRice. It struck really close to home because it’s related to what I see people go through in my own ethnic group – of course there are differences, but it’s close.

In Hungary most Jews are afraid to admit they are Jewish, because they do not want to be on the receiving end of verbal and yes, physical violence. They are in the closet for this very reason. When I decided in my teens that I would become more religiously observant (and eventually Orthodox), I knew I could not remain in the closet without constantly lying. Why won’t you eat this – just a bite, why won’t you go out with us on Friday evening, why won’t you shake my hand etc. – I would’ve had to lie in response to all these questions. You can’t really live a religious life in the closet because it affects every little thing you do.

But this meant I became the token Jew everywhere – even when there were lots of other Jews in the group, since they would not tell the non-Jews. Sometimes they would not even tell me, and I’d find out about it through mutual acquaintances.

And yes, I became a target. I’ve been in situations where I had to defend myself physically, where I had to run, I’ve even been in a situation where a policeman walked away from such an event. People say at least anti-Semitic violence is not institutionalized in Hungary (implication: you shouldn’t complain) – well, if a policeman refuses to protect you, i think that’s exactly what’s going on. Two of my friends decided to pursue similar cases through official channels, with quite negative results – one of them was even told to drop the case or they would prosecute him.

But you know what: it’s not that bad. What’s the worst thing that can happen? “They will kill us” – newsflash: they’ve already tried and we’re still here. We need to be proud of who we are.  If we all did it together,  eventually we would not have to live in fear. …and it would certainly be easier on me, the token Jew!

Just a small post -

First of all, Expanded Horizons has a new issue out, I just finished uploading the content. Make sure to visit! It also has an autism-related story.

Second, I registered on Playstation Network, my username is “prezzey”, add me and I’ll probably add you back – if I don’t have the slightest idea who you are, first send me a message, leave a comment here, etc. you get the idea. (BTW I have the same username on Xbox Live.)

Third, I was very angry to see when I came online after the chag that the Pesach robots video has been removed – here is a writeup of the contents in case you were wondering. This video has been online for a year and I had no idea it would disappear over the holidays… *sigh!*

Pesach starts in an hour (at least in my time zone), I hope everyone who’s been preparing is more or less prepared! (I could fall asleep standing. ) I’d like to take the time to wish a kosher Pesach for my Jewish friends, a joyous Easter for my Christian friends and a happy spring holiday for everyone else!

To mark the occasion, here is a really cute Pesach video from Israel… with robots!