Orc Horde, hear me

There is a new antho coming out, so new it doesn't even have guidelines yet. This one will be called SHANGHAI STEAM, a steampunk + wuxia anthology, because Kun Lun's wuxia anthology isn't enough. I was alerted to it on Twitter. And I'm not sure how dude even thought to ping me.

Here are part of its as-yet-unformed guidelines:

Imagine a world with armies of terra-cotta warriors operated by steam power, Chinese Dragon Airships, Tesla-Oolong Tea, robot acupuncturists, weapons carved into dragon’s mouths, artificial limbs imbued with Chi, and schools of martial artists dedicated to cybernetic combat.

All cool.

Imagine a steampunk version of Shanghai or Hong Kong or an alternate history where Britain not only won the Opium War but conquered China.

Uhm, WHAT?

Imagine a completely new Chinese-inspired fantasy world with steampunk elements.

Sorry, but Tsui Hark already beat you to it. Also James Ng. Also, Ken Liu and Brenda Clough in THE DRAGON AND THE STARS anthology. Also, Legend of Korra.

Because I am a good sport, I decided to ping the editor: "An alternate history where the British won the Opium War? That's not alternate history."

And guy answers: "But they didn't conquer China ;-)"

WHAT? says I, on the inside, but on the outside, I says, "Not military-wise, no. There's more to conquest than outright colonization." Here I tried to hint to the Westernization that a lot of China faces. The stuff that involves hiring white dudes to do presentations because Chinese folk think it looks more impressive that way. The Westernization that James Ng tries to address and push back again in his own work.

And also, says I, "And why would you inflict such a thing onto your English-reading As-Am audience? They already undergo this as reality." Because it occurred to me, after reading so many stories about assimilation and Americanization and anti-Asian racism in North America, that this would be a fucking problem. Eurocentrism already dominates the lives of Asian-Americans and Asian-Canadians. I'm not sure why my N.Am Azn peers would want to see the same happen to actual Chinese Chinaland?

Not to mention, says mercredigirl, "Not to mention
it is fucking distasteful
to say
'Let's imagine MORE WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER OF COLOURED PEOPLE for shits and giggles.'"

Yeah, that too.

"We want to raise aware of wuxia lit in North America," continues dude. "A mash-up with steampunk seemed a natural fit as a start."

You know, it occurred to me that if you wanted to raise awareness of wuxia lit in North America, one might go about it by, I don't know, promoting already existing, and probably currently ignored, wuxia lit, in North America. "Reviews of existing wuxia lit? Promote wuxia translations and movies? Kun Lun Journal is already producing a wuxia antho," I say, as reasonably as I can. And because I am a glutton for punishment, I press a little further: "Who will be writing these wuxia stories in your antho? For whom will they be written?"

The response is predictably "As any antho, we will be accepting subs and then decide among them. This will be for a N. Am audience. We invite you to submit."

Oh! They invite me to submit! Does he even know what I write? Why I'm even asking these questions?

But I try anyway. "I think wuxia and steampunk are a natural fit too. Detective Dee, forex. But there are more questions that need asking."

And guy answers, "there are lots of questions, yes. We are taking time to to release Sub Guidelines. We want to be respectful to wuxia as a genre."
"and I am looking forward to Kun Lun's antho when it is released. In fact, I want to contribute to it."

I have feelings about this. Not least because I think Kun Lun's white-ass editor is problematic as all get-out.

But dude continues, "which begs the question, what Q's would you ask?"

DUDE NEEDED THE 101 INTERVENTION. So I gave it to him, two barrels:
"How are Chinese ppls represented in white-written lit? How do we avoid Orientalism? How many % Asians am I hoping will submit?"
"How do I filter out stories meant for the White Gaze? How to identify a celebration/continuation of British colonization?"
"Can I take this genre written by and for Chinese out of its context without appropriating it from Chinese-Ams?"
"What kind of stories do I want? What does it mean to be respectful? Who is given respect in these stories I've chosen?"
"Will this story alienate the shit out of a Chinese-American geek who has trouble finding a good representation of themselves?"

"You know," says I. "Basic stuff like that."

This is what I get: "All good Q's. No ans right now. I trust my writers and will publish the best stories that come in. I invite you to submit."

Of COURSE they're good questions. Of COURSE you have no answers. Of COURSE you will publish "the best stories". We've heard this before.

"I will consider," I said in finishing. "Can you promise you will have answers BEFORE your guidelines go up? This is too important."

The answer is yet to come.

Now, I focused on USians in my tweets, but I'm sure the same can be said of Asian-Canadians too.

I'm not sure what else needs to be said. I'm really fucking sick and tired of all these cutesy white editors thinking they're doing non-whiteness a favour just by having an antho that supposedly celebrates something non-white, but in reality, just gives white people another opportunity to wank all over non-whiteness.

Meanwhile, Derwin Mak and Eric Choi are trying to sell another Chinese-themed antho with no success, and can't find a published for a pan-Asian spec fic antho, either.

Basically I think we Azns need to orc the shit out of this anthology. Submissions open September 20.

ETA: From my intel, editor dude is NOT white, but Asian. Chinese-Canadian. I'm not sure this makes it better.

OMG orc horde!

Guy is AZN. Chinese, even.

Well, 1) it's still fucking steampunk fer chrissakes I love it but I know it; 2) bad description is still bad, no matter who wrote it; 3) being Asian doesn't mean you automatically combat the status quo. Although it is nice to see a non-white in charge of a non-white project.

I'm not too terribly surprised at the Orientalism displayed; it's not exactly uncommon here in Asia (Jeannette Ng likes to use the term "Oriental" to refer to herself) to use colonial ideas like that.

There's still plenty of time before the actual guidelines are released for him to think through the questions I asked.

As I said to qian, I'm torn about this.

If Asians don't submit, and more white people than Asians do, then it becomes a case of "white people are better at Aznness than Asians themselves". And you know this shit will happen. If a fail story gets in, they can point to their POC editor.

If we don't submit, and it flops, it's again a loss, because then it's proof of "Asian stories don't sell."

But if Asians submit, and for whatever reason it's not as wildly successful as it should be, it becomes another DRAGON AND THE STARS where the first time is nifty, but not enough for a second round and thus more opportunities for Asian writers. Asianness will get blamed left-right-center for everything.

I don't want to write this off if I can help it. I don't want to write it off if the editor is open to understanding the stakes that this project presents. I don't want to write it off not least because it combines one of my favourite things with one of my childhood/cultural things. And I don't want to write it off because I know a ton of people on my f-lists could write some really awesome shit for such an anthology.

This isn't to say I'm not going to fucking snark my ass off about this project, because seriously, that placeholder description is still dismal, and this, just, ugh.

I'mma give him 12 more hours to respond to my question.