# Black characters and creators in sci-fi, fantasy and horror (1996-2006) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 10, 2006, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187 "2006-06-10T09:18:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/101 "2006-06-12T17:43:35Z")
> [@](#): > > The rack of black actors and performers making appearances in the filns is impressive, But in a horror movie, isn’t being a black actor with a rack a _double_ guarantee that you’re going to die? 😉 And “Time Considered as a Helix of Semiprecious Stones” isn’t anywhere near being the best SF story ever. The concept of the Singers was great, and there were a few other interesting ideas in the story, but they weren’t held together well. And, of course, there were some utterly ridiculous ideas, too: The cops find out the Word almost instantly, but it doesn’t matter, because no cop can possibly _say_ it the right way? Um, no. ---
**Author:** ![lee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lee/32/7455_2.png) [@lee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lee)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/102 "2006-06-12T17:45:33Z")
What about Dappa from _The Baroque Cycle_ by Neal Stephenson? He was one of the most compelling characters in that series, and certainly the most eloquent. Enoch Root must also have thought so, because he still seems to be alive in the Cryptinomicon. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/103 "2006-06-12T17:55:45Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > Butler was a lonely California girl who escaped from a grim reality into sf. There’s absolutely nothing in her background that would hint that she would become an sf star. I dunno about a “grim reality” – fr’crissakes, she grew up in Pasedena. Plus she was bookish, religious, gay, black and had a self-acquired middle class educational background and is one hell of a writer with an excellent storytelling sense. I’m not sure what draws African-Americans and other blacks into science fiction. Something about seeing the outsider reflected in storytelling is part of it. I’m not sure I’ve even heard of Steven Barnes or Nalo Hopkinson before today, so thanks for adding their names. I _still_ get Delany and Zelanzy mixed up, which is probably another reason why I’ve never read Delany extensively. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/104 "2006-06-12T17:58:33Z")
There was Yale, the onetime criminal converted to righteousness by implanting a V-chip, in _Earth 2_. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/105 "2006-06-12T18:39:39Z")
> [@Askia](#): > > I dunno about a “grim reality” – fr’crissakes, she grew up in Pasedena. Plus she was bookish, religious, gay, black and had a self-acquired middle class educational background and is one hell of a writer with an excellent storytelling sense. Check out this [article](http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/books/160608_butler16.html). > [@](#): > > Her father was a shoeshine man who died when she was still a child. Her mother was a maid who often had to bring her daughter along on cleaning jobs. And she was hampered by dyslexia, was sheltered by a strict Baptist upbringing and was painfully shy yet always stood out in the crowd, towering over most of her schoolmates, both boys and girls, having grown to a height of 6 feet by the time she was 15. > > Yet these were only the early obstacles that Octavia Butler of Seattle had to overcome on her way toward becoming an acclaimed writer. There also were all those doubting relatives who were “horrified” by her writing dreams and kept advising her to get a real job with a pension. Then there were all those menial jobs she endured to make ends meet, assignments doled out by a temporary agency: sweeping floors, washing dishes, cleaning toilets, stuffing envelopes, pricing merchandise, even sorting potato chips. > > Butler, after only a couple hours’ sleep, kept writing away every morning before she set off for another day of drudgery. But she soon found herself tightrope-walking along a psychological precipice, and sometimes felt as if she was tottering. This is accurate to the way she told it. I got to spend some time with her a couple of years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_Wright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Steve\_Wright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_Wright)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/106 "2006-06-12T18:57:51Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > Not so. Ace, Sylvester McCoy’s companion, was black and originally hailed from the late 1980’s. There was a very good story about her acompanying the Doctor back to 1950’s London to look for Daleks, and being pissed off by the racial attitudes she encountered. [Sophie Aldred as Ace](http://www.doctorwhoworld.org.uk/ace.html). If she’s black, she’s doing a damn good job of hiding it. (She was, certainly, offended by the racist attitudes of London in 1963 (in the story “Remembrance of the Daleks”), but she wasn’t, herself, black.) ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/107 "2006-06-12T19:17:56Z")
