Race and Breaking Plausibility

[boundbooks]

Sci-fi discussions for breaking plausibility usually revolve around two things: technology and alien species. I’m thinking about discussions along the lines of ‘can we ever go faster than light’ and ‘what constitutes a truly alien species’? One plausibility breaker that doesn’t get brought up much is race. Basically, why do so many sci-fi novels break the expected distribution of race?

According to a 1999 UN Report, here’s the projected percentage breakdown:

2050
Africa 19.8%
Asia 59.1%
Europe 7%
Latin America and the Caribbean 9.1%
North America 4.4%
Oceania .5%

2100
Africa 23.7%
Asia 57.1%
Europe 5.3%
Latin America and the Caribbean 9.4%
North America 4.1%
Oceania .5%

Note: For the purposes of this discussion, I’m talking about sci-fi where the Earth is usually presented in a post-colonization state with many colonized worlds, interstellar travel, etc. We’re talking at least 100+ years out from present times, if not one of those scenarios where it’s been thousands of years and the Earth is a smoldering hunk of nuclear waste/pollution/giant ice ball or completely forgotten.

If this is the projection, then sci-fi should be filled with characters and protagonists from Africa and Asia. At least one of my favorite sci-fi series has this problem: Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series accidentally implies that Asia and Africa are smoldering wrecks judging by the majority white people that her protagonist runs into.

How do some of the books that you’ve read handle this issue? Did they do it well (or offer a plausible explanation for breaking the expected distribution) or did they fumble it?

Comments

[boundbooks]

Huh, I had no idea there were active mailing lists. Is that were the majority of Vorkosigan fandom lurks? I really haven't seen them on LJ or Dreamwidth, perhaps owing to the fact that the series pre-dates The Internet. Or is there some Vorkosigan journaling community that I've missed?

[feuervogel]

bujold_fic and lmbujold (not terribly active, sadly, but when there *is* discussion, it's good) and vorkosigan (extremely low activity and a good bit of xposting from lj)

[boundbooks]

I'll keep an eye on them, thank you for the links!

[trialia]

There are a couple of communities on LJ and DW, as you've been linked to them, but yeah, the majority of Bujold fandom - both Vorkosigan and Chalion 'verses - lives on the mailing list. I get hundreds of emails a week from it :) It's based over at Lois' official site, The Bujold Nexus.

[boundbooks]

Thank you, I'll have to take a look over there! I confess, I'm always a bit surprised to find mailing list fandoms. It's so different from the fandoms I first encountered (websites, message boards, journal communities) that I really have no idea how to find mailing list fandoms! They kind of exist in this mental 'void' for me, because you have to be in the mailing list to see it interact with itself. I hope that last sentence made any sense. >_