400 replies to this topic

[Sci-2]

Read this thing on some of SciFi's childishness awhile back, and then again last night.

Good essay, not sure of the science, specifically liked the part on relationships:

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...one source of the juvenile feel of most SF becomes obvious: fear of emotions; especially love in all its guises, including the sexual kind (the real thing, in its full messiness and glory, not the emetic glop that usurps the territory in much genre writing, including romance). SF seems to hew to the long-disproved tenet that complex emotions inhibit critical thinking and are best left to non-alpha-males, along with doing the laundry.

ETA: This to explained why I cringe every time I go back to Wise Man's Fear, skipping over as much of the sexual encounters as possible.

Edited by sciborg2, 16 April 2012 - 10:16 AM.

[Contrarius]

PaulineMRoss, on 16 April 2012 - 05:57 AM, said:

Archeth (the advisor to the Emperor) is not really sexualised, but she is defined by her relationship to a man (her employer) which limits what she can do. She is not at all an independent character.

Well, in that sense Ringil is defined by his relationship to his mother -- she is, after all, the one who sends him on the quest that occupies the whole book.

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Ringil's mother is not particularly sexualised either, but she was married at 13 to a man she disliked, which doesn't exactly make her an independent or original female character, and tells you something about the world Morgan has created.

I think you're expecting too much of Morgan here. I don't think anyone should expect him to depict a beautiful world of gender equality and butterflies just to make some readers happy.

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And just about all the rest are whores or sex-slaves or promiscuous or captured and awaiting rescue by a man. Even the female dwenda is bitchy.

Who, really, is this "all" in "all the rest"? There aren't many important characters of either gender. I think you're drawing unwarranted conclusions here.

[Contrarius]

Lyanna Stark, on 16 April 2012 - 07:23 AM, said:

I quite like Kim Harrison's "Hollows" series featuring Rachel Morgan as the kickass heroine.

I like the Hollows a lot, but I also see gender problems in it. For one thing, although Rachel is kick-ass in battle situations, she is also a complete screw-up/ditz in other situations. For another, she is constantly angsting over one guy or another. And then there's this constant back and forth about will-she-or-won't-she work towards that "blood balance" with Ivy. I do like that there are so many female characters in it, though, and that none of the females just sit around waiting to be rescued.

[Contrarius]

SkynJay, on 16 April 2012 - 07:52 AM, said:

Am I not remembering the same book? Wasn't Archeth defined by her sexual orientation?

I said that she is no more sexualized than the male characters in the book. In the sense you use above, Ringil is "defined" by his sexual orientation as well. And instead of being "given" a sex slave, he is more or less made INTO a sex slave for awhile. So you shouldn't harp on one while ignoring the other.

[Arthmail]

I've always thought that David Gemmell's Troy series was done well, in regards to male/female interactions and having women of power. I mean there was some lesbianism in there, and the one character, Piria, is raped, but overall it seemed well done. I mean, sure, Piria struggles to overcome her rape with the help of a man, but it felt like it was less because he was a man and more because he was a friend. He might have had feelings for her, but her love was for Andromache, and in time they both continued to be friends despite that problem.

Andromache was another strong character. I liked that while Gemmell showed how little control she had in her life given the constraints of a patriarchal society, she still had strength of character and was empowered as much as she could be given the meglomaniacal nature of the King of Troy.

I just never got a sense that Gemmell didn't understand people in the Troy series, meaning that his women always seemed capable. Sure, he idealized the heroic character in all of his books, but that was his nature, and it was what made his books such an easy pleasure.

[Datepalm]

sciborg2s essay, on 16 April 2012 - 10:14 AM, said:

...one source of the juvenile feel of most SF becomes obvious: fear of emotions; especially love in all its guises, including the sexual kind (the real thing, in its full messiness and glory, not the emetic glop that usurps the territory in much genre writing, including romance). SF seems to hew to the long-disproved tenet that complex emotions inhibit critical thinking and are best left to non-alpha-males, along with doing the laundry.

Is it? This seems like a bit of a red herring to me, or at best really, really dated. Maybe i'm reading the wrong SF, but you know, I grew up on a solid diet of Clarke and Heinlein, and I still don't have the sense that theres anything particularly emotion-less about SF. I make a very occassional foray into 'propet lit' and I can see the difference, with some books, the way theres this endless exploration of character and interaction, the author digging into it and taking it apart, in a way that i've almost never encountered genre...but then that also often seems overwrought, indulgent and the author telling rather than showing the relashionship to me.

[Sci-2]

I think it's about the complexity of relationships. I can't speak as much to the SciFi side, but fantasy definitely has this problem. However, it seems to me people on this board read the better stuff, and I've been moving away from the less well written stuff like tie-in novels. (though some tie-ins can be good)

ETA: We've brought it up before, but Erikson's romances never seem true unless the characters themselves acknowledge it's false infatuation based stuff. Night Circus has that problem as well actually.