**Exapno.** This is my point. To me, her childhood, when she was a girl, _wasn’t all that grim despite elements of tragedy._ Her mom worked, she lived with her grandmother, they had ths support of relatives and the church, I always got the feeling her reading habits as a child were more diversion than escape. She had a fine mind. In my experience it’s unusal as hell to find a student who is both dyslexic but likes to read. I guess, to me, when she struggled as an early writer, she was a lonely _woman_, possibly unaccepting of her sexual orientation, who _chose_ a grim, menial lifestyle in order to write and paid some psychic dues. Writing daily with less than optimal sleep doesn’t sound like an escape to me. Purposeful toil, maybe. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/108 "2006-06-12T19:32:54Z")
Delany is also dyslexic. No idea if that means anything. I think we’ll have to disagree about Butler’s childhood. I think her telling of it is grim. Not tragic, not abused, but with little sun in it. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/109 "2006-06-12T20:40:07Z")
> [@Steve Wright](#): > > [Sophie Aldred as Ace](http://www.doctorwhoworld.org.uk/ace.html). If she’s black, she’s doing a damn good job of hiding it. (She was, certainly, offended by the racist attitudes of London in 1963 (in the story “Remembrance of the Daleks”), but she wasn’t, herself, black.) My mistake. Odd - I _remember_ her as being black, but maybe it was just that storyline. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/110 "2006-06-12T22:51:18Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > The Kargads are white. Been a while since I read WoEarthsea or Tombs, but I remember Ged being reddish. More recently, I read LeGuinn’s response to the movie in which she repeated that Ged and his people were not caucasians. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/111 "2006-06-12T23:02:53Z")
I think this made it to 96- Doom 2099-SPOILERS- It’s Doctor Doom in a cyberpunk future. Bodyguard and expert martial artist Xandra is black. She has a romance with a white character. Nobody ever remarks on it. She may have been descended from the royal family of Wakanda (an African nation that is ruled by the Black Panther), but that was never followed up on. Xandra was killed when Doom took over America. Her lover wroter her name in his own blood and killed himself. Pilgrim, a sort of mercenary, is also black. He eventually also has a romance with a white character. Both romances come naturally based on the characters. Pilgrim was a former chain (or was it called drill?) addict. It’s a nasty synthetic drug which kills users in a decade. The cure is vile (it starts with drinking water laced with nicotine and vomitting for four hours) and takes five years off your life expectancy. Upon discovering chain dealers in Latveria (they had been kept out for years), Pilgrim rushed off to kill them. He was doing great until he lost his footing and was killed. A letter praised the artist for drawing such realistic black people. It also asked if the artist was black, as no white guy could draw Pilgrim and Xandra. The editor responded that the artist was not black. ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2006, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/112 "2006-06-12T23:34:04Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > Been a while since I read WoEarthsea or Tombs, but I remember Ged being reddish. More recently, I read LeGuinn’s response to the movie in which she repeated that Ged and his people were not caucasians. [This thead](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=290039) discusses the skin colour and ethnicity of the inhabitants of Earthsea: the Kargads - who are a bunch of Aryan window-smashers - apart, most people are a copper-brown like Ged, while Vetch is a darker black-brown. I’m not sure if they’d qualify as African, but they’re definitely not white. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/113 "2006-06-14T03:02:29Z")
\*\*Sam Jackson. \*\* We’ve mentioned him as Mace Windu in the _Star Wars_ prequels and as the superhero Frozone in _The Incredibles_ and the walking chum in _Deep Blue Sea_ – but he’s been in other sci-fi movies, too. He was the briefly seen computer programmer in the first _Jurassic Park._ He was the doctor/logistician/mathematics prodigy in _Sphere_ He was the villianous ideological/physical opposite of superhero Bruce Willis in _Unbreakable._ He was Minister Garth in _Def By Temptation_ – a mostly black horror flick by black director James Bond III, starring Kadeem Dwayne Wayne Hardison and Bill “Radio Raheem” Nunn. He was the voice of Rumbo the Dog in the fantasy _Fluke._ Bit parts include him as a blind man in\* Exorcist III \* and a recurring voice character in the annoyingly PC and sadly animated children’s fantasy series _Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child._" Upcoming is Sam in two animated projects: voicing a black samurai in the far future in a film called _Afuro Zamurai_, which he’s executive producing (oh, god. PLEASE have a cameo by _Samurai Jack’s_ Phil LaMarr) and as the voice of Fear in something called _2004: A Light Knight’s Odyssey._ ---
**Author:** ![laramary](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/0ea827/32.png) [@laramary](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/laramary)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/114 "2006-06-14T18:23:18Z")
I joined this forum to mention Samuel R. Delany, but took my sweet time to post. Cat gets a mention, but not Lister? Huh. Charles de Lint definitely has some characters that are black, and I can’t remember off the top of my head, but I am pretty sure Phol does, too (I remember noticing that his future universe was not nearly as straight and white as other writers). The character Bean, of Ender and the shadow of series, is half-African, on his mother’s side, and it is established he looks African in Greece and Greek in Africa, but this isn’t established until the last book in the series. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/115 "2006-06-14T20:27:18Z")
_Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_ is based in Victorian England, and so most of the characters are white. There is, however, a black character: Stephen Black, the butler, plays an important role in the story. Does anyone remember what human races appear in China Mieville’s New Crobuzon books? (_Perdido Street Station_, _The Scar_, and _The Iron Council_). I don’t remember human race being that important, but knowing his political concerns, I’d be a little surprised where there not dark-skinned characters. There was an excellent independently-produced roleplaying game supplement released a few years ago, [Nyambe](http://www.atlas-games.com/nyambe/). > [@](#): > > "My motivation for creating Nyambe was simple. Africa was a major part of the Earth that has little or no representation in fantasy literature, let alone RPGs. When it does appear, it usually follows the pulp fiction model: steaming jungles, bloodthirsty cannibals, and dark gods long forgotten by the civilized races. Of course, historical Africa was nothing like that, so my goal for Nyambe was to create a fantasy version of Africa based on the actual history and mythology of Africa, rather than previous fantasy depictions. So, I went about taking snippets of history or myth, and twisting them, adding fantasy elements or changing specifics to make them fit into a d20 world. I’ll use my favorite myth from the book, the Hungering Lion, as an example: > > "The real Hungering Lion, also known as Sundiata Keita, was born of royal blood in the city-state of Mandinka in the 13th century. At that time, Sumanguru Kante, a Susu warrior, had declared himself emperor of Ghana and slaughtered the entire royal family of Mandinka, except for Sundiata and his mother. Sundiata was so physically weak he was unable to walk, so Sumanguru did not consider Sundiata a threat. Both he and his mother were banished to the nearby kingdom of Mema. There, according to legend, a blacksmith fashioned iron leg-braces for Sundiata, and Sundiata not only learned to walk, but trained as a warrior, horseman, and even learned the arts of sorcery. He then returned to his homeland, led a rebellion against Sumanguru, who according to legend was also a sorcerer, and fought him in a great magical battle on the plains of Kirina in 1325. Sundiata roared like a lion, and scattered Sumanguru’s troops, then fired a magical white cockspur arrow at Sumanguru, draining him of all magic. Without his magic, Sumanguru was easily defeated. > > "I took this and transformed Sundiata into Kwo. I replaced Sumanguru with the lich Zulo, and the empire of Ghana became the Zombi empire. I decided the story would be more interesting if the Lion’s mother was also slain, so in my version of the story, only Kwo survives. The kingdom of Mema is replaced by a fantastical agogwe band, and rather than getting iron leg-braces, he learns to ride a wondrous creature called an engargiya. He still returns to do battle with the evil king, but rather than draining Zulo of magic with a white cockspur arrow, I decided to add an African-Islamic influence by alluding to a battle depiction from the Koran, which roughly translates to: ‘Have you not seen how Allah dealt with the army of the elephant? Did he not foil their strategem, and send against them flocks of birds, which pelted them with stones of petrified clay, and made them like plants cropped by cattle?’ Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/116 "2006-06-14T20:28:34Z")
Oh, that reminds me. Speaking of “steaming jungles, bloodthirsty cannibals, and dark gods long forgotten by the civilized races,” I don’t think anyone’s mentioned _King Kong_ yet, have they? Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/117 "2006-06-14T20:48:12Z")
Another one that occurs to me: The _Time Machine_ movie of a few years ago (2001?) had all of the “Eloi” brown-skinned, and the “Morlochs” pale albinos, a reversal from the more typical depictions. I don’t know if the surface-dwellers (or the actors who portrayed them) were specifically African in heritage, though: They looked more like a mix of a variety of ethnicities. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/118 "2006-06-14T21:18:30Z")
J’onn J’onzz is soul brother #1. Green is the new black. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/119 "2006-06-14T21:58:58Z")
> [@laramary](#): > > I joined this forum to mention Samuel R. Delany, but took my sweet time to post. Welcome to the boards. I’m happy you picked this thread for your very first post! Glad you could come, don’t be shy, and mingle, mingle, mingle! Now where’s the pie? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187/120 "2006-06-15T03:06:01Z")
Chronos writes: \> Another one that occurs to me: The Time Machine movie of a few years ago \> (2001?) had all of the “Eloi” brown-skinned, and the “Morlochs” pale albinos, a \> reversal from the more typical depictions. I don’t know if the surface-dwellers \> (or the actors who portrayed them) were specifically African in heritage, though: \> They looked more like a mix of a variety of ethnicities. The Eloi were all played by Polynesians in that version of the movie. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/black-characters-and-creators-in-sci-fi-fantasy-and-horror-1996-2006/360187.md?page=7)