wisb-Guardian-Express

What is it?
The SFF Film Odyssey (2010 edition) is the result of a twitter conversation I had last year, in which I remarked that it would be super cool if I could figure out a way to review every SF/F movie released since 2000 in one year.  Unfortunately, that's nearly 1,000 films, and I have three jobs...so clearly that's impossible.  Instead, throughout 2014, I will watch and review every science fiction and fantasy film released in 2010!  A more reasonable goal, and one that will give me a reason to go through the years of SF/F film one at a time!

What will it entail?
Reviews, discussions, and rants about SF/F movies from 2010.  I'm keeping away from a single format for these posts in order to add some variation, which will hopefully keep readers interested...and me.

A couple caveats:

1. Films that do not have English subtitles or dubs (where relevant) will be removed (I don't think this will matter, but just in case).
2. Films released straight to DVD do not apply, nor do films which appeared on television, but not in theaters.
3. Films which are sequels will be replaced by the first film in the series (there are only a handful in the list right now).  If I have time, I'll review an entire series.
4. I am sure to miss some films, as my list currently consists of what can be found here and here.  There are roughly 63 films there, but if you know of any others that should be considered, leave a comment here or send an email to arconna[at]yahoo[dot]com
5. Films which are not American in origin will be discussed on The Skiffy and Fanty Show blog, which is currently on a World SF Tour.

I'm late to the party.  The first major SF/F controversy party.  And while this post won't be about Kemp's argument specifically, it does come out of the discussions about his post -- most particularly the criticisms.[1]

Part of the problem I have with traditional gender roles is the way they assume what manhood (or womanhood) is based on behaviors which are definitively not gendered.  There's nothing explicitly masculine about aggression or nobility.  There's nothing explicitly feminine about child rearing, except insofar as it is currently required for women to be the carriers of unborn children.  Gender essentalism, however, assumes there are definitely gendered behaviors, such that chivalry is read as "male/masculine" and cowardice is read as "female/feminine."  If this association sounds negative, that's because the construction of male/female or masculine/feminine is frequently a negative.  These associations are also oriented around agency, where masculine behaviors are active and feminine behaviors are passive.  There are all manner of gendered constructions, and each is based on arbitrary, culturally-determined factors.

The impact of gender essentialism in this particular context is often unintended, but, by the nature of a culture's ability to transmit its behavioral modes, it is also pervasive.  We are all coded by our
gender without ever having a say in the matter.  My culture tells me I should behave in certain ways because that is what men do; it tells me there is a true form of manhood; and it tells me that I am deviant, even in an innocuous sense, if I do not conform to these standards.  It's that absence of agency which should make all of us pause.  In effect, I am, as Louis Althusser might argue, interpellated by/into my culture's gender paradigms as it codes my identify for me and I, as all children do, react by internalizing these values.[2]  As I grew older, it became clear how pervasive and abusive these standards and values were.  When I was told as a young man that I was not masculine (i.e., male enough) because I did not engage in feats of strength, it was implied that I must acquire that masculine behavior to properly assert my manhood.  If I wasn't into sports, I was naturally feminine.  If I shared my emotions, I was more woman than man.  In other words, my youth was a process of cultural assault, by which my behaviors had to be coded along gender lines, interpreted, and then rejected if they did not conform to the norm.  This is not exactly a unique experience, either, though my examples above are certainly reductive.

Women are told all manner of similar things, too, so I imagine I'm not wrong in asserting that the psychological impact of gender essentialism is rarely positive for any gender.  It reinforces gender roles as fixed, when in fact they are anything but, and it shames those who do not conform by implicitly stripping them of their gender and assigning a new one.  Thus, women who are aggressive are "manly."  A great genre example is Grace Jones' performance of Zula in Conan the Destroyer (1984).

