K's Reading and Stuff 2013

Entry 1: Book Shopping

I have never been a shopper, in the way most people think of "shoppers." Prada holds no allure for me. Shoes are just things to put on my feet when I walk from here to there, and comfort, not style, is my first concern with them. As for a purse, all I ask is that it be big enough to hold an average-size paperback.

Yet when it comes to book shopping, I am a full-blown addict. When people speak of "too many books," I can't grasp their meaning. There is no such thing as too many books. When I need a new pair of shoes I try to be in and out of the Easy Spirit store as quickly as possible. But a truly satisfying browse through a bookstore demands an hour at least. This past month I celebrated my birthday, and in the past three weeks I have been on plundering sprees at three different used bookstores and made use of the Amazon.com gift cards I received as presents. So I decided to re-ignite my blog with a discussion of my book shopping how-to's. Granted, I doubt this will tell my fellow bibliomaniacs anything they do not already know, but I do love talking about it.

1. Make a list.
This is a method I've only recently come to. In the past I've preferred to roam aimlessly through my favorite sections of the bookstore and take note of interesting-looking titles and covers and home in on the ones I've heard are good. But these days my mental TBR pile is so mountainous that I've found it helpful to write down titles and authors to make my search more efficient.

Before I embark on an especially big book-buying venture, I spend a great deal of time in research. Library Thing and Goodreads consume many hours of my life (and I'm far from alone, or no one would be reading this). Goodreads offers long lists of books I may be specifically looking for -- as in, "The Best Epic Fantasy" or "Best 'Strong Female' Fantasy Novels." Here on Library Thing, however, I join in discussions, or I start them, and I ask for specific recommendations which are more exact and personal than the Goodreads lists. The two resources combined can point me towards countless titles that offer what I'm looking for at any given time. Recommendations from both sites have made my recent spree particularly satisfying.

2. Make room.
Shelf space -- running out of it, struggling to find more of it -- is a constant source of stress for the bibliomaniac. I've had to learn shelf management the hard way. In years gone by I never got rid of anything; if I read something and liked it even a little bit, it stayed on my shelf, because "hey, I might want to read it again sometime." I shopped at used bookstores for their lower prices but never worried about acquiring credit.

Those days are gone. I have taught myself to be quite ruthless when I inspect my shelves, to ask honestly, "Will I really read it again?" or even, considering how my needs and interests as a reader change, "Will I read it at all?" Lately I've been cleaning my shelves of textbooks I no longer need. One of my preferred used bookstores is quite generous about buying textbooks. It's amazing -- or maybe not -- how much space for new books I've made just by getting rid of textbooks. It's never a good idea, I've found, to spree too wildly unless you know you can find space for what you buy.

3. Support your local used bookstores.
I love Barnes & Noble. I love Books-a-Million. But rarely do I acquire books from these stores unless I have a gift card or a coupon.

I consider it vital for used bookstores to stay in business. They are the book lover's true support network. Not only do books there cost less, but the selection is often wider; good books that have unfortunately slipped out of print often turn up there. The best used bookstores may carry at least three times as many fantasy titles as the new bookstores with their shiny new editions. Most of the time, the used books are in good condition, having been traded in by customers who value books as much as I do.

Of course, used bookstores' credit policies vary, and we naturally seek out the best. I live in Hall County, GA, not far from Atlanta, and I have found four used bookstores I visit on a semi-regular business. The first is actually in my town, and it's friendly and has an excellent selection, but its credit policy is not my favorite, since it restricts credit by genre; if I want to shop for fantasy and sci-fi books, I have to trade in fantasy and sci-fi specifically, and these days, my fantasy and sci-fi books are the last ones I want to get rid of. The next two will offer across- the-board credit in all genres no matter what I trade in, and with my credit I get half off the already low sticker price. (The last time I visited one of them, I got eight books for $20.) Then there's my favorite, the most generous and cost-effective of all: McKay Used Media in Chattanooga, TN, a two-hour-plus drive but oh so worth the trip. Its selection of genre fiction is the most massive I've seen since Oxford II in Atlanta, GA lamentably closed its doors. It will buy and dispense credit for anything -- CDs and DVDs as well as books -- and if I can build up enough credit, I can take hope a hefty pile of books without paying a dime. Of course it's through trade-ins that the store's business thrives (and thrive it does; it's always crowded, every time my husband and I visit there), so I never go in there empty-handed. I never leave empty-handed, either.

I should make some brief mention of on-line shopping. Amazon.com gets a good share of my business, but even there I like to order used books. I can make any gift card go a long way.

So that's how I book shop.
A few titles I've acquired on my sprees in the last month:

Hartman, Seraphina; Doyle, Cinder; Duane, The Book of Night With Moon;
Kirsten, The Steerswoman; Friesner, Chicks in Chainmail; Harper, Storm Runner; Marks, Fire Logic; Lee, Biting the Sun; Hodgell, The God Stalk Chronicles; Larke, The Aware; McKillip, Solstice Wood; Dexter, The Wind-Witch; Wrede, The Raven Ring; Brust and Bull, Freedom and Necessity.

Now that I have a good supply of books ready and waiting, I have to do something more crucial than finding shelf space: make plenty of time to read.

Oh, I'd better add this thread to the list!

Seraphina is really cool, and The steerswoman is amazing! And difficult to find, so you did a good job...

I'm looking forward to following your thread this year; you have such interesting thoughts on what you read!

Hey, guys! Here's another long one.

ENTRY 2: THE TROUBLE WITH GOODREADS LISTS

I don't consider that I'm cheating on Library Thing when I browse Goodreads. Just as one can never have too many books (though there is such a thing as too few bookshelves), one can never browse on too many book websites. I have lost a good many hours of my life to the combination of Library Thing and Goodreads.

My favorite function on Goodreads is "Listopia." I could plunder book lists all day long, and I have to stop myself consciously from doing so. (What, after all, is the good of browsing through lists of books you might want to read, if it cuts too deeply into the time you might spend reading the books you already have?) Since my favorite genre is fantasy, I narrow my search to the fantasy-related lists, and there I find headings more specifically geared to what I'm looking for. As anyone who has ready my posts on FantasyFans surely knows, I seek out stories in which at least one (hopefully more than one) smart, competent heroine plays a major role. So naturally, if I see a list called "Best 'Strong Female' Fantasy Novels," I am going to read through it with interest, even if it's twenty-one pages long with a hundred titles per page. Likewise, a list called "Most pathetic heroine EVER" (their caps, not mine) will give me a good idea of which books to avoid. Sometimes it's just as vital to know what to stay away from as it is to know what to dive into.

But a look through these lists, interesting and informative as it is, reveals their imperfect nature.

There is no mechanism for explaining, in brief, a book's presence on a list. Goodreads users vote for a book's inclusion, and that's it. The more users vote for a book, the higher on the list it goes. Were I in charge of the site, I might ask the voters to state in a single Tweet-length sentence WHY they are voting for a particular book, and make their answers available to browsers through the lists. If they can't articulate a reason, they don't get to vote. This would be very useful, and might cut down on the number of mistakes, or at least help the browsers see why the mistakes are there.

Stephenie Meyer's tragically misguided Twilight series, for example, somehow turns up on the "Best 'Strong Female' Fantasy Novels" list, as well as a number of other lists supposedly devoted to strong heroines. No matter how often commenters clamor for its removal, it always turns up again, so zealous are the series' fans. I would find it interesting to see them forced to explain how a passive, featureless, always-in-need-of-rescue drip like Bella Swan could possibly qualify as a "strong female," unless self-abnegation and total dependence on a man (excuse me -- men) to give her life meaning can be viewed as "strengths."

At least I can see how this mistake happens, given the bewildering popularity of the series. More confusing is the inclusion of books in which there are no important female characters at all, such as Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave. This book, the first in the Merlin Trilogy, is actually good, but readers looking for strong heroines won't find them here. In fact, with the exception of the evil Margause (who turns up in the second book), women play fairly minor roles throughout the series; Nimue, the closest thing the series has to a real heroine, doesn't even turn up until the second half of the third book. Even though I liked and appreciated these books when I read them many years ago, when I was just getting into fantasy, I don't like seeing them given credit for a characteristic they lack. Again, why did a user vote for The Crystal Cave? I would love to know.

Also frustrating is when I come upon titles I previously hadn't heard of, books I might actually want to read, and the reviews for those titles tend to be more baffling than enlightening. For instance, Daniel McHugh's Seraphinium series (The Merchant and the Menace et. seq.) turns up on "Best 'Strong Female' Fantasy Novels," as well as "Books with Strong Women Characters (All Genres)," "Female characters you wouldn't want to get in a fight with," and "Fantasy/Sci-Fi Books with Strong Female Characters." With only the lists' word for it, I should acquire these books, no? Not so fast. When I read the reviews for The Merchant and the Menace, I found that not one of them mentioned a female character. If this heroine is outstanding enough to move a number of users to vote for the book, shouldn't at least one or two of the reviewers refer to her by name?

I decided to clear up my confusion by leaving a comment on the most recent review I could find, asking who the heroine was and what her strengths might be. I needed to hear from someone who had actually read the book. The reviewer responded promptly, telling me that in fact females' roles in The Merchant and the Menace are very minor indeed, and in fact the woman who gets mentioned most often is the male protagonist's deceased mother. This is not what I'm looking for, and I imagine most users exploring a list of "Best 'Strong Female' Fantasy Novels" would say the same. So how, just how, did it make all those lists?? (I should give the reviewer credit for being a very friendly guy. Not only was his response most civil, but he recommended another series to me, Elfhunter.) A place for users to record a reason for their votes would clear up the problem in a finger-snap. We certainly don't have to agree with the reasons, but it would help to know them.

I've saved the biggest what-the-hell example for last. This one comes from the "Most pathetic heroine EVER" list. Granted, it was most gratifying to see Twilight at the very top of a list where it actually belongs. Yet halfway down, I found Alcott's Little Women, with its bold, brash, wonderfully flawed Jo March, who is everything Bella Swan is not. I fell in love with the book and its heroine when I read it in the seventh grade. Admittedly it's been decades since then. Yet I can't help wondering in what universe Jo would qualify as a "most pathetic heroine." Are some teenage girl readers mad at her because she rejects her best buddy Laurie's marriage proposal? Or are short-sighted readers blaming her, a character created in the nineteenth century, for not being more of a twenty-first century feminist? Once more, a space for the reasons would be enlightening.

Maybe it's time I re-read Little Women, along with The Secret Garden, another childhood favorite which somehow made its way onto a list of "Books I Wish I'd Never Read." Perhaps it would help me to come at them from an adult perspective, to understand how today's readers might react to them.

In the meantime, all I can do is shake my head and wonder what's going on in the heads of Goodreads voters.

ENTRY 3: LITERARY COWARDICE?/ THOUGHTS ON CURRENT READS

At issue today: are there certain things you would rather not read a book about? Are there certain books you avoid, however vaunted their reputation, because of their subject matter -- and if so, does this avoidance make you a "literary coward"?

I had to confront this question quite recently, when I tried to read Octavia Butler's Fledgling, the story of a fifty-three year old vampire who has the appearance of a ten-year-old girl. I got about fifty pages in before I set the book aside, because this entity has a very active sex life. That she might have a sex drive didn't trouble me, since I knew quite well she wasn't a child. What did trouble me was the ease with which she found willing sex partners. The sexual desires OF an entity who looks ten, I could understand and even sympathize with; sexual desire FOR an entity who looks ten crossed a line, especially since the people eager to have sex with her were painted in a sympathetic light. I knew they weren't true pedophiles, since the vampire's spell was on them, but the Ick Factor was a bit too strong for me.

For good or ill, I tend to shun stories in which pedophilia or apparent pedophilia takes center stage. This is why I have no plans to read Lolita or The Bluest Eye, even though they're considered American classics. Brother-sister incest such as appears in A Game of Thrones does not move me to lay a book aside; parent-child incest, however, does -- unless it plays a very minor role, as in To Kill a Mockingbird (one of my all-time favorites), or it's clear the child will emerge as a strong survivor, as in Robin McKinley's Deerskin (which I've yet to read but may eventually, because I like the author and know the folktale she's drawing upon).

But is this cowardice? Is it, or is it not, justified to choose some stories over others, even if the ones we don't choose may have considerable merit as literature? Does every professed bookworm have to read Lolita?

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Thoughts on current reads (spoilers ahead):

In my Young Adult spot, I'm still stumbling toward the end of Beldan's Fire. More than ever I question the Oran Trilogy's classification as YA, since the third volume follows the TV Tropes principle that "Anyone Can Die." Just in the last hour that I've read the book, I've marked the passing of four very likable characters, one of whom is gruesomely murdered by one of the most despicable villains ever to poison the page. (Thank God this is the last vile act he will ever perform.) Midori Snyder doesn't spare the blood-letting, and not being a literary coward in this instance, I don't look away, even though the number of bodies falling has slowed down my reading a little bit. (I zipped through the first two books.)

I do wish, however, the dead characters were appropriately mourned. The aging swordswoman Faul has been a favorite of mine from the first volume, but now that she's been killed in battle, just like that she no longer matters. She gets a couple of cursory mentions as one of the major characters regrets her passing, and then she is promptly forgotten. She deserved better. Mourning is extremely difficult to write well, and it's sad how often even the best writers aren't up to the challenge. In fact, I can't quite remember the last time a fallen character I had affection for was deeply and honestly mourned. I supposed it's up to us readers to mourn the loss of characters we love.

Another book with which I'm almost finished is Kate Forsyth's The Heart of Stars, the last volume of the Rhiannon's Ride trilogy. These books are pure popcorn, and while I am far from blind to their flaws (the intrusive and irritating Scots dialect, for instance), I can't stop eating. I have every intention of backtracking and reading Forsyth's earlier Witches series, even though I already know the fates of many of its major players. (Reading about Johanna "the Mild," in particular, will not be easy for me.) I would dearly love to track down The Wild Girl, the story of Wilhelm Grimm's wife and one of the major sources for the well-known folklore collection, and Bitter Greens, a Rapunzel retelling which also features fairy tale author Charlotte-Rose La Force. But these evidently are so obscure and so far out of print they can't even be purchased through Amazon.

Sadly, The Heart of Stars stands poised to disappoint me. Rhiannon, the heroine, has spent almost the whole book on a desperate rescue mission -- only to be captured and rendered helpless, while her sweetheart races to her rescue. The ostensibly "strong" heroine who shows herself a force to be reckoned with throughout most of the story only to be turned into a damsel in distress at the climax is too common a figure in fantasy these days, as writers endow their heroines with capability with one hand and snatch it away with the other.

I'm on the back end of these two, and the front end of The Steerswoman and Freedom and Necessity. I will comment more fully on the latter two once I get further into them.

Cowardice? I call it discernment. Just because we know the sewer tank is behind the house and it serves a necessary function, doesn't mean we need to wallow in it. *shrug* Some people have a better disconnect than I do, or perhaps are less empathetic to literary characters? I don't know, what I do know is that reading for me is enjoyable and if I read something which truly sickens me, it isn't. I read The Color Purple, and although it disturbed me greatly, it also moved me. So I think for me the difference comes in whether the author makes me feel like a voyeur who enjoys the scenes, or whether the author convinces me that there is something to be done about horrible situations and help to be given. Recently I had to stop reading a book because it described in great detail the sexual mutilations a serial killer inflicted on his victims. I can't do that. I don't feel like a coward about it, I feel like a woman who knows she has a line and isn't afraid to draw it.

Well no one has to read anything (unless one is in a course and is assigned material, but still). It's entirely up to any person what they choose to read or not read. Personally, regardless of the squick-factor, I felt Lolita was an incredibly amazing book and one of the best things I've read. What Nabokov does with words is indescribable. It's up to you whether you want to miss out on the amazing literature or not. I've seen plenty of people make "I just couldn't stand it" comments about Lolita because they were too focused on Humbert instead of the writing itself. Keeping that level of disconnect is the right approach, because the whole point is to take in his writing skill, not get so caught up in what the characters are doing.

Personally I don't think I'd have any problem with the story you describe, as the character is actually an adult, and has a spell over the people, so there's not actually any pedophilia going on. However, I would be a bit concerned over the author who felt this was a good thing to write. They could easily have made the child 15 when they turned vampy and still had the dilemma of the adult trapped in a minor's body, while that body was at least quite a bit more mature than the little girl they actually used. I can understand why a brilliant writer like Nabokov pushed all the limits he did. I have much more trouble accepting it in some random run-of-the-mill supernatural story.

In any case, I agree with MrsLee that it's not cowardice to know what one has trouble tolerating. That said, when it comes to highly regarded pieces of literature (and not your generic dime a dozen thriller etc), I think it's generally worth shoving one's feelings on the subject matter aside for a bit (as best one can, anyway) and trying to see why the work is considered to have such value.

Re: The Oran trilogy - I think they were first published back in the 1990s as adult novels, and it's only this recent reissue that has repackaged them as YA.

Re: Bitter Greens - this is apparently Forsyth's newest book - shame on amazon.com if they don't get it back in stock soon. It is still available on kindle if you have one (I don't), or perhaps from the UK if you have a spare arm and a leg to pay for the shipping!

As for your question, no, I don't think it is cowardice to choose not to read something that you are sure you will find disturbing. There is a seemingly infinite number of books out there, and a finite amount of time in which to read. By all means, challenge yourself to go out of your comfort zone sometimes rather than settling for familiar territory, but there's no need to use your precious reading time on something that will be upsetting and that you won't get any positive experience from. Me, I tend to be averse to reading anything just because I "should" (ie."it's a classic", "everyone's talking about it", "it won a prize" or whatever); if the premise or something else about it doesn't appeal, I'll turn to something from the teetering piles of books that I *know* I want to read.

I think one of the reasons I'm reluctant to read books with a subject matter I'm particularly uncomfortable with simply because they're esteemed as classics is that I spent a good many years as a graduate student in English, and so much of my reading was assigned. Granted, I loved quite a bit of it. One doesn't become a graduate student in English without loving literature, and my enthusiasm was for 19th century British fiction. Without my graduate studies, I most likely wouldn't have discovered Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins (more on him in a minute), or Mary Elizabeth Braddon. I wouldn't take anything in the world for the years I spent studying those and similar books. But since I left school I've been inclined to read almost purely for pleasure, although I read multiple books at once partly so I can experience different writing styles, and I feel I learn a lot from doing so.

All the same, if one has been a student for that long, one never really stops. I do try to mix my "popcorn reads" with something more challenging, although the more challenging thing is usually also in the area of science fiction or fantasy. One of the things I'm gratified to find about Freedom and Necessity is that it actually isn't fantasy at all. It's historical fiction written in a Wilkie Collins-esque style. Collins stands out to me as one of the very few male authors of the nineteenth century who could breathe life into the character of a "respectable young lady." Dickens (whom I otherwise love) couldn't do it. Victor Hugo (whom I also otherwise love) couldn't do it. (Both of them could write vividly about females who dwelled on the fringes -- Nancy, Fantine, Eponine -- but their nice young ladies were almost invariably shallow and dull.) Thackeray could only do it if the young ladies in question were villainesses. In most cases, only female authors could endow their young-lady characters with personality. But Collins could manage it, often by showing how they might not be as respectable as they seemed. The only other male writer who could do as well (better, in fact) was Trollope, even though, as Jo Walton points out in Tooth and Claw, his observations were not always accurate. (I would mention George Meredith here, but I can't embrace him. I wanted, really wanted, to like his work, since the heroine of Diana of the Crossways was a woman after my own heart. But reading his prose is rather like wading ankle-deep through wet cement.)

This year I do need to do a better job of mixing in what I've come to call "good-for-you" reads, because most of the time I value the payoff. I actually managed to go through all those years of school and grad school without ever having been forced to read 1984. I read it on my own about four years ago. In terms of sheer mastery and beauty of prose, it beats almost anything I've read. I find it hard to imagine anyone being able to read it and remain emotionally unmoved; it threw me into despair for a good while. But since then I have vowed never to vote for a politician unless I could tell he or she has read and understood 1984. It should be required reading for ANYONE going into politics -- and anyone wishing to cast an informed vote as well.

Fantasy is so absorbing to me that I'm loath to veer away from it, particularly since I'm a writer as well and fantasy is my preferred genre to write. But this year I mean to venture at least a few times into historical fiction, perhaps even into historical nonfiction. I do enjoy reading about the past. I look to books for experiences I can't get from looking out my window or turning on the news.

7: Thank you for reminding me about The Color Purple. I read that one a good many years ago (sad to say, around the time the movie came out) and loved it. The incest plot that I would normally have turned away from in distaste didn't bother me as much in this case, largely because the character of Celie is so clearly a survivor, as Pecola Breedlove (The Bluest Eye) is not. We can see the qualities of a survivor in her narration even early in the book. I find the stories of survivors much more satisfying emotionally than the stories of victims. (Angelou's autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings also falls into this category; this one is another example of exquisite writing.)

This one's a bit of a ramble, I know.

Well, it seems as if you've already found a seat in the pub! I'll be keeping an eye out for your commentary.

Like you, I find Wilkie Collins to be a great at characterization, if a tad sensational. On a thread somewhere around here, we were talking about how well he'd done Miss Clack in The Moonstone. You're in good company!

#6 by kceccato> There are books I am unable to read. If you have a history of abuse, or a lot of exposure to it, you have triggers which can be hit with certain books. Code Name Verity hit one of mine so I abandoned it early on.

For the same reason I cannot/willnot read Romance. I can read books about child abuse or spouse abuse murder so long as it is clear it is not condoned. But far too many Romance books make that part of the wonder of Love. He loves her so its okay he hits her or stalks her or forces her to have sex. I've heard that argument way too many times in real life and have no need of books that make that behavior acceptable for ANY reason.

I don't think this is cowardice, to choose what to read. I think it is eminently sensible. If something makes you feel horrible, or hits those triggers then don't read it!

12: I think most of us have certain plotlines that don't appeal to us, for various reasons. Even though my own upbringing was a happy one, stories of incest and abuse still bother me because they're perversions of family ties I value. Though there may be some particularly well-written exceptions, as a general rule I don't like to place myself, via fiction, in the position of people going through that.

I don't avoid romance altogether. I love a good love story if it's well written. But well-written love stories are not easy to come by these days, for the very reasons you give. Too many "romantic" books depict stalking and other forms of unhealthy obsession as Love. Likewise, too few "romantic" books depict the couple actually getting to know and understand each other and learning to enjoy each other's company before falling into bed. Among the reasons I'm glad to have finished Diplomacy of Wolves and I'm not in a great hurry to dash into Vengeance of Dragons is that I can see where the "love story" is headed and I do not like it. The character I believe to be the romantic hero is chasing the heroine down with constant thoughts of "you're mine, you're mine" even though they have not exchanged a single word of conversation. Evidently some alchemical explosion of sexual chemistry at first sight qualifies as "romance" even though there is no foundation of mutual understanding, admiration, or respect.

The best-written love story I have read in recent days probably appears in Paladin of Souls, with Cordelia's Honor running a close second. I also suspect I will like the love plot in Freedom and Necessity.

There are other reasons, too. The level of violence and the deeds of a trio of sadistic villains are a little over the top. And yet I can read A Song of Ice and Fire without flinching. That makes no logical sense! Maybe our emotional response to books has less to do with logic than it should.

Eventually I will read Vengeance of Dragons. I will probably even finish Fledgling at some point, because I am curious about it. In the meantime, I have plenty of other books in my TBR pile.

I finally finished Beldan's Fire last night. That series may merit a reread a few years from now. I wish it had not ended so abruptly.

The best written love story I have ever read is Dear General: The Private Letters of Annie E. Kennedy and John Bidwell 1866-1868. Two people with firm standards of what they will and will not do for love. They are both very attracted to one another, but she will not budge in her conviction that she can only marry a man who has the same beliefs as she does, and he will not pretend to have those beliefs just to fool her into loving him. Their letters are full of respect for each other, while each is trying to win the over other without compromising what they believe.

14: I will have to seek that out! It does remind me of another well-written love story I read several years back: McCullough's John Adams.

History offers the best romances.

ENTRY 4: WHY I WANT STRONG HEROINES

Anyone who has read my posts knows I strongly favor books with active heroines, preferably protagonists, to the point where I will reject books that include no significant female characters at all, or that present the only important women in a negative light. I am glad this wasn't always the case, or I would never have read All Quiet on the Western Front or The Hobbit, both excellent books in their wildly different ways. I can't say I would absolutely never read an all-male book -- I would actually be less likely to read a book in which all the active females are portrayed as villains -- but I would need some special reason (like, say, having seen and liked a film adaptation) to read an all-male book, while I need no excuse at all to read one in which a heroine features prominently.

My insistence on heroines, my determined search for them, might lead many to assume I'm a feminist social crusader. To some degree, I admit, I am, because few things make me angrier than reading news stories about the abuse of women at home or abroad; stories about teenage rapists who post videos of their exploits on YouTube, or sex change operations performed on female infants in India, will have me seething for hours, and I'll wonder about the gender hostility that gives rise to such horrible acts. But what troubles most me is the pervasive animosity I sense in cultural and political dialogue between men and women. I'd like to see our society and our pop culture evolve to a point where men and women in general react to each other not with fear and suspicion, but with admiration and friendship.

My interest in fictional heroines, however, is more personal than political. I prefer to look up to my entertainment rather than down on it. It isn't so much that I look for role models as that I want to see characters doing interesting things and displaying at least one or two qualities I admire -- courage, competence, kindness, intelligence, integrity. When I first started reading fantasy, I found that nearly all the characters that interested and impressed me most, the ones I wanted to identify with, turned out to be male. They were the ones who went out into the world, who accomplished things, who rescued people. I wanted to see more women like Eowyn in Return of the King, who refused to remain passive stay-at-homes but instead made themselves a part of the action. I wanted to see Eowyn types occupy a central place rather than being relegated to the background. I wanted them to be the heroes of their own stories.

Let's face it: passivity is boring. Characters with little to no agency, whether they be male or female, are not likely to take strong hold of a reader's imagination. Even with a domestic setting, a female character should have some important dilemmas to confront. What she's doing ought to matter, and the writer should find a way to make it clear WHY it matters. If not, readers will likely turn away from her and pay more attention to male characters, and who can blame them?

Perhaps the most crucial thing I have to do as I seek out books is keep in mind just what I think a strong heroine is. There is no set definition to go on, but I like the template Susan Isaacs lays out in Brave Dames and Wimpettes: What Women Are Really Doing on Page and Screen. What I would call a strong heroine, she refers to as a Brave Dame, and she lists the Brave Dame's characteristics as follows:

1. She is passionate about something besides passion. (This one's my favorite.)
2. She is resilient.
3. She is competent.
4. She is willing to face moral and physical challenges.
5. She has high ethical standards.
6. She stands up to injustice.
7. She is a true friend. (Isaacs, 12)

Really, who could ask for more in a character, male or female? These are the ones we root for, the ones whose triumph is important for readers even in the real world. Even if a heroine does not possess those qualities at the beginning of her story, ideally she would grow into them as the story progresses. At the outset of Robin Hobb's The Liveship Traders, Althea Vestrit is already a brave dame, while her niece Malta, who obsesses over clothes and slaps a slave woman's face, is decidedly not. But by the end, through a variety of struggles, Althea has maintained brave dame status, and Malta has attained it.

I've complained in the fast that epic fantasy (not urban fantasy, which seems to be ruled by women, but which I dislike in general) continues to be dominated by male-centric stories, and while more female authors are writing in the genre than ever, all too often even they deny female characters any real importance in their work. Yet even so, brave dames are not so hard to find if one knows where and how to look. I'm reading about several. Rowan of The Steerswoman undertakes a dangerous journey in order to preserve the way of life she loves, and even gives up (temporarily) her cherished identity in order to maintain that identity's integrity. Susan of Freedom and Necessity is not content to sit at home and wait for matters to sort themselves out when a loved one may be in danger; she sets out to solve the mystery herself. In one book I've just finished, The Heart of Stars, Rhiannon rides to the rescue of a romantic rival not only because her sweetheart wants her to, but because she knows it's the right thing to do; in the same novel, a girl characterized early on as shallow and pleasure-seeking takes on the mantle of leadership when her newlywed husband is kidnapped and later saves him from conspirators about to poison him. In the first pages of another book I've just begun, Patricia Briggs' Masques, Aralorn puts herself in harm's way to save a captive girl she doesn't even know, because she believes slavery is wrong; a few pages later, she rescues herself.

These are the kind of brave dames I like to spend time with. Is it any wonder I seek to find more like them?

Perhaps you would enjoy the "witches" story arc in Discworld? Reading those guidelines above, the ladies in those books meet every one of them. So does Sybil, the lady who stole Sam Vimes heart in the "watch" story arc.