Iain Banks has interesting relationships, but the Culture novels I've read (along with Algebraist) don't do that good a job of making you feel the character's emotions. Even Excession, which depends on this, falls short IMO.

Edited by sciborg2, 16 April 2012 - 11:25 AM.

[PaulineMRoss]

Contrarius, on 16 April 2012 - 10:29 AM, said:

Well, in that sense Ringil is defined by his relationship to his mother -- she is, after all, the one who sends him on the quest that occupies the whole book.

Everyone has a mother. Actually, Ringil is, if anything, defined more by his father, and his status in society, which protects Ringil from any repercussions from being gay, and allows him to swagger round being aggressive and obnoxious to all and sundry. But no, he's not defined by his mother, because he doesn't have to do anything she asks him to do; he can be aggressive and obnoxious to her too, if he wants.

Archeth, on the other hand, doesn't have that luxury. Her options are limited since the Kiriath left, and although she is ostensibly respected by the Emperor, that's not how it comes across to me. She does what he says - because she has to. She puts up with his taunts - because she has to. He has the power of life and death over her. He can (and does) force her to watch while he amuses himself with his naked sex slave. That's not a normal employer/employee relationship.

But I do have hopes that something more positive will be done with Archeth, in the fullness of time.

Contrarius, on 16 April 2012 - 10:29 AM, said:

I think you're expecting too much of Morgan here. I don't think anyone should expect him to depict a beautiful world of gender equality and butterflies just to make some readers happy.

No, and he can create whatever world he wants for his books, that's his prerogative, naturally. I just find it disappointing that he chooses to set his story in such an extreme pseudo-medieval world, that's all. Other aspects of his world-building are brilliantly imaginative, but the societal structure - isn't. And honestly, don't you think that a woman who was married at thirteen to a man she dislikes, without being given any choice, is defined by that, by her father's decision, by her husband's character, by her pre-ordained role in life? I would say that she is just as much of a sex slave in her way as the Emperor's harem women.

Contrarius, on 16 April 2012 - 10:29 AM, said:

Who, really, is this "all" in "all the rest"? There aren't many important characters of either gender. I think you're drawing unwarranted conclusions here.

Well, maybe. I can only say what I felt on reading the book. There just didn't seem to be any normal women, even in the background - servants and such like. YMMV, and I haven't read The Cold Commands yet, so maybe that will change, or maybe Morgan is making some Profoundly Clever Point or something. Dunno. I'm not good at subtext.

[Seli]

Someone who seems to try for balance is Charles Stross, and I think he manages. For example in his Halting State, there are the female POV characters that are competent in their jobs and have a hint of a life and relations outside of that as well.

[Contrarius]

PaulineMRoss, on 16 April 2012 - 11:26 AM, said:

Everyone has a mother. Actually, Ringil is, if anything, defined more by his father, and his status in society, which protects Ringil from any repercussions from being gay, and allows him to swagger round being aggressive and obnoxious to all and sundry. But no, he's not defined by his mother, because he doesn't have to do anything she asks him to do; he can be aggressive and obnoxious to her too, if he wants.

I disagree here. IMHO, without his mother, Ringil would be completely broken rather than just damaged. He seems to get his intelligence and manipulativeness from her. And he does feel that he "has" to do what she says in this case -- he has no special feelings for his....cousin? I think....and only goes off to save her at his mother's behest. I think it's worth repeating that the **entire action of the book** is set in motion by a woman here.

But in any case, Archeth is "defined by a man" only in that her employer happens to be a man. She would be under the very same restrictions if her employer happened to be an Empress rather than Emperor.

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No, and he can create whatever world he wants for his books, that's his prerogative, naturally. I just find it disappointing that he chooses to set his story in such an extreme pseudo-medieval world, that's all.

In that case, you're probably disappointed in most secondary world fantasies (since "pseudo-medieval" is a favorite setting), and thus it's unfair to single out Morgan.

Incidentally, I think Morgan is in part making a point (or several points) out of this gender-unequal setting. IMHO he's doing it quite intentionally.

Personally, I tend to look more at the character/personality of the women depicted, rather than the jobs they are given. Their "positions" are in large part determined by the overall world-building -- and that, in turn, usually has to do with much larger considerations than gender. But once all the characters (in both genders) are assigned their roles, then what does the author do with the people who fill those roles? Are they dull robots who are fit for nothing else, are they "sluts" who love to be exploited, or are they intelligent and strong people who simply do the best they can with what they have in life? That's the kind of gender considerations that make more of an impact on me when I read.

[Nukelavee]

Seli - have you read Glasshouse?  Pretty much teh entire subtext is gender.

[Contrarius]

Nukelavee, on 16 April 2012 - 11:51 AM, said:

Seli - have you read Glasshouse?  Pretty much teh entire subtext is gender.