Here, we're presented with a woman who is every bit as aggressive and noble (or not) as Conan (Schwarzenegger).  She wields spears and screams warcries as she cuts into enemies.  She doesn't shy from battle or give in to injury or the intimacy of others.[3]  But she is definitively a woman, and expresses that behavior in ways particular to herself, not to her gender.[4]  That she is the female opposite of Conan is not insignificant:  she isn't an enigma, but the embodiment of an anti-essentialist stance on gender (incomplete though that stance may be).  Women can be warriors without becoming "men."  Women can be brutal and limited in their emotional expression without sacrificing their gender association.

In other words, this idea that there are "gendered behaviors" in any pure or stable sense should seem absurd to all of us.  We can easily point to examples whereat someone behaves contrary to their assigned gender, and yet in doing so, they do not cease to be whatever gender they so choose.[5]  That's the point I think more of us need to grasp in the SF/F/H community.  If you want to write characters who behave like chivalrous knights, then do so.  But there's no reason to assume those characters must be male, or that their behaviors are masculine by nature.  We can do without thinking in those terms.  We'd certainly be better without it...


[1]:  Based on my interactions with Mr. Kemp, I think I am correct in saying that his post was ill-considered in certain respects.  I understand what he is trying to say, but his methods for making that point were unintentionally sexist.  Instead of saying "I like writing masculine stories because men," he might have said "I like writing stories that feature these virtues and behaviors."  He might even have said he is most comfortable writing men, which is hardly an offense in my opinion.  I, for example, am only semi-comfortable writing men, which might explain why many of my protagonists (in written, not published fiction) are women (or sometimes something other than straight white guys); whether my writing is good is a whole different question.  In any case, it's the fact that his post reinforces traditional gender roles and applies certain virtuous actions specifically to male behavior which poses the problem for most.

[2]:  This is a horrible reduction of Althusser's work.  I hope you'll forgive me.

[3]:  In all fairness, she is perhaps naturally distrustful of others because she is treated quite poorly by the people of her world.  I wish she had appeared in more Conan films, though.  Zula is such a fascinating character, and easily one of my favorites.

[4]:  I should note that Zula was actually a man in the comic books.  She may not be the best example to make my point, but I love her, so I'm sticking to it...

[5]:  I realize that there is some slipperiness in the terminology here.  I am absolutely not talking about biological sex in the main, but gender as an assignment of identity.  I just don't buy into the idea that there are behaviors that are gender coded outside of those particular to one's sex.  Obviously, these gender assignments are based on sex to some degree in our culture.

I'm a little late to the party, but Linda Nagata kindly rebutted my original post on the logistical issues of literary awards as a rationale for the rejection of self-published books from the consideration lists.  Here, I'd like to respond to some of her arguments.

The way I see it, there are two main purposes to a literary award: (1) to bring attention to specific books and authors, and by so doing (2) to shape the genre. Whether (1) & (2) come to pass or not, neither purpose is harmed or diminished by consideration of a self-published work.

This may be an issue of wording, but I don't consider these two components as the purposes of literary awards.  While the "shaping the genre" is certainly an effect of an award, to some extent, it is also a somewhat ambitious concept to apply to an extremely focused practice, particularly since "shaping," as I see it, is organic rather than artificial.  We shape the genre by our reading choices and what we talk about as a community, not by recognizing works as "good" by a set of disparate, cross-purpose standards -- as all awards invariably are.  Awards certainly cross over with the trend-setters and shaping works, but I find it hard to imagine the genre shaped purposefully by awards as opposed to by side effect.  This is particularly true of populist awards, which certainly suggest some potential for shaping, but which themselves are fickle, shifting, and disparate in form.  What the public likes one year will not match what they like the next, and in the long course of time, what they liked in 1987 may have been forgotten in 2007.  Curated awards suffer from a separate issue, which I'd simply call the limits of critical focus.  (This is a somewhat truncated explanation, so I hope the reader will forgive me here.)

