Why I don't identify with the radical feminist movement. Fiction.

[tsarren]

Here is a vitriolic deconstruction of Firefly, filled with hate and rage.
http://users.livejournal.com/_allecto_/34718.html?thread=134814#t134814
I stopped reading and started skimming a page or two in, it's just that bad. And then I ran across this gem:
"Let me just say now that I have never

Comments

[jkao]

Give me a woman hero.

Laurie R. King's novels are pretty good.

[tsarren]

Added to the list, thank you.

[outotoro]

One other point to remember as well - in literature in general we are moving away from the strong hero. . . period. Authors across the board seem to be having much more fun playing with the flaws of heroes - having the unwilling hero or the flawed one so the reader can "connect" with them better.

Feminism missed the golden age of the penny-story hero.

[tsarren]

I am perfectly happy with flawed heroes. They're better that way. The flawed characters I mentioned were *fatally* flawed. They fell and that was that; it left a bad taste in my mouth while I watched the hotshot male pilot, whose only flaw was that he was unable to settle down (which isn't even a flaw in my book, it was just played like one, until he relented at the very end), get to play God for a couple of hours and save humanity's collective arse. This character had so many high ability scores he was almost unbelievable; he was just written so well that he came across as human.

[aristos1]

You've got me thinking this morning about heroines in sci-fi. You're right, they're rarely there. But who tends to write sci-fi? Mostly men, from what I can tell. Friedman (a woman) writes an awesome woman in Anzha Lou (In Conquest Born, highly recommended), but I wouldn't say she's a hero any more than her Braxan counterpart is a hero. But if men are the most common writers of sci-fi, I think it's logical that they will write what they know. And they know men

[jkao]

Heh. _In Conquest Born_ came to my mind also, but I didn't think the main character qualified as a hero.

Catherine Asaro writes sf with heroines, but her sf tends to be a blend of sf and romance(!).

[tsarren]

I've read several of Friedman's sci-fi works, including ICB, and would agree. And yeah, I'd rather see women under-represented as heroes than, say, have a bunch of male authors with no more understanding of women as people than Robert Jordan start peppering their stories with messed-up women.

If you ever write anything, or even just outline notes, I would love to read it.

Haven't read Gap, will add to list.

[mithrana]

I feel very sorry for the author of that other post. I have to wonder what has happened in her world/life to make her view the world in such jaded colors. She takes things way too far, and has to search too hard to make her ideas credible (in my opinion). Of course Zoe calls Mal "Sir", he was her superior officer in the military. If you keep working with the same person, even after the military, its hard to stop calling a person by the first name you had for them. My college voice teacher will forever be "Dr. C.". I just can't use his first name, it's weird.

I had to strongly suppress the urge to point out that her remarks about how Wheedon treats his wife are libel.

[tsarren]

Yeah, one year at a medfaire where I was vending, one of the vendors and his lackey were apparently former servicemen... the latter kept calling the former "sarge" while they conversed in very clear, far-carrying loud tones at 1am.

The author has I guess been exposed to a variety of unhealthy relationships over the years.

[dranor]

That woman is a bag full of crazy. When I read something like that I think A) what horrible experience led them to this B) is this just a contrived ethos to excuse their inability to deal with and excel in society?

[tsarren]

It may not have started out as the latter, but I'd bet it has become so over time. This particular one is bandwagon-sized and ready-made.