I think you seem to have a firm grasp on the main idea - that everyone is human whatever else is going on. And I suspect if you write your characters that way you will get little complaint. I think it's the stereotypes that cause most offence - you know, the noble savage, the well-hung black man, and so on.
I would only note that there's more variation in Indians (from India) than most people think, and that Russians probably count as Europeans, unless you're thinking of Siberians, or people from the Central Asian republics like Kazakhs etc. If you want to be truly representative you might swap the Russian for someone from Central Asia or the Middle East. And there's probably one remaining major human 'racial' group you're missing and that's Melanesians (eg people from PNG).
As for the disability thing, same goes. There are those who say 'write what you know' but that doesn't help much in speculative or historic fiction :-). So we can only try to educate ourselves and avoid the stereotypes.
Have you read much by Lois McMaster Bujold? She has major characters with disabilities and with late life romances, and speaking as a relatively able and youthful person there were no major dissonances to me.
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Date: Sat, Apr. 9th, 2011 11:43 am (UTC)I would only note that there's more variation in Indians (from India) than most people think, and that Russians probably count as Europeans, unless you're thinking of Siberians, or people from the Central Asian republics like Kazakhs etc. If you want to be truly representative you might swap the Russian for someone from Central Asia or the Middle East. And there's probably one remaining major human 'racial' group you're missing and that's Melanesians (eg people from PNG).
As for the disability thing, same goes. There are those who say 'write what you know' but that doesn't help much in speculative or historic fiction :-). So we can only try to educate ourselves and avoid the stereotypes.
Have you read much by Lois McMaster Bujold? She has major characters with disabilities and with late life romances, and speaking as a relatively able and youthful person there were no major dissonances to me.