The first of Nagata's points is, of course, related.  For me, awards are not there to bring attention to works, but rather to recognize works that fit within a certain paradigm based on that paradigm's criteria.  This is where the wording comes in, as I see something different between "recognizing" and "bring attention to."  The first denotes the idea that this work deserves attention because it meets certain criteria, while the second seems to have a more directed shaping effect -- i.e., here's a work you should talk about.  Recognition, however, is about achievement.  In curated awards, it's an acknowledgement that your work successfully fulfilled the award's criteria, and is thus noteworthy.  In populist awards, it's the public's acknowledgement of the same, but with less stringent and often impossibly variable standards.

I suspect Nagata and I don't actually disagree here, though.  Basically, I see the literary award as contingent upon its established criteria, however nebulous, and the process of applying that criteria necessarily specifies texts and author.  For example, the Nebulas only recognize science fiction and fantasy works from authors who are members of the SFWA; from there, the awards themselves only recognize what that small community determines is "the best," which itself isn't a hard set criteria we can accurately describe, since it is entirely subjective.  As such, narrowing by publication method is just another set of arbitrary criteria.

The other thing I should mention here concerns the idea that the awards we have in our community are naturally open to SPed works.  While it is true that most (or all) of the awards are open to SPed works based on its given criteria for selection, there are few examples of such works appearing on lists from authors who themselves have not at one point, especially recently, had their work published traditionally.  This distinction may seem trivial, but I think it is important to recognize how our community applies validity to a given work.  In many respects, our community still does not look highly upon authors who have been published primarily on their own; it is far more forgiving when that author has a traditional publishing career either before or after the publication of an SPed work.  That's something we'll see change in the future -- possibly when SFWA raises its pro payment rate for magazines to $0.25/word (ha) -- but probably not after some form of mass culling or shift within self-publishing.

On that last sentence, I'd like to expand something I'd said before on the nature of the SPed world.  Nagata doesn't address at length my contention about the quality of SPed works (not that she needed to, mind), but she does say the following:  "[That SPed works are more commonly bad in comparison to TPed works] is still a common assumption, so credibility is extremely important for a writer who chooses to publish her own work."  I concur that recognition via an award is certainly good for any author, particularly since, as Nagata discusses briefly in her post, awards can have a measurable impact on one's career.  However, Nagata's track record is one that is fairly unique in the SP world.  In comparison to the sea of SPers, most of them are not also traditionally published and award winners.  Nagata, as it turns out, has won awards in the past -- the Locus for best first novel[2] (The Bohr Maker) and the Nebula for best novella (Goddesses)(woot) -- and she has most certainly had a decent career as a traditionally published writer of short and long fiction, though of late she has been primarily of the other stripe.  I don't bring this up to discount her argument, nor to poke mean fingers at her career or anything (a considerably one, actually), but rather to point out that while she has made a value judgment on the matter of SPing, one which has led her to self-publish her work (good work, mind), she has also seen things from the other side.  She has taken a unique pathway, and one even more unique based on the shape of her career.

In other words, Nagata has a track record.  Previous fans of her work, and new fans, can look back at what she has published before in various places and say "well, look at that, she's got all this going for her."  As a reader, I can assess her career and her previous work and limit my concerns that I might waste my money on a really shitty book.  This isn't a promise, of course, but I see the purchase of entertainment products as a sort of low-level form of gambling.  This is something that, as I only briefly suggested in the last essay, I can also apply to an established traditional publisher like Tor.  Sure, I've read some Tor books I really didn't like.  But I've also read some incredible books from them, so a debut author with Tor is likely to get my attention simply on the basis of being with Tor.  That's not unlike why I would give Nagata attention (and why I said:  she SPed The Red:  First Light, but we interviewed her because she's Linda friggin Nagata).  It just makes it easier on me.  I don't have to think twice.  And I imagine a lot of readers who don't appreciate the SP world are like me, though probably less so than I imagine.  It's an experiential apprehension, if you will.

