Guest Post: Neurodiverse Alien Encounters in The Neurodiversiverse by Anthony Francis

I knew I needed to become a writer after reading Frank Herbert’s Dune. I must’ve been about eleven years old at the time. I didn’t have an inkling about writing a rough draft, let alone the laborious editing process required to craft a decent manuscript. But I was captivated by how Mr. Herbert spun such a fascinating and realistic world of sci-fi splendor and swashbuckling adventure in such a slender volume. If you discount the appendices, Dune is well under 500 pages. To this day, I’m hard-pressed to think of another author who created such an enthralling and believable world with so few words.

Frank Herbert isn’t the only author I owe a debt of gratitude. My novel Dragons Walk Among Us is a young adult urban fantasy written in first person present tense. I never would have considered such an undertaking when I first found the stick-to-it-iveness to sit down and crank out words. That was before I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I admit I found the style a bit off-putting initially, but I quickly warmed up to the immediacy the technique gives Katniss Everdeen’s adventure. When I first started writing in first person present tense, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I feared I’d find the first person narrative limiting and the present tense aspect hokey. Not the case at all. Turns out, it’s a heck of a lot of fun.  If it wasn’t for Suzanne Collins’ example, I never would have even considered experimenting with the technique.

Two themes that play essential roles in Dragons Walk Among Us are being an outsider and questioning one’s perception. The works of Fonda Lee and Rachel Hartman helped me solidify my thoughts on these themes. In Hartman’s Seraphina series and Lee’s EXO series, the protagonists are pariahs who end up questioning the social order of their respective worlds. In Dragons Walk Among Us, Allison Lee, the protagonist, is a member of a minority. She often feels she is an outsider and, after being blinded, questions reality, even her sanity. The protagonists’ character arcs in Seraphina and EXO gave me insight into how to elucidate these themes in a manner that I think resonates with readers. Of course, Rachel Hartman’s books include dragons, and just about any book containing dragons is inspirational.

Lastly, I drew inspiration from observing my son’s experiences, who is biracial. Not being a minority myself, I can’t claim to have ever experienced racism. My son, however, has experienced it. He was upset and pensive over the incident but has since moved on. His experience had a profound impact on me. I was already aware of the racial tension permeating the United States, but having my child brush up against the ugly beast of racism brought the issue to my doorstep. I fear the fault lines of bigotry and bias run deeper and wider than many people care to admit. One example is the anti-Asian sentiment emerging in the wake of the pandemic. All this is to say, some of Allison Lee’s experiences are loosely based on my observations of my son’s experiences. I can honestly say, I don’t think Allison’s story would be authentic without my son providing some inspiration.

BIO: Dan Rice has wanted to write novels since first reading Frank Herbert’s Dune at the age of eleven. A native of the Pacific Northwest, he often goes hiking with his family through mist-shrouded forests and along alpine trails with expansive views.

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The Unheard of in Fantasy: Advocacy for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing in fantasy and science-fiction

Imagine that you are a huge fantasy or science-fiction fan. You’ve watched every Game of Thrones episode. You own all of the merchandise. You’ve seen the “Lord of the Rings” and “Star Wars” trilogies so often your friends never need to ask what gifts you want for the holidays. Even your cat is named “˜Aragorn’.

Now picture the next big movie you’re excited about is announced. You watch all the actor interviews, cling to every spoiler and hint dropped by the studios, and the week before the premier you have your head shaved to carve your favorite clan symbol into your left temple.

Except when the movie comes out, you can’t watch it. It’s in a foreign language and the only way for you to enjoy it is with a small glass device attached to your chair that keeps slipping. You can watch the words or the action, but not both. At the end of the film all of your friends are going on and on about the wonderful fight scene with the main heroes but all you saw was your subtitles dropping away when someone bumped your chair going to the bathroom and you scrambled to put it back.

Oh sure, you could wait for it to come out dubbed in English, but you’ll have to wait for an entire week. A week of all of your friends ruining the best scenes because they’ve seen it already. Or avoiding all social media and TV because you don’t want to stumble on any spoilers. And when it does come out, you’ve scene all the best scenes already because it’s all people put on your fan sites since opening night.

Now imagine you’re Deaf.

There are two kinds of deafness in the United States: “˜small-d’ deafness and “˜large-D’. “˜Small-d’ deafness is the result of hearing loss. Advancing age, congenital hearing loss, or just too many rock concerts can all cause hearing loss.

Big-Deafness is a culture and history within the United States that communicates with American Sign Language, cherishes Deaf History, and fights for equal access to things like captioning for new movies. Deaf, Hard-of-Hearing, and Children of Deaf Adults can all identify with the Deaf Community, and several more like this author work or live with them as friends or colleagues.

With advances in technology, cellphones and texting have vastly improved the access Deaf people have to everyday conveniences like calling the cable installer or booking a restaurant. FaceTime and video relay enable them to call anywhere and anytime for taxicabs or doctors’ appointments. There is so much access in fact, that places where they cannot have access have become the glaring exception.

Like captioning.

Deaf people buy manga and watch drone races. They buy Millennium Falcon replicas and write Elvish. They roll dice, draw orcs, dream about dragons and buy fantasy novels just the same as every other fan of the genre. The only thing they can’t do is hear.

In cultures defined by their ability to supersede reality, shouldn’t all Fantasy and Science-Fiction be accessible? Shouldn’t conventions be close-captioned and panelists interpreted? Can’t more movies or television series use American Sign Language for their characters like The Dragon Prince show does with their Deaf General Amaya on Netflix? Productions that include Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing actors, even as extras, are still woefully small. Do you really need to hear to dress like a zombie and eat people? Or add shadows to an alien monster’s CGI graphics?

A person’s gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity or social class are not the only obstacles preventing brilliant and invested fans from reaching their ideal careers or childhood heroes. Let all people be Writers. Let them be Artists.

Let them be Dreamers.

Biography: TJ Kahn is an American Sign Language interpreter and retired hospital chaplain living in the San Francisco East Bay. A sci-fi/fantasy enthusiast and a devoted dog parent, he stays active supporting Podcasts and various artists, hoping to become a professional game designer himself someday.

Follow him on Twitter as Theopedes.