I just finished Sandstorm which has some fantastic female characters. i was surprised and delighted by this.

17: Pratchett is one of my favorites! I love his females -- the Coven; Sybil Ramkin; Sergeant Angua; Polly Perks and the monstrous regiment; Adora Belle Dearheart; Susan Death; Renata Flitworth; Eskarina; Tiffany Aching; Malicia Grimm and Peaches. I know I'm missing a few, but then, I haven't yet read all of Pratchett's work. I haven't gravitated toward the Truckers series, and the plot of Unseen Academicals doesn't appeal much to me. Pyramids also left me a bit cold, as it featured the one Pratchett heroine I did NOT like; I ended up not finishing that one. But for every one failure (IMO; many of the books I don't care for as much are loved by others), he has at least twenty successes.

18: I may have to check out Sandstorm. Action thrillers aren't really my thing, but it never hurts to try something new... Plus I just learned that James Rollins is also James Clemens, whose Wit'ch Fire is already on my to-read list, so clearly he doesn't have a problem putting women at the center of his stories.

#19 by kceccato> Females are definitely at the center of the action in Sandstorm too. I'll have to check out Wit'ch Fire.

I guess I'm shallow, but the superfluous apostrophes in the Wit'ch books bother me too much to read the series!

21: You're not alone. I've heard this complaint. Enough with the apostrophes already! Fantasy and sci-fi writers seem to be in love with them.

In a story I'm working on, a magical musical instrument figures crucially. I'd originally planned to call it a "kho'laeth". But as I learned in my research the extent to which apostrophes are overused, I changed it to "kho-laeth." Hyphens aren't quite as problematic. At least I hope not.

21: It's an irritating enough sight that I don't even want to read the title.

22: What's wrong with "kholaeth"?

23: Good point, Meredy. If the most taxing thing I have to do when I edit my draft is take out that hyphen, I'll be doing quite well.

22: I would personally say it depends on the nature of the conlang you're using. Obviously you don't have to go to all the effort of creating an entire language just to name one instrument, but thinking about the word "kho-laeth" itself wouldn't be out of place. What does it MEAN? Is "laeth" a category of instruments or magical tools and "kho" a particular type or specific item? In that case I would just say "kho laeth." Is it a fairly new word/phrase or has it gone through changes as it was adapted from one language to another, like "guitar?"

*cough* My nerding out aside, if you just want what looks best and will annoy the fewest people (a perfectly valid choice), then yeah, "kholaeth" or "kho laeth" would probably work best.

>22 kceccato: and following: I can excuse the use of apostrophes in names when the author is making up their own language, such as your own example, KC. But to insert one in a word that already exists in a real language, such as "witch" in this case, is just ridiculous to me! (Especially as it's a one-syllable word - are we supposed to pronounce it with a hiccup in the midddle?!)

Anyway, I'm glad it's not just me who is picky about these things!

are we supposed to pronounce it with a hiccup in the midddle?

*snort*, Sakerfalcon!

BTW, kceccato, I am enjoying your posts.

Thank you, jillmwo!

Entry 5: What I Do NOT Want (and What I See Too Much Of) -- Part 1

I've mentioned before that sometimes it's as important to know which books to avoid as to know which books to pick up -- to know what we don't want in a book, as to know what we want. This entry deals with what I don't want, not subject matter I find distasteful, as in Entry 3, but simply things I'm tired of seeing.

1. Heroines a reader "looks through."
I had the privilege of hearing Lois McMaster Bujold speak at Dragon*Con three years ago. She made a distinction between characters that readers look AT -- those with clearly defined personalities, which readers may accept or reject -- and those that readers look THROUGH -- those deliberately made vacant and featureless, so that any reader can "become" them. The best-known example of the latter type is, of course, Bella Swan of the Twilight series, a drip with no discernible traits except an unexplained power to make any male fall in love with her.

I have no interest in characters, male or female (especially female, since this seems to be a problem with the characterization of females more than with males), that I merely look through. So I won't be reading Twilight et. seq., The Host, Hush, Hush, Colleen Houcks' Tiger series, or any YA paranormal romance where the main feature is a supernatural super-hunk whom countless impressionable teenage girl readers hunger to be adored by.

2. Magical Guy/Mundane Girl.
This is somewhat connected to #1, but not entirely. Most, though not all, of the heroines we "look through" are the Ordinary High School Girls (TM) whose love interests are supernatural males -- vampires (Twilight), werewolves (The Wolves of Mercy Falls), zombies (Warm Bodies; Dearly, Departed), angels (Hush, Hush), immortal sorcerers (My Boyfriend Merlin), shapeshifters (the Tiger series), etc. For this plot to work, the girl must be normal as normal can be (again, because she's designed to be any reader's surrogate), while the guy is the very embodiment of the Extraordinary -- mysterious, brilliant, powerful. In adult fantasy, particularly urban fantasy, we find more pairings between mundane women and magical men; although usually the mundane woman is given a bit more personality than her YA counterparts, the male is still inherently more powerful, more unique, more interesting. Stories of ordinary human women falling for male aliens, dragons, magicians, etc. have saturated the market to the point where I want no part of them. Even when they're written by authors whose works I otherwise like -- Bujold's Sharing Knife series; Shinn's The Shape of Desire -- I have no interest.

3. "Princess stories"
I do not automatically avoid all stories in which the heroine is a princess, although I own I am a bit tired of princesses in general. If the story focuses on a princess who must learn how to govern wisely and well, who is in the process of evolving into a strong Queen, a woman of authority, I'm up for it.

But this isn't what I mean by a "princess story." I'm talking about stories of princesses in the Disney mold, whose function is to wear pretty clothes and live happily ever after with Prince Charming. If the story has a male protagonist, then this type of princess is the object of desire, beautiful and passive and often not too bright. But if she is the protagonist, her main concerns are avoiding an arranged marriage (because her value is inextricably linked to whom she marries) and finding true love. This plot doesn't try my patience quite as much as Magical Guy/Mundane Girl, but I am weary of it, and would like to see something else -- preferably the princess I've described above, whose journey involves learning how to wield actual, autonomous power. (I understand the princesses in Bitterblue and The Girl of Fire and Thorns are this kind, so these books are on my to-read list.)

Thoughts on current reads:

Freedom and Necessity gets more Wilkie Collins-y each time I read it, and I mean this in a good way. My one source of dissatisfaction with it is rather shallow, and it's a natural result of the epistolary style that Brust and Bull employ. Because almost all the letter-writers know each other well, there is no need for physical description, and so my images of the characters are very vague. So far, I know that Susan has dark hair and pale skin; beyond that, I have no idea what she looks like. James is a little clearer to view. Richard and Kitty are absolutely invisible; I know that Kitty has been called "the little Venus," but this tells me nothing concrete. I know that some novelists deliberately refrain from describing their characters so that readers can fit anyone they wish into the roles, but I'm not the type of reader who really likes that. I prefer a bit of visual detail. Hopefully a stronger physical impression of these characters will be forthcoming.

Seraphina: this book has much to like. The heroine is not yet a brave dame, but she's clearly heading in that direction; she just hasn't had much opportunity to display brave-damehood yet. But those looking for halfway sympathetic female dragons will not find them here. In fact, sadly, at this point Seraphina herself is the ONLY sympathetic female character of any kind (among the living, that is), the only other decent characters being Orma, Kiggs, and Lars. Granted, I'm still not quite halfway through the book, but the females I've met so far -- Princess Glisselda (oh, I despise her), her governess, Zeyd, Eskar, and all the females in Seraphina's dream-world -- are varying degrees of unlikable. If we want some secondary heroines to admire, we have to look to the dead: the legendary peacemaking Queen Lavonda,* and Seraphina's tragic mother.

Tragic, indeed. Here is a character who risked everything, even gave her very life, for the sake of a forbidden love, and what remains of her? A brother who doesn't understand her, a daughter who is ashamed of her, and a widower who despises her memory and never really returned her love at all. In the end, for all her rule-breaking love, she amounted to nothing. Backstories don't get much more tragic than that. It's rather depressing when I think about it, but I suppose it's to Hartman's credit that she can make me feel sad for a character who's already dead by the story's beginning.

*(Just read a little more. No, Lavonda isn't dead. I just haven't actually seen her yet; I've only heard about her. She is the stuff of legend, which makes it easy to think she's dead.)

28: Interesting exercise. I really like seeing someone's reasoning and not just the opinions or conclusions they've reached. You're very good at explaining yours.

Your list makes me wonder if I too could classify the books I systematically avoid. It wouldn't be the same as yours, probably (or so it appears to me) because your exclusions fall within a larger category of inclusions that doesn't match mine. (Could you define that category?) For instance, I'm not in danger of reading any princess stories at all, so I won't be choosing among them; they simply don't fall within the net I cast.

But what, exactly, is that net? What's yours? What's mine? That's a question worth thinking about.

#29 Meredy: But what, exactly, is that net? What's yours? What's mine? That's a question worth thinking about.

I find that when I try to codify my likes and dislikes regarding books that I will find an example of a book I have loved that breaks all the parameters I have just lain down or that I will end up reading such a book and love it.

It is a safe bet, however, that, like yourself, Meredy, I will not be reading any princess stories...well, not deliberately.

Entry 6: Nonfiction I Have Known

My letter is K., and I am a fiction addict.

Give me stories. Lots of stories. The further removed from my own contemporary Georgia reality, the better. ("Contemporary Southern" doesn't do it for me.) Give me new places to see, new people and creatures to be. The shapeshifting power of imagination needs constant food. Books are its chief meal, but movies and television could offer a tasty dessert. Any vehicle for the delivery of fiction is not to be despised!

I will always love fiction foremost, but on some rare occasions I feel the need to balance my diet, to pull my head down from the clouds and make myself read some nonfiction. What value can nonfiction have for a fiction addict like me? It depends on the nonfiction, really. The best nonfiction shares a common bond with fiction -- stories. And like good fiction, it offers a window through which we can look on another world. So I thought I'd highlight some of my favorite nonfiction.

I have mentioned earlier that I felt no driving need to read Lolita. But I gobbled up Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran. Teachers who encourage girls and women to read, think, and study in a culture with highly (often brutally) restrictive gender roles are real-life heroes of mine. Nafisi seeks to help her students discover wisdom and insight in literature, even as she, too, struggles to decide the best path to take. In fiction-related terms, Nafisi is a flawed heroine, a brave dame. Even though, among the many works she shares with her diverse group of students, Austen's Pride and Prejudice is the only one I actually like, I was interested in the ways the students found meaning and relevance in all the works. Nafisi describes those young women in vivid detail, and -- just as if I were reading a novel -- I cared about what became of them. It's been over five years since I've read this book. It may be time for a reread.

(Favorite quote: "'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Muslim man, regardless of his fortune, must be in want of a nine-year-old virgin wife.' So declared Yassi in that special tone of hers, deadpan and mildly ironic, which on rare occasions, and this was one of them, bordered on the burlesque" (Nafisi 255). Yassi is, of course, riffing on the famous first words of Pride and Prejudice.)

The "current affairs" section of the bookstore usually doesn't lure me, but as an English teacher I felt moved to investigate Diane Ravitch's The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn. It's a highly revealing examination of censorship in the public schools, and probably the most persuasive work of political nonfiction I have ever read, because Ravitch shows how both conservatives and liberals whittle away at the breadth of student learning, valuing ideology far more than knowledge. In back of their pressure seems to lie a paranoid assumption that if students are exposed to an idea, they will embrace that idea. Thus any works that diverge from a particular worldview become a threat.

Among the multitudinous examples Ravitch cites, one stands out. When she and a group of fellow educators were charged with selection passages to appear on a standardized reading test, the selections had to pass the inspection of a "bias-finding committee." A number of the selections were rejected for absurd reasons, but the biggest doozy among them was the story of a young blind man who hiked to the top of Mount McKinley. "First, the majority maintained that the story contained 'regional bias,' because it was about hiking and mountain-climbing, which favors students who live in regions where those activities are common. Second, they rejected the passage because it suggested that people who are blind are somehow at a disadvantage compared to people who have normal sight" (Ravitch, 10). The second reason did not really surprise me, but my jaw dropped at the first -- the assumption that students can only be expected to comprehend a story if it's set in a terrain that resembles their own. Those of us who relish immersing ourselves in tales set in fantasy kingdoms and/or distant planets should find this especially outrageous.

Before I read Ravitch's book, I did not even know a concept like "regional bias" existed. It makes me angry, but I'm glad I'm aware of it. A fantasy reader (and fantasy writer) like me should know what she's up against.

But my favorite genre of nonfiction is history. My father taught history at a small junior college for over thirty years, and he pointed me toward the first work -- Christopher Hibbert's The Days of the French Revolution -- that showed me history could be fun to read. Those who know history from textbooks alone never really engage with the past. They're not likely to see how human and relatable these lionized (or demonized) world-shapers can be.

My favorite among all the history books I've perused is David McCullough's John Adams, a work enjoyed by many who previously wouldn't have considered reading nonfiction. Like Reading Lolita in Tehran, John Adams could never be mistaken for fiction, but it has a similar effect on readers, in that they become invested in a personality, and all the other personalities in his orbit. We want to see what will happen to him next, even if we already know. One of the elements that makes John Adams' story so special is his relationship with his wife, the remarkable Abigail, a real-life love story that is far more genuinely romantic than so much of what passes for "romance" in fiction. If you're looking for romance based on mutual admiration and respect, you will find it here.

---

No Thoughts on Current Reads this time around. Not that I don't have a few, but I've already written at some length, and I have one more thing to say.

I'm a writer. Please forbear and leave my post unflagged, because honestly I am not trying to plug anything and won't even give the title at this early stage of the game. But I've just learned:

A book of mine is going to be published!!

After some thirty-odd years of wanting, wanting, wanting, at last I will see my work in print. Again, I'm not plugging. I just wanted to share my joy.

That's great news about your book getting published! And as you are far from being a drive-by poster I'm sure most folks won't mind if you do choose to share more details.

As always, your thoughts on reading are interesting and stimulating. The "issue" of regional bias is just ... mind blowing. So many possible responses to that are going around my head at the moment.

Okay, with the last message I fear I gave a little too MUCH detail. I get carried away sometimes by the opportunity to talk about my writing process. Let me scale it back a bit and give a general gist of what the book is about.

It's a loose adaptation of an English folktale recorded by Joseph Jacobs, "Nix Nought Nothing." The main characters are a troubled sorcerer, his ailing son, and a girl with a magic fiddle who just might be able to heal the latter. The story takes place in a wainscot society of shape-shifters, where your character and position in life are supposedly determined by the "Tribe" (alternate animal form) you belong to. The heroine is the lowest of the low -- a rat. But in time she will prove that Tribe is not destiny.

When it comes out, I will give another joyous shout.

This sounds really interesting. I hope you will let us know when it is published; I for one will look out for it. I'm especially looking forward to meeting your heroine!

Oh, believe me, when I get those trade paperbacks in my hands, everyone will know. My publisher wants to have it ready by DragonCon, so I can do some promotion there. "'Beauty and the Beast' meets 'The Secret Garden'" may give some idea.

One thing about Nichtel -- she is more of an Anne of Green Gables type than a Jirel of Joiry type. I love reading about badass warrior women, but in my own writing I have yet to achieve such a character. It is certainly on my to-do list.

an Anne of Green Gables type rather than a Jirel of Joiry.

That sounds intriguing. Both have a certain bravery as well as a certain impulsiveness. (Although I think only Jirel would qualify as a warrior woman...)

38: That's what I meant. Nichtel isn't a warrior. She's the imaginative/creative type. This seems to be the type of character I do well. But one day, I will have the occasion to write a warrior type, and I hope I'll be ready.

I enjoy characters who have to use other qualities than physical strength/fighting skills to solve their problems. It's one reason I liked Seraphina so much; she thinks!

39: Well, my heroine and Hartman's are both musicians!

I actually finished Seraphina yesterday. And I'm told the next volume isn't due out till 2014. Darn it, darn it, darn it. The conclusion is not a cliffhanger exactly, but this book canNOT be read as a stand-alone. There is so much more story left to tell.

I am not one of those readers who has to be right about everything. I'm perfectly open to having my first impressions overturned, as long as it's in a good way. I spent most of the book hating Princess Glisselda, believing her to be little more than a spoiled, shallow little bigot, a fantasy version of the popular-sorority-sister stereotype. I felt fairly sure that when the truth about Seraphina finally came out -- as it was bound to -- the princess wouldn't be able to reject her fast enough. Imagine my pleasant surprise when Miss Popularity turned out to be, well... what is the female equivalent of a "mensch," with all the term implies? There should be a female equivalent. So by the end, the book did have more than one strong heroine. Not to say I still didn't have a few issues, though -- like why, of the three other half-dragons Seraphina meets, the two males are friendly and sympathetic, and the female is much less so. And I still wish there had been at least one female dragon I could like and admire. I really, really liked this book, but I would have loved it if Orma had been female. (It looked like Hartman was trying to make Eskar sympathetic at the very end, but I'm still not sure I trust her.)

Now I'm on to another YA novel featuring a female Other protagonist: Marissa Meyer's Cinder. I've just begun it, and I'm already intrigued by the characters and the world they inhabit. With all the talk about the angst-ridden, stalkeriffic YA fantasy-romances out there these days (Twilight and its multitude of clones), it's easy to forget there are still plenty of YA sci-fi and fantasy novels worth reading. I have no worries of running out of books to put in my YA spot in my rotation anytime soon. The Book of Night with Moon will follow Cinder, and Scarlet (Cinder's sequel) is already on my To-Read list.

>40 kceccato: 2014?!? Jeez, that's long!

Entry 7: Why I read YA fantasy at the age of 44

The answer is really quite simple: a riveting story is always worth following, and a well-written book is always worth reading, regardless of the age of the protagonist.

It helps if we can find a working definition of YA. If a fantasy novel's central character is an adolescent, publishers and marketers tend to stamp it "YA" regardless of the story's level of sophistication. Other books -- e.g. Melina Marchetta's Lumatere Chronicles -- are marketed as YA for no discernible reason, despite their brutal and violent content. So it's not always (or even often) easy to tell exactly what YA is. We know it by the section of the bookstore in which it's shelved. Okay...

But the most interesting comment I've heard on what distinguishes YA fantasy from adult fantasy came from a speaker at DragonCon, whose name I wish I could recall. The distinction, she said, could be summed up in a single word: Hope.

When I was moving through college and studying literature, I gravitated toward nineteenth-century British fiction: Austen, the Brontes, Dickens, Collins, etc. I liked the way I could fall completely into another time and place, even though I didn't necessarily care for the values or restrictions of that time and place. And I loved the characters -- dazzlingly witty Elizabeth Bennet; resilient, imaginative Jane Eyre; fierce, loving Aunt Betsey Trotwood; clever, courageous Marian Halcombe; and so many more. These characters had, well, character. Though flawed, they were creatures of honor and integrity. The good guys were truly good, and the best writers knew how to make them interesting as well.

But as the twentieth century dawned and progressed, writers became more concerned with psychological portraiture than with plot, and more inclined to depict society and characters as broken beyond repair. Such examinations may be thought-provoking and even emotionally moving. But heroic characters lost their place. The public, we're told, ceased to believe in heroes, so literature ceased to bother with them. But did society lead literature away from heroes, or did literature lead society away from them? It's not always easy to tell.

Where did the heroes go? Genre fiction -- mystery novels, Westerns, comic books, science fiction and fantasy. We can root for quirky detectives like Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, superpowered crime fighters like Superman and Wonder Woman, and valiant underdogs like Bilbo Baggins without much reservation. Naturally, readers looking for good-guy characters would gravitate toward genre fiction. But cynicism and moral relativism may encroach on fantasy as well. Dark fantasy has been around for a while, but now it seems to be the fashion, Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire having had a pervasive influence. A lot of current fantasy writers are choosing to paint wasteland-worlds devoid of kindness and generosity, and characters with shades of corruption ranging from gray to black. In these landscapes, efforts at heroism are bound to fail, and their failure is part of the point.

But thankfully, heroes and heroism have not gone out of style in YA fantasy. The "hope" that distinguishes the genre rises from the possibility that characters may discover their best selves, and the stands they take against injustice and brutality may not be in vain. Harry Potter's saga drew readers of all ages partly, I think, because Harry and his friends take on bigots and win. For Harry, discovering his full identity is closely bound up with recognizing right from wrong. Seraphina Dombegh likewise grows from uncertainty to understanding, from being afraid of herself to trusting herself and others; she, too, takes on the bigots. (I can't help but admire the multitudinous ways YA writers find to depict prejudice.) Jobber, Shedwyn, Lirrel, and Tayleb of Midori Snyder's Oran Trilogy find the strength within themselves to free their country from a nest of brutal tyrants, thuggish misogynists who are draining power from the country's lunatic queen. The stakes are high; it matters who comes out on top.

I don't mean to imply that dark, gritty fantasy isn't fun to read. It certainly can be, because it is so challenging. When right and wrong are not so easy to pinpoint, we may be moved to examine our own ideals at closer range. But these books don't tell the whole human story. People are indeed capable of discovering their best selves, of loving and being loved, of showing kindness and courage. We don't have to choose between A Game of Thrones and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. To see the full truth of humanity, we need BOTH.

So I will, as I grow older, continue to read YA fantasy, to pick around the muck (Twilight, etc.) to find the good stuff. And I truly appreciate those friends whose recommendations guide me toward the gems.

42: An excellent analysis. Even though I don't find adult fiction necessarily devoid of hope, and I do find some genre-fiction protagonists wearily unheroic, I think that's a perceptive summation.

Entry 8: What I Don't Want, Part 2

Two words: Evil Matriarchies.

I realize that so much of what I want and don't want revolves around the treatment of female characters, to the point of obsession. But these are the characters I want to identify with as a reader. I want to see them doing cool things, the sorts of things I could never do in real life. And I want to see them front and center, not relegated to the background. I don't think that should be too much to ask, and it really would not obsess me, but for two problems:

1) We're still held back by the notion that while a woman reader may identify with male protagonists, a man will feel no similar connection with female protagonists, and therefore books with male protagonists will sell better. So naturally we get more male-centric books, especially in science fiction and epic fantasy. Plenty of female authors have grown so accustomed to identifying with male protags that they're more comfortable writing about male characters than female, and so we keep getting male-heavy stories, regardless of the authors' gender.

2) All too often -- particularly in YA fantasy -- female leads are so weakly characterized that readers may start to yearn for an all-male landscape. There are plenty of noteworthy exceptions (Seraphina and The Swan Kingdom being two), but passive drips in the Bella Swan mold, "look-through" heroines rather than "look-at" heroines, are becoming dominant to the point where readers are starting to expect the worst when presented with a female lead. Recently I noticed a Goodreads user who goes by the handle of "the heroine hater." Surely we would find this sobriquet out of place if heroines were more rewarding to read about.

So this is what we have to work with, and solutions to these problems will not yield good results overnight.

Today's issue is the Evil Matriarchy, an all-female regime under which men (and uncompliant women) are oppressed and abused. Authors generally create Evil Matriarchies for one of two reasons. Some, usually but not always female, are using role-reversal to illustrate the injustices of male-dominant societies, a sort of "let's-see-how-YOU-like-it" approach. A Brother's Price and Amberlight
may qualify as examples of this. Other authors, usually but not always male, are playing to male paranoia, the dread of being controlled by women; the implication is clear that if women are granted any sort of authority, they will misuse it. The science fiction series In Her Name (that name is enough to warn you) features a brutal alien female-dominated regime that captures a hapless human male and subjects him to all manner of abuse. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time shows us women in power to illustrate why they shouldn't have it. In Frank Herbert's Dune series, one Evil Matriarchy is not enough to scratch the misogynist itch, so he creates two.

Whatever the motive for their creation -- sometimes as simple as "power corrupts" -- I find Evil Matriarchies disquieting to read about. Even if the underlying principle is the former, it's the latter I come away with: women can't be trusted to wield power wisely and justly. TV Tropes calls it "God Save Us from the Queen"; they note that the Queen is the epic-fantasy royalty version of "Always Chaotic Evil." Good queens may turn up on occasion (say, Queen Helen Eddis in the Queen's Thief series, Queen Selenay of Valdemar, the Queen in Flewelling's Nightrunner series), but evil queens outnumber them.

Even in books with intriguing active heroines, the Evil Matriarchy supposition may raise its head. Marissa Meyer's Cinder, which I'm currently reading, features a cyborg Cinderella who speaks her mind and boasts mad mechanical skills. I'm noting certain similarities between her story and Seraphina Dombegh's, in that both heroines are female Others who fear the Princes they love will reject them if their Otherness is discovered. Yet Cinder is very much a distinctive character, and I love that while she may be attracted to the Prince, that's not all she thinks about. (Seraphina also gets an A-plus on this score.) She's definitely a heroine to look at, not to look through.

Yet I can't help noting the lines of Good and Evil in the book's power structures. The Earth Empire, the Good, is dominated exclusively by men -- the Emperor, the Prince, the Prince's adviser. (Where is the Empress, the Prince's mother? Well you might ask.) But in the Lunar Empire, the Evil, both the ruler and the poisonous adviser are women. Moreover, this Evil Empire has a long history of women in charge. The masculine regime must be protected from this feminine threat. While good women may feature strongly in Cinder, they neither seek nor wield authority. Hello, "God Save Us from the Queen."

I don't think Meyer intends any misogynistic implications, especially since she has created a female protagonist the reader doesn't want to slap. But the battle lines are clear. Male power must be preserved. Female power must be broken.

Why do even female authors have such apparent trouble painting female authority in a sympathetic light? Cinder is much too good for me to lay it aside, good enough for me to seek out its sequels and hold my nose and endure the Evil Matriarchy. But I can't help wishing there were fewer Evil Matriarchies in the genres I love.

Sometimes I wonder if authors think they are doing something new and challenging by portraying an Evil Matriarch - trying to say "Look! I'm showing that woman can break out of the nice, motherly, sweet, good mould and be just as corrupt and evil as men!" In Real Life, it's become almost a cliche to say "Well, if women were in power we wouldn't have wars/starvation/porn/nameyourevilofchoice - the world would be better" and perhaps authors are reacting to this by showing a fictional world where having a woman in power is not a Good Thing. But given that politically powerful women are such a rarity in RL*, it is depressing not to see positive examples in fiction. And as you say so well, the EM has become a trope in itself, far worse than the "woman as benign, caring leader" cliche in my opinion.

*and I don't want to get political here, but the ones I can think of off the top of my head have decidedly not made the world, or their nations, a better place

Or, it could be obliviousness :-/

#45 the ones I can think of off the top of my head have decidedly not made the world, or their nations, a better place

My goodness, I wonder whom you have in mind. :-)

45, 46: Golda Meir? (Actually, she might be one of the rare real-life female leaders whom history will treat kindly.)

I've just been looking at a list of Matriarchal Societies in Fiction on Goodreads, and I have noticed a couple of things:

A few of the matriarchal societies listed are not evil. Melanie Rawn's Exiles series gives us a matriarchy that isn't especially oppressive, at least according to the reviews. This book is in my TBR pile.

Also, occasionally (though not always) you can get an idea of how a matriarchal society is depicted from the gender of the protagonist.

Is the protagonist female, as in Amberlight, The Gate to Women's Country, Califia's Daughters? Then the matriarchy may be treated more sympathetically, or, if it is oppressive, it might be redeemed from within.

Is the protagonist male, as in Michael R. Hicks's Empire, Monica La Porta's The Priest, or David Patneaude's Epitaph Road? Then the matriarchy is almost invariably evil and the men are subjected to a variety of abuses great and small.

I believe there is a matriarchy in The spellsong cycle by L.E. Modesitt. Although a majority of the men see them as evil, they are clearly not. I liked the concept of these books, but be prepared for some repetitive nagging if you're going to read them... The main character is constantly lamenting about men, the things she cannot do with her new-found power, and the necessity of eating a lot without gaining weight (a consequence of said power).

As part of your quest to find male writers who do great female protags, read The Rook by Daniel O'Malley.

48: I have been intrigued by The Spellsong Cycle for a while, but I've had a hard time getting my hands on Book 1. At every used bookstore I visit, I can always find plenty of books in the series, but not that one. I may have to resort to Amazon before too long.

49: That's another one I will have to check out.

50: I've found that I'm not a real fan of L.E. Modesitt. Although I dislike books that are not thorough enough and move to fast, Modesitt tends to overdo the detail even for me. Like I said, there is a non-evil matriarchy, and the main character (female) ultimately becomes a political power. This is not normal for most of that world, though. Most of the men are chauvinistic and they suppress women. Ergo the frustration on the part of the main characters regarding men and their beliefs...