And that's the real problem for me:  quality and effective consumer evaluation.  There are certainly a lot of great things going on in the SPed world.  I've read some amazing SPed books, mostly by chance or word of mouth, but the field is so overwhelmed with people hoping they'll be the next super rich SPer that it becomes nearly impossible to survey the field in any meaningful sense.  I can't effectively make those consumer evaluations because assessing the quality of a given work becomes nearly impossible.  What is this author's track record?  I don't know, because this is their first book.  How do I know they got their book edited?  I don't.  How do I know the words inside are better than the cheap cover on the outside?  I don't.  How do I know they treated the writing process like a professional?  I don't.  The gambles pile gets larger and larger...

In any case, that's the last I'll say on that (for now).


[1]:  correction:  all works are considered; the voting/nominations are specific to SFWA members -- thanks to Linda Nagata.
[2]:  this originally said "best novel," which is incorrect; thanks to Linda Nagata for the correction.

As I write this sentence, Catching Fire (2013), the sequel to The Hunger Games (2012), is encroaching upon the $700mil box office mark.  It's a huge film, and there are a lot of things to love about it.

Before I get to my rant/review, here are a couple quick notes:

1. I hadn't read the book when I saw the movie, so the reactions below will jump back and forth between placing the film in relation to the book and treating the film on its own terms.
2. There are spoilers.
3. Nothing is in any sort of order here.  Like my post on Riddick (2013), I'll cover everything I feel like talking about as they come to me.
4. I've discussed some of these things in the Shoot the WISB episode on Catching Fire over at The Skiffy and Fanty Show.

The World and POV Shifts
In the first film, there were a handful of cuts away from the central action to the characters involved behind the scenes:  the gamekeepers, the president, Haymitch, the folks at home, etc.  These served to give us a sense of the world in which these games are a centerpiece.  The problem with The Hunger Games was its inability to rationalize the system of oppression that made the games possible.  There were certainly attempts, but in the end you either had to accept the status quo or give up any possibility of immersion.

Catching Fire does a decent job rectifying this problem.  For one, it centralizes President Snow as the actual and real villain.  In the first film, the Capitol and the other players in the game were all potential villains, but here, Snow is never anything but.  From his first interactions with Katniss to the cut scenes showing him planning her torture and eventual defeat, Snow is the adversary the film has always needed:  he's the face of all that is wrong with the Capitol.  For me, Snow provided the rationalization for the world that I needed.  His interest in oppression is partly about power, but it is also about his own myths about what revolution entails, such that preserving those myths and power structures becomes more important than considering the implications of one's actions.  Snow, as such, continues to exert his authority -- a largely dictatorial and malignant one -- to preserve the system and to make sure nobody has the means or the will to challenge it.  The Hunger Games are simply a means to an end:  they're a reminder of the past and a reminder of the power Snow/the Capitol wields.

A lot of the scenes that best express Snow's justifications for his brutality are in his interactions with his granddaughter, who appears to become entranced by the symbolic rebellion of Katniss.  Presumably, she doesn't understand what is happening in Panem, but the threat is there for Snow nonetheless:  if his own family can be turned against him, his ability to maintain order will be permanently compromised.  It's a nice touch, as it would be too easy just to make Snow a vile, disgusting bag of skin, as he appears to be in the books.  Here, there are little hints of humanity in play, and so he becomes even more horrifying as a villain the more we realize how human he really is.
Likewise, the POV shifts are generally a good thing.  They give us an impression of the world, its logic, etc.  They also show us things we otherwise don't get to see in the book, which helps the film avoid the problem of having no viable method to display Katniss' internal struggles.  The problem with these shifts, however, is in their unnecessary ability to trick us as viewers, which I'll get into in the next section.

WANTED:  Clues That Logically Lead to X
There are two main issues with the structure of the film.  The second of these I'll discuss in the section below on endings; the first I'll cover here.

One of the new central characters is gamekeeper Plutarch Heavensbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman).  At the end of Catching Fire, it is revealed to us that he, Haymitch, and several of the tributes have been conspiring to extricate Katniss from the games so she can remain the symbol for the upcoming revolution.  But unlike the book, which leaves a great number of clues as to Plutarch's true allegiances, the film simply discards most of those clues for a shocking reveal.  This works in the book for one reason:  we're in Katniss' head the whole time.  But the book gives us plenty of clues.  It makes it clear that there's something fishy going on, even if Katniss hasn't quite figured it out yet.  The shock in the book, as such, is measured by revelation:  so that's what all those clues are about.

