“Extrapolating current ethnic diversity into the future, and assuming (perhaps wrongly) a greater share of power for non-Westerners in human society, I would expect to run into more, not fewer, names and people of obviously non-Western heritage than I do living in modern-day America in Scalzi’s work.

But I must say that I saw the vanilla names and backgrounds of the people in the first two books a glaring flaw in the novels, which were otherwise, in my opinion, very well done and not right wing at all, ala John Ringo.

I actually was pleasantly surprised and amused last night when I read Boudin’s little critique in GB of how everyone in the SF has really European names, not just the last names but the first ones, too.

I thought it might have been a moment of ironic self-critique by the author. Was I right?

Because it doesn’t make much sense to me that nearly all the characters we meet in the first two books have very common names of European origin. Extrapolating current ethnic diversity into the future, and assuming (perhpas wrongly) a greater share of power for non-Westerners in human society.

I’m afraid the current economic and cultural power of the “Western” world, i.e. Europe and the US, in media and movies of all kinds, has indeed made the “default” perception of characters “white”. With the names John Scalzi has given his characters in the first two books, no one would have any reason to believe that his characters are anything other than Caucasian.

By not including the markers Skar begs to be spared of, JS gives most readers a picture of the world that is very white by default. He may not have meant it, and there are ways to rationalize it and blame the readers, but I think Boudin’s critique is, in this instance, a fair one.

I like your books. If putting racial markers in serves your story, I’m all for it. But please don’t bow down to the thought police who would like to dictate how I picture YOUR characters in order to bring ME more in line with THEIR ideal world-view.

All of us under its spell,
We know that it’s probably magic…

Although I’m a pretty big Radiohead fan, I have to admit that the new album is slightly underwhelming. It’s an extremely solid record, don’t get me wrong. But it doesn’t exactly tread new ground the way O.K. Computer or the Amnesiac/Kid A pair of records did. Rather, the new album treads much of the same ground as Hail To The Thief, albeit in a more natural and less-forced sounding way.

Of course, since the band is allowing you to “name your own price” for the music download, and since you apparently can enter “0″ for a price, why not grab a copy for free? (I paid “too much” for the album simply because I wanted to support the band’s efforts in finding new distribution channels. While Radiohead’s efforts to subvert the normal channels isn’t innovative–a number of bands have been doing this for a while now, e.g. Harvey Danger, Radiohead certainly has a higher profile than most.)

People who aren’t rainbow oriented but want to give Radiohead a try might start with their second album, The Bends. The aforementioned O.K. Computer is also a modern classic, and well worth your time.

In high school the Korean students tended to hang out together because, I guess, they could speak Korean and help the ones who didn’t speak much English. (We must not have had another single nationality in large numbers, because I don’t remember any other similar group) My high school in Fairfax county, Va was about 60/40 to 70/30 “white”/”non-white.” My Tuscaloosa Co. Alabama high school was about 50/50 white/black and there was a lot of racially divided cliques.

The graduate program I was in had (and still has) a lot of foreign students. After American, Chinese is probably the most common nationality. Many of the Chinese student didn’t socialize much with the American or other students and this, I believe, was because of poor English. Only one or two joined the department softball team while I was there and one student, who was very outgoing to begin with, made an effort to speak to the American students to improve his English. I don’t blame them, I would hang out with other English speakers if I was in a non-English speaking country.

“Dislikeing queers is not a phobia as most think, it’s a choice”

Indeed, it’s your choice to be a bigot, Beaucage.

That said, I don’t suspect it’s a choice that’s going to get you much traction here, and inasmuch as you’ve indicated that you choose not to consort with teh ghez, since there are quite a few of them who comment here (not to mention the bisexual and the folks who just generally classify themselves as flexible), you might be better off moving along. Because they’re queer, they’re here and they’re unlikely to go away, and your staying here will require a level of tolerance you’ve already indicated you don’t have. So, off with you.