Entry 9: A Feminist Defense of Dickens (or, I promise to write about fantasy next time but this was on my mind)

When I was an undergrad, I went through a phase in which I would read all the Charles Dickens I could get my hands on -- inspired, no doubt, by my viewing of the Royal Shakespeare Company's "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby" on PBS. Dickens is avowedly sentimental, the polar opposite of that master of ironic detachment William Makepeace Thackeray. These days, literary scholars seem to think far more highly of Thackeray than of Dickens, because sentiment has fallen somewhat out of fashion. But ironic detachment, while it may be in vogue, has never been my thing. I relished the rollicking good adventures, the eccentric characters with weird names, and even the outlandish coincidences I found in Dickens. The dullness of the young female characters in most of his books did not hinder my enjoyment. Like most of his male contemporaries (Trollope and Collins excepted), Dickens could not endow the respectable young ladies in his novels with spirit or humor. Characters like Lucie Manette and Esther Summerson actually come across as warmer and more human in screen adaptations (the 1936 MGM film and the 2006 BBC miniseries, respectively) than in the novels they come from. Anyone looking for pro-feminist themes is not likely to find them in Dickens -- unless, perhaps, we focus on the triumphant spinster Betsey Trotwood of David Copperfield.

Yet a couple of days ago, I had cause to think over my Dickens experiences, and I discovered one respect in which he, the great upholder of traditional roles, is surprisingly feminist: the frequency of strong friendships between female characters in his novels. Let's see -- we have Nancy and Bet in Oliver Twist (and even Rose, the boring respectable girl, treats the fallen Nancy with kindness and compassion); Mrs. Nickleby and Miss LaCreevy (a sympathetic spinster who earns her own living) in Nicholas Nickleby; Mrs. Todgers and Mercy (one of the few dislikable young ladies allowed a redemption arc) in Martin Chuzzlewit; Florence and her non-wicked stepmother Edith in Dombey and Son; Sissy and Louisa in Hard Times; Esther and Ada, as well as Esther and Caddy Jellyby, and Lady Dedlock and Rosa, in Bleak House; Amy and the slow-witted Maggy in Little Dorrit; Lucie Manette and Miss Pross in A Tale of Two Cities; Betsey Trotwood and Agnes and Dora in David Copperfield; Lizzie Hexam and Jenny Wren, and to a lesser degree, Lizzie and Bella Wilfer (they only have one big scene together, but it's a great scene) in Our Mutual Friend; and Rosa and Helena in The Mystery of Edwin Drood. In fact, the only Dickens full-length novel I have read that does NOT depict a strong friendship between female characters is Great Expectations, the dysfunctional Miss Havisham and Estella being too narcissistic to be true friends to each other or anyone else.

Moreover, the good women in Dickens protect each other; a damsel in distress is just as likely to be saved by a female friend as by a male hero. Two examples stand out. In Hard Times, when Louisa stands on the brink of social disgrace, who sends her would-be seducer packing? Her friend Sissy. Even more dramatically, in A Tale of Two Cities, when the disappointingly bland respectable young lady Lucie is in danger, who steps in to save her? Not her husband; he's incapacitated, having just been rescued from the guillotine by the book's unconventional hero, Sydney Carton. Not her father. Not even, directly, Carton (though indirectly he is responsible, since Lucie would not leave France without her husband). No, it's her female companion, Miss Pross, who takes down the vengeful viper Madame Defarge and ensures that Lucie and her loved ones make good their escape from revolution-torn France.

So I don't really need to turn in my feminist card in order to love Dickens, the creature of his time, flaws and all. It's been over ten years since I last read one of his works, but they're still on my shelf, waiting to be revisited.

52: A very pleasing and, yes, touching observation about Dickens's women. I always loved that scene (and Edna May Oliver in it) where Miss Pross takes down Madame Defarge.

I don't honestly think anyone has to defend a love of literature that doesn't happen to reflect their own social or political bent. Experiencing other points of view vicariously through literature opens our minds, don't you agree?

#53 Meredy: Experiencing other points of view ... opens our minds, don't you agree?

Hmmm! If one agrees with you does one run the risk of closing your mind?

:-)

53: Edna May Oliver also played Aunt Betsey in the 1935 MGM film of David Copperfield. She "rocked the house" there, too. "Let me see you ride a donkey over MY green again..."

Love your exploration of women in Dickens' novels. One of my friends loathes his books because of the female characters; I wonder if your analysis would make her take a second look.

56: In my experience, if someone has made up her mind to dislike something, it's virtually impossible to persuade her to think differently. It saddens me a little when I reflect that while people might be persuaded away from love, rarely will they be persuaded away from hate.

But I did say "rarely" -- which means there's always a slim possibility. While Betsey Trotwood may be the most awesome woman Dickens ever created, David Copperfield may not be the best choice for re-examination, as its young heroines, Dora and Agnes, are both deeply disappointing in their different ways. Our Mutual Friend is better on that score. Lizzie Hexam turns out to be a savior, and Bella Wilfer is witty and wonderfully flawed, even though descriptions of her "yielding" near the end of the book may set one's teeth on edge.

But if I really wanted to introduce someone to Dickens, I would recommend a viewing of the RSC's "The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby," which I fervently hope is still available on DVD. There's a recent film adaptation of this novel which is pretty good, but I still prefer this massive, magnificent stage version, in which all the actors except Roger Rees (Nicholas) play multiple roles. (One of my favorites is Lila Kaye, who plays both the venomous Mrs. Squeers and the awesome Mrs. Crummles, another one of Dickens' grand old dames.) The production simply breathes Dickens; it is the most purely Dickensian of all adaptations. It could make a Dickens lover of anyone open to it.

57: I saw that production of Nicholas Nickleby on PBS when it came out as a miniseries, so long ago now that I don't even remember which decade. It was indeed magnificent. Presenting it as if on stage rather than in realistic sets was breathtakingly effective. The actors' transitions through characters were stylish and dazzling. Even now I retain some strong visual impressions from that viewing so long ago.

I don't see that version listed in Netflix, but it does appear to be available on DVD.

I have that Nicholas Nickleby on DVD. Wonderful.

Things Seen Around Goodreads, Part 1:

The following is a quote from a review of Ursula LeGuin's The Word for World is Forest, a book which should be subtitled "How to Make a Feminist Statement With No Major Female Characters At All":

"It's normal to have only male primary characters because if you had a female protagonist whatever would she do apart from fall in love; that would never drive the plot!"

Here, in a nutshell, is my problem with the way girls and women are so often characterized in fantasy and science fiction: it is darn hard (though not impossible) to find books that center on girls and women that do not make romance the main focus of the plot. Elizabeth Moon manages it in The Deed of Paksenarrion; Feist and Wurts also manage it in Daughter of the Empire (though I have it on good report that Mara does get saddled with a love interest in the sequels). But the reason, it seems, that LeGuin focuses primarily on male characters in most of her well-known hard sci-fi books (The Telling, I believe, is the only exception) could be that in her hard sci-fi books, she doesn't want to write about romance.

A big part of the problem is that in order to be published, writers have to go where the money is. Two pieces of conventional so-called wisdom are at work here: 1) male readers in general will not pick up a book if it has a female protagonist, and 2) if one wishes to appeal to female readers, one had best include a romantic plot, since "everyone knows" women always want to read about love. I don't see things improving much until (or unless) we can get past these assumptions.

As a writer, I'm as guilty as anyone else. I've heard that writers should always write the kind of thing they want to read, so I try to write the kinds of female characters I like to see. But I always embroil them in a love plot. I wouldn't say I have the worst of reasons for doing this: I appreciate a well-told love story -- I am an absolute sucker for the "woman's pictures" of the 1930s and 1940s, with "Now Voyager," "Portrait of Jennie," and "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir" being three good examples of the kind of thing I lap up with relish -- and I find myself cringing at what passes for "romance" these days, in books and movies and TV. So I find that my instinctive solution to this problem is not to eschew romantic plots altogether, but to try to get the romance RIGHT (or at least get it the way I'd like to see it). And I try to see to it that even though my heroines do fall in love, they remain Brave Dames who are passionate about something besides passion, and who are at least as likely to rescue as to be rescued.

Yet in terms of creating female protagonists without including romance, I certainly could do better.

I am reading The Word for World is Forest, largely because a friend of mine has criticized me for not wanting to read books that lack major female characters, and has said I should read LeGuin. So far, I have to admit, the book is compelling, though the misogyny and murderous xenophobia of one of the main characters makes me cringe (as, I'm convinced, LeGuin intended it to). Would I rather be reading something in which individual female characters are significant, even if they aren't the protagonist? Certainly. But this book does have one distinct advantage: it's short. I can probably finish it today. Then I'll be able to tell my friend I've read the book. Friendship is hardly a bad reason for reading.

Also seen on Goodreads this morning: Naomi Novik's His Majesty's Dragon, on a list of "Best Feminist Fiction." Granted, it was near the end of the list, so probably only one person voted for it. But I would never have thought it had feminist themes at its center, particularly since the two main male characters (human and non) are so wrapped up in each other that none of the females is especially important to them. For me, however, the fate of Lily, the story's only significant female dragon, would keep it from qualifying.

I've just finished The Rook. You might enjoy that. Even though I found the ending a little flat, it was a good ride. The main character is female, and there isn't much in the way of romance, not at all. (Fine with me. I'm a female reader, and I do not want to get socked with mush every time I turn around.) By training from childhood, the people in her line of work are pretty single-minded, and most of them just don't have much romance in their lives.

62: The Rook is already on my shelf, impatiently waiting to be read. I had a coupon and was looking for one book to acquire, and I read a description of it: "Downton Abbey Meets the X-Men." With that, I decided it was the book I wanted.

The Word for World is Forest, however, has defeated me. My stomach simply is not strong enough to take the treatment of human women in this book, culminating in an episode of violence that makes the Red Wedding (A Storm of Swords) look like a Happy Fun Time. The book sets us up to sympathize with the aliens, with their half-matriarchal society -- yet I can't help feeling that the human women are the real victims, the only true innocents in the novella, infantilized and marginalized and treated like garbage by human and alien alike. They have no names; they have no identities; and in the eyes of both human men and aliens, their only purpose is to breed. They have no advocate. The novella itself, so full of sympathy for the aliens driven to madness by their ill-treatment at the hands of the human colonists, cannot spare even a drop of sympathy for the human women. It's been a while since any book has made me as angry as this one -- for reasons the author probably did not intend.

Issue 1: The Kindle-ing

A week and a few days ago, I decided that it was time I joined the twenty-first century and purchase an e-reader. Being a techno-phobe, I did not want to buy an e-reader with a lot of complicated bells and whistles; I would be using it to read, nothing more. So, with my much more technically adept husband's help, I found a middle-grade Kindle with plenty of room for plenty of books, and now that it's a part of my world, I have fallen in love with it.

In no way does this negate my first post in this thread. I will always love paperbacks, and I will always love shopping for and browsing through paperbacks. There is too much fun to be had in pulling books off bookstore shelves and glancing at the synopsis, the review blurbs, a few pages to see if the writing style appeals. I like thumbing through pages and holding paperbacks in my hand. That's not going to go away.

But my new e-reader has many distinct advantages, which I'm sure everyone else who owns one knows already. The most obvious is that while it's wonderful to hold a paperback in your hand, when you hold your e-reader in your hand you may be holding an entire library. When you're traveling and you want to be sure you have plenty of reading material, an e-reader is the way to go. Also, the e-reader is seductively convenient. Quite a few of the titles on my Amazon.com wish list are available as used paperbacks for as little as one cent, making this the most cost-effective way to purchase them. But once I've ordered them, shipping and handling is added to the cost, and I have to wait for them to arrive in the mail. With the e-reader, the listed price IS the cost; no shipping, no handling -- and once I've clicked "Buy," the book is mine, no waiting. This is perfect if there happens to be a book I MUST get my hands on RIGHT NOW.

(I must contradict myself here. Sometimes I actually enjoy ordering a book that will come through the mail, because I enjoy the next few days of checking the mail to see if the book is there, and the pleasure when it does arrive.)

A third advantage, more personal for me, is what I call the "guilty pleasure advantage." I don't always want people to know what I'm reading. When I'm reading my Kindle, no one can see, unless they get up in my face. If I want to explore titles that might look a little silly, I can do so without passers-by rolling their eyes at me. That's perfect for super-introverts like me, especially since I have several rather nosy acquaintances.

So now the e-reader joins my paperbacks, as just another way for me to indulge my passion.

---

Issue 2: Reactions to Recent Reads

Last year I discovered Barbara Hambly when I read The Ladies of Mandrigyn. Hambly's style is very lush and detailed; from what I've observed so far, her books are not quick reads. But though I had to take my time with The Ladies of Mandrigyn, I never found it tedious. Rather, the world and the characters were worth spending time with. This was my introduction to Starhawk, who quickly entered my pantheon of favorite fictional heroines of all time. Now that I have read The Witches of Wenshar, the second in this series, her place in that pantheon is secure. Indeed, she shines more brightly in this second book than she did in the first. She's an outstanding example of a Brave Dame, one who does the rescuing rather than waiting to be rescued.

Reading about her did make me think about my Brave Dame definition, and how she fits it on almost every point. A woman doesn't have to be a warrior in order to be a Brave Dame, but darn it, when the writer leads us to believe a woman is a warrior, she had better kick some butt. Some writers have trouble creating a woman warrior in such a way that readers can believe in her prowess. Hambly has no trouble at all. Even when Starhawk has no actual enemies to fight, she employs her battle-strength to handle other situations. Moreover, while the world she inhabits isn't the most gender-egalitarian -- sexist stereotypes are very much a part of it -- Starhawk never whines and moans about unfairness in the universe. She just sees the job that needs doing, and gets it done. Also -- and this may be my favorite aspect of her character -- she is quick to befriend other women, even if they don't always deserve it. Though ruthless in battle, she is capable of great compassion in peaceful situations. We learn in The Ladies of Mandrigyn that she has been in love with her "Chief," Sun Wolf, for quite some time, but he has taken a long string of lovers that are her exact opposites, the latest being a delicate child-woman named Fawn. But instead of showing her claws and trying to undermine his relationships with these lovers, she befriends the women. When she and Sun Wolf are separated, he leaves Fawn in her care because he knows he can trust her. (Fawn, incidentally, turns out to be a bit more substantial than your typical passive damsel.) In The Witches of Wenshar, she tries to befriend the mercurial Kaletha, whom Sun Wolf heartily dislikes. Her heart goes out to the young wizard princess. And she even reacts to the shrill, whiny governess, Kaletha's pathetic follower, with empathy rather than annoyance.

The fantasy genre could always use more heroines cut from this cloth, women who are kind as well as strong and competent. Entirely too often, kindness is depicted as weakness. It is not, and it's good to see a gifted author like Hambly making that clear.

One more thing. I asked this over on FantasyFans, and I may as well ask here as well: can anyone recommend to me a good book (preferably science fiction) by Ursula K. LeGuin that centers on a sympathetic heroine? I suspect that the only way I will get the bad taste of The Word for World Is Forest out of my mouth for good may be to read something else by the same author, in which human women are not painted as disposable chattel.

64: The fantasy genre could always use more heroines cut from this cloth, women who are kind as well as strong and competent. Entirely too often, kindness is depicted as weakness. It is not, and it's good to see a gifted author like Hambly making that clear.

I really like that statement. It seems important to me that when we talk about strong women, we do not mean women who have the strength of men. Hmm, I'm not sure it that came out right. I don't mean the amount of strength, I mean the type of strength. It seems to me that character traits that are most often associated with women are valued less than more typical male character traits. Instead of making strong women resemble men, a strong woman should be allowed to be strong in her own right, in her own way.

I have been very lax of late. I need to keep this blog going, even if the only issue at hand is "Thoughts on Current Reads."

Here's the review I posted on Goodreads of Stained Glass Monsters, which I finished yesterday:

Before I go any further, I want to address an issue brought up in another review, namely the possibility that the sequel to this book will feature a love triangle between Kendall, Sebastian, and Sutaka. My reaction to that is:

NO! Please, please don't! Kendall is my least favorite character in this novel, and the only moments at which I find her sympathetic are those moments when she is acting as a friend to Sukata. I want to see that friendship deepen and develop, and as far as I'm aware, no female friendship in YA fantasy has ever survived a love triangle. Also, Sukata is my second favorite character (Rennyn comes in first), and I want to see her character emerge as heroic in the next volume. A love triangle makes that a lot less likely.

Okay, now that's off my chest, and I can get on with the review. Why I liked this novel:

1. Even though I'm way past the target demographic for YA fantasy (but a good book is a good book, and worth reading regardless of intended demographic), I still want to be Rennyn when I grow up. She kicks butt in every way: she's smart, competent, and powerful, and has much more heart that certain other characters (Kendall, drop the 'tude!) are willing to believe. Rennyn has joined Barbara Hambly's Starhawk in my pantheon of favorite heroines in the fantasy genre.

2. Female characters are plentiful, and unlike certain other authors I've been reading recently (Gail Carriger), Host does not feel the need to depict them as stupid, ineffectual, or evil just so her main heroine, Rennyn, can shine more brightly. Lady Weston, Illuma, and Faral are all important and sympathetic and as competent in their ways as Rennyn is in hers; as for Kendall -- well, she has room to grow. Plus, we don't get any "I-won't-have-the-opportunities-I-crave-and-I-won't-be-taken-seriously-because-I'm-a-woman" gender angst here; the characters, male and female, are taken as they are and valued for their strengths -- just as one would wish in real life.

3. I like a well-told romance. Normally I dislike the "human female/supernatural male" love plot that seems to be absolutely darned bloody everywhere in fantasy (especially YA fantasy) these days. But Host actually sells me on the love plot. What I like best about it, however, is that it doesn't take over the book and doesn't become Rennyn's entire focus. She has many concerns besides just living happily ever after with her soul mate. Doing the right thing and saving as many people as possible, not finding love, is this character's main goal.

What I didn't like as much:

1. I had a hard time warming up to Kendall, who seemed to think herself qualified to judge people who had far more responsibilities and moral dilemmas to take on than she, with her fifteen-year-old's experience, could possibly imagine. I would have liked her better if she'd shown a little more empathy, more than occasionally.

2. While I did like Sukata a great deal, I was a little disappointed that we didn't see more of her. Again, I hope to see her play a more crucial role in the next volume, and NOT as Kendall's rival in a love triangle.

All in all, I strongly recommend this one for any reader looking for an involving, well-written feminist fantasy.

Finished another good book: The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson. Here's a portion of the review I posted on Goodreads:

"Let me get the negative stuff out of the way first:

This book is very episodic in nature, though each episode moves the characters forward in important ways; it moves at a leisurely, almost languid pace. This, in and of itself, is not automatically a negative, but if you're looking for a tightly constructed nail-biter of a plot, you won't find it here.

What you WILL find:
-- a rich immersion in another world, with both landscape and culture minutely detailed;
-- a good mix of characters, alien and human, male and female;
-- focus on a rocky but ultimately moving friendship between two smart, complex female protagonists;
-- a satisfying sense of hope at the close."

I wanted to post the review in its entirety, but for some reason, the site wasn't letting me copy the whole thing. I gave the book four stars. My review went on to compare it to The Word for World Is Forest, as both books deal with human/alien first contact and have a strong pro-environment message. I couldn't make it through LeGuin's novella, yet I loved Thomson's novel and didn't mind that it took me a month to read it. (To be fair, I was reading other books at the same time.) Yet in a weird way, the two books are the opposite sides of the same coin. They present the same situation -- yet LeGuin's vision leaves us with despair, while Thomson's gives us hope. LeGuin's humans are brutal, bigoted agents of destruction, incapable of learning any better. Thomson's humans, especially the female protagonist Juna/Eerin, are capable of growth and change, and may indeed come to coexist peacefully, even happily, with the wise Tendu who live in such harmony with their world.

Of course, Thomson's book is much more satisfying than LeGuin's when it comes to portrayals of gender as well. Human women are no better than cattle in LeGuin's world (and in the end are slaughtered like cattle -- I'm still angry about that, though a little less so now that I've read Thomson's book). But Thomson shows us both men and women on all levels of society and authority, both in the alien and the human cultures. One of the things I appreciated most about this book, which I sadly neglected to mention outright in my Goodreads review, is that there are no out-and-out villains. Some characters are less sympathetic and enlightened than others, but no one is thoroughly evil or beyond redemption. Characters who might seem like villains at first (for example, Lalito, the village elder who persecutes Juna to make her pay for the crimes of her fellow humans) gain wisdom and become part of the general reconciliation. Granted, I love a good villain as much as the next reader, but it's nice to see, once in a while, a book that doesn't need a "bad guy" in order to be interesting.

I love reading your posts in FantasyFans, so when you said you had a thread on GD, I read the entire thing.

I agree with your comments on "princess stories" - often it seems like the authors only make her a princess to make her inherently special. However, I wondered if you had read any books by Shannon Hale. She writes beautiful YA fantasy books with strong heroines. My favorite of her books, The Goose Girl, has a protagonist who is a princess. However, most of the book deals with her coming into her own power and learning to live independently. If you haven't figured it out, it's a retelling of the fairy tale by the same name.

I remember going to an author talk by Cherie Priest (who has some great female characters by the way) where she said that she was working on a YA science fiction book with a female protagonist but that it could never be published because there wasn't a romance plot. I'm still hoping that she'll decide to self publish it. There must be an audience for it out there! I know several other girls at my high school who don't read solely romance focused books and who enjoy a strong female protagonist.

What would be some YA fantasy books that you'd recommend?

68: Hi, pwaites!

I have read The Goose Girl and you're right; it's quite good. Not every "princess story" is worthy of avoidance. Another one I'm fond of is Zoe Marriott's The Swan Kingdom, in which the romance -- refreshingly non-stalkery -- is merely one of many of the heroine's concerns.

I'm heading out the door -- DragonCon bound -- but when I get back I will have some recommendations to share.

69> The Swan Kingdom looks interesting. I've added it to my "To Read" shelf on Goodreads.

>68 pwaites:,69 Yes, what pwaites said :)

I saw you mentioned you were being published, upthread, and the summary sounded interesting- do you have any further information on a publication date?

And, if I may go all the way back to >28 kceccato: as well, I was struck by your point "I had the privilege of hearing Lois McMaster Bujold speak at Dragon*Con three years ago. She made a distinction between characters that readers look AT -- those with clearly defined personalities, which readers may accept or reject -- and those that readers look THROUGH -- those deliberately made vacant and featureless, so that any reader can "become" them."

I found this interesting because that was exactly the problem I had with Bujold's Shards of Honor when I read it earlier this year. Cordelia was the protagonist, but she just felt like a "window" onto Aral and Barrayar to me. SPOILERS, I found that the hard ethical decisions that drove the novel were all Aral's, not Cordelia's; her major conflicts were whether or not to be with Aral and support him, and if so how, and those decisions were pretty much made for her by her accepting whatever Aral did or the hand of the author taking choice away.

SPOILERS I didn't find there to be really any conflict between them or internally on Cordelia's part, even when I felt there logically should be; instead, Cordelia just accepts whatever Aral does as all right. She accepts Aral's version of events when he tells her he's not really "the Butcher of Komarr" without question because she feels he wouldn't do something like that, she quickly gets over him drugging her to get information from her as "it was his duty" (and then it turns out not to have happened anyways so the reader doesn't have to feel conflicted), she dismisses his role in the death of his first wife as youthful folly on level with her sleeping with someone who was only using her, and she's even perfectly fine with Aral hiring the man who nearly raped her as his manservant (because she feels so bad for Bothari and how he was used!) I never felt the romance from both sides because of this, it seemed like it was all her adjusting to him and none of the reverse; when Aral gets cut, Cordelia bleeds, but I never really felt the reverse was true in the story. Instead, Cordelia felt more like a reward and happy ending for Aral to compensate for his suffering than a person in her own right.

SPOILERS Any genuine difficulty that she might have had leaving Beta Colony for Barrayar is undermined by egalitarian, liberal Betan culture turning out to be full of double-talk, lies, and propaganda, the military planning to use nonconsensual drugging/brainwashing medical treatments on her, and her family being is okay with that being done to her, so she doesn't even have to feel terribly conflicted about leaving them.

In summary, I didn't find Cordelia to be passionate about anything but passion in Shards of Honor, but I still hear her recommended as a strong character over and over again and their relationship as well-written by people whose opinions I respect; upthread you ranked Cordelia's Honor as one of the most well-written love stories you've read this year, for example. What am I missing in my reading of Shards of Honor, or do I need to finish out the omnibus to see it- is Barrayar the story where Cordelia comes into her own?

You asked about LeGuin. It is interesting that this ardent feminist, one of the first in the field and one who played a major role in introducing social science to SF, has not created a great leading heroine. Tenar, in the Earthsea books, is a wonderful character, and carries the story at times, but it is not her series. I like Irene in The Beginning Place, but she too is not the lead character. Sutty in The Telling is quite sympathetic, but she is fumbling and trying to figure everything out the whole time. LeGuin's greatest books, The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, are men's stories.

I understand your reaction to TWfWIF. I think LeGuin, who was active in anti-war protests at that time, used it unconsciously to try to cleanse her system of the Viet Nam war and all the agony that went with it. I did think that the Athsheans, with their dreaming modes, were an interesting race.

I haven't kept up with LeGuin's very recent writing. I've read parts of Always Coming Home, but nothing since. Good luck with getting that taste out of your mouth! Maybe DragonCon will help--hope it's great!

Back from Con. Where to start?

71: I do think Barrayar is a step up from Shards of Honor. The latter book is afflicted with lamentable Highlander Syndrome (the only Bujold I've read so far where that's a problem -- I understand it is a bit of a problem in The Sharing Knife series, but I'm not much interested in reading those). In the former book we're introduced to Drou, and Highlander Syndrome gives way to female friendship. Cordelia has at least as many scenes with Drou as she does with Aral, and in this book she has a more specifically defined battle to fight.

I have my own issues with the Vorkosigan series. My love for Bujold's The Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls is unqualified (alas, I wished The Hallowed Hunt had been better, but I certainly don't regret the time I spent on it). But the shoulder-shrugging acceptance of the restrictions placed on women in the highly patriarchal society of Barryar does bother me. Cordelia makes one or two stands against it in Barrayar, but they strike me as highly ineffectual; in the end, she and Drou and every woman in this society must learn to be strong and competent within the patriarchal confines, because there is simply no point, apparently, in mounting a head-on attack against those confines. The patriarchal planet has the hero's allegiance. The matriarchal planet? They're the bad guys. (Gals.) I've questioned people who have read the whole series, and they've told me the same thing: the patriarchal systems are still firmly in place by the end, with no signs even of being shaken, let alone overturned. Miles has to give up his warrior woman and settle down with another woman who, while smart and competent in her own way, is content with a traditional role -- because that's the only kind of woman who can truly thrive on Barrayar.

I may read more in the series, but if this is an accurate description of what happens, I may not follow it through to the end.

68: pwaites, you've already read Seraphina and Cinder, and those were two of the most enjoyable YA fantasy novels I've read this year. I also had a lot of fun with the first two volumes of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles and the first three volumes of Tamora Pierce's Wild Magic. Juliet Marillier's Wildwood Dancing is also worth a look, IMO. Cinda Williams Chima's The Demon King is pretty good as well, but I'm honestly not quite sure how I feel about the heroine of that book. While the hero has well-defined abilities (even more, it turns out, than we'd first thought), the heroine's abilities seem a bit more abstract and nebulous. Plus, while Highlander Syndrome doesn't really feature here, it bothers me that the heroine has no female friends, and her mother and her sister -- the two women to whom, ideally, she might be close -- are depicted as weak-minded, worthless tools, a contrast to her strength. There are other intriguing female characters in this book, but they interact with the hero, not with the heroine.

Speaking of Seraphina, I got to meet the book's author, Rachel Hartman, at DragonCon this year. She's friendly, soft-spoken, and very smart. Alas, I didn't bring my copy for autographing. Hartman's the kind who will autograph her book anywhere at any time, whereas other authors who come to the Con are much more rigid about when and where they will give their fans their signature.

I got to be on a Writer's Track panel with Ms. Hartman, and got to talk a little about my novel, Atterwald. It's coming out within the month; it will be published by Gilded Dragonfly Press under the name Nan Monroe. Nan is my mother's first name and Monroe is my father's, and I thought the two together made a very "authorial" name. It will come out as an e-Book first and in print a little later.

72: I've noticed too that for a feminist writer, LeGuin certainly likes using male protagonists. I understand Therru (of Tehanu) and the title character of Lavinia are a bit more impressive as the central figures of their own stories. I will get around to reading those books in time, but my To-Read Pile is very deep.

73> Seraphina was definitely also one of the best YA fantasies that I've read this year. Oh, you are so lucky to have met Rachel Hartman! I also love the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, and pretty much always have. I remember doing my second grade book report on Dealing with Dragons. Cimorene and Kazul are some of my favorite heroines, and the relationship between them is wonderful.