In the film, most of those clues are gone.  For all intents and purposes, we're supposed to believe Plutarch is just like everyone else in the Capitol, albeit perhaps more macabre than the average flashy Capitol-ite.  But almost every scene involving Plutarch doesn't give us the impression that he's actually one of the good guys, as he spends most of his time trying to convince President Snow that X method is the best way to destroy Katniss as person and revolutionary image.  His ideas are, in retrospect, not terribly good, but they are, in the moment, convincing in their brutality.  The shocking reveal, however, doesn't have the benefit of proper foreshadowing or retrospective revelation, despite a good chunk of the film taking place outside of Katniss' perspective.  And without that benefit, Plutarch's apparent heroism is incomprehensible as a consequence of the plot, and, thus, neutered.  Were we supposed to hate Plutarch in the end as Katniss does, or find something redeemable in him?

Thankfully, this issue doesn't affect the allied tributes.  There are enough moments where Finnick and Johanna hint that something else is going on, giving Katniss and the audience a moment to consider what that something might be.  If only the same had been true of Plutarch.

Jennifer Lawrence Rocks
To say that Lawrence delivers a superb performance in this film is really just an attempt to say something we already know.  She's an exceptional actress, and she brings a great deal of emotional diversity to her reprised role.  That's no small feat when you consider that she doesn't have the benefit of internal monologue, which means we never get a clear sense of what is going on in the character's head (something the book gives us in droves); she has to show us.
Though I obviously have opinions on the ending, I also think the final shot (a closeup of Lawrence's face) is one of the more sure examples of the toll this world has had on the character of Katniss.  You can see the different emotions rolling through her face; she begins as visibly saddened, weaving swiftly through the stages of grief, until finally her sadness morphs into contempt and anger.  Then the film cuts out.  If the ending itself were actually about Katniss' emotional shift, it could have ended on this scene without issue.  This is what we've been waiting for, after all:  Katniss is going to war.

But I'll get to a discussion of the ending later.  Here, I'm concerned with Lawrence.  And she's exceptional.  Frankly, Lawrence really carries this movie, which makes the nearly $700mil box office tag all the more exciting.  Perhaps we'll see more films with female action leads in the near future.  Big films with lots of attitude.

Women
If you've seen The Hunger Games, then you have a good sense of the main characters here.  Regardless, I think it is worth noting that, unlike other female protagonists or sidekicks in so many films of any genre, the female characters here are fascinating, even if they are only on screen for a short period of time.  Some of those characters are also quite complex, revealing their layers over time.
From the aggressive, "don't give two shits" Johanna to the deceptively mindless and emotionally removed Effie to the reluctant but capable hero in Katniss, this film gives us a lot to work with when it comes to its female characters.  There's also the rather motherly Mags, who doesn't actually get to say anything in this film; yet, her bravery and kindness in action define her in ways that I think are quite significant in relation to the other characters.  Her relationship with the rude and lecherous Finnick, for example, provides a human dimension to her fellow male tribute, such that we're able to put trust in someone we previously thought would seek to harm our original heroes.  Though I wish we could have received more from Mags, I still loved her as one of many quite different women in this film.

(And, yes, it passes the Bechdel test, too, as female characters frequently discuss things that don't have anything to do with a boy; when they do talk about boys, it is frequently not about romantic entanglements, but salvation and violence.)
All of this led me to remark the some nights ago that it would be awesome if someone would make an Expendables-style film with an almost exclusive female action star cast.  That film is coming.

The point is this:  whatever flaws the film may have, it is a film where women are prominent players in a good portion of the action.  This is not to suggest that it is a perfect portrayal, but success shouldn't be judged by the absurd standard of perfection anyway.

