♥ Recs ♥

[mothwing]

In my quest to find loveplotless books about strong heroines an anon, therealsnape and holyschist came to my aid with these recs: 

• ? Val McDermid: the Lindsay Gordon mystery series (lesbian detective novels), but not A Deadline for Murder, in which there are two love plots woven into the main plot.

• Anne McCaffrey: Dinosaur Planet series (which, according to the Amazon review section seems to be about a male and a female character who do have some sort of romance plot, though, so I'm not sure I found the right book here), Freedom series (I seem to recall that the main point was the love plot between the male and the female lead in some kind of female slave scenario, but it's too long ago since the friend who read the series told me about this one, so I might be mistaken), and the Harper Hall trilogy (the first of which sounds delightful - a musician and dragons! It seems that only the first two of this trilogy are meant to be for the challenge, though, since the third one is about a male character). 

• Katherine Kurtz: The Legends of the Camber of Culdi (Camber being an Earl make this rec somewhat of a puzzler for me, though the Deryni series does sound interesting, being "set in a land analogous to medieval Wales" with magic - though maybe Anon meant a specific volume, like In the King's Service, for example, which appears to be about an Alyce); Legacy of Lehr which I think I remember seeing at some point during my my cat phase. 

• Marion Zimmer Bradley: Darkover novels centered around the Renunciates, basically  -the Renunciates being a group of matriarchic Amazons who revolted against the norms of their feudal society. Not being familiar with the Darkover series I'm not sure I could understand later instalments without prior knowledge, though. I'll try to get hold of the books from one of the MZB completist I know. Anyway, the recs: Hawkmistress!, The Shattered Chain, it's sequels Thendara House and City of Sorcery.

• Ellen Kushner's The Privilege of the Sword - coming-of-age story about Katherine becoming a swordsmistress and coming to terms with the intrigues and plots at her uncle's court.

• ? Tanya Huff's Valor books - military space opera on an infantry division from a staff sergeant's PoV. - Valor's Choice does have the heroine falling in lust with her Lt. at the very beginning of the book in a scene reminiscent of the Grey's Anatomy pilot and keeps having romantic thoughts about the superior under her care throughout the book, so I don't think this qualifies.

• Karen Cushman's medieval YA  (like Midwife's Apprentice - Alys, née Beetle is apprenticed to a midwife )

• Cindy Pon's Silver Phoenix - Ai Ling goes on a quest to free her father and find her destiny after discovering she is telepathic.

• Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan - alternate history version of WWI - fleeing prince Aleksander's and dressed-as-a-boy airman Deryn Sharpe's paths cross and they experience the outbreak of WWI. Not solely about a female character, but the book alternates between their views. 

• Marie Rutkowski's Cabinet of Wonders - Petra Kronos goes on a quest to Prague to get her father's stolen eyes back.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

The Camber-cycle (the one which takes place during the time of the living Camber of Culdi) has a main protagonist, Evaine, who is Camber's daughter, and a sophisticated, educated female character with an own strong, interesting plot throughout the cycle. As she already is married, there is little romance involved. Books of the later time periods tend to deal with Kelson's need for a bride and offspring.

The three main female characters in the Dinosaur series have few romantic issues, one of them is in an established relationship, that's pretty much