I liked the Wild Magic series, or at least the begining. I hated the fourth book, and I don't think I'll ever be able to re-read the series because of it. The age difference between the sixteen year old protagonist and the twenty something love interest was too much.

I've read a few books by Cinda Williams Chima, but I haven't heard of The Demon King. I'll have to give it and Wildwood Dancing a go.

I really must try to track down a copy of Seraphina.

>73 kceccato: Barrayar isn't very high up on my list at this point, but I suppose I'll get around to it eventually. It's a little disappointing that Cordelia doesn't try to challenge things more, but it's in line with other things I've read about "but she has power by influencing powerful men, like the future Emperor!" I could accept that kind of thing in a historical setting, but I'm disappointed when it turns up in a supposedly far-future society.

I do need to give The Curse of Chalion a second try- I tried it several years ago and just couldn't get into it. If I remember, though, that try was right after finishing a Carol Berg novel, and I went "Oh, not another male protagonist with a horrible past involving betrayal that caused him to fall from a life of ease and wealth into one of debasement and physical torture!" Sometimes it's just not the right time to read a book.

My local library has Paladin of Souls and The Hallowed Hunt, but not The Curse of Chalion- I get the impression from reading reviews that one really does need the background from Curse before reading Paladin, though, right?

>74 pwaites: There's actually a 14-year difference- so when she's 16, he's 30. That's diminished my interest in re-reading those books as well- even besides the numerical age difference, there's just such a big power differential between a student and a teacher that puts me off- that an adult would fall in love with someone he first met when that person was a child he was in a position of power over is uncomfortable at best for me. I noticed during my Song of the Lioness re-read that Alanna's three love interests in Song of the Lioness are 3-4 (Jon), 7 (George), and 14 (Liam) years older than she is as well; she's considered an adult when she gets involved with Liam, but she first meets George when he's 17 and she's 10, which gets into uncomfortable territory for me again.

Also seconding the Enchanted Forest chronicles, I have fond memories of those. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer's Sorcery and Cecelia is fun as well, and I think probably classified as YA these days, but both of the protagonists do have a romantic subplot.

75> That is worse than I remembered. Apparently my efforts to forget that book were at least somewhat successful.... I've noticed some similar things regarded Tamora Pierce's books. At age sixteen the main character will inevitably sleep with someone who, as you mentioned, is often considerably older than her.

I've actually read Sorcery and Cecelia quite awhile ago. I don't mind romantic subplots (I even enjoy them if I like both the characters), but I'm not fond of books written in the form of letters or diary entries. I'm not entirely sure why. It may be that I feel distanced from the world and characters besides the letter writers, or that it losses some of its urgency when you know that the character is alive and well enough to write.

>75 sandstone78:, 76: Pierce's quartet about Keladry are my favourite of the Tortall books, and part of the reason is that romance is handled far better in them. Kel's love interests are far more suitable in terms of age and power, and I like her final decision regarding romance.

>75 sandstone78:: I do know people who have read and enjoyed Paladin of souls without reading Curse first, so if you are very reluctant to do so then you could give Paladin a try. I love both books though so I'd say to give it another try when you are in the mood for a male protagonist.

>76 pwaites:,77 The romances definitely aren't the draw for me in Pierce's work, though I was surprised and pleased with how things ended up in the Keladry set. I much prefer her Winding Circle books because they lack romance and focus on other relationships through at least the first four, and I believe the second four as well; I've not read enough of Will of the Empress to really see how she handles it there, but I did flip to the end and was not surprised to find out which was the first main-character Pierce romance I've read that ends in separation and disappointment.

The handling of race also really isn't good in the Tortall books either- the non-white characters are pretty much there to give the white protagonists a chance to be awesome with "special knowledge from their culture" or to be saved from really old problems that couldn't be fixed until a white person came along. Spoilers, the Bazhir need the white Alanna and Jon to save them from an ancient evil, then Jon gets made their political leader and Alanna gets made their religious leader and teaches them that Sexism Is Not Okay, and Liam (a Chinese-analogue martial artist) decides to teach Alanna his people's techniques to make her more awesome (then he dies); Keladry has an awesome background of Yamani (ie Japanese) language, stoicism, and fighting skills, and I understand that Alanna's daughter saves two non-white groups from a war with each other that has lasted for ages. The Winding Circle books I've read do better about this because the sympathetic cast is actually diverse and all shown as competent.

>76 pwaites: The book was short enough that the epistolary format was a novelty instead of an annoyance for me, but the character voices were similar enough that I lost track of who was writing a couple of times. I haven't read the sequels yet.

>77 Sakerfalcon: I may try Paladin first just because it's more easily available, then, thanks. I don't have anything in particular against male protagonists, but the "tortured past that left him broken" type is just not a favorite for me.

I am a big fan of Tamora Pierce. I prefer the Emelan books, because I often have trouble with understanding why the Tortall girls fall in love with who they do. The boys/men never seemed that great to me. I think Tamora Pierce is great at writing worlds, creatures and girls/women, but less great at writing boys/men. Loved that Kel's succeful ending was her career and not a marriage

The "teenage girl with a much older guy" sub-theme in the Tortall Universe IS a flaw in the books; I'm not comfortable with it either, despite my overall liking for the Wild Magic series -- because no matter how powerful or kick-butt the heroine may be, the hero, being older, must of necessity be wiser and more experienced, a guide and mentor as well as a lover. Even when she saves him, as Daine does in Emperor Mage, he's still the "leader."

In these books, Pierce also seems fond of another Trope I don't much care for, "Huge Guy Tiny Girl." One of the characters in Emperor Mage even remarks specifically on what a "tall set" the group of assembled heroes are; "makes a girl feel protected." Daine isn't exactly tiny -- average, rather -- but the size difference as well as the age difference between her and the hero is foregrounded. I find it interesting that the only notably tall heroine in the Tortall Universe (the only one I've met so far, anyway) is apparently Keladry, the only one who does NOT find a romantic happily-ever-after in the end.

(I never really thought much about characters' heights until I started working on a novel in which the heroine is an eight-foot giantess. It's sort of like what happened to me when I was in the seventh grade and got braces, and all of a sudden I couldn't stop staring at people's teeth.)

Quibbles aside, I do like Pierce's work so far. Has anyone here read the Terrier books? The first two volumes are on my shelf but I haven't dipped into them yet.

I didn't find the hero of The Curse of Chalion quite as dark and brooding as his given backstory might make us expect. I don't remember an over-emphasis on self-torture in this book. But it isn't 100% necessary to read this book in order to understand and appreciate Paladin of Souls. It is a little more rewarding to know who Iselle is when Ista refers to her (and I LOVE the scene in which Ista refuses to join in a chorus of prayers for a male heir, because she views the prayers as an insult to her daughter and her newborn granddaughter), but it isn't essential.

Thoughts on Current Reads:
Right now I'm struggling toward the end of Jana Oliver's Sojourn, which I purchased on Kindle after I heard several friends praising the author. Ms. Oliver is from the Atlanta area and I've had the privilege of meeting her at TimeGate and at DragonCon. I've always thought it a good thing to support local authors, particularly if they've been nice to you. So I wish, I really wish I could say I was loving this novel. But unless the last 10% of the book saves it for me, it's getting three stars, due to my current pet peeve -- yes, friends, it's good ol' Highlander Syndrome, yet again. I'll have much more to say about it when I manage to finish it.

I always think there's something slightly amiss when I'm reading a book and I find myself thinking, "Here's how I would have written it differently." I know it's awfully hard to stop being a writer and just be a pure reader instead, but with the best books I never catch myself thinking that.

>80 kceccato: I'm tired of the love interest as mentor as well- the trope of "previously oblivious woman enters into the supernatural realm, is guided by man who she falls in love with along the way" is one I can do without. In such relationships when they are supposed to be equals, it's usually that the man has education and skill and the woman has talent and luck and instinct or whatever on her side- I want to read about more female characters who are great because they've put in the work, not because they have a special bloodline or whatever.

I have more hope for my eventual enjoyment of Curse of Chalion knowing that there is less self-torture, evidently he does have yet another one of those romances with a significant age difference though. This seems to be something of a theme in Bujold, but I can definitely deal with it easier when the characters meet as adults.

I've not read the Beka Cooper books, but I've seen good reviews about the first two and somewhat mixed reviews about the third. I didn't care for Pierce's previous investigation/crime plots in her Circle Opens quartet, but I think most of the reason was because I have a personal preference for the character-relationship/craft/learning-magic/natural-disaster plots of the books that come before them in the series than anything.

You're not the first writer I've heard say that you would rather be a pure reader. I find the "meta" experience of reading- thinking about what I would have done differently and discussing patterns that come up in the genre- to be the complement of reading in the way that editing is the complement of writing- that is different, though, I think, from the wires holding up the spaceship showing through awkward phrasing or unquestioned cliches or implications. (For the latter, I'm reminded of the science fiction romance novel where humans had one and only one destined mate, sexual contact with anyone else was lethal, and the destined mate was always of the opposite sex- I had to put the book down because the author had either deliberately made the setting in such a way that same-sex desire was a 100% guaranteed death sentence or just not considered that it existed when worldbuilding. For the former, I will just leave the sentence "My eyeballs vibrated as I groped into a sitting position," and a space implying an entire book of similar phrasing.)

New Entry: Highlander Syndrome, and Why It Matters

So, you're reading a book which features a smart, competent, impressive female character. She may be the protagonist, or she may be the male protagonist's right hand, but darn it, she kicks butt in ways that are fun to read about. There's just one problem: she is surrounded exclusively by men. Either there are no other women in the picture, or all the other women are portrayed as weak, ineffectual fools so that we readers will not fail to miss just how "exceptional" the heroine is. And after a while, the heroine's isolation from all other women may start to irritate you.

But what's the big deal? Why should it matter? We've got our impressive kick-butt heroine; what more do we want?

First I need to point out this article a friend of mine sent me. Once I move past the attention-catching title, I can see the author makes some very valid points about the limitations of the characterization of women in today's stories.

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/i-hate-strong-female-characters

One of the problems the author points up is that numbers are against us. Because male characters so vastly outnumber female -- male being the "default gender" and all -- they get to be complex and varied in ways that female characters rarely do. If a story gives us only one female character of any substance or importance, and surrounds her with men only, we have to deal with the unspoken expectation that she is meant to stand in for Womankind, the Token Female Team Member. Thus it's harder for her creator to paint her as a flawed, complex individual. Increase the number of female characters, and the opportunity for more interesting characterization of those girls/women goes up as well. Move away from Highlander Syndrome, and rather than seeing so many Strong Female Characters (TM), we'll start seeing more strong characters who happen to be female.

I have now finished Sojourn, so I can use it in my discussion. First, the good news: Jacynda Lassiter, the female lead, does meet all those qualifications for Brave Damehood listed above. She's competent, she's resilient, she's passionate about something besides passion, and she's a loyal friend. The trouble is that all her friends -- and I do mean ALL of them -- are men. In her home in the future (2057), she works only with men; we see no sign of other female Time Rovers. In Victorian England, she makes two more good male friends, both of whom fall in love with her. The only other women she sees until the novel's final scene are prostitutes and one dying consumptive mother. Lurking in the background is Lady Sephora, a character whose husband and male friends describe her as a "remarkable woman" and "one of a kind." Unfortunately, she appears in only four scenes, and we're never actually SHOWN her remarkable nature; we're just told about it. At last, in the novel's final scene, Jacynda and Sephora get the chance to interact. Thanks to their conversation at the very, very end, the novel squeaks by with a Pass of the Bechdel Test.

Too little, too late.

Did I like the book? In the end, I have to say yes. (My main problem with it, as it turns out, wasn't so much Highlander Syndrome as that Jacynda was off-page for far more of it than any protagonist should be; scene after scene after scene went by without her showing up at all, and only in the novel's final 10% did she really earn her stripes as a protagonist.) But it begs the question: have we ever seen a story in which a male protagonist interacts exclusively with women? A situation in which all the male protagonist's important relationships are with women? Of course not! It's a given that a male protagonist will interact frequently and meaningfully with other men, in a variety of ways. A male protagonist will have male friends, male rivals, male enemies, male mentors. It's unthinkable that he wouldn't. Why, then, do we see this set-up again, and again, and again, with female protagonists?

Because, apparently, even in a story that centers on a single remarkable woman, men are more important than women. In a fantasy novel with a more traditional setting, which replicates real-life historical gender roles, if a female character is to be active and powerful, she of necessity has to leave behind the World of Women and enter the World of Men. (Witness the frequency with which girls disguise themselves as boys in current fantasy novels.) The Strong Female Character (TM) is defined specifically as being Unlike Other Women. It's hard to get a lot of satisfying female characterizations when we're still fighting our way out of this morass -- and when, worse, we don't even bother to fight. Many of the authors of these Highlander Syndrome works are women.

Writers need to look for a variety of ways to make their characters (male and female) strong, instead of making them strong in the same way very time with the use of gender templates. If we get rid of Highlander Syndrome, or Male as Default Gender, we may stand a better chance of succeeding in this.

I like the Beka Cooper books. She is intelligent and competent and different for the usual Tamora Pierce heroines. I liked all three. Number one and three more than number two. The case in number three I found very interesting

*delurking* I just wanted to note how much I enjoy your discussions. The problem of strong women characters in fantasy and science fiction is an on-going one. *back into lurking mode*

Issue 1: I Know a Book is "Not for Me" When...

I know better than to judge whether I'll like a book just from its star ratings on Goodreads, or even its synopses. I have to read the reviews and take note of the reasons for their like or dislike that the reviewers give.

I've decided that one sign of a book I should avoid is when the five-star reviewers spend most of their commentary gushing over the "hotness" of the male leads. Frequent paraphrases like "I think I'm in love!" will send me running for the hills. For those reviewers, the female lead could be the most passive, featureless creature in existence and it wouldn't matter; the "swoon-worthy" (there's a word that can make me roll my eyes) male lead (or leads -- all too often there's a triangle) is the beginning and the end of their interest.

These signs point to "'Twilight' clone," and there are not many things I'm less interested in reading.

Issue 2: "Best Friends Forever"

Soulless is a Steampunk fantasy featuring vampires, werewolves, and a "preternatural" heroine with the ability to render vampires and werewolves harmless. W.W.W.: Watch is the second volume in a science fiction series in which a teenage math genius (a girl!) discovers an A.I. consciousness within the World Wide Web, bonds with him, and makes it her mission to protect and care for him. Both novels have female protagonists, and both protagonists are smart and active, but beyond that, a reader would not expect them to have anything in common.

But in point of fact, they do. Each smart, active, free-thinking female protagonist has a thoroughgoing idiot for a "best friend." These friendships strain credibility, for me anyway. In my experience, smart people do not particularly relish the company of morons, even well-meaning morons. Even not considering the Intelligence Gap, most of us gravitate toward friends who share our tastes, interests, and values.

Yet for some reason, Alexia Tarabotti in Soulless likes to spend time with Ivy Hisselpenny, a thoroughly conventional and all too easily shocked young lady whose sole distinctive feature is her abominable taste in hatwear. She's not interested in any of the things Alexia is interested in; as far as I could tell from this novel, she's not interested in much of anything at all. She does, apparently, have a good heart, which is the only thing that sets her apart from Alexia's excruciatingly shallow half-sisters. But surely she's the sort of person that someone like Alexia would be polite and friendly to in social situations, but hold at a distance. What on earth would they have to talk about for extended periods of time?

Ivy, however, is fairly inoffensive -- which is more than can be said for Bashira, the reprehensible BFF of Caitlin Decter in W.W.W.: Watch. Robert J. Sawyer has created a multicultural cast of characters for this novel, with important figures from China, Japan, and Israel. Bashira is a Muslim girl, and the friendship between her and Caitlin, who is half Jewish (but actually an atheist), could be read as Sawyer's attempt at a message of peace. That's certainly an admirable intention, and I would embrace it, if only Bashira were a likable character and halfway believable as Caitlin's best friend. However -- just to give a sample of this girl's sense of ethics: When Caitlin becomes interested in Matt, a sweet, shy, nerdy guy from her math class, Bashira is outraged. How could Caitlin even THINK about dating Matt? He's not "hot" enough for her! Bashira tells Caitlin that as "hot" as she is, she could have any guy she wanted; "you could have Trevor!" (Trevor, BTW, is the school bully.) How dare Caitlin choose a nice guy who actually does share her tastes and interests! Doesn't she realize everyone at school would look down on her for dating the non-hot nerd?

I can sorta, kinda see what Sawyer is doing here: he's setting up a contrast between Caitlin, who is exceptional, and Bashira, who is "typical." The trouble is that Bashira's way of thinking about Matt and his suitability as a boyfriend for Caitlin isn't really "typical," even for teenagers. Plenty of teenagers actually do have a sense of values and know how to treat people. Teenagers with a sense of decency do not go out of their way to ostracize people who aren't "hot" enough to suit them, and do not make a point of encouraging their friends to ostracize them. Bashira's thinking is Mean Girl thinking, and I have a hard time believing that our smart, kind heroine Caitlin would put up with it. Fortunately, she does not take Bashira's advice; she follows her inclination and starts a relationship with Matt (which is one of the better love stories I've found in YA literature). But she does not wake up to the Mean Girl's toxic values and kick her to the curb.

Situations like this make me appreciate the true friendships of pairs like Rowan and Bel in The Steerswoman and Blaze and Flame in The Aware all the more.

85> I've noticed similar things about Goodreads. I think a large percentage of the Goodreads population is fangirls (maybe some fanboys, but from what I've seen it's mainly fangirls) who mindlessly vote the object of their obsession onto lists (regardless of whether the book actually fits) or into high rankings. I've seen it most blatantly with The Immortal Instruments series, but also with Twilight, Harry Potter, The Huger Games, The Lighting Thief books, and several series which I haven't read but have no desire to as they look to be "'Twilight' clones."

I don't see best friends that often in YA fantasy and science fiction. They mostly tend to get kicked to the curb to make way for romance plots. Notable exceptions with female protagonists with female best friends (who are actually present for the majority of the book) would be Uglies (although it's fairly dysfunctional), Dealing with Dragons (Morwen and Kazul!), Texas Gothic (her sister), and Delirium (don't bother reading). Given that these were the only examples that I could come up with, I'd say the genera has a major problem in this regard. The average YA fantasy or dystopian heroine is either alone and friendless or has a male best friend who becomes a love interest. There are also some who have important relationships with their brothers, far more than who have important sisters. At this point I'd like to see any female best friend, even if she's markedly inferior.

I remember reading what Scott Westerfeld said about one of the male best friends in Uglies (this one doesn't become a love interest). Apparently, he was originally female but Westfeld found it easier to switch the character to male for the sake of pronouns. Having a female main character and a male best friend made writing conversations easier. In the end, it didn't have much of an impact because he's a fairly minor character and is in short order superseded by Shay, the female best friend.

86: The Harry Potter books are well worth reading, IMO. I've only read the first novel in the Percy Jackson series, The Lightning Thief, because a friend recommended it to me. I wasn't enthused enough by it to forge ahead through the series, but I couldn't call it a "Twilight" clone because the emphasis is on the adventure rather than the romance, at least in this first book. The Mortal Instruments series, however, seems to have a bit more in common with "Twilight" -- including a heroine who tries the patience of quite a few Goodreads reviewers, even those who rate the books highly -- and I have avoided it accordingly. Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, Hush is, I've come to understand, a fairly blatant "Twilight" clone, with an angel rather than a vampire as the moody, soulful, oh so swoon-worthy supernatural hero in love with the Ordinary High School Girl (TM). The Wolves of Mercy Falls has even been called "Twilight: The Team Jacob Version" -- although I am intrigued by Stiefvater's Lament series and The Scorpio Races. Perhaps the biggest "Twilight" rip-off, the one that makes it onto list after list after list, is Colleen Houck's Tiger Saga (Tiger's Curse). Houck has gone on record as being a huge Stephenie Meyer fan and does not even bother to disguise the heavy influence of "Twilight" on her work.

I will need to give some thought to some of the best friendships between female characters I've read in recent books. I do agree that the lack of any kind of friendship between female characters is indeed worse than the situations I've recorded above -- but I did find myself getting quite angry with Bashira, because the Mean Girl attitude she expresses has, in real life, caused more than its share of suffering.

Some of the best ones: Rowan and Bel in The Steerswoman, the closest thing to a female "buddy-cop" duo I've encountered in fantasy; Blaze and Flame in The Aware, whose friendship turns out to be more important than romantic relationships; Cimorene and Kazul (you are absolutely right) in The Enchanted Forest Chronicles; Rhiannon and Felice in Rhiannon's Ride; Senneth and Kirra in The Twelve Houses; Rune and Gwyna in The Lark and the Wren; Sarah and Nan in The Wizard of London; Jena and her sisters in Wildwood Dancing; Angua and Cheery Littlebottom in Feet of Clay. I will try to think of more. But I do wish it weren't so difficult. The lack of female friendships goes hand in hand with Highlander Syndrome.

87> I wasn't saying that all those books were like Twilight - just that they had a large and vocal fan base. I also love Angua and Cherry! I didn't mention it above, because it's not YA, but there's also Kate and Andrea in the Kate Daniels series by Illona Andrews. Andrea comes in with the second book and is a character in her own right, enough so to have her own book, Gunmetal Magic.

85-88: I've actually avoided books when over 80 % of the reviews on GR either have (moving) pictures in them, or an abundance of capitals and gushing. No offense, but if practically ALL the reviews are by teenagers and none of them are serious, it's probably going to annoy me.

Issue: Thoughts on Current Reads (stream-of-consciousness)

I may give the wrong impression with my nitpicks, but as a general rule I delight in the books I read. If I start moving through a book and find that after 100 pages or so I'm still not enjoying it, I lay it aside. (It usually goes into the McKay pile, where I can exchange it for something I might like much better.) I don't feel under any obligation to continue with a book I don't like, particularly when my TBR pile reaches the stratosphere.

But I have to own that I'm especially pleased with my current rotation, and find, so far, that I have almost only good things to say about Shinn's Troubled Waters, Pratchett's Snuff, and Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

First, Troubled Waters. I picked this one up after I finished with Soulless. Even though I liked Carriger's work -- the last hundred pages really saved it for me -- I wanted something I was almost certain to like, and Shinn's Twelve Houses series had been one of the significant pleasures of late last year into early this year. One thing I have found to be a problem in NONE of Shinn's work is Highlander Syndrome. If her heroines do not have significant relationships with other women near the beginning of the book, they develop them by the end. Zoe, the heroine of Troubled Waters, is no exception. There is a romantic plot -- although since this is a Shinn novel, I say that like it's a good thing; Shinn, I have found so far, writes romantic plots quite well, with plenty of revealing dialogue and no stalkery insta-love whatsoever -- but Zoe's relationships with other women are at least as, if not more, important to her character development.

In other threads/discussions, I've heard Shinn criticized for being too heavy on the romance. This may be the case with her Samaria series, but in the works I've read by her, I haven't found this to be true.Works that I would call "too heavy on the romance" make the heroine's character development all about falling in love, and give her almost nothing to do besides pine for the hot, hunky love interest. Shinn, however, gives her heroines plenty to do BESIDES fall in love, and a fair amount of page space is given to matters not-romantic. In a recent scene, our heroine, Zoe, uses her elemental powers to save someone's life. I can't not love a well-written story in which the female protagonist "saves the day."

"Too heavy on the romance" is relative. For a fair number of readers, even a little bit of romance may be too much. But for me, the true antidote to all that insta-love junk is a well-written love plot. Shinn has yet to let me down where this is concerned.

Now, Snuff. I picked this up after finishing The Phoenix Guards, when I realized I wanted to read another book in which the protagonist is male but in which the women still got to be awesome. (Imagine my surprise when I found out that The Phoenix Guards passed the Bechdel Test!) Terry Pratchett can pretty much be relied on for that. And, as usual with a Pratchett novel, I find myself absorbed and highly amused by the goings-on.

The good news: Snuff features Sam Vimes, quite possibly my favorite character in the entire Discworld. I know I should love Granny Weatherwax & co. and Tiffany Aching, and I do, but Vimes has what gets me: an unlikely and highly welcome combination of droll cynicism and unshakeable principles. He's never short of dry observations, but anybody in trouble can count on him. The bad news: as much as I love Vimes, I also love his team, and for this novel, Pratchett sends Vimes off to the country with only his wife and his valet, and since we follow them, we see almost nothing of Carrot & co. Cheery Littlebottom has appeared briefly, but we've seen nothing of Angua. And no Reg Shoe! I love Reg! I miss him!
I know in my heart that we will see DEATH before it's all over. I'll know for certain it's the Discworld when DEATH shows up.

And then there's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which I picked up after finishing W.W.W.: Watch. It had been recommended to me by several friends here on LT who know my interest in the female Other. It's quite a short book and I'm already halfway through with it. On the one hand, Gaiman's style is very engaging and it's easy to lose oneself in this book; on the other, I really don't want to read it too fast. I want to know what happens next, but I don't want it to be over, because the style, which manages to combine lyricism with darkness and dread, is precisely what I wish I saw more of in Urban Fantasy. If all Urban Fantasy were written like this, I would gobble it insatiably.

Even though I'm a good ways into the book, I hesitate to comment on it, because this book runs on fantastic mystery, and I'm fairly certain I don't know what's really going on -- yet. Right now it strikes me as an interesting take on "The Children of Lir," with Ursula Monkton being the stepmother-witch who enchants the father and makes him neglect and/or ill-treat his children so that she can lay a malevolent spell upon them. This telling departs from the usual by having a male protagonist. I read The Swan Kingdom not too long ago, and even though I liked it immensely, one of the things I regretted was that the bewitched father never "woke up," never expressed remorse for his neglect of his children. I wonder if the father in this story will eventually show some remorse. (The last scene I read was a rather horrifying moment of child abuse. Someone had better pay.)

One thing I can say with certainty: I like Lettie. She's been off-page for a little while now and I can't wait till she comes back, because I know, I just know, she's going to kick all kinds of butt in her own mystical Lettie way. If I wanted a story with a male protagonist in which the females also get to be awesome, The Ocean at the End of the Lane fits the bill.

Must run.

>87 kceccato: I have two more (tentative) recommendations for female friendship stories.

In Kate Elliott's Cold Magic, the narrator Cat and her cousin Bee are very close, and they remain so throughout the story- but they are separated for the majority of it. I intend to try the other books at some later date, but Elliott has said that she intends their friendship and loyalty to each other to be the most important relationship in the series, even above romantic attachments. (I found that the potential romantic attachment got more screen time than Bee in book one, but there are still two books to go.) The main character is also Other, but exactly how is not divulged yet in the first book.

Robin McKinley's Beauty has the main character having very close relationships with her two older sisters in the few chapters I've read so far, as well as a loving father, and that does not change when her sisters get romantic attachments of their own (who are also good to Beauty and the other sister). I hope this stays true throughout the rest of the novel once the retelling's "Beast" shows up.

>90 kceccato: I reread Shinn's Archangel, the first of her Samaria books, this year, and while it is mainly a romance, protagonist Rachel also has strong friendships with other people, male and female. I didn't care for the romance in Mystic and Rider, but that may be because Tayse never really came alive to me the way eg Senneth did- he remained pretty much a blank slate to me.

90: You've made me curious about Troubled waters. It's going on my wishlist...

>91 sandstone78:: I love Robin McKinley's Beauty. Have you tried her second retelling of that story, Rose daughter? I think you'd both find it interesting. McKinley also portrays a strong friendship between girls/women in Spindle's End, which retells Sleeping Beauty.

Troubled waters is on my shelves. I see that a sequel will be published this autumn, so I will have to move the first book up my reading pile.

#90 " (The last scene I read was a rather horrifying moment of child abuse. Someone had better pay.)"

More on that when you've finished the book please.

Issue 1: Let's talk "relatability"

What makes a character "relatable," or "relate-able"? (How is that even spelled?) It's an issue of interest to me as a reader and as a writer -- as I don't think it really has any meaning beyond what individual readers assign it.

Another thing I can add to my "I know a book is 'not for me' when..." list is, when I am reading Goodreads reviews for a novel designated as YA, I find an abundance of them praising the heroine for being "relatable" (that's how they spell it). As I read through their comments, it becomes clear what they mean: the heroine is another Ordinary Teenage Girl (TM) who is deliberately left featureless -- when did featureless become our idea of "normal" or "typical"? -- so that any young female reader, regardless of personality or appearance, can slip into her shoes, the irksomely popular Bella Swan method of characterization. Obviously the blank-slate Everygirl appeals to a substantial population of readers. If the blank-slate Everygirl's main purpose is to be the object of desire of two (or sometimes more) really hot (usually supernatural) guys, those readers see, "YOU TOO can be adored by the hottest guys in school!" If the blank-slate Everygirl should discover that she herself has some special power that will enable her to save the world almost by accident, those readers see, "YOU TOO can Save the World Without Really Trying!" It's no-effort wish fulfillment. It's not hard to see the secret of its success.