PTSD Lite
I didn't honestly expect the creators of this film to actually address what seemed quite obvious to me after the first film:  these kids are going to be fucked up.  But they did.  Personally, I think they might have done more with the PTSD subplot, as a few bad dreams really doesn't cover it, but it was clear after twenty minutes of film that this was never going to be about the ramifications of the Hunger Games in the personal lives of the victors.  I think that's unfortunate, as actually addressing this issue with some emotional depth would lend credibility to the world.

Still, for a film meant, oddly enough, for younger crowds, it is rather poignant to address the consequences of violent confrontation, especially since we live in a time of sort-of-not-really-over-war.  If it had done so with greater focus, such as was done in Iron Man 3 (differently, of course), it might have added depth to Katniss' character and provided a more cogent rational for her initial refusal to get involved in the ensuing rebellion.  This is something that the book handles well due to the strict focus on Katniss' POV.  One scene in particular involves Peeta's post-games "talent," which all victors are basically required to share with the Capitol.  In Peeta's case, he paints, but his paintings are all from his nightmares of the games, which Katniss initially finds horrifying; soon, however, she recognizes their value:  they are a cathartic release for Peeta.  His greater sensitivity to the pressures of violence are partly responsible for leading Katniss and Haymitch to the conclusion that they must save Peeta -- granted, they also want to save him because he possesses a particular charm that might be useful later (Katniss recognizes that revolution is coming and that she will be a part of it quite early in the novel) and because, well, he's just "good."  Such a scene could have given the characters a moment to discuss their troubles, and it would likely have helped solidify the friendship that begins to develop in this film.
Endings
This film lacks an ending.  It just...ends.  While I appreciated the idea of Katniss destroying the arena and even the idea that this final act of rebellion within the terms of the capital would lead inexorably to an actual revolution, I still could not help finding the cliffhanger "look, the revolution has come" ending ineffective.  For one, it comes out of nowhere.  Katniss wakes up in a hovercraft to find that Plutarch, Haymitch, and Finnick have been conspiring to start a rebellion using her as a figurehead; she flips out, wakes up in a room with Gale looking over her, and we're told "hey, the revolution has come, District 12 ain't there no more, and...yeah...good times."  That's where it ends.

For me, all middle films have to leave some questions unanswered, but not the questions most pertinent to the film in question.  The conclusion to The Empire Strikes Back is anything but complete in the larger scheme:  Han has been kidnapped; Luke has failed to defeat Darth Vader; the rebels have gotten their asses handed to them; and there's a lot left to be done.  Empire, however, is complete in terms of its self-contained plot:  all of those things I just mentioned were conclusions to events specific to this film.  But unlike Empire, Catching Fire never defines the terms of the next engagement, nor does it conclude all of its self-contained plot elements.  It drops us in a moment which is decontextualized and abstract.  Revolution has come, but we don't really know what that means, particularly if we're to accept the fact that District 12 has been wiped off the map in a matter of days (at most).  There is no explanation for the absence of many of the characters -- presumably, most of them are dead, but it's never an issue that gets discussed in any depth.  All we're told is:  the revolution has started.
It's that absence of a denouement which makes this a weaker film than the first.  Like Matrix Reloaded, we're thrust into an entirely different world, but not one which has a basis or development out of something else.  Part of the problem, I think, is the structure of the other parts of the film; if the end result is the beginning of a revolution, it seems to me that the film needs to more accurately foreshadow this moment so the shocking revelation for Katniss need not be so shocking for us.  Shock is cheap.  It works once, but after you've seen it a few times, it loses its value.   But being able to piece together the clues in a concrete fashion adds something to the game.  We don't have that here.  There are breadcrumbs, sure, but their meaning doesn't naturally end with "revolution."