You guys are making me want to read more Stross. I've read the Laundry Files, and I keep meaning to check out his other stuff....but I keep not getting around to it. I should get busy with that!

[Nukelavee]

You should, actually.  His Laundry stuff is great, and fun, a lot of his other stuff makes my brain hurt from thinking.

And, "A Colder War" just scares the fuck outa me an hour or so after reading it.

"Glasshouse", basically, centers around a psychology experiment.  So, you have, sorta, post-human personalities with gender, transfered into different gendered bodies, and then stuffed into what a, i dunno, 3001 historian's version of a 1945-2010 "small town" society.

After that, it gets complicated.

[kalbear]

Unfortunately saturns children takes that good faith and completely makes it creepy as hell.

[Sci-2]

I was trying to articulate this before, thankfully I like the sound of my own e-voice, so here it goes again:

In much of the SFF I've read, sex when present often feels like fan service. It interrupts the story, in theory provides realism but then we move onto something else. It's like this in some of TV/film as well, a chance to show off some bodies. (See HBO's GoT adaptation)

But few stories seem to have a lead up to sex, or an ability to describe the smaller details than make a relationship genuine. So we get a lot of telling (hir loves hir!) and some sexy times that make me embarrassed for the author (again, Wise Man's Fear).

ETA: Or if you've read River of Gods, the insane ninja sex between two academics.

It's funny/creepy (funpy? crunny?) that Cersei and Jaime have one of the better depicted relationships I can think of off the top of my head.

Why I asked about romance in SFF, as I'm curious to see how it works. I actually started one of Emily Griffith's books I got for a $ out of curiousity but it was a whole LOT of telling and lacking in craft.

Edited by sciborg2, 16 April 2012 - 12:35 PM.

[Grack21]

Galactus, on 16 April 2012 - 10:06 AM, said:

If you've ever seen Datepalm's Goodreads you know she has a serious love of tags

I love those tags.

[Lyanna Stark]

Contrarius, on 16 April 2012 - 10:34 AM, said:

I like the Hollows a lot, but I also see gender problems in it. For one thing, although Rachel is kick-ass in battle situations, she is also a complete screw-up/ditz in other situations. For another, she is constantly angsting over one guy or another. And then there's this constant back and forth about will-she-or-won't-she work towards that "blood balance" with Ivy. I do like that there are so many female characters in it, though, and that none of the females just sit around waiting to be rescued.

Oh, it certainly has its share of issues, but what makes it stand out a lot is the fact that it shows female friendships, which unfortunately is really, really unusual.

[Datepalm]

sciborg2, on 16 April 2012 - 12:34 PM, said:

funpy? crunny?

please no

The sex in River of Gods was ridiculous. And sounded really painful. Dervish House was a bit better, thought there was one scene that possibly went on too long. (Come to think of it, Ayce and Adnan were a really positive portrayal of a married couple.) The last Culture novel also seemed to take a bit too much joy in long, pointless sex scenes. Less is more. No, really. (I seem to remember a decent, understated one in...Consider Phlebas, of all places.)

[Maia]

Lyanna Stark, on 16 April 2012 - 01:07 PM, said:

Oh, it certainly has its share of issues, but what makes it stand out a lot is the fact that it shows female friendships, which unfortunately is really, really unusual.

Yea, but at least the main such friendship is tangled with romantic attraction... and apart from that while 3 other female characters do appear and play somewhat important support roles (mother, Matalina and Ceri), they also get obviously sidelined in favor of male characters with romantic attraction/sexual tension potential.
Generally, there are several times more male characters than female ones in the series and Rachel regularly has her convenient bouts of incompetence, so that the current flame can save her.
It became particularly bad in the last book, where Rachel suddenly became absurdly bumbling and  helpless - which, hallo?

Re: Malazan Book of the Fallen, I have only read the first 3 books (but I intend to continue with the series eventually).
But while I liked it and there was certainly nothing offensive in it's description of women, I felt that from Deadhouse Gates on the series turned into a total sausage fest, with dozens of somewhat detailed male characters and a couple of fervent bromances juxtaposed against... Felisin. Who, while certainly an interesting character, is also a fairly unpleasant one and goes through some severely degrading experiences to bout.
This was off-putting, particularly since Gardens of the Moons gave me hopes of much more balanced representation, with Adjunct Lorn, Tattersail, etc.

[Seli]

Nukelavee, on 16 April 2012 - 11:51 AM, said:

Seli - have you read Glasshouse?  Pretty much teh entire subtext is gender.

I have, but that was a few years ago, relatively close to release. So it has the combined problems of being lost in the mists of my memory and of being read while I was not paying much attention to gender treatment.


A case of missed potential could be the Temeraire books of Naomi Novik. She has a few women in active non-traditional (within the setting) roles, but apart from telling about how shocking that was does not seem to do a lot with it. The problem might be that characters are not a strong point of the books to start with. (I only read the first 2 and a halve)