But is this what we really want the word "relatable" (or "relate-able") to mean? In exploring a Goodreads list, I came upon a book with a title I can't remember, which I thankfully have no interest in reading but the reviews of which I did peruse. The story involved a mermaid disguised as a high school girl, in love with a normal boy -- pretty much "Twilight" with the genders switched. Several reviewers criticized the heroine for not being "relatable" enough, and it soon became clear what they meant. She wasn't un-"relatable" because she had a standoffish personality; rather, she was un-"relatable" because she wasn't human, or "normal." Reviews of a book I don't intend to read really shouldn't bother me, but I was troubled by the implications: these readers have trouble "relating" to characters who are different from them. If this is the case, should YA writers beware of giving their heroines any distinguishing characteristics at all?

Of course, since I'm interested in female Other characters, I would have no problem at all getting emotionally invested in the story of a heroine who was a mermaid, an alien, etc. as long as her personality made some sense and her storyline was compelling. But I admit that there are times when even I have trouble relating to a character who is my exact opposite in some significant way. Vin in Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, for example, is supposedly this powerful heroine who kicks all kinds of butt. I connected with Sanderson's writing style and read the book till the end, and I was gratified to see the heroine herself strike the deciding blow -- but I've been slow to progress to the sequels, because I dislike it that Vin hates to read. If a character is never shown reading a book because s/he is busy doing other things, that's one thing; it's something else when a character specifically thinks about her hatred of reading, and the author hits this point more than once. Vin's strong antipathy toward reading reveals qualities I'm impatient with in real life: an inability to appreciate the importance of anything beyond one's own direct experience, and a distressing lack of imagination. I have a hard time with characters who are deliberately depicted as unimaginative. I had some issues with another wildly popular character, The Hunger Games's Katniss Everdeen, on these same grounds. Am I quicker to relate to characters who are more like me, or more like I imagine myself to be? Absolutely. Ambitious creative types like Anne Shirley, Francie Nolan, and Jo March always win first place in my affections.

To my mind, however, that's okay. I don't necessarily have to "relate" to a character to see value in her (or his) story. I would rather read about a character with clearly defined traits -- even if I don't admire those traits -- than read about a blank-slate Everygirl.

Issue 2: Thoughts on Current Reads

I've come to the end of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It didn't take me long; the book is short, and smoothly and lyrically written. I have a soft spot for those few books that are about children but aren't necessarily written for children. Neil Gaiman captures beautifully the mindset of a highly imaginative seven-year-old boy, and like most seven-year-old boys we'd know in real life, his imagination frequently veers to some very dark places. This is a fairy tale as they USED to write 'em.

I have friends who would probably shake their heads and say they just don't get it, because this book leaves plenty of questions unanswered. The identity of the four main female characters, for instance -- just what are they? We know they aren't human, and it's pretty clear that Lettie, her mother, and her grandmother are meant to represent the archetypes of Virgin, Mother, and Crone. But the proverbial shoe is never dropped about their specific identity. Through the boy, we "see" Lettie in her natural form, but even that doesn't tell us exactly what she is. Readers who hate loose ends and insist on having every mystery cleared up by the end may not know what to make of this story. I, for one, am just as content for Lettie & co. to remain mysterious.

My next book in that rotation spot -- I just started it today -- is The Book of Night With Moon, another of my wonderfully copious recommendations from my "female Other" board over at FantasyFans. I'm a little over thirty pages in and I'm already very intrigued. I know I'm about to be taken someplace I've never been before, and this offers an exciting adventure in "relatability," the chance to walk in the paws of a black cat.

I wasn't going to buy The ocean at the end of the lane (not a Neil Gaiman fan), but with you being positive about it, and me finding a beautiful hard copy (with unevenly cut pages), well. I figured it was worth a try. I'm looking forward to the female characters!

96: Just be warned -- it's very, very dark. Even though I enjoyed this book's writing, I am still not sure just how I feel about the ending.

97: Oh dear. Ok, well, I've been warned, so it won't take me unawares. I don't think I'm necessarily against darkness, it's just that so far, Gaiman's particular shade of darkness hasn't been my thing.

New Issue: Judging Books by Their Covers

Yes, I'm familiar with the old cliche that we shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but I think we readers would prefer that a book's cover offer a somewhat accurate representation of what we'll find inside the book.

I've decided I will never read a novel by John Ringo.

I don't have anything personal against the guy. I've seen him several times at DragonCon. Many of my friends in the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company are big fans of his, and have been talking up his recent novel, Under a Graveyard Sky. But right now I'm vexed about something that isn't really -- or, at any rate, directly -- his fault.

It's the cover art on certain of his books.

I'm not talking about the "fanservice" elements -- the muscular, scantily clad warrior woman who graces the front of There Will Be Dragons, very obviously designed as a fantasy for male readers rather than a point of identification for female ones, or the well-built woman bulging out of her shirt on the cover of A Hymn Before Battle. What bothers me about these covers is that if you see them at the bookstore and pick up the books and give it a quick, casual leafing through -- which I do when I visit a bricks-and-mortar bookstore -- you will come away with little to no idea which characters these drawings are meant to represent.

The chainmail-wearing warrior woman is the only human figure we see on the cover of There Will Be Dragons. The buxom, gun-toting woman on the cover of A Hymn Before Battle is joined by a male character, but she is foregrounded, he backgrounded. Both of these covers would lead an unsuspecting book browser to expect that a female protagonist, or at least an important "Action Girl" character, inhabits the stories within. But both these stories are very heavily male-driven. In fact, when I thumbed through the last third of A Hymn Before Battle, I found the only time a female pronoun was even used was in reference to an A.I., a character that has no gender beyond what the human (male) characters see fit to designate! There is a female character in There Will Be Dragons, but a supporting player rather than a protagonist, and far from the warrior woman who stares down potential readers from the cover.

I realize that Ringo has little say in what Baen Publishing puts on the covers of his novels. I certainly have no right to blame him for writing Dude Fiction; after all, writers should always play to their strengths. But when the covers lead me to expect a significant female presence and I don't see one, I find myself miffed at Ringo for NOT writing about those women on the covers.

Covers are meant to sell a book, and I can't help wondering what audience Baen is marketing to with these particular covers. Do the male readers of military science fiction really need a buxom, buff babe to catch their interest? It seems to me that a better lure, and a much more accurate representation of the stories, would be ammo or other sci-fi hardware wielded by the sort of tough-looking but brilliant take-charge heroes those readers would enjoy identifying with. And I find it highly unlikely that Baen is hoping that these covers will attract female readers. I can't see any marketing purpose this misrepresentation would serve.

It's simple, publishers: if a book does not include an important female character, please do not put a woman on the cover of said book.

I should mention, to be fair, that Under a Graveyard Sky also has a girl on the cover. But this one is different. First, she looks like a real girl rather than a highly sexualized dream girl. Second, and more important, this character actually does exist in the novel, and I've heard she even gets to kick butt. So maybe I'll relax my ban when this book comes out in paperback. In the meantime, I'll try imagining a picture of a muscular, shirtless man on the cover of the next edition of The Steerswoman.

In the meantime, I'll try imagining a picture of a muscular, shirtless man on the cover of the next edition of The Steerswoman.

Hahaha! How ridiculous that sounds! And I suppose that is your point exactly...

>99 kceccato: I hope you caught Jim Hines "cover poses" blogs/ pics at the time he was running them (during 2012). For anyone that didn't they are all on flickr now http://www.flickr.com/photos/41225422@N00/sets/72157632676570479/. Main premise being the utterly sexist and wonky poses being pulled on a lot of fantasy covers. Jim attempts to contort himself into matching poses and photo-records the results. Possibly a bit NSFW...

101: Hilarious. Bloody hilarious!

Interestingly, Jim's mimicry of the cover art for his own book (The Stepsister Scheme) is the LEAST ridiculous-looking...

Thoughts on Current Reads

Cold Magic:
"I was good at asking questions. Anyway, there was always something I needed to know." I read these words, and I know I am in the presence of a heroine I can like and admire. I appreciate that Cat Barahal is a competent swordswoman and has burgeoning magical abilities, but her intellectual curiosity is, along with her loyalty and moral sense, my favorite aspect of her character.

I'm a little halfway through the book, and I find it very easy to sympathize with Cat in the situation she's currently in. In fact, my heart breaks for her. At this moment she has no one, but no one, on her side except for a mysterious eru (a character I hope to see more of). Her family have basically sentenced her to death. The one person who might still care about her is miles away, and is in need of protection and support rather than in a position to provide it. By contrast, the man intent on killing her has allies aplenty. She's "collateral damage," utterly alone and unloved. Few things win my sympathy quicker than abandonment, undeserved isolation. (This doesn't count those protagonists who have no friends because they flat-out don't deserve any.) Hopefully her fortunes will reverse and she will find loyal friends and a support system. No matter how competent and kick-butt she is, a heroine always needs friends.

I like the way the book is written; I like Cat's narrative voice; I like the world-building, even though sometimes I wish the chunks of alterna-history were interspersed a little better, since those lengthy passages can tire the patience a bit. And Cat herself, as I've said, is a heroine worth following to the end of the story. I sympathize with her in her isolation partly because instead of spending a lot of time whining -- she's more inclined to get angry -- she's thinking about how she can help her cousin, and her own sympathies go out to others whom she perceives as being treated unfairly, including her mortal enemy's treacherous sister. But the one thing I don't like is something that hasn't happened yet, but that I can see coming a few miles down the road:

Ladies of fiction, once a man has made an actual, honest-to-God attempt on your life, he should be OFF THE TABLE as a love interest! Yet it's very clear that this is exactly where Kate Elliot, a writer I otherwise admire, is going. I the reader will be expected to think that the cold mage Andevai can possibly go from being willing to murder Cat as "collateral damage" to falling madly in love with her. REALLY?!?! This strains credibility well past the breaking point. Cat deserves a love interest who will genuinely admire and care for her, not some jerk who will slice her neck and think, "Oh, darn it, she didn't die." Frankly, I'm a bit weary of seeing competent, sympathetic heroines fall in love with arseholes. Just once, I'd like to see a nice guy finish first.

The Book of Night With Moon:
I love a good animal fantasy. Animal fantasies tend to be dismissed more quickly as "children's literature" than any other fantasy subgenre. Some animal fantasies, like Brian Jacques's Redwall novels, are very clearly written with a young target audience in mind, though adults may enjoy them. Others, like Clement-Davies' The Sight and King's The Wild Road and Hearst's Secrets of the Wolves and the touchstone work Watership Down, have children less clearly in mind, and create complex and intriguing animal societies without being driven to anthropomorphize. The Book of Night With Moon, thankfully, takes the latter route, even to the point where sometimes the world-building can be a little much (not unlike Cold Magic). Indeed, Duane's work reminds me a bit of The Wild Road; in both stories, a group of heroic cats must face down a magic-using evildoer of another species, with the well-being of their kind at stake. Yet even though I liked The Wild Road, The Book of Night With Moon is special.

What makes it special? First, Rhiow. Even more so than Cat Barahal, Rhiow is a heroine after my own heart, being both competent and caring, with a strong sense of ethics. She is, without question, a Brave Dame. Second, of all the animal fantasies I've read with the exception of Secrets of the Wolves, this is the only one in which humans are presented in a sympathetic light, as allies and friends rather than one-dimensional destroyers. Only one of the four cat heroes sees humans in the latter light (and he has his own reasons for doing so), and he's clearly shown to be wrong for painting all humans with the same brush. I love that Rhiow is devoted to her human, even though her heart gets broken as a result. Her attempts to communicate with her human -- I love the bit where she misunderstands the phrase "going cold turkey" -- offer some light, humorous touches in a rather serious story. (The tomcat Urruah's love of opera is also a highlight.)

Also, even though it can get a little much in places, I appreciate the clever world-building. Actually, the parts that try my patience are the passages that go into detail about the physics of wizard magic; physics just ain't my thing, and my mind tends to wander a little at the sight of the word "hyperstring." However, the descriptions of feline mythology with its quartet of deities are fascinating to me. Being a fan of Watership Down, I enjoy the infusion of feline vocabulary into Duane's prose, even if I do have to consult the glossary from time to time. I haven't found much to complain about so far. The kitten Arhu gets on my nerves a little bit, but I think he's supposed to.

Thanks for your reflections on the animal fantasies. I have enjoyed a few, most notable Watership Down and Duncton Wood, But it's hard to know what to try next. Now at least I have the opinion of one obviously thoughtful reader.

Thoughts on Current Reads, Part 2:

The Wretched of Muirwood:
It takes some care to build a rotation, to choose books that balance each other. I try to reserve two spots for straight-up fantasies, one for Urban (or Contemporary) Fantasy or Science Fiction or anything else that might be a little difficult for me, and another for Young Adult. The above book, my current YA choice, I would probably never have heard of, if I were not a Goodreads user. It kept turning up on lists devoted to strong or "badass" female characters; it was well reviewed, and not by users whose commentary was of the "Squee! The male lead is sooooo hot!" variety. I could also acquire it cheaply on Kindle -- not a bad way to try out a new author or series.

Will this book join the Harry Potter series, Spindle's End, and Seraphina on my list of YA favorites? Probably not. But my feelings are generally favorable. Goodreads didn't lie; Lia, the protagonist, is a smart and engaging heroine, another of those with a strong moral sense (a characteristic that wins me over every time), moved to help a victim of injustice and driven by an ambition I can certainly sympathize with: to learn to read, in a culture that denies her that privilege because of her social class (not her gender, thank God!). The writing style is bright and descriptive, with a breezy YA-type flow. The world and its theology are well built.

My main complaint: Jeff Wheeler does not use contractions in his dialogue. At all. His characters never utter a won't, don't, can't, or shan't. As a result, the dialogue often sound stilted, and all the characters, regardless of background, sound much the same. So far, only Lia comes across as vivid, since we get her inner monologue, whereas we're forced to rely on the dialogue to learn about the rest.

No, this won't join my pantheon of YA favorites. But I am enjoying it, and I may seek out the sequels.

The King's Peace:
I picked up this one after finishing Pratchett's Snuff. I wanted to read about an Action Girl, and I wanted something dramatically different for this spot on my rotation. Well, I'm certainly getting that. This is one of those "long haul" books, those books I know it will take me a while to finish.

The good news: the world is vivid -- a medieval-military society that is also somewhat gender-egalitarian (for the good guys, at least). The action heroine doesn't stand out as "different from all other women"; female fighters and leaders are a part of the landscape. Sulien, our heroine, gets along well with her male and female comrades.

The bad news: humor is next to nonexistent. The style is heavy and somber, which makes it slower going. It's very hard for me to believe the same author wrote the breezy Tooth and Claw.

The good news: No romance. As I've said often enough, I certainly appreciate romance when it's well done, but it's quite refreshing to see a book with a female protagonist that does NOT revolve around a love story. Even better, Sulien isn't just waiting for the right guy to come along. She's asexual, with no interest at all in the love-and-marriage thing.

The bad news: Sulien's asexuality is presented as an effect of her being raped at the beginning of the story. Asexuality in a man may be a personality quirk unrelated to any past trauma or tragedy, as we see it with Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory. Yet asexuality in a woman, apparently, is pathology, never to be found without some assault or abuse in the background. Fortunately, Sulien is not an angsty type, being too busy moving on to the next battle to stop and whine. But it would be nice to see an asexual female character who has NOT been raped or in some other way abused. Hmm... perhaps something for me to put on my own Writer's To-Do List...

>105 kceccato: For asexual characters without rape-as-backstory, maybe try Sherwood Smith's Banner of the Damned and Tanya Huff's The Fire's Stone? I liked The Fire's Stone, but haven't gotten to Banner yet.

I'll have to check those out. I had to bail on Inda, because the ever-shifting points of view kept me from really getting to know the characters and engaging with them emotionally; however, I suspect that not all of Sherwood Smith's work has that problem, and I would probably prefer her works that are written from a first-person POV, like the one you mention. I also like the idea of a triad of protagonists without a love triangle, as I might find in The Fire's Stone.

I have finished The Wretched of Muirwood. I've had a number of recent experiences in which a book I'd been ambivalent about managed to win me over in the last hundred pages (Soulless leaps to mind). Jeff Wheeler's book gave me the opposite experience: it managed to alienate me in its last two-thirds. Many religious writers manage to incorporate their faith into their work in a creative way; some are so subtle about it that it's hardly even noticeable. When I read their books, I don't feel I'm being preached to. I wish I could say the same about Wheeler's work. The inner monologue became distressingly repetitious, and just when I wondered if I might be able to forgive that fault, the whole thing concluded with a scene that left me seething in rage. I do not think I will be seeking out the sequels.

Oh, well; on my Kindle rotation I've moved on to Elizabeth C. Mock's Shatter. It's too soon for me to post a Thought on Current Reads about it, but so far it's a much better book. Please, oh please don't turn to mush in the last half!

Issue of the Day: What I would say to "freespeechoneeach"

One of my favorite aspects of Facebook is discovering what my wonderfully geeky friends have found in their wanderings across the Internet landscape. A week ago, one of them posted the following article by Neil Gaiman, which I immediately Shared:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-readin...

Since Gaiman is touting the value of fiction and daydreaming and the importance of libraries, I was primed to heed what he had to say; I was on his side before I'd even finished reading the first paragraph. But when curiosity drove me to the Comments below it, I learned (it seems I have to keep learning this same lesson) that storytelling and story-making are far from universal values. While most of the posters supported Gaiman, one poster in particular -- a man (or it could be a woman) who calls himself "freespeechoneeach" -- found Gaiman's praise of fiction offensive, a slap in the face to readers of nonfiction like himself. Moreover, his frequent posts made it abundantly clear that he finds fiction a complete waste of time. His tone was combative, as if he felt threatened. Other posters responded to him in pithy and dismissive ways, and while I appreciated the sentiments, I knew that such responses weren't very likely to inspire our fiction-hater to reconsider his views -- and indeed, as I expected, he only became more combative.

Since then, I've been mulling over what I might have said, if I'd been able to post. Perhaps it's just as well that I didn't post, because frankly, fiction-bashing makes me angry. I don't mean a simple, straightforward preference for nonfiction; I mean an overt hostility that suggests, if not outright states, "I don't read fiction and NEITHER SHOULD YOU!" If I were going to answer the guy in any meaningful way, I would have to put anger aside. I doubt anyone ever really learned anything from being shouted at, and what I really want this man to understand is that fiction and its fans are not a threat.

Here, then, is my open letter to "freespeechoneeach":

First, sir, no sensible person would ever judge you harshly for reading nonfiction. You are entitled to your personal preference. Those of us who are many years out of school need have no fear that anyone will force us to read something against our will; we're free to pursue our own inclinations. Yours is nonfiction. Good. Neither Mr. Gaiman nor anyone else should sneer at you for that.

But when you ask what people get out of reading fiction, I don't believe you're asking rhetorically. You deserve an answer. As a reader of 80% fiction and 20% nonfiction, maybe I can explain.

Fiction and nonfiction both concern themselves with truth, seeking some answer to the mystery of what moves and motivates humankind. When a young man wants to understand what war is like and what soldiers endure both physically and emotionally, he can learn a lot from reading works of military history. But works like The Iliad can also prove enlightening. When I read a history of World War I, I learn facts -- dates, names of people and places, casualty statistics, etc. But when I read All Quiet on the Western Front, I walk in the shoes of the disillusioned and terrified Paul Baumer. For a little while, I, a fortysomething woman from Georgia U.S., see a battered and blown-up world through the eyes of a young German soldier. It's as close as I will ever come to being on a battlefield.

Therein lies the joy of fiction: it invites us to experience the world outside our direct purview, and to connect emotionally with people not like us and places we've never seen and possibly never will see. It also enables us to see about that most impenetrable of barriers, Time. Granted, well-written nonfiction can do this as well -- that nonfiction which focuses on the individual, like a diary or a collection of letters or a biography like Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken. But this only serves to show how much fiction and nonfiction can have in common. Both invite us to think and feel with them. We don't have to choose between them. We can like and appreciate both.

To those who would scorn fiction for religious reasons (which I don't suspect you of, sir), I would point out that Jesus himself told stories. His narratives helped his ideas make sense. The story of the Good Samaritan has value for anyone, Christian or otherwise. It illustrates a principle of charity that crosses religious lines. Does it really matter that there is no verifiable historical evidence that the "Good Samaritan" existed?

The real waste of time is not fiction, or nonfiction for that matter. The real waste of time is the creation of imaginary turf wars between the two, with readers of one side regarding the other as an enemy. We're all readers, right? We're in this together.

Very handsomely put. And how sad that person has locked himself into such a tight little world.

108, 109: I recall a long-ago conversation with a man, a very rational type, attorney by profession, who declared that he never read any fiction because he didn't want to waste his time on stuff that wasn't true. I remember being astonished that an intelligent, well-educated person would have such a wrong-headed view of fiction. I tried to explain to him that truth is more than just literal factuality (as if such a thing were ever really achievable) and that there's plenty of truth in fiction. He didn't understand and acted as though I were trying to get him to believe in unicorns and fairies.

Later he went crazy.

Meredy, that reminds me of the opening lines of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House: “No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."

Or of UKL's wonderful opening, “I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination.”

Very nicely put, Kelley! I was looking for a way to give it a thumbs-up, like a review ;-)

108- Nice. Although, I don't believe for a moment that you could persuade him. Not that you are not persuasive, but his mind sounds as if it is set in cement.

I work with such a man, he floored me when he made a similar statement. He doesn't watch fiction on TV shows, either. He has three boys and I can't imagine having three young boys if you don't "imagine." Anyway, he and his family are doing well, seem to be very happy, and so I don't waste my time trying to convince him of the joys and depths of fiction. :)

While I can't imagine never reading fiction or watching fiction, as someone who reads mostly non-fiction, I did find that article to be a bit condescending towards non-fiction readers. I read a lot of biography/memoir/history type books, books with a good story, but also really happened, and the stuff he talked about can also be found in these types of books.

I agree with you though, turf wars are silly. There are so many AMAZING books out there that we are never going to be able to read them all, so why not just read what we enjoy and let those around us do the same.

"...and Stuff: From the 'It Shouldn't Bother Me, But It Does' Department"

My shelf is stuffed with potentially wonderful books, adventures just waiting to be unlocked. Considering how much lovely stuff I have to read, and how I will never, ever, ever run out of things to read, I wonder sometimes why I bother with other forms of storytelling (television, movies) at all.

If I'm looking for satisfying female roles -- stories that give girls and women cool and exciting stuff to do -- I find no shortage of such in my plentifully stacked bookshelves. But in movies, particularly "genre movies" like fantasy and action-adventure, such characters are so are as to be almost anomalous. Yes, there are bright spots. We have Sandra Bullock's brave dame in "Gravity." We have "Catching Fire" coming out later this year; while I am a little suspicious of this sequel since it has a different director from the first film, the trailer does look promising. And there is an adaptation of The Book Thief coming out as well. But those are small drops in the flood of male-driven movies we see each and every year.

Movies that focus on Superhero Mythology are among the worst. When a superhero movie is actually good, it's tremendous fun. But among the good superhero movies I have seen (big-screen films, that is), only one -- that's right, ONE -- has depicted superheroines in a satisfying light, that one being Pixar's sublime "The Incredibles." Both before and since, Hollywood has found innumerable ways to get it wrong.

First, there are precious few superhero movies that allow women to be super at all. Most women in superhero movies are the Mundane Gals that the Super Guys are in love with and dedicated to protecting. The function of women like Lois Lane and Mary Jane Watson (in the movies, at least) is to be captured by the villain(s) and rescued by the hero; any initiative they might show only results in their being rendered helpless. Even those Mundane Gals who don't actually need rescuing may still spend plenty of time whimpering and cringing on the sidelines while the hero gets things done (e.g. Pepper Potts in "Iron Man 2," though I've been given to understand she's a little bit better in the third film). My favorite of these Mundane Gals is Peggy Carter from "Captain America," who, while not having superpowers, is still quite capable of handling herself in a fight and knows what to do with a gun, and is played by Hayley Atwell as a woman of intelligence and class. Not once does Captain America have to rescue her.

So, where do we see women with superpowers? Quite often, on the side of Evil. In "Man of Steel," the wholesome, mundane Lois contrasts with a Kryptonian super-villainess. In the well-regarded "X-Men: First Class," every single female mutant -- every one of them! -- is either evil or destined to become so. "X-2: X-Men United," which to be fair does have a couple of decent superheroines (it's certainly the most gratifying film of the series in that regard), gives us Deathstrike, who is an interesting case. In a couple of brief scenes, the movie makes it clear that she is less an out-and-out villain than a victim of Magneto's brainwashing; in one tragic bit, she comes back to herself, and her face registers shock, for one split second before Magneto puts her back under his spell. One might think the good guys would feel compassion for her. But no. Wolverine kills her without hesitation, and the movie seems almost to revel in her gruesome death. Evidently a brainwashing victim is worth no more than a super-villainess.

Now, what of the movies (other than "The Incredibles") that actually feature superheroines?

First, we all know that there has never been a good movie with a superheroine as its sole protagonist. "Supergirl"? Sucked. "Catwoman"? Sucked. (She's not actually a heroine anyway.) "Elektra"? Sucked. Hollywood big shots think those movies bombed at the box office because the public won't support a movie with a superheroine protagonist. Bunk. Those movies bombed at the box office because they sucked, end of story. Had some actual talent been assigned to those projects, and some actual care been taken with them, the public might well have embraced them, as we did "Alien" and "Aliens." But we'll never know, and the big shots are sticking to their story. That's why Wonder Woman will never star in her own big-screen film, and why Black Widow will never get her own movie.

So the best superheroines can hope for is to be part of a team, and there, sadly, we find failure more often than success. I will admit that "The Avengers" was pretty good, and the worst thing I can say about Black Widow is that she doesn't have enough screen time. But in "The Fantastic Four" films, Sue Storm is done in by weak writing and by an excruciatingly wooden performance by Jessica Alba. Halle Berry may be an Oscar winner, but as Storm in the "X-Men" films, she is wooden. All I can say regarding Jean Grey is to warn people who don't know any better not to get attached to her. Kitty Pryde is pretty cool in the weak "X-Men 3: The Last Stand," but her screen time is sadly limited (more on her in a minute), and she's set up as a romantic rival to Rogue, a passive drip with an apocalyptic power. Sif in "Thor" could be an awesome superheroine, but sadly, as long as the mundane Jane Foster is still around, she will never be accorded female-lead status. Again, the only movie that truly treats the superheroines as full-fledged co-protagonists is "The Incredibles."

Why is this on my mind? When I expressed my disapproval of the sorry portrayal of female mutants in "X-Men: First Class" (an example of "Woman + Power = Evil" on display), I was told to keep an eye out for "X-Men: Days of Future Past." I'd like this one, I was told. It's based on a comic in which Kitty Pryde, the one bright spot in "The Last Stand", plays a central role. Was Hollywood finally going to attempt another good movie with a superheroine as a major character? I actually got my hopes up.

Then I saw the trailer.
It turns out that in adapting the comic to film, the screenwriters have changed the entire story, so that the role Kitty/Shadowcat played in the comic is now played by Wolverine. Ellen Page, who plays Kitty, only appears in one shot; meanwhile, we see plenty of Mystique and another mutant villainess called Blink. Professor X and Wolverine dominate the trailer, clearly the only Good Guys who matter.
Those blasted Hollywood big shots are so convinced that the public isn't ready for a movie centering on a superheroine that they will take away a woman's leading role in a comic and give it to a man to play in the film.

So I won't be bothering with "X-Men: Days of Future Past."

The trailer for "Captain America: The Winter Soldier," however, looks a lot more promising. Maybe it will offer another bright spot for women in action-adventure films.

115> Are you a mind reader? Because I've been thinking much of the same. It's gotten to the point where my sister will groan whenever a superhero movie comes up, because she knows that I'm going to start complaining about women's roles in them.

Seriously, why does the Black Widow not have a movie? All the other Avengers except for Hawk got their own movie. Heck, they should have done a movie for Black Widow and Hawk. From what they have told us in the Avengers it sounds like there's a half decent story there.

Speaking of The Avengers, there's an artist who did a recreation of the movie poster placing all the male Avengers in the same sort of pose that the Black Widow was in. It's hilarious.