Conclusions
Overall, I enjoyed the film.  I thought it was stronger than the first until the end, and I appreciated the clearer villains and attempts to rationalize the world, even if this whole system still doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  The biggest flaw for me, obviously, was the ending.  I particularly despise middle films that end on cliffhangers, which might explain why I initially despised the second Matrix film.  All films must end in some capacity, even if their unanswered questions will be continued elsewhere.  Still, if you haven't seen it, you should do so before it leaves theaters for good.  Doing so supports an otherwise solid franchise and the possibility of more strong female leads like Katniss Everdeen -- plus, it's a glowing endorsement of Jennifer Lawrence, who I adore.

So that's what I have to say on that.  For now...


Directing: 4/5
Cast:  4.5/5
Writing:  3/5
Visuals:  4/5
Adaptation: 3.5/5
Overall:  3.8/5 (76%)
Inflated Grade:  B (for solid acting, a stronger narrative thrust than the previous film, solid visuals, and suspense)
Value:  $9.00 (base on $10.50 max)

Happy New Year!

I think this is the first time I've seriously looked at my reading numbers.  And now I'm going to share them with the world.

The list only includes novels, collections, and narrative non-fiction.  I have not factored in multiple books by the same author.

Here's the author list:

Gareth L. Powell
Myke Cole
Christopher Barzak
Nir Yaniv
Brian McClellan
Paul Cornell
Michael R. Underwood
Michael J. Martinez
Nick Mamatas
Wes Chu
Doug Lain
Richard Phillips
Mike Resnick
James Anthony Froude
Stephen N. Cobham
Michel Maxwell Philip
C.L.R. James
Edgar Mittelholzer
Roger Mais
George Lamming
V.S. Naipaul
Kim Stanley Robinson
John Scalzi
Saladin Ahmed
Brandon Sanderson
Jay Lake
Max Gladstone
Chuck Wendig
Karen Lord
Merle Hodge
Caryl Phillips
Dionne Brand
Erna Brodber
Mary Seacole
Evie Manieri
Linda Nagata
Nalo Hopkinson
Rhiannon Held
Lauren Beukes
Yoon Ha Lee
Ruth Frances Long
Emma Newman
Cassandra Rose Clarke
Ann Leckie
Cherie Priest
Jean Rhys
Beryl Gilroy
Suzanne Collins
Mira Grant
Lois McMaster Bujold
Nancy Kress
Aliette de Bodard
Zen Cho
Mur Lafferty
Stina Leicht

Here are the percentages w/ commentary:

Gender
Male (50.9%)
Female (49.1%)

I'm actually surprised with this.  While I make an effort to maintain gender parity for The Skiffy and Fanty Show, that same effort does not apply to my academic work.  There, I'm concerned with a tradition of literature, which is historically male-centric.  But apparently even my PhD project is fairly equal in terms of gender.

In any case, I'm happy.  I wanted to get close to 50/50, and so I have.  A+

Diversity
White (61.82%)
Non-White (38.18%)

I'm uncomfortable with this category for two reasons:  1) I don't like the idea that there are two groups (white and non-white); 2) I don't know how to get around that without making completely idiotic assumptions about other people's race.  But this is the only way I have to measure racial diversity, and so I have to use it.  If anyone has a better idea, please don't hesitate to leave a comment.

I also wanted to include a note about LGBT authors here, but I realized that I'd have to go digging around to figure who is who.  And, well, it's really none of my business.  It wasn't something I intentionally selected for this year, though I certainly would like to read more works by LGBT authors.

In any case, I'm not dissatisfied with these numbers.  They're not as bad as they could be, and they could certainly be better, but considering that I didn't actually try, I'm genuinely pleased that nearly 40% of my reading came from people of color.

U.S./U.K. (65.46%)
Elsewhere (34.54%)(includes expatriates)

This doesn't surprise me at all.  Since my field of research is Caribbean literature, a good chunk of what I read this year would have to be from elsewhere on the planet.  In 2014, that number is going to look very different indeed thanks to the World SF Tour.

If I had more time, I'd break these numbers down by region (the Caribbean, continental Europe, etc.).  For now, I'll settle for the above.

And that's that.  How about you?  Leave your numbers below!