Android novella : Monitor

See https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/8/8/enjoy-the-broadcast/

I’m wondering whether anyone already read the novella and whether they found it any good? I’ve enjoyed reading some of Leigh Alexander’s writing in the past but I’ve never read any of her fiction.

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I have not read it yet, but I’m definitely getting it based on her interview this week on Terminal7. I haven’t read anything else by her, but I really liked what she had to say about NBN and her take on the Android lore.

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No, but I am getting it when it comes out proper. It’s a bit annoying that they want to do this kind of pre-release, really, as it just cuts out the non-US audience. I was hoping they would at least put the eBook version up as well, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

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Its also stupidly expensive to ship to anywhere outside of the US. I dont who does their shipping, but anything Ive bought off Amazon US and had shipped to Canada is cheaper.

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I bought it. And it’s stupid expensive to ship it in the US, the cheapest option is more than half the cost of the book itself. Outside of the US, you’ll probably have to pay more for shipping than the book.

I should have thought to ask a friend to get it from GenCon.

Yeah man, there’s no place for politics or social commentary in the Android universe

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If you were interested in a free copy of Monitor (and are in North America), FFG hooked us up with one to give away. Details are about 27:40 of the cast with Leigh - Stream Terminal7 54: Electric Authorella by Idle Thumbs | Listen online for free on SoundCloud

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Book is great. T7 interview is great. FFG S&H is opposite of great.

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Lol true. I just want future politics, not today politics. I really liked the idea that Android was free of racism and sexism, and didn’t want that being changed.

Have you noticed that the corporate executives we’ve seen are a much less diverse bunch than the runners? I think that’s pretty clear evidence that racism already exists in the Android universe. And it’s clearly still a world where women are judged by their appearance a lot more than men are; substantially more female characters than male characters wear close fitting, revealing clothes, and many female characters wear makeup but few or no male characters do.

Besides, basically all fiction has “today politics” in it in some form, even if the author didn’t intend it to.

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Yeah, the whole point of sci fi imo is to tackle “today politics” (and many other “today” topics) through the prism of our fears / hopes about the future.

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It isn’t and never was.

We’ve seen 12 Executives, out of which 5 are women, 7 are men, one is African American, one is Russian, two are German, two are Japanese, one is Indian, one is Scottish, one is British and two are caucasian American - and then there’s the head of GlobalSec from New Angeles, whom I can’t find a picture of right now.

I’d say that’s actually rather diverse?

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The Japanese execs are both Jinteki. I’m not sure that Jinteki preferring Japanese execs is really a mark for corporate diversity. Diversity in companies, maybe, but not in hiring practices. The Indian exec is in India. And the Russian, German, Scottish, British, and caucasian American execs would all be considered white in the present day, I think, so the diversity there is of a more limited sort than the runners.

Here’s the head of GlobalSec. Also German, I think.

Incidentally, a NetrunnerDB search for executives only has ten results. Raman Rai is missing the subtype. I’m going to submit a fix in the GitHub card data for him. When you said twelve, were you including the new GlobalSec head, or is there another exec that needs their data fixed?

I was not including Raman Rai (whom I had forgotten about), but rather the Weyland PR chief from New Angeles, who - I’m fairly sure - is Indian, but located in New Angeles.

My point wasn’t that racism doesn’t exist in the Android universe, but rather that the corporate executives we’ve seen have been fairly diverse so far.

I don’t think it’s an issue that the Android universe will acknowledge or tackle, though. With G-Mods, the Mars revolution and the whole Android/Clone-debacle, it just seems like the developers will keep themselves away from the subject; there are plenty of other subjects to work with, that seem more fitted to the Android universe.

EDIT: what is it that you’re hoping to see? I’m a tad confused.

This is a really important point, but the flip side of it is that we can’t necessarily assume that the “today politics” criteria of marginalization are still going to be relevant. How stringent can/should we be about boardroom racial quotas in a future that we’re told is overwhelmingly multiracial? When aesthetic g-mods are widely available, will beauty standards (and the “makeup tax” etc) affect women in the same way that they did in 2016?

(Apropos of nothing, I love that we can have conversations like this here.)

Ah, I had missed him.

I’m not saying that they aren’t diverse, I’m saying that they seem to be noticeably less diverse than the runners. The diversity suggests that the Android universe may have less racism in some ways than the real world, but the difference in diversity between the two groups suggests that racial prejudice still affects people’s careers.

I’m not sure that there’s anything wrong with the current situation, necessarily? I think the corps being portrayed as not that much more diverse than their present day counterparts maybe adds to the picture of racial politics in the Android universe. On the other hand, I’m white, so my view on whether it’s ok for the boardrooms of Android to be largely white is probably not that useful overall.

Had to chortle a bit considering your avatar.

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Yes, and it makes sense, not all women fall in line with the feminist agenda insofar as being “above” makeup and beauty and all that Jazz. Women like looking better than everyone else, and in the future, the ridiculous ways women will be able to augment their physical appearance will be staggering. This is just a thing people will have to deal with forever and ever until we’re all genetically modified to not find anything attractive except personality and wisdom. So never.

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“I call it the Schwong Field. It makes you look how everyone wants you to. Unfortunately, due to a trending issue getting out of hand, everyone now wants everyone to look like everyone else.”

First, that’s a remarkably sweeping statement about what women like and why.

Second, for a lot of European history, men’s clothing and hair was just as fancy as women’s, and nobody wore makeup. It seems unlikely that a feature of our culture that’s only been around for few hundred years represents a universal truth about human nature.

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