I think of all of the Marvel Avenger series, Thor is my favorite. Not only does it have the best plot and the best characterized villain, it also has more than the one mandatory love interest when it comes to female characters. You've got Jane Foster (Designated Love Interest), Sif (Ally/Buddy), Darcy Lewis (Comic Relief), and Frigga (Mother). Usually the only roles female characters fill in superhero movies are DLI and Mother, and maybe villain's pretty assistant who never really does anything. Thor at least puts women in two roles usually filled by men. I realized this midway through Man of Steel, which was a complete waste of time on all fronts.

I really liked The Dark Night Rises, in a large part because of Anne Hathaway as Catwoman - a truly wonderful performance. I also liked that the secret mastermind villain turned out to be Miranda. While she was the villain and thus evil, I don't think I've seen a superhero movie where the evil master mind is female. Normally the role of female villains is to look pretty and hand things to the male mastermind.

>115 kceccato:,116 Thor was the only one of the Marvel movies that did anything for me- it struck precisely the balance of humor, light drama, and explosions I go looking for with superheroes.

I was terribly disappointed to see that the second Thor movie has a different writer, and Jane and Sif are now going to be reduced to romantic rivals over Thor. Ugh.

(I noticed looking this up that Thor is the only movie of "Phase One" to have a woman as part of screenplay writing staff... Hmm.)

I really didn't get The Avengers at all, though sometimes I feel that I am probably the only person in the world that didn't. The pacing seemed so off to me and the event that got the team together seemed really cheap and manipulative. Also, I found Loki's characterization way out of left field from how he was established in Thor- as if the entire backstory of his family issues and so on was thrown out to make him Flat Evil McMegalomaniac Who Is Going To Destroy Things Because.

(Then again, I also didn't get The Incredibles either. Its themes really, really bugged me. "If everybody's special, then no one is!" indeed. SPOILERS.

The villain wants to make everyone superheroes, so that superheroes aren't special any more! Wait, that's not actually evil- quick, give him a backstory so he's out for revenge! I know, we'll have him annoy the main character with his devices, which are clearly inferior to inborn superpowers! Wait... people who want to do good even without naturally occurring superpowers is still not evil- in fact, it's almost kind of more heroic! I know, make him incompetent! And say he wants to sell the devices! Oh, and have him kidnap the baby!

Phew, now our heroes can kill him without feeling guilty, and the status quo is safe so only the chosen elite will be special- in fact, now everybody will realize how special they are and how superior they are to people without superpowers and worship them again- yay! Take that, egalitarianism!

Okay, done ranting.)

For the X-Men, I would tentatively recommend the 90s cartoon, which I watched as a child rather than any of the live action movies- Storm, Jean Grey, Rouge, and Jubilee all have large roles.

The third X-Men live action movie was bogglingly terrible- for example, the part when SPOILER Cyclops died and evidently nobody noticed or cared for the rest of the movie? I mean, I don't like Cyclops either, I think he's kind of a jerk, but that's pretty harsh, isn't it?

117> Jane and Sif are now going to be reduced to romantic rivals over Thor.

What! Oh, no! I was actually looking forward to seeing Thor II. Now, not so much...

>118 pwaites: That's what I've heard! :( I was looking forward to it as well.

Also, Sif's armor is now "sexier," and for some reason Jane is in armor now? See here. So much for her being a scientist. I guess we're back to having the one true way to "strong female character" be fighting, and also women are rivals because men. Or something.

The related link on that page "Joss Whedon rewrote problem scenes in Thor: The Dark World" doesn't fill me with hope either- I liked parts of Buffy well enough, but Whedon's characters just seem flat to me. (The SHIELD TV show was pretty terrible- I didn't watch beyond the first two episodes.)

119: I don't think Jane will do any fighting. She'll just wear the armor because it ostensibly "looks cool" -- like the princess in "Jack the Giant Slayer," a "Faux Action Girl" as TV Tropes would have it. When I watched "Thor," I liked Jane better than I was expecting to, and at least she wasn't specifically captured and menaced by the villains; she was "in distress" along with the rest of the world. But I still preferred Sif, and I'm disheartened to learn she'll be transformed into a catty quasi-villainess in the sequel. Because the woman who can really kick butt has to be bad news, don't you know.

117: Television has always done better by superheroines than feature films -- but then, for the most part, television has done better by women in general than feature films. There seems to be a wider scope of roles for women on TV than there does in film. "Justice League," "Justice League Unlimited," and even "Young Justice" were fun shows, cancelled far too soon. All three shows gave female characters their chance to be super, and to be in the limelight. I'll have to see about Netflixing the '90s X-Men.

If Hollywood wants me to stop complaining about this kind of thing, they could do so easily: make a big screen adaptation of Daniel O'Malley's The Rook, and actually put their best talent on it so that said adaptation actually has a chance of being good.

My frustration with the paucity of worthwhile women's roles in today's movies (ironically enough, I feel women's roles were actually better in the pre-feminist cinema of the '30s and '40s, when actresses like Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn could open a film) sometimes reaches such a peak that I throw up my hands and cry that I have had enough -- enough! -- of current cinema and I'll henceforth restrict my movie viewing to Turner Classic Movies and my pre-existing DVD collection. But the fact is, I just can't give up hope that things will change for the better. I love movies. They're not an alternative to reading, my first love; they're a supplement. Movies tell stories, and I can't wash my hands of any medium that could deliver my fiction fix.

Things won't get better, however, until Hollywood big shots decide to take risks on more and better female-centric stories. They could find interesting women from history (e.g. World War II heroine Irena Sedler, 19th century English explorer Isabella Bird, 19th century Native American writer and activist Zitkala Sa) and commit their stories to film. They could also find good books worthy of being turned into good movies.

Here's my list of "Books that could be turned into movies if Hollywood wants to do better by women":

Daniel O'Malley, The Rook (as I've already mentioned)
Juliet Mariller, Daughter of the Forest, Son of the Shadows, Child of the Prophecy, Wolfskin
Mercedes Lackey, The Serpent's Shadow, Phoenix and Ashes, The Wizard of London
Sharon Shinn, the Twelve Houses series
Rosemary Kirstein, The Steerswoman
Glenda Larke, The Aware
Rachel Hartman, Seraphina
Amy Thomson, The Color of Distance
Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Andrea K. Host, Stained Glass Monsters
Robin McKinley, The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown, Spindle's End
Patricia C. Wrede, The Raven Ring, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
Alice Hoffman, The Foretelling
Marissa Meyer, Cinder
Barbara Hambly, The Ladies of Mandrigyn, The Witches of Wenshar (I really need to pick up the third volume in this trilogy soon)
Patricia McKillip, Alphabet of Thorn, The Sorceress and the Cygnet, The Cygnet and the Firebird (haven't read this one yet, but am almost positive it's good), Winter Rose
Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls
Elizabeth Bear, Range of Ghosts
Tara K. Harper, Wolfwalker
C.J. Cherryh, The Pride of Chanur, The Morgaine Cycle

Okay, I'm going to stop now. But there are many more I could name. I've talked about a fair number of these titles in this blog already, but I felt like it might be visually satisfying to see them all listed here, and to think how very much a movie buff like me would have to look forward to, if only worthwhile adaptations of these books would appear on the cinematic horizon. I'm not all that keen on the upcoming Divergent, as it seems too much like an attempt to copy The Hunger Games and its vision of a dystopian future looks a little silly to me (a society that segregates people based on their virtues? and where the intelligent people, the Erudite, are the villains? Somehow that doesn't hit my sweet spot...). But oh, if these books could go before the cameras!

Of course, there's also the fear that filmmakers would screw them up completely...

>121 kceccato: I come bearing at least some good news: the Morgaine books have been optioned for film, earlier this year: see here. The screenplay for Gate of Ivrel is written as of that article, but I've heard nothing about further progress.

I hope it makes it to the screen, and I would love to see the rest of the titles you mentioned as well. McKillip's especially would be lovely to see the visual imagery on screen.

Katharine Hepburn movies will never go out of style, however. :)

121: Nice list, also for book recommendations! I've just started Daughter of the forest, so I'm glad it's on your list! Also added The aware on my wishlist (and found you on GR in the process...)

If I really like a book, I'm a bit worried to see it become a movie, by the way. Even if it is a good movie, I'm afraid the images from the movie will overwrite my own, and from then on, whenever I read the book, I'll have the actors' and actresses' faces in my mind. And then there's the risk that they screw it up...

123: Sometimes, though rarely, it actually works. The 1962 film of To Kill a Mockingbird is often considered the Gold Standard for cinematic adaptations of fine novels. (Harper Lee herself thought very highly of it.) I really don't mind seeing Gregory Peck's face and hearing his voice when I think of Atticus Finch. But I can see how even a good adaptation could compromise a reader's ability to conjure the images and sounds for herself.

122: Good to hear about The Morgaine Cycle! I'm curious who they'll get to play the title role. Even though she doesn't have the book character's coloring, somehow I'm imagining someone like Cate Blanchett...

I've read about 100 pages in Daughter of the forest now, and it seems quite good. I really like Sorcha, but I did come across this remark:
I have never been prone to the weaker characteristics of a woman (when Simon threatens Sorcha and she pretends to faint)
It made me realize that so far, Sorcha is the only interesting woman, and that the only other one that has been mentioned, Eilis, is the embroidery type, clearly portrayed as uninteresting. I hope she'll be shown to have more depth, if she is shown at all... Or that some other woman is shown in a sympathetic light.

Another remark that annoyed me:
You bruise too easily,' he said indistinctly. 'I didn't mean to hurt you.'
This after Simon has gripped her arm so hard that she has bruises. Ok, this boy clearly has all kinds of issues from being tortured and in enemy lands. So perhaps it can be forgiven, I just don't like the reasoning. YOU bruise too easily. Right. She hardly bruises all on her own, now does she?

So far these are small peeves, though. The rest is really good, and I like the bond between Sorcha and her brothers.

125: A lot of Marillier's "heroes" start off too misogynistic and learn better as they go along.

What I love about Marillier's heroines is that they all tend to be creative in some way. Some (most, in fact) can tell stories; some can play music; some can wield magic; even one I don't like all that much -- Creidhe, from Foxmask -- is an artist with embroidery. They aren't the types who scorn all things "girly." And I find her style enormously lyrical and readable, although I'll own I've found the more recent Sevenwaters books (Heir to Sevenwaters, Seer of Sevenwaters) a bit disappointing.

But I do have my own issues with Marillier, and those issues have become more apparent as I've read further in her work. The first Sevenwaters Trilogy had me lost in its spell, and so did Wolfskin, but as I've read further I've found myself growing more critical.

First, while it's nice to see strong heroines who see the value in "girly" things, it's troubling that none of her heroines is a tomboy. The Warrior Aspect only shows itself in supporting female characters, and often those characters -- e.g. Tali in Shadowfell, Ferada in The Bridei Chronicles -- are written as unsympathetic. The good heroine, the true heroine, is always more traditional.

Second, all Marillier's heroines are tiny. The tall women, like the warrior women -- well, they ARE the warrior women -- play those supporting, unsympathetic roles mentioned above. But the men are all big and strong, so we get lots of "Huge Guy, Tiny Girl."

Third, if you want to find the most thoroughly evil woman in a Marillier work, look for the woman who doesn't want children. If a halfway decent woman expresses reservations about motherhood, just wait a while, and she'll realize how misguided she is and will decide motherhood really is the Best Thing Ever. But the evil women don't change their minds. They remain non-maternal. The nastiest example of this is Breda from The Well of Shades; there's a touch of anti-birth-control screed in this one. Speaking as a woman who realized long ago that she lacked the mothering instinct (and let it be known here and now that to lack the mothering instinct does NOT mean to hate children!), I find these portrayals especially troubling.

There are plenty of delights to be found in the first Sevenwaters Trilogy. But forewarned is forearmed.

>126 kceccato: It seems like it's difficult sometimes to find works with sympathetic women on both the "traditionally feminine" and warrior sides...

Speaking of "big and strong men," however, I was pleasantly surprised in Jovah's Angel that it was pointed out that scholarly Alleya, being an angel, is much physically stronger than her human love interest Caleb because all angels are stronger than all humans. (She is, in fact, able to carry people three times his size if necessary- Caleb is still taller than she is, however.) Caleb remarks on this, but does not have an insecure-masculinity-driven violent temper tantrum about it or anything- I love the way Shinn's characters actually approach relationships like rational adult human beings in the works of hers I've read.

Also, the "women who don't want children are eeeevil" trope and its younger, more shrill brother "women who don't like children are EEEEEeeeEEeeeVIL" can go jump off a cliff. In fact, the entire "you can tell people are EEeeevil when they don't possess 'supposedly instinctive sex-linked trait X'" clone army can all follow them, like trope lemmings, and I hope there are spikes at the bottom.

127: I actually think Shinn's Twelve Houses series does an admirable job of showing sympathetic women on both sides of that "tomboy"/"girly girl" dichotomy. We have characters like Senneth and Wen on the more "warrior woman" side, and characters like Kirra and Ellynor on the "traditionally feminine" side, and all these women, with their varying strengths, are painted in an admirable light. All their strengths are needed, and with their differences these women forge strong bonds of friendship.

This is one of the main reasons that during the past year or so, Shinn has vaulted over Marillier on my "favorite fantasy writers" scale, with Barbara Hambly and Patricia McKillip coming up fast.

I really need to get my hands on that Archangel series.

Despite its flaws -- well, despite the love story -- Cold Magic deserves a little credit as well, for presenting both the more "masculine" Cat and the more traditionally feminine Bee as strong and complex characters. The love and loyalty between Cat and Bee is far more moving than that problematic romance.

128: Those Twelve Houses sound interesting!
127: Agreed on the 'women who don't want children are evil' view. I don't remember coming across it, fortunately. A bit disappointing that Marillier displays this view...

129: It's not really on the table in Daughter of the Forest. We see it mostly in the Bridei Chronicles, in the characters of the "misguided" Ferada -- who eventually changes her mind about marriage and family -- and the despicable Breda, whose unwillingness to "mommy up" is portrayed as one of the things that makes her evil. In Seer of Sevenwaters, we see the protagonist torn between her gift as a Druid and her growing inclination toward marriage and motherhood; inevitably, a compromise must be found, because marriage and motherhood are the destiny of all Good Women.

The problem is worse in Marillier's later work, which is why I'm still very fond of the original Sevenwater Trilogy even though I have some issues with the books that followed.

130: Well, at least I will be able to read the first Sevenwater trilogy in peace then. I'll see after that. Daughter of the forest is a bit dangerous, I notice. It tends to delay my bedtime...

Issue of the Day: Books I Will Never Read, and Why (Part 1)

Do you have to read a book to hate it? Nearly all those whose opinions I respect would say Yes, you need at least to have tried to read it; if it becomes too horrible, too infuriating, you can lay it aside, and then you will have at least some experience with which to back up your points when you talk about how much you hate it. Only through direct experience can a book truly and honestly earn one's hatred.

So I can't say I exactly hate the books I'm going to talk about here. I can only express my gratitude to LT, Goodreads, and other sites that are as useful for telling me what I should avoid as for telling me what I should read.

1. Twilight et. seq.:
There's very little I can say about Stephenie Meyer's insanely popular series of books that you haven't heard a thousand times before, so I won't go into too much detail about it. But I can remember the first time I ever became aware of the series. It was at DragonCon, at least four years ago, at a panel in the Young Adult Fantasy Track called "Girls Rule!" As is obvious, the panel was devoted to a discussion of competent, proactive heroines -- but one of the panelists brought up Bella Swan as a counter-example, and tried to explain her growing popularity. The key to the character's success, she pointed out, lies in her very featurelessness; because she is so blank, so vacant, so devoid of any tangible virtue that might make her an actual character, ANY teenage girl regardless of personality can step into Bella's shoes and learn the secret of life the book seems to be selling: that a true sense of accomplishment and self-worth comes not from becoming someone amazing and doing amazing things, but from being loved by someone amazing and leaving all the doing-of-amazing-things to him. All the while she was speaking, I was telling myself, "I am never, never, never going to read this book." Nothing I've heard since then has changed my mind.

2. The Host:
Ms. Meyer wrote it. If the reviews are anything to judge by, apparently passive drips are Meyer's specialty; a proactive heroine is a concept she can't quite wrap her mind around.

3. Hush, Hush:
Substitute "hunky fallen angel" for "hunky vampire," and "Nora" for "Bella," and reportedly, you will have this book. Once again the heroine is deliberately created to be Nobody Special, and once again stalkerish behavior is rewarded with love and devotion. Goodreads reviews can reveal a lot, particularly if you click on the links to the ones "hidden because of spoilers": apparently Patch is even more dangerous than Edward, in that he actually intends to turn this Ordinary High School Girl (TM) into a human sacrifice -- hardly my idea of a romantic hero, yet a fair share of reviewers squee about its "hotness." I shake my head in despair at what must pass for romance in the minds of the girls who write these reviews.

4. Tiger's Curse et. seq.:
Another Twilight clone, incredibly popular with its target audience. In her Author's Blurb, Colleen Houck specifically cites Stephenie Meyer as a major influence. Nothing to see here; I'm moving on.

5. Enclave:
Most of the Books I Will Never Read have one thing in common: horrible heroines. However, they aren't always horrible in the same ways. While Hush, Hush and Tiger's Curse are blatant Twilight clones, with their supernatural heroes and Nobody-Special heroines, Enclave follows in the footsteps of a very different and much better series: The Hunger Games. This one might have intrigued me, but the reviews give me serious pause. While Katniss Everdeen has a heart big enough to care for her sister and to befriend her competitor Rue, Deuce of Enclave joins the ranks of "kick-butt heroines" whose distinguishing feature is a strong belief in their superiority to every other female on the planet.

I'll explain: you leave your underground environment and meet two new people. One is the leader of a rape gang, and the other is his victim. Which one do you choose to befriend? If you say, "The rapist!" then, well, you're Deuce. While she admires the rapist for his superior fighting skills, she views his victim with open contempt, even going so far as to reflect that the poor girl ought not to have survived her abuse! I'm not making this up; it's a paraphrase of a direct quote from the book. When I read that, I conceived an instant, strong dislike for this "heroine" and decided not to further my acquaintance with her. Ann Aguirre is reportedly a very good writer, so I might try one of her other works at some point. But never this one.

6: Divergent:
With this one, my problem isn't the heroine. I didn't get a very strong impression of Tris from the synopsis or the reviews I read. Instead, I sensed a poorly crafted dystopia. The most successful dystopias are dark futures that a reader could actually imagine coming to pass, because the writers take some recognizable feature of our current society and exaggerate it into nightmarish proportions. When I read Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron," for example, or Fahrenheit 451, I tremble because the seed for these potential futures is in the soil of the world around us. But when I read about the society Veronica Roth imagines, in which citizens are segregated and have their lives determined by a single Virtue, it strikes me as a little silly. First, I've never gotten the strong impression that our society compels young people to choose whether they will be exclusively Brave, exclusively Kind, or exclusively Smart; for all that may be wrong with our world today, most people would agree that a good balance between those qualities is both healthy and conducive to success, so I don't really see the seed for Roth's future in the soil of the present. Second, I don't see how a society built on those rules could actually survive! Most professions and social roles require some balance between kindness, courage, and intelligence; building up one and dismissing the others is a recipe for failure. Third, where do the villains come from? The intelligence caste, the Erudite. Riiiight. Because a dose of anti-intellectualism is just what YA readers need.

These are just a few; I don't doubt the list will grow. But I'll come up with something more positive for my next extended entry, I promise.

very interesting descriptions of the books you won't read. As a children's librarian I felt I had to read the first of the Twilight books to know what the fuss was about. Now I know and now I can tell the girls about more interesting heroines, so they can learn for themselves why Bella isn't a heroine

>132 kceccato: If not for the vast difference in popularity and therefore influence on the type of subsequent works published, I would find what you've said about Enclave strikes me as worse than what I know about Twilight- Bella may be a terrible role model because of her passivity, but Deuce sounds like an actively terrible person in her story...

As for books I will never read, personally, I've come across several books while browsing recently where the blurb focused on a male main character (okay) and his wife, who is dead, therefore angst. Sometimes there's a dead daughter as well, for additional manly pain! The combination of tortured guy + dead women is almost a surefire way to guarantee I don't bother picking up a book.

Apparently the worldbuilding behind the Divergent books is explained in the third book; it seems it was set up so illogically for a reason. I'm unlikely ever to read them myself though as I can't stand the prose style in which they are written (first person present tense).

134: Here is the exact quote from Enclave, taken from a review of the book here on LT:

"Part of me hated him for what he'd let the other Wolves do to Tegan, but the Huntress half of me wondered why she hadn't fought until she died. I admired his ruthless skill with those blades that seemed an extension of his hand."

So the rapist is worthy of respect and admiration, but it's a shame his victim isn't dead. A statement like that is a dealbreaker for me; I feel like I wouldn't be able to spend an hour reading from the perspective of a character who thinks like that without needing a bath afterwards. The only hope I have concerning these books is that the victim, Tegan, might find some friendship, might find a person who will admire and respect her for the survivor she is and who will take HER side, unlike the book's heartless beyotch of a "heroine."

Among the many, many levels on which that quote is so wrong: it's a hard slap in the face to those of us who hope to see supportive friendships between female characters -- especially those of us who think it might be nice to see a touch of mutual respect between a "tomboy" and a "girly-girl" character.

135: My biggest beef with Divergent is the anti-intellectualism -- those who are chosen to cultivate the virtue of Intelligence are the bad guys. How can someone who both reads and writes BOOKS adopt such an attitude?

136: That quote from Enclave is just... words fail me. I shall have to resort to sounds of disgust, instead. Eugh!

136> When the book club I'm in read Divergent, one of the questions that came up was which fraction we'd chose. I said Erudite. Hey, even if they're evil, they have books.

138: excellent thinking, pwaites!

138: Thumbs up from me, too.

Advice needed:

Library Thing says I can't have more than two hundred books in my library without being charged for it. I have nearly that many now. I have made a ritual of adding each new book I read to my library as soon as I finish it, and some days ago when I looked through my Recommendations, I found a number of books I'd already read but hadn't bothered to add to my library. So I added them -- and went to the limit. I had to delete some books to make room.

So, what should I do about my library to keep it under two hundred books? My ideas so far:

1. Since the books in my library are the mechanisms through which Recommendations are generated, I should delete the books from my library that I do NOT want read-alikes for. This means my library would fluctuate, depending on what I'm interested in reading at the moment.

2. I should delete everything lower than three stars. Perhaps, since most of the books I read get four stars at least, I should delete everything lower than four stars.

3. I should confine my list to books I've read during the last five years, with a few exceptions made for favorite, life-changing books.

The trouble is that whichever of these courses I adopt, my library won't really paint an accurate picture of my reading history and inclinations.

Any suggestions?

In Other News, here is my Goodreads review for The King's Peace, which I just finished yesterday evening:

"I will agree with the reviewers who say that the novel's treatment of rape is problematic -- first, because while it's refreshing to spend time with a female protagonist who has absolutely no interest in sex, it's regrettable to see her asexuality portrayed as a pathology (result of rape) rather than a personality trait; second, because generally rapists don't "learn better" and redeem themselves. This I disliked. In addition, the writing style took a lot of getting used to. The prose is dry almost to the point of being academic, and it made for slow reading. It's hard for me to believe this was written by the author of the breezy Tooth and Claw.

All that being said, by the end I was glad I'd taken the trouble with it. I found Sulien a protagonist well worth getting to know, a woman with a strong sense of honor and integrity. I loved seeing the world and the other characters in it through her eyes. I also appreciated the abundance of both male and female characters playing a variety of female roles. Unlike a lot of warrior women who stride through the pages of today's fantasy novels, Sulien doesn't hold "girly girls" in contempt; she respects the very girly Queen Elenn, for instance. I suspect that Sulien would get along quite well with Starhawk, another favorite heroine of mine (The Ladies of Mandrigyn et. seq.)."

141> I went ahead and payed the $25 dollars for life several years ago. I haven't regretted it - $25 dollars is about what I'd pay for a new hardback, and I use Librarything much more.

That being said, if you're not willing to pay for it, I would suggest option number 2. I've found that automatic recommendations are less accurate than ones that I receive from the talk threads. Keeping the books you like (4 stars and above) might help if other people are looking to see what you've read and liked in order to give recommendations.

Hi--as you're in the States, I think there's no limit to how little you have to pay for a lifetime membership.

Under "Accounts" (see the "More" tab) it says:

LibraryThing is free up to 200 books. After that we ask for $10 (year) or $25 (lifetime). In fact, you can pay us whatever you want.

So, unless you don't want to pay anything on principle, even a dollar would do it.

Hope this helps.

143: Are you sure? Of course you can pay whatever you like, but it only says you get something back if you pay either $10 or $25 (or more, I presume).

I also payed the $25 and haven't regretted it. I like LT a lot and I like to have my books listed here (particularly important if you participate in SantaThing, which I do and love). Recommendations I mostly get from the talk in groups, I agree with pwaites on that. So if you prefer not to pay, I think you should consider for what purpose you want to have book listed here. Based on that, you pick your books.

The policy isn't to advertise this too loudly, but it's come up in Talk before that once you get to the payment stage you'll see the option to enter any sum you like (as long as you're in the US, no lower limit--and no upper limit anywhere, of course).

For instance, see timspalding (owner of the site):

http://www.librarything.com/topic/156018#4176668

I'd also remind people that LibraryThing membership is paid, but you can pay what you want. I think if we stopped people at 200 who were perfectly willing to pay, we'd find a lot more people paying $1.

141 - Hopefully you won't have to worry about it much longer, but I'm not sure how gifting a membership works. Let me know if you don't see a difference in your account in a few days and I'll talk to Tim or one of his minions.

Thanks, guys! I have a pretty good idea of what to do now.

Issue of the Day: Thoughts on Current Reads

If anyone still assumes that female authors, by virtue of being female, automatically write better female characters than male authors do, the contrast between two of my current reads, Daniel O'Malley's The Rook and Alison Sinclair's Darkborn, should put that assumption to rest for good.

First of all, The Rook is just a darn good book. It has a witty, engaging style, and the female protagonist's voice is as distinct and vivid as anything written in first person. It has a compelling plot and idea: an organization of meta-human spies try to right supernatural wrongs without the public at large catching on to their existence. Think "X-Men working for the British Secret Service." The titular Rook has a power similar to Rogue's in X-Men, but unlike the movies' wimpette version of Rogue, Myfanwy Thomas (have to love that name) is no passive whiner. She's a figure of authority! An amnesiac who must inhabit the identity she has lost, she quickly learns her way around and earns a measure of respect that her former self never quite managed to gain.

O'Malley's book also succeeds on multiple levels from a feminist standpoint. First, I'm over halfway in and have yet to run across anything resembling a possible love interest. Finding romance is not what Myfanwy's life is about. Her priority is to figure out what the right thing is and then to figure out how to do it. Rather than itching to get rid of her powers, she seeks to understand them. (Her former self, by contrast, was afraid of her powers.) Furthermore, so far all Myfanwy's important relationships are with women: her secretary, whose opinion she values; her sister, whom she has never met till now but toward whom she is instinctively drawn; and her new best friend, Shantay, an African-American X-Woman whose flesh and skin can turn to metal. Shantay is so awesome that I'd dearly love O'Malley to write another book with her as the protagonist. No Highlander Syndrome here. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of any male author other than Pratchett who places such a satisfying emphasis on female friendships.

Recommended to me on FantasyFans in my "Help me learn to like Urban Fantasy" thread, The Rook is what I wish more urban fantasies were -- namely, fresh rather than formulaic. What do I want? More like this. Thankfully I've heard O'Malley intends this to be the first of a series. Pretty please, Mr. O'Malley, give Shantay her own book.

Now, on to Darkborn. This is the sort of traditional/historical fantasy I would normally enjoy more. Instead I find myself enjoying it less, though to be fair, at least I am enjoying it. It paints a fascinating picture of a landscape and society where light is poison. Also, here again we manage to avoid Highlander Syndrome. I've met several interesting women as I've read. My problems are twofold: first, none of these interesting women are friends with each other -- if you're looking for a book about female friendship, don't look here -- and second, Sinclair has chosen to take one of them that I like least and turn her into the protagonist, when I would so much rather be following the adventures of one of the others. I have yet to come to like or admire the protagonist, Telmaine. She hasn't a tenth of the wit, heart, and gumption of a Myfanwy Thomas. Maybe if I weren't reading The Rook at the same time, I wouldn't find her quite so wanting.

Granted -- again, trying to be fair -- Telmaine does not have the advantages Myfanwy enjoys, of having been raised in a reasonably gender-equitable society. Yet Telmaine is a product of her society in the worst possible way: she's a bigot. She has magic, but she, like her society, thinks mages are eeeevil -- unless, of course, they happen to be hunky men who will fall in love with her. Female mages? Kill 'em all! (Never mind that she is one.) Her "I just wanna be normal" shtick is understandable but still annoying. It would be less so, if she had some impressive qualities other than the magic she's so ashamed of. But without her magic, she's just an upper-class woman who looks good in clothes. She certainly does not have the kind of sparkling personality that would justify two different men falling in love with her (slight shades of Bella Swan). The only thing I can say to her credit is that at least she loves her two daughters -- which is almost surprising, given her general animosity towards other women, but then, her daughters are extensions of herself.

Her small-heartedness when it comes to other women is my least favorite aspect of her character. She has exactly one female friend, an airhead in the Ivy Hisselpenny (Soulless) mold. Yet she denies any scrap of friendship or respect to her brave and gentle healer sister-in-law, Olivede. She also actively loathes her husband's only good female friend, the Lightborn woman of action Floria White-Hand, despite the fact that Floria has saved her husband's life; indeed, she actually seems to loathe Floria all the more BECAUSE she saved her husband's life. It never dawns on her narrow little mind that both Olivede and Floria are much kinder, stronger, and more interesting women than she is, and she could do far worse than to profit by their example. Because one of Telmaine's main purposes in life is to be admired by men, other women are not important to her. They are rivals, not friends.

I'm still interested in Darkborn, because of the world and the situation. But I wish I didn't spend quite so much time longing to backhand Telmaine. Still, I am only halfway through the first book, so the situation may change. What I want is for her to start showing signs of a large heart, one that can feel compassion and can grow beyond the narrow confines of her own family and that hunky Other Man. If, by the end of the third book, Shadowborn, she has come to feel some measure of friendship for Olivede, I will be able to say with satisfaction that my journey with her was worth it. After all, she wouldn't be the first protagonist I've changed my mind about.

The Rook looks really good. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy.

I liked The Rook well enough, but couldn't give it more than three and a half stars. Its shortcomings were rather too pronounced to ignore. I documented some examples here:
http://www.librarything.com/work/11459047/reviews/98763241
One of the disappointments is that the engaging character Shantay disappears for such a large portion of the book.

However, like others, I will be watching for a sequel.

150: Sheesh, I'm sorry to hear that!

Oh, well. The reactions I posted are based on being almost exactly halfway through with each of these books. Once I've read them to the end, my feelings may be quite different. Some books take me by pleasant surprise in their last third. Others disappoint. I'll just have to see what happens with these two.

In other news, here's a Goodreads review of another book I've finished, my Kindle rotation item, Shatter by Elizabeth C. Mock.

"Flying low under the radar, this is a surprisingly good book, with a world into which I was immediately drawn, and a diverse, complex and intriguing set of characters. Not all my questions are answered. I want to know more, for instance, about who the Brethren are and exactly what their goals/beliefs are and why their path must be paved with blood. I appreciate that all the major characters are approaching the threat from a different place, and while most of them are sympathetically drawn, they can't always (or even often) understand one another.

I'm certainly eager to read the next volume in the series, but I do have a concern about my favorite character. I notice that a lot of reviewers single out Jair as their favorite, and I do agree he's one of the more endearing figures in the novel, and probably my second favorite. But my softest spot is for Sheridan. At this point, she's a likable woman with a wicked sense of humor, a strong sense of justice, and a heart that reaches out with compassion to the people around her who hurt. Her belief in abstract justice does not render her blind or indifferent to the concerns of individuals close to her, in sharp contrast to her inflexible and unpleasant twin sister, Eve. My concern is that she might not stay that way. Among the characters around her, so far only Kade seems to appreciate that she has an identity separate and distinct from Eve's. Moreover, Mireya's prophecy very clearly lumps her together with the untrustworthy Eve. I really want to go on liking Sheridan as I read the sequels. I don't spoiler-tag because I don't have any idea what the sequels hold, but if she undergoes a Face Heel Turn later on and becomes a bad guy, that would be a dealbreaker for me.

Fingers crossed... "

Isn't that one of the more disagreeable things that can happen -- when a character you like and admire suddenly morphs into a jerk? I find I actually welcome Spoilers just so I can avoid books where that's likely to happen.

Out of curiosity, have you read any of limyaael's fantasy rants?

Here's an excerpt from one where she's complaining about relationships in fantasy:

"I wouldn't have such a problem with authors pairing up characters if the pairing mechanisms were equally gender-blind. They’re not. Almost every major female character who appears onstage in a typical fantasy novel, and a good number of the minor ones, is shoved into a romantic relationship by the end. Some male characters will escape, especially if they’re older, have already had a lost love, or made a mistake at some point in the story. But gods forbid that any woman be alone and happy at the end of the story (the one exception is the Other Woman who’s a bitter, jealous bitch, doesn't deserve the hero, and is usually portrayed as crying or raging while the hero and heroine walk off arm-in-arm).

Stop it, you stupid people. If this is a world not our own, with its own means of gender relationships, then not every woman should snap into the modern Western mindset of “A woman can’t be successful without a romantic relationship!” Even if it is based on Western culture, such as if it’s alternate history, not every woman’s life revolves around choosing a romantic partner. Why shouldn't saving the world, practicing an art, or recovering from psychological wounds be more important to her than, or just as important to her as, who she sleeps with? This is something not enough fantasy authors ask themselves."

From - http://limyaael.livejournal.com/345153.html

153: I have to admit I'm just as guilty as anyone, in my own writing. All of my heroines, so far, have fallen in love and have been loved in turn. Instead of shunning romantic plots, I try to get them right.

Everybody needs to be loved, and when a female protagonist is awesome, love and appreciation should be her reward. However, what books like The King's Peace and The Rook make clear is that love and appreciation do not always have to take the form of heterosexual romance. King Urdo loves his loyal knight Sulien, though not in a romantic way; Sulien also wins the love and appreciation of her comrades in arms. A touching scene that I just finished reading in The Rook reveals how much secretary Ingrid cares for her female boss. Ordinarily, mundanes surrounded by superpowered people are not my favorite characters, but I love Ingrid. And I know that as long as she's around, Myfanwy won't be alone at the end of her story. To be truly and utterly alone -- to be isolated and unloved -- IS a tragic fate that no worthy hero or heroine deserves. But companionship does not automatically mean romantic love. The Aware and The Steerswoman are two more books which end with the heroines walking off arm in arm with female friends.

But since such examples are rare -- while "bromances" are a lot more frequent -- the rant is well-taken. I wish I could cure myself of my own romantic tendencies when I cobble a story together. The next two novels my imagination has planned also feature romantic plots; if I think of removing those plots, the whole thing unravels. But one day I am determined to write a story in which THE central relationship is a non-romantic one.

154> I'm trying to write something right now where the central relationship is between two sisters, but I have no idea where I'll go with it.

Thoughts on Current Reads:
This will be mostly positive. I am actively reveling in the complete lack of Highlander Syndrome in the five books in my current rotation.

The Rook and Darkborn I have already discussed at some length. I still find the former book delightful even though I am disappointed that Shantay has left the stage, and the latter book is growing on me, though I'm still a little impatient with Telmaine.

The movie/TV buff in me is having fun creating impossible casts for both these books. The images in my head, after all, could come from any period, so it's just fine for me to imagine Telmaine as a young Vivien Leigh (looking much as she looked in 1941's "That Hamilton Woman") and her husband Baltasar as Michael Fassbender. I know many of my friends have issues with Jenna-Louise Coleman on "Doctor Who" (though I think those issues are more about the way her character is written than about the actress's performance), but Coleman is the perfect image of Myfanwy Thomas: short, pretty, with pluck to spare. Shantay is Gina Torres (Firefly); Ingrid is Cate Blanchett. And Lady Farrier is the oh-so-dignified and icy Gladys Cooper from 1942's "Now, Voyager."

Other books I'm enjoying:

Bronwyn's Bane:
The image of the warrior woman on the cover prompted me to pick this up once I had finished The King's Peace, as I was interested in reading about other heroines of the Warrior Aspect. But the image is not quite accurate. Bronwyn is an adolescent, not a grown woman, so her adventures have a different feel from what I'd expected. It's quite a distinct departure from Walton's novel; The King's Peace is fantasy-history, solemnly told, while Bronwyn's Bane is a light-hearted romp.

So far I'm finding much to like in this book. First, it has a clever comic conceit: the Princess Bronwyn was cursed at birth to be a liar (that's her "bane"), so every word she speaks is a departure from the truth, and it's rather fun to discover what she's really thinking and feeling behind the veil of false words. Bronwyn herself is a bluff, brash, basically good-hearted character determined to live the life of a warrior princess; she's also quite big, over six feet tall at the age of twelve, so she counteracts the usual "giantesses are evil" supposition. I like her. I also like Carole, her magical musical cousin, and the haughty, mouthy black swan, Anastasia (actually an enchanted princess, with a very strong sense of entitlement), and Jack the sneaky, cowardly gypsy who nonetheless has a soft spot for Bronwyn. Jack, by the way, is this story's "token male"; thus far, every, and I do mean EVERY other important character is female, thus reversing the gender population of countless other fantasy novels.

It has its flaws. Most notably, while the characters are enjoyable, they are not painted with a great deal of psychological depth; while I enjoy watching them confront the various challenges thrown at them during their quest, I don't really worry about any of them getting hurt. Comic fantasy novels CAN paint characters with depth and complexity (see Terry Pratchett's best Discworld novels for examples of this), so it's not simply an effect of the genre. Still, it's a fun read. On a side note, I'm reading about two different characters named "Bronwyn" at the same time, the other being Myfanwy's sister in The Rook. What are the odds of that happening?

Running out of time, and I don't want to give the other books short shrift by rushing through my reactions to them. So I'll have to cut this short. Next up: Sorcery and Cecelia.

Thoughts on Current Reads, Part 2

Sorcery and Cecelia:
Usually I have only four books in my rotation; this is a fifth. I picked it up for a practical reason. I'm starting a brand new writing project, and thought it might be interesting to try an epistolary style, so I sought out a book written in epistolary style for inspiration. (The only others I know about in the "spec fic" genre are Dracula and Freedom and Necessity.) I'd heard quite a lot of good things about Sorcery and Cecelia, so I can't really say I'm too surprised at how quickly I got into it. After only one reading, I'm nearly halfway through it -- but then, considering how short the book is, that isn't saying much.

My reaction so far: I like it much better than the similarly set A Matter of Magic. I had a hard time warming up to Kim in the previous duology, but Cecelia won me over almost immediately. This time around, I can appreciate fully the world Wrede and Steverner have created, so much like our own and yet not. I also enjoy how they capture the mental and verbal language of the young ladies of the period. It's certainly reminiscent of Austen, yet it's its own thing.

I will own up to liking Cecelia better than Kate. Cecelia strikes me as a little bit less conventional, brainier, more curious. Understanding that she's up against a magical foe, and also knowing that magic is best fought with magic, she sets out to teach herself. She takes initiative. Kate, by contrast, seems a bit more reactive than active -- too much for my taste. But my preference for Cecelia may actually be less Kate's fault than that of her obvious love interest, Thomas. I know that if an otherwise intelligent character makes a stupid move, those close to her/him may be justified in crying out, "You idiot!" But "half-wit" is not, and should never be thought, a term of endearment. I can't see any girl with a shred of pride or self-respect losing her heart to a man who calls her, repeatedly, "My dear half-wit." Not only does this make me strongly dislike Thomas, but it makes me impatient with Kate, as I'm ready for a scene NOW in which she will impress him with her intelligence, and I'm worried that scene may never come. At least Cecelia's obvious love interest doesn't insult her intelligence and think it's charming and cute.

Draykon:
This is my current Kindle read. I have less of a feel for it than I do for the others; I'm still new to Kindle reading, and while I do like it, I think my paperbacks have a stronger effect on me. Oh, well, I need to get used to it. One advantage that Kindle has is that I can experiment with works that "look cool" without having to pay a lot of money for them. "Indie books" are available cheaply on Kindle, and if they turn out not to be any good, at least the experiment didn't cost me much.

Like the others I'm reading now, this work avoids Highlander Syndrome, giving us two heroines, each of whom has some important relationships with other women. I particularly like the relationship the ingenue heroine, Llandry, has with her mother; mother/daughter closeness is quite rare in fantasy for some reason, even in books where Highlander Syndrome is not in evidence. I also appreciate the contrast between Llandry and the older, more sophisticated heroine, Eva. Both are interesting; both have an intriguing conflict to confront. At this point they have not become friends. They know each other, and while they're not hostile, their plots are running parallel, intersecting only very briefly. This may change, or it may not. (One distinct disadvantage of a Kindle is that I can't "flip ahead" to get fleeting glimpses of what's coming up next. This has to be one of the top five reasons that Kindle will never make paperbacks obsolete.) I'm still looking forward to seeing how each will handle the emerging menace.

One issue that is both good and bad: English creates a completely alien world. Sometimes I find it cool; other times I frown a little. It's cool, for example, that some humanoids in the society she creates have wings. Llandry is winged. She and her people make their homes in trees. This is the fascinating part. Yet in this world, there are no creatures called "horses," "dogs," "cats," "hawks," or "ferrets." Some of the creatures English describes seem to resemble them, but she invents alien names for them that I can't quite remember. When Robin McKinley did this in The Hero and the Crown, using the name "yerig" for a creature obviously meant to be a dog, it didn't bug me. Yet here I find it just a little... distancing. Still, I'm not very far into the book. I'm much closer to the ends of all the others in my rotation.

So that's what's been going on with me, reading-wise.

Books I'm planning to explore next:

The Cygnet and the Firebird (after Bronwyn's Bane)
Spirits That Walk In Shadow (after The Rook)
Kushiel's Dart (after Darkborn)
I have not decided what my next Kindle work will be.

Cool, Kushiel's dart! I'm curious to hear how you'll like it!

I've finished The Rook. I can see where Meredy is coming from in #150; it is true that Shantay, one of the more fascinating supporting characters, vanishes from the scene and doesn't reappear till the very end. The book is not without its flaws. But I still found Myfanwy Thomas delightful company, and liked the book a lot.

I'm posting something I brought over from FantasyFans, "Male Authors, Awesome Female Characters":

In my recent wanderings around Goodreads I've found another author to avoid: John C. Wright. Wright has made an attempt at a female protagonist in the series beginning with Orphans of Chaos, but after reading the reviews and then looking at his blog, I wonder whether he decided to use a female protagonist because someone challenged him to do so. Quite a few reviews of this first book, even otherwise positive ones, talk about the "skeevy" relationships between the genders, centering their complaints on the "strong" heroine who evidently finds the prospect of being dominated a turn-on. The superpowered female protagonist supposedly spends the latter portion of the book in chains.

One of his blogs I read was entitled, "Saving Science Fiction from Strong Female Characters." To be fair, I did find in it a decent point or two: he's not far off base when he says it's a mistake for writers to make their heroines "strong" by making them act as much like men (or, as much like men are perceived to act) as possible. Some of the characters he cites as strong in ways that please him, I find strong as well. (He has good things to say about the titular heroine of Hayao Miyazaki's "Nausicaa and the Valley of Wind," for instance.) Yet the article as a whole is a tract of gender essentialism; when I read parts of it, I found myself thinking of John Ruskin's "Of Queen's Gardens," a well-known bit of gender essentialism from the Victorian Era. So much is said about how "Men" and "Women" think and act in the plural, while only occasional lip service is paid to the fact that men and women vary, and don't always share the same aspirations, interests, and abilities. The article also includes a defense of the "damsel in distress" trope. Women, he argues, enjoy the fantasy of being rescued by the Hero because we admire strength in men, and this is why it never gets old when Superman rescues Lois (or, gag me, when Edward rescues Bella). But if a heroine has to rescue the male lead, Wright goes on to say, we may find ourselves wondering if the man is even worth saving.

I don't think I'll be checking out Orphans of Chaos anytime soon.

(end of transferred post)

I bring Wright up, even though I have no intention of reading his work and so he will have little or no effect on my life, because his blog in particular got me thinking about exactly what "gender essentialism" is, and what's wrong with it. (He's a raging homophobe, too, the reviewers point out.) When we think too much, and too often, about "Men" and "Women" in the Vast Plural, it hampers our understanding of them as individuals. It makes it impossible to think of them in non-stereotypical terms. Stereotypes, even positive ones, disregard variation, and it's in variation -- in our understanding of ourselves as unique individuals -- that we are truly free.

I also want to take Wright to task for another blog of his, which completely misses the point of the Bechdel Test. But that will have to wait for another post.

I really enjoyed The Rook. Fun and with a cool female lead.

>159 kceccato: I'm of the opinion that a positive stereotype is like a comfortable straitjacket- its purpose is still very much to confine a person.

I hadn't known of Wright's homophobia, but it often goes hand in hand with the type of hardline gender essentialism I saw in that post so I'm not really surprised.

Between the modern-day setting and the "thriller" subgenre The Rook sounds like it's really not my thing, but I think I'll give it a try anyways the next time I'm in the mood for something a little different.

#161 by sandstone78> I can't think of The Rook as a thriller. Not at all. More urban fantasy.

>162 majkia: Hm, interesting- I kept seeing "supernatural thriller" and "spy thriller" pop up in reviews and the promotional copy. Maybe they were just using the term in a broader sense of fast-paced and action-driven or something like that?

163: I agree with majkia, it is urban fantasy. It may have some spy and thriller elements, but it is fantasy first and foremost. It sounds to me that whoever used those words either never read fantasy before, or was just trying to attract a particular audience.

Genre-wise, I think of The Rook as something like an X-Men graphic novel in prose, with a good dash of James Bond-style espionage thrown in (though that comparison may be misplaced, since there's no sex in this novel). It has its brutal and disturbing moments, to be sure, but when I hear the word "thriller," I tend to think of something a bit more cynical than this. Not to get too Spoileriffic, but the novel ends on a hopeful note -- always a plus with me.

In terms of the modern/contemporary setting, it probably would have put me off, had I not been resolved to try a little urban fantasy and see if I could acquire a taste for it. So far I have read exactly two non-YA urban fantasies that I have unequivocally enjoyed: this one and The War for the Oaks. Both were easier sells than most UF, for different reasons. I was predisposed to like Emma Bull's novel because its protagonist is a female musician, and I enjoy reading (and writing) about female musicians. (I quit piano lessons when I was twelve -- one of the worst mistakes I ever made.) The Rook is set in London. London is a city that interests me, and it's far enough removed from me to give me just a bit of that wonderful sense of escape that draws me to more traditional fantasy.

In other Current Reading news:

Telmaine in Darkborn has finally started to grow on me. A heart-pounding action scene with her as the heroine will have that effect. She's still not quite a woman after my own heart like Myfanwy, Starhawk, or Cat Barahal, but she may get there yet. One of the things I appreciate about this novel is that the protagonists are not hot young twentysomethings; Telmaine is a married woman with children. All too often, we get the sense that a woman just stops having adventures once she becomes a wife and mother. Telmaine is just getting started.

Bronwyn's Bane is still enjoyable, but I would be very circumspect about picking it up if I were especially sensitive to questionable depictions of non-white cultures. The setting has branched off into a pseudo-Middle Eastern territory, where the characters speak and act in keeping with Middle Eastern stereotypes. I'm too engaged by Bronwyn, Carole, and Jack to let it put me off completely, but it does bring a slight sour taste to my mouth.

Sorcery and Cecelia: I still prefer Cecy to Kate, but having read further, I'm less inclined to blame Kate herself for that preference. I'm just not a big fan of romantic plots where a slightly older and more experienced man adopts a patronizing attitude toward an awkward and innocent girl and we're expected to find this attitude "charming" or even "swoonworthy" (an adjective I've read applied to Thomas in Goodreads reviews). I still maintain that "my dear half-wit" is not an acceptable "endearment." If anyone called me that repeatedly, I'd have as little to do with him as possible. Still, Kate is showing signs of becoming more capable and less vaporish. Maybe she has some surprises in store for me.

I think I may expand my rotation permanently to include five books rather than four. I know this means it will take me longer to finish them, but there are just so MANY books I want to read!

Issue of the Day: Completely Missing the Point

John C. Wright, evidently determined to cast feminism and feminists in the worst possible light, posted a blog this past Sunday in which he set out to prove the worthlessness of the Bechdel Test. In case anyone does not know -- though I expect most of my regular readers DO know -- the Bechdel Test poses the following questions about a book or movie or TV show: 1) Are there at least two women in the cast, with significant roles? 2) Do they interact? 3) When they interact, do they talk about something other than a man? Psychologist Allison Bechdel meant to call attention to how few works created in this post-feminist era actually meet these criteria. She wanted to show how women continue to be under-represented in fiction despite the strides we have made in real life.

The argument Wright uses to prove the test is worthless only serves to prove how gravely he does not get the point. It basically consists of a very long list of literary touchstones from the classic and modern eras that fail the test. Examples: The Iliad. The Odyssey. The Hebrew Bible. Tom Sawyer. Treasure Island. Moby Dick. Pride and Prejudice. Passing the Bechdel Test, he asserts, does not make a book inherently more worth reading.

So, Pride and Prejudice may come as a bit of a surprise (although I suspect a very careful reading would reveal the book actually does pass the test, despite the women's preoccupation with men and marriage, in keeping with the time period from which they come). But Tom Sawyer? Treasure Island? Moby Dick? Sheesh, is Wright telling us anything we don't already know? These books fail the Bechdel Test. Duh! His mistake is that he believes that the Bechdel Test is meant to call into question the quality and value of these works. He doesn't seem to realize that the test was never intended to determine the worth of an individual work. If it were, it would indeed be useless.

Many excellent works of literature fail the test for practical reasons. First, only a fool would judge the attitudes and values of works of the past by the standards of the present. To expect a book that takes place aboard a nineteenth-century New England whaling ship to pass the test borders on the absurd. Nor would opportunities for deep conversation between women be likely to crop up in a piece of ancient military fiction (The Iliad) or in an adventure saga of a soldier returning home (The Odyssey). Through most of history, the world of War has been the world of men. If the Bechdel Test were meant to determine a book's worth, then a powerful novel like All Quiet on the Western Front (which I need to re-read soon) would have no value at all. At least 98% of realistic military fiction would be worthy of dismissal. As far as I'm aware, no one has ever asserted this, nor ever would.

Second, books with male protagonists where a strict third-person limited or first-person point of view is adhered to would obviously be less likely to pass the test. The unrelated-to-men conversation between women would have to take place in the male protagonist's hearing, and from a purely narrative standpoint, that could be awkward. If we're going by the letter of the law, then the Harry Potter series fails, despite the presence of some interesting and competent female characters, because the conversations between them that take place in his presence usually revolve around him, as we might expect. But here we do run up against a question about the test itself. The letter of the law says the work fails if the two women are talking about men/a man. But it seems to me that it should only fail if the conversation involves a love interest. If two sisters talk about their father or brother, should the work still fail? When Minerva McGonagall and Dolores Umbridge discuss whether Harry Potter should be trained as an Auror, should the work still fail? But I've wandered from the point. If a man is a story's central character and the work is told almost exclusively from his point of view, the story probably (though not always) will fail the Bechdel Test. Does that mean the story is less worth telling? No. And again, it's not likely that anyone would ever say that. The Bechdel Test is NOT around to tell us that we should stop telling stories about men.

It should be abundantly clear that the test is no indicator of a work's quality. Why, then, do we use it? Why bother with the test at all? Wright's answer would be simple: we shouldn't. It might not be so easy for someone who has never had to worry about being under-represented to understand why representation is a concern, or to understand why it should gladden my heart to read a good book that passes with flying colors.

Women make up half the human race. In fiction, our population is far more sparse -- largely because writers continue to think in very limited terms about what female lead characters can do, and what kinds of stories/plots they can feature in. In fiction, men can do darn near anything. They can save the day by arguing a case in court, solving a crime, machine-gunning a bad guy, discovering the cure for a disease, outwitting a physically stronger opponent, confronting the alien invaders... the possibilities are endless. But what do we see female protagonists doing, again and again and again? Falling in love. Being rescued, then standing by and watching while HE saves the day. An article published in TV Guide in the late 1980s, entitled "Does TV Shortchange Teenage Girls?" encapsulates the problem, though admittedly we have seen some improvement since then; when asked about the scarcity of roles for girls on TV, one producer explained that a girl's coming of age is less interesting than a boy's because "only one thing happens when a girl grows up: she tries to be pretty so boys will like her."

What the Bechdel Test offers is hope that girls' and women's roles can move beyond those narrow confines. To use it as a measure for literature of the past is not the best idea (although a number of older works, including Jane Eyre and Antigone, do pass; one commenter to Wright's blog pointed out that the Hebrew Bible actually passes, thanks to Ruth's well-known "whither thou goest" dialogue with Naomi). It is, instead, a guide and suggestion for writers of the present, to expand the possibilities for female characters, to envision them in all sorts of plots -- to give girl and women readers, as well as characters, wider and more varied landscapes to travel. We're not All Alike. We don't all dream the same dreams. Why, then, should we be homogenized in fiction?

In terms of quality, the challenge now is for writers to create for girls some stories that can rival the likes of Treasure Island and Huckleberry Finn. Surely it could be done.

I hope this makes some sense.

I still maintain that "my dear half-wit" is not an acceptable "endearment."

Made me laugh. Unbelievable...

Bechdel test

Always the same misunderstandings. (Don't these people ever check to see whether there have been replies to their "brilliant" criticisms? Do they seriously believe that such shallow approach can produce original arguments?)

Applied to a single work the test isn't predictive of any literary quality or "feminist" charge--so, whatever, blessed Homer fails, "Sex and the city" passes. In any single instance the test merely suggests whether there is any probability that the representation and treatment of women in it may be comparable to that of men--i.e. 1) are there ANY roles for women in the work 2) significant enough that the characters get "billing" (names) 3) and contact with other women that's not directly subservient to some male interest.

As you say, it is a guide--not a calculator of some ideal value.

And it really shows its strengths applied statistically--what a pitifully small proportion of popular entertainment passes even this lowest of bars, loosest of standards for female representation.

>166 kceccato:: Excellent post. You always express yourself so articulately and thoughtfully.

I'm glad you are enjoying Darkborn and starting to warm up to Telmaine. I liked that she struggles to overcome her prejudices and inhibitions; it felt more realistic than a character who is immediately able to shed all her upbringing and social mores in an instant. Although I wanted to shake her sometimes, I could appreciate how difficult it is to cast aside attitudes which have become so ingrained.

166, 168: I agree with Sakerfalcon, Telmaine is not exactly perfect to begin with, but she improves. And I can sort of see how she came by her prejudices. Sure, she could have handled things differently, but hey, couldn't we all? I'm glad she's starting to grow on you, kceccato!

I've finished Darkborn, everyone. Here is my Goodreads review:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/684905070

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here is my Goodreads review for Sorcery and Cecelia:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/548618654

And my review for Bronwyn's Bane:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/764250000

I've been putting my mind to a question sandstone78 raised in her blog thread, regarding the qualities of "swoon-worthiness" and why we tend to see those characteristics in male characters far more than female. I think one of the crosses we have to bear is "Betty and Veronica Syndrome," the contrast between the spunky, earnest, true-hearted girl and her mysterious, exotic, often but not always shallow rival. The qualities we might think of as "swoon-worthy" in a male hero -- style, sophistication, polish, a graceful sort of swagger that comes from confidence -- tend to be assigned to the Veronica, not to the Betty. Admirable qualities in a hero become suspicious in a heroine. For a classic literary example, we may look at Fanny Price vs. Mary Crawford in Austen's Mansfield Park. The sparkling, witty woman is untrustworthy and cold of heart; the shy, awkward woman is worthy of love. The problem is that, as one critic stated (I wish I could remember which), "Nobody falls in love with Fanny Price" -- "nobody," as in, "no reader."

I can draw upon my love of old movies for another example: the 1948 musical "Easter Parade," starring Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, and Ann Miller. Miller is Astaire's original dance partner, and she's elegant, statuesque, sophisticated, confident. But we learn very early on that she's not heroine material when she walks out on Astaire (who's in love with her) for purely selfish reasons. He takes it upon himself to train Garland as a replacement, and when he tries to make her over in Miller's image, to turn her into that graceful sophisticate, she's a dismal failure. Only when she's allowed to be her plucky, eager, fresh-faced self does she succeed both in show biz and in love. Of course we want Garland to win; she's likable, good-hearted, sincere. But I can't help wondering why Miller's qualities -- that sophistication, that style -- should almost invariably be assigned to villainesses, or at best to the woman the hero must eventually abandon in favor of some more self-effacing, down-to-earth type. (Miller must be the Veronica of the MGM Musical, as she played this same character in "Small-Town Girl," this time losing the hero to winsome, earnest Jane Powell.) Can't a woman have that elegant veneer and still be true of heart? As long as writers keep painting sophistication/style and sincerity as mutually exclusive, I doubt we'll see more "swoon-worthy" types of heroines.

I am not very far into Kushiel's Dart, but I have some hopes that Phedre might be that type of heroine: stylish, witty, elegant, yet intrinsically decent. I'll have to read further and see.

That brings me to Draykon, my Kindle Read of the moment. This one is interesting to examine in the light of Betty and Veronica Syndrome, because it has two female protagonists. One is shy, awkward, diminutive, a little out of her depth -- a Betty. The other is confident, graceful, tall, sure of herself, a bit of a flirt -- a Veronica. The Ingenue and the Adventuress. So far, so cliched, right? But what I like about this one is that BOTH women are depicted sympathetically. Each woman has her own adventure; each one is shown to be worthy of rooting interest. Regrettably, the two adventures run parallel; I'm over 70% finished, and only once have the two women interacted. The book isn't about their friendship. On the other hand, the women can and do have relationships with other women. The Ingenue has an interesting and refreshingly un-hostile relationship with her mother, while the Adventuress is fighting to avenge a female friend. I'm interested in both their stories, and unlike in Sorcery and Cecelia, I don't have a marked preference for one over the other. It's also refreshing that they are not rivals for the affections of the same man. They both just might turn out winners in the game of love.

>171 kceccato: Very interesting. I hadn't made the connection between those characteristics and the tendency of "the other woman" to possess them, but of course- demonization and erasure are two sides of the same coin, aren't they.

I've given Draykon a download, it looks interesting. Moira Katson's Shadowborn seems like it might be similar with two different girls working together, though I've not read more than a couple of chapters yet.

Kushiel's Dart is definitely on my list for next year.

Here's my Goodreads review of Draykon:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/586552936

I know much of what I say in these Goodreads reviews, I've already said here, but I post them to indicate my final views of books I've just finished. Be warned, anyone who ventures here: this book ends with a big-time cliffhanger. Much of the time, when I finish the first book in a series, I can wait a little while before moving on to the second. But I expect that any reader who enjoys this first volume will want to get to the sequel pretty darn quickly.

Next in my Kindle Reads is Scriber, another story featuring an imposing warrior woman as heroine. So far -- and I'm only 10% in -- she's wonderful, but I loathe the way she's treated (regarded with scorn, a little like Brienne of A Song of Ice and Fire) by just about everyone except her soldiers, including the story's male protagonist. However, I've a pretty strong impression that I'm NOT supposed to sympathize with his views at this point. It's very early. I'm intrigued.

My strongest impression of Kushiel's Dart so far is that the world building is excellent. I'm still in the process of developing an impression of Phedre, but then, Phedre is still in the process of growing up and developing her identity, so this is to be expected. This is an 800-plus pager, a Long Haul book. Right now (just under 100 pages in) I've little to no idea where it's going, but the smooth, vivid style and that long list of characters in the frontespiece make me eager to see events and characterizations unfold. One caveat: I'm not necessarily drawn to stories with quite as much sex as this one promises to have. I'm interested to see just how I will respond.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone: Oh, the supernatural super-hunk, intrigued by the ordinary girl, following her... please tell me this isn't another "Twilight" clone!... oh, wait... it's not. Even if Karou were as "ordinary" as first thought, she's already shown a hundred times more personality than the general run of Bella Swan types. She's an artist. She has hobbies and interests. She has a female best friend who actually seems to matter to her (hope this continues). So I want to see what happens to her, supernatural super-hunk notwithstanding. My impression is also that Taylor is a very good writer, a strong stylist. Her Dreamdark books are on my shelves, waiting to be read.

Now I need to start The Cygnet and the Firebird.

Based on your review, I'm going to download Draykon for my kindle!

I'm reading Tooth and claw at the moment, which I'm sure has been recommended to you, and which you might already have read. All the characters are dragons in a Trollope-esque society, acting out a comedy of manners. I love it.

174: Yes, that's one I've read. I agree it is delightful. So many dragons, and not a single whiff of Highlander Syndrome; plus it fits right in with my old interest in nineteenth-century British literature. It's one of those books that "must have been put together in a lab to be enjoyed by me" (taken from a remark I heard on All Songs Considered; it fits so well here). I'm glad you're enjoying it too.

Started The Cygnet and the Firebird last night. McKillip's style is like poetry in prose -- sometimes a bit tricky to follow, but oh so gorgeous.

Coming soon in this space: "New Authors I Resolve to Try in 2014."

173: I agree with you on the worldbuilding of Kushiel's dart, it's really good. I hope the sex scenes won't disturb you. For me, they were an integral part of the story, and I thought it was tastefully done.

176: I think that when we read, we learn as much about ourselves and our own personal mores and taboos as we do about distant climes and other people.

"Authors I Resolve to Try in 2014"

Note: This list is not complete, and is constructed along the lines of how many books I can generally read in a year, in my rotation. It certainly doesn't represent ALL the new authors whose works have intrigued me and have been recommended to me. I've had to prioritize, and my priorities have been known to shift. Of course the new authors will have to mix in with my well-loved favorites. In a few months I will return to this list and consider which promises I've managed to keep and which ones I've let lapse.

Connie Willis -- with special attention to Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog, the latter of which I found at a used bookstore the day after Thanksgiving. I've heard little but good things about her, and time travel and the interaction between people from different time periods, with different values, fascinate me.

Nina Kiriki Hoffman -- This is part of my "trying to acquire a taste for Urban Fantasy" program. Spirits That Walk in Shadow is on my shelf, waiting to be read.

Simon R. Green -- I'm particularly interested in trying his Hawk & Fisher series; I've heard it compared to Violette Malan's Dhulyn and Parno series, which I thoroughly enjoy. I like reading about "battle couples."

Octavia Butler -- My earlier attempt to read her, Fledgling, did not go all that well, but I want to try again, perhaps with Wild Seed or Kindred.

Mark Anthony -- Beyond the Pale is high in my TBR pile. Once I've read it, I'll know whether I need to devote myself to hunting down the sequels.

Scott Lynch -- because I like his attitude. His defense of his female pirate captain in Red Seas Under Red Skies gladdened my heart, a welcome contrast to the likes of John C. Wright and Mike Resnick.

Cornelia Funke -- because my life could always use a little well-written, magical YA. I'm specifically interested in Reckless and Dragon Rider due to recommendations in other threads.

Jonathan Stroud -- yet more well-written, magical YA.

Kage Baker -- She has written both sci-fi (In the Garden of Iden) and fantasy (The Anvil of the World) that intrigue me.

Max Gladstone -- As I've said elsewhere, I like to read male writers who write effectively from the perspective of female protagonists and/or female leads, and Three Parts Dead sounds like it would fit the bill.

Joseph Robert Lewis -- see above.

Terry Goodkind -- I'm of a mind to try at least one wildly popular long-running series of books, and I know Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time ain't it. I might also give David Eddings a look-see in the near future.

Melanie Rawn -- Exiles (Ruins of Ambrai) looks like it might be a good "long haul" book. I understand it presents its matriarchy in a better light than matriarchies are typically presented.

This should keep me busy for a while, particularly as I mix in books by authors I already know and love; I have a lot of Sharon Shinn (the Samaria series, Wrapt in Crystal, Heart of Gold), Patricia McKillip (The Bards of Bone Plain, The Riddle-Master of Hed), Brandon Sanderson (The Way of Kings) and Barbara Hambly to catch up on.

I'll be interested to see what you think of Connie Willis. I'm of the minority opinion, I guess.

>177 kceccato: Looks like a good selection there! I keep meaning to try Connie Willis, but haven't gotten around to it, so I'll be curious to know what you think! Three Parts Dead is on my reading list for next year too.

I read my first two Octavia Butlers this year, Wild Seed and Mind of My Mind, and found them fascinating yet uncomfortable reads. They are very heavy, though, so I have to space them out. I definitely plan to continue with Clay's Ark next year.

I've not read Spirits that Walk In Shadow, but I've really enjoyed certain of Hoffman's other books- I really like her writing, but I feel like her books have a tendency to just stop rather than fully ending, I always want more. My sister is a big fan of her work, though.

Anthony also writes under the name Galen Beckett, and though it's not in your library I believe I've heard you mention that you've read The Magicians and Mrs. Quent? I liked Beyond the Pale much better than that book in pretty much every way- it was a more typical fantasy, but I liked all of the characters.

As a warning, Exiles is part of a trilogy that has not been completed and seems likely never to be completed (the second book came out in 1998) if that sort of thing bothers you.

I'm also curious how you'll like Goodkind if you go for it- I read them ages and ages ago but I don't think I could do so now with the way that all of the female characters fall for the hero (especially ones who aren't supposed to get involved with men ever) and the villains are over the top evil (and also communists). I didn't even get to Faith of the Fallen, the one with the Ayn Randian rants.

179: The Magicians and Mrs. Quent was one of the books I edited out of my library when I wanted to keep it under two hundred titles. The next time the opportunity emerges, I may just pay up. The site is worth it. I also expect that I will like Beyond the Pale better. The Galen Beckett work had a little too much Highlander Syndrome (and waaaay too much Sashie Garritt) for my liking.

>180 kceccato: kceccato, your account shows as lifetime to me so you should be able to add more than 200 books- perhaps somebody gifted you a membership? MrsLee at post 146?

My problem was Eldyn Garritt rather than Sashie- I found her reactions not unreasonable given her background and upbringing (except for the whole romance with the bandit thing- yeah), but he was painfully naïve and ignorant. I've not yet read the sequels, though. Beyond the Pale does have female friendship between main character Grace and a noblewoman, as well as a wizard-type female character that travels with Travis- all of them interesting.

180, 181: I loved Mrs. Quent and the trees, but I must agree with you about Sashie and Eldyn. Made me wish that storyline wasn't in there at all... Both of them annoyed me immensely.

177> For Cornelia Funke, you should really look into Inkheart. It is set in this world (which I know isn't your preference), but I don't feel that it would be classified as urban fantasy - the book takes place mainly in the country, and it lakes the grittiness that I associate with the genre. The entire trilogy is really an ode to the love of reading. There's also a lot about father-daughter relationships.

The main character, Meggie, is the daughter of a bookbinder and a voracious reader. Of the other female characters, her great-aunt Elinor is the most important. She's a collector of rare books, and her library has come to dominate her entire house.

146, 181:
Mrs. Lee: Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

183: I actually won one of the Inkheart books in a give-away at a DragonCon panel. I understand they did a piss-poor job of adapting it to film (a movie I'm quite grateful I never saw), but it is on my To-Read list -- just not as high as Reckless. The latter book has that female Other element that draws me almost without fail.

I wonder how many decent books have gone un-read because their movie adaptations reeked. I've had people tell me that Paolini's Eragon books are actually good (though I've had just as many people tell me they're dreadful), yet even with my affection for dragons, I can't see myself ever reading them because I sat through that putrid film.

Thoughts on Current Reads:

I'm further into Kushiel's Dart, and more convinced as I go along that this will NOT be a fast read. It's very thickly detailed, and such books take more time. This is not a bad thing.

I do have one niddly-piddly little problem, though. It isn't the often brutal sexual situations in which the heroine finds herself; I accept those as part of the plot and part of her character. It's that after 220 pages, Phedre is the only sympathetic female character. The household in which she lives is male-only, and all the people with whom she has any strong emotional bond are male (Delaunay, Alcuin, Hyacinthe). The only woman to show her any kindness is Cecilie, a madam (although the ladies of the evening in this novel are less like modern-day prostitutes than like the Companions in TV's "Firefly"); I object not to Cecilie's being a madam, but rather to the smallness of her role, the fact that she has such comparatively little impact on Phedre's life. While we see almost nothing of her, evil women play a large role and are evidently going to play an even larger one.

That's another thing: the depiction of the evil women smacks a little too much of "God Save Us From the Queen." All the women with any real authority are portrayed as evil: Melisande, Lyonette, Solaine, and of course the deceased Princess Isabel. I can't quite foresee how Isabel's daughter Ysandre will turn out, but I have a squirmy feeling that she'll turn out to be her mother's daughter in more than mere name -- another evil woman with power.

So, to my friends who are familiar with this series: does this picture change? Does Phedre remain the only female character we can like and admire? Will she eventually form any meaningful friendships with other women? I do not mind one bit being Spoiled on this point.

>184 kceccato:: SPOILER ALERT!! (for those who don't want to be spoiled) I seem to remember that Ysandre and Phedre do develop a good relationship (not in the physical sense!) and that Y comes to be a good ruler in the end. END SPOILER

I'm in the camp that says you are not missing much by not reading Eragon. It's extremely derivative and Eragon himself is a textbook Gary Stu. I did try to see if the second book improved, but the author seemed to have an even more advanced case of thesaurusitis and I didn't make it past the 100 page mark.

184: Sakerfalcon is absolutely right in her spoiler. And there will be more good powerful women later on in the book (at least, I think it was part 1, these things can get a bit muddled in my head).

184, 185> Hmm... Eragon. I read it when I was nine and remember liking it, probably because it had dragons. However, I was not the most discriminating reader at that age. If it had dragons or unicorns, it was gold.

I do remember reading the second book at the same age I had the same impression as Sakerfalcon. It could have used heavy editing - there was a long section where he was with the elves and nothing happened.

I actually read the last book in the series several years ago because I'd read the first three. At that point I felt I was too far through to quit. The writing was somewhat improved, but the plot was anti-climatic, and he still could have used a better editor.

On the whole, I think it depends how much garbage you want to wade through for the sake of dragons.

185, 187: I will continue to avoid those books assiduously.

And much gratitude for the spoilers.

Here's my Goodreads review of Cygnet, the duology:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/581036121

Now I'm giving myself a bit of a holiday treat: Mercedes Lackey's The Snow Queen. While I'm pretty sure that it won't be nearly as profound as Joan D. Vinge's take on the same tale, I haven't visited the Five Hundred Kingdoms in a while, and it's a fun and frothy place to go. I love the idea of making the Godmother the protagonist, the one with whom we think and feel, as opposed to an exalted, distant supporting figure -- which is why I liked Fairy Godmother much better than One Good Knight and why I skipped over Fortune's Fool. (I'll go back to it later.)

Once this one's finished, Beyond the Pale will follow.

You are most welcome. :)

I have to share the following:

http://io9.com/paul-dini-superhero-cartoon-execs-dont-want-largely-f-1483758317?...

This made me a little sick -- both as a woman and as a fortysomething who loves good cartoons. It turns out that Cartoon Network has no use for me on both counts, and that's why they keep cancelling the only TV shows I've seen that show superheroines doing awesome things. First "Justice League Unlimited," then "Young Justice." It's safe to say that I will never watch another Cartoon Network show again.

Ironically, this comes at a time when news at the movie theater is actually good. We have "Wadjda," the first film ever from Saudi Arabia (one of the most oppressively sexist countries in the world), directed by a woman and featuring a female protagonist. We have "Philomena," featuring Judi Dench being splendid as usual. And just a couple of weeks ago, two films featuring female protagonists, "Frozen" and "Catching Fire," occupied the No. 1 and No. 2 spots at the Box Office. (Honestly, when was the last time that happened? I think it may have been 1939.) Plenty of feminists, including a friend of mine, aren't happy with "Frozen" because of the changes it makes to Andersen's "The Snow Queen" to bring it into like with Disney Princess merchandising. They have a point. But the high numbers for "Frozen" may put to rest the notion that animated films centering girl characters won't make money because boys won't go see them.

Yet this article leaves me wondering how many talented writers like Dini really want to include more interesting female characters in their shows, and give them important things to do -- only to have their hands tied by executives. At times like this I wish I could wash my hands of visual media altogether and just read, read, read. Sure, the marketplace influences what we see at the bookstore, and sure, there are plenty of editors and publishers with their own Stone Age ideas, as evidenced by this little bit of controversy:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/12/science-fiction-sexism-sfwa

But at least book publishers don't have as much of a vested interest in selling toys.

And yet even though books will always be my first love, I will continue to see movies and to watch TV -- just not Cartoon Network, ever again. It's a shame they don't care.

Amazing, both those articles show some ridiculous views. Some people are real... Well, I won't say the word, but seriously? One of the responses in the last article is that women ruin SF? That's the most stupid thing I've ever heard. If you don't want to read books by female authors, then don't read them!

And I was just contemplating if SF was less sexist than fantasy, since I'm currently reading Hellfire by Jean Johnson. The main protagonist is female, and a soldier. She has a strong precognitive ability, and foresees the end of the galaxy in 300 years, unless she directs events in one particular direction. She's not the only woman in the military either, and no fuss is made about it. Several of her superiors are women. She doesn't have a lot of friends, but one of them is a woman. I haven't found anything sexist in these books so far and I thought perhaps this was easier for SF authors to envision because the future is completely open, while some fantasy authors might feel constrained by medieval societies (they shouldn't be, of course).

Here is my Goodreads review of Daughter of Smoke and Bone (warning: it's Spoiler tagged):

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/547020298

I'm certainly not sorry I read this book, but I'm not in a big hurry to pick up the sequels, particularly since some of the aspects of the book I most enjoyed faded out by the end. I'm more interested in Dreamdark than I am in Days of Blood and Starlight.

One thing Daughter of Smoke and Bone did confirm for me is what I always appreciate seeing in a romantic plot (that, sadly, I didn't see much of here):

1. Let the hero and heroine talk to each other. Let them actually exchange a few thoughts before deciding they are Meant to Be Together.

2. Let the hero and heroine have a few things in common: some interests, some experiences. Let them share some experiences that help them grow in respect and appreciation for each other before they decide they are Meant to Be Together.

3. Let the hero and heroine learn, after a bit of initial tension and conflict, to treat each other with kindness and respect. A heroine should not lose her heart to a man who has actually tried to kill her. That Luke/Laura (General Hospital) thing, where the woman eventually falls for the man who raped her? Not something we need to see again. Ever.

4. Let the hero and heroine bring out the best in each other. Let them become stronger, wiser people as a result of their interaction. Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn in "The African Queen" offer one of my favorite examples of this. Initially, the forced companionship of the boozy riverboat captain and the strait-laced English missionary seems like a clear-cut case of Opposites Attract, but when their experience strips away their surface, we see they actually have quite a bit in common, and they learn to love not only each other, but themselves -- the people they have come to be, as a result of their journey.

It can be done. It HAS been done. But "insta-love" seems to be saturating the market these days, so much that a well-done romance is becoming too much of a surprise, a rarity. What are some recent books with halfway decent romantic plots? I'd welcome a few recs here.

More Thoughts on Current Reads:
Kushiel's Dart -- I'm still marching through it, intrigued by the world-building and the political intrigue, though I'm not making as much progress as I would like. My prudishness keeps peeking out of its hiding place. I order it to retreat, and forge on through uncomfortable scenes, but I think I know what's troubling me. It isn't so much the "servant of Naamah" thing (which is, as I've said before, a bit like the concept of the Companion in "Firefly," and Inara is not far from what I imagine Phedre to be -- elegant, classy, intelligent). It's that I find myself despising Phedre's clients. Honestly, what kind of client pays for the services of someone who enjoys being hurt? The simple answer: someone who enjoys hurting. Phedre's clients, by very definition, are despicable. Yet Phedre thrives. It makes me wonder what would happen should she find herself in a relationship with someone who is kind, warm, and gentle with her. How would she respond to such treatment? Would she miss the brutality of being chained to a wheel?

My gut-reaction internal dialogue as I read goes a little like this:
Is this woman EVER going to strike back?? Come on, woman, assert yourself a little! Just a little! Let people know you're good for something other than just keeping your ears wide open while you're being slapped around! You're NOT just a walking, breathing punching bag, right? Right??

Thinking of the possibility of kindness brings up another issue I'm having with the book so far: apparently there is very little kindness in Phedre's world. I'm just over 300 pages in, and I can count on one hand the number of kind, good-natured characters I've met: Hyacinthe, Alcuin, and maybe Thelesis... That's about it. I'm not even sure Phedre herself qualifies, since I haven't really seen her act in a particularly generous way, or help out someone in trouble. But there is still time. Perhaps the story will progress to make room for a little kindness, for relationships that move beyond using and being used. I will wait and see.

I actually picked up the book to see how far along you are... Don't worry about the fighting back, Phedre will do more than keep her eyes open. I won't say anything else, because that would be spoilering...

>193 kceccato:: Your thoughts and mine regarding Daughter of smoke and bone are so alike it's almost scary! Your review was excellent.

194: I'm actually slightly less worried about the fighting back than I am about the protagonist's desperate need to be physically abused, which makes it darn hard for me to admire or identify with her. I'm on page 350 now, and I'm understanding more and more why this book has sat on my shelf unread for so long. It isn't the sex. Sex I could enjoy reading about. It's the abuse, the degradation, on which Phedre seems to thrive. In a recent scene, she lets her best friend Hyacinthe know they could never be more than friends, specifically because he'd be nice to her, and she could never be happy in a sexual relationship that wasn't degrading and abusive.

THIS is the heroine I'm supposed to admire and root for?

Are we meant to see her enjoyment of physical pain as some form of strength and power? Because I'm not seeing it, not at this point at least. "People will spill their secrets while they're orgasmically abusing you" is not a form of power I could ever catch myself aspiring to. "Love as thou wilt" I can get on board with, certainly. But I can't bring myself to accept the idea that physical abuse and degradation can ever have anything to do with love. My "vanilla" values won't stretch that far.

I'm going to finish this book, because I said I would. But if I'm going to like and admire Phedre, I need to start seeing, more clearly than I do now, that there is a LOT more to her character than just the "anguissette." I want to see her take a moral stand, and show herself capable of both giving and receiving kindness. I still have a lot farther to go in the book, and she could still surprise me.

195: Glad you liked my review! Thank you!

196: I've been thinking about this. To me, there IS a lot more to Phedre than the anguisette. She has a mind, a gift for language, is loyal, brave, kind and persistent. I'm pretty sure a great act of kindness is described in the first book. I do see where you're coming from, but to me, Phedre is not abused, because everything is consensual. That may sound like sophistry, but I really think there is respect between Phedre and her clients, and I do not think there could ever be respect between an abuser and abused. Given how strongly you feel, though, I'm not sure if the rest will be enough for you. I hope it will be, because Phedre is one of my favourite heroines, but perhaps this is not your thing.

197: My last post was written not long after I read that horrifying (IMO) first interlude between Phedre and Melisande, involving the flechettes. I will admit, that tested my limits. My main comfort is that I already know I'm supposed to dislike, if not hate, Melisande, so we're not meant to excuse her behavior.

What I want is to see the heroine operating more outside this context, which I do have some hope will happen, because 1) now there's a serious political situation to be dealt with, and 2) since Phedre's proclivities as "Kushiel's chosen" are already firmly established, it is time for Carey to show us something else, and frankly I'm wondering how she will manage to "top" that business with Melisande and the flechettes.

Another thing I hope is that Phedre will learn in time (though not from Hyacinthe; he's this book's "Laurie" from Little Women, the friend who will never move past the Friend Zone) that gentleness can be as much of a turn-on as pain. And also that poor Joscelin, who gets ridiculed right and left, will become a little less of a "butt monkey" (TV Tropes) as the story goes on.

It's interesting to read this book at the same time as The Snow Queen, and consider the differences between Lackey and Carey. Lackey is, for me, a "comfort read," although I have enjoyed her Elemental Masters series far more than her more famous Valdemar books; I loved Fairy Godmother but found One Good Knight somewhat lacking, mostly because of an ending that renders a heretofore capable heroine passive and helpless. (I HATE endings like this! And they seem to be so blasted common!) But rarely have I ever found anything in Lackey that CHALLENGED me. While, at this point, I am enjoying The Snow Queen more than Kushiel's Dart, I have to acknowledge that Carey is the better writer; her world-building is more detailed, her characters more complicated. I wonder whether the discomfort I feel at certain scenes might actually be, in its own way, a good thing. It makes me think.

"And as she wished, so it was."
Have to update to say that I'm now on page 404 of Kushiel's Dart, and just about everything I mentioned I wanted to see happen in my previous post HAS happened. I often, just about always, find myself in sympathy with characters who are grieving and/or who suddenly find themselves wrenched out of their comfort zone and must find a way to get along in unfamiliar surroundings. Now that Phedre's heart has been broken and she must draw on all her resources to survive with dignity in tact, I find myself admiring her a lot more. This marks my turning point with this novel.

Things I like best about the other novels in my rotation:

To Say Nothing of the Dog:
1. I've not read anything quite like it before: a Victorian comedy of manners with science fiction elements.
2. As much as I dislike insta-love, I find myself smiling when the protagonist falls in love at first sight with the smart girl, not the airhead.
3. In my head I keep thinking about the Masterpiece Theatre adaptation. This book seriously needs one.

Scriber:
1. I've wondered in the past, "Has any male writer ever created an abnormally large female humanoid and NOT painted her as an object of dread?" The answer is "yes," and this is that novel. Bryndine Errynson might well be considered "swoon-worthy."
2. Dobson is not afraid to make his protagonist downright unlikable in the first few chapters. His evolution is pleasing.
3. What's the reverse of Highlander Syndrome? Here we actually have a male protagonist whose important relationships, save one, are ALL with women, and we have a cast full of admirable and diverse warrior women. Too often, warrior women are presented in a rather "cookie-cutter" fashion, as All Alike (in opposition to the girly-girls). That's not the case here.

The Snow Queen:
1. A fairy tale fan like me is bound to lap up these Five Hundred Kingdoms books like cream, considering how many threads from various folktales are woven into them.
2. Again, no Highlander Syndrome here, and a satisfying depiction of older women as interesting point-of-view characters. The bad news is that I like the two over-thirty women much better (so far) than the young maidens, but I did appreciate the incorporation of Burd Janet from "Tam Lin" into Gerda's character.
3. This one reads fast. Quite fast.

What I like best about them collectively:
They are diverse. THIS is why I read books in a rotation.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

199: I'm glad to hear you got to the turning point, kceccato. I'm really curious how your feeling about the book will progress! Of course I hope you'll like it (also because it is one of my favourites), but we'll see how it pans out.

The other books you're reading sound really interesting as well. The snow queen I already know, love the fairy godmother books. Scriber sounds good, I think I'll put that on my wishlist...

I hope everyone is having a good holiday.

Mine is somewhat mixed. My computer is in the Sick Computer Home because I need my hard drive replaced. This is actually the least of my worries. They were still doing diagnostic runs when they called me yesterday. I am praying hard there is no virus in the picture.

But I had a good time with my husband and his family (it was his family's "turn"); all seemed to enjoy themselves, and the mood was generally good. And I got my favorite kind of Christmas loot, which is the reason for this post. New books!

Kate Elliot, Cold Fire
Clare Bell, The Jaguar Princess
Maggie Stiefvater, The Scorpio Races
Elizabeth Bear, Shattered Pillars
Scott Westerfeld, The Risen Empire
A Barnes & Noble gift card (the means by which Elliot's Cold Steel should be entering my house very soon)
An Amazon.com gift card, which I have already used to make a couple of Kindle purchases: Lokant (the sequel to Draykon) and Host's Champion of the Rose.

My TBR pile grows ever larger. There will never come a time in my life at which I am satisfied with all that I have read; I will always be seeking more, more, more.

A belated Happy Christmas to you and your family! I'm glad you found a good stash of books under the tree.

Looking forward to following your reading journeys in the year ahead!

Here is my Goodreads review of Scriber. Spoiler alert!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/621307836

Behold, my Goodreads review of Lackey's The Snow Queen:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/551824195

I intended to read Beyond the Pale next, but I received Elizabeth Bear's Shattered Pillars for Christmas, and since I relished the first book in this series, Range of Ghosts, I need to give priority to the sequel. But Beyond the Pale is still high on my proverbial radar. Whichever book I finish next -- To Say Nothing of the Dog or Kushiel's Dart -- Anthony's book is going to come after it. Building a rotation requires a certain kind of creativity all its own, and one must be firm yet flexible.

Kushiel's Dart continues to grow on me; as I've mentioned before, now that Phedre must manage to survive in openly hostile territory, I find I'm admiring her more, and Joscelin has shown himself to be far more than just a "butt monkey." I'm anxious to see just how much farther beyond their "types" they will both expand. I'm also looking forward to seeing Ysandre step into the limelight as a major player.

I wish I could say To Say Nothing of the Dog was similarly winning my heart. It is cleverly written, with much wit and humor, and I do like the two lead characters. But somehow, something's missing. It's just so... light and airy! I can certainly appreciate comic sci-fi or comic fantasy; Terry Pratchett is one of my favorites. But when I read a Pratchett novel, even while I'm laughing, I'm worrying about the outcome. Something vital is at stake. People can and do get hurt. Yet I find no sense of danger in Willis's book. I'm not really worried about any of the characters. Something is at stake, but that something is so abstract that it's hard to care about it in any more than an abstract sense. So far I find the book amusing, but not powerful enough to justify its length. Yet it's clever enough for me to keep reading, and to hope that a stronger, more concrete sense of danger and risk might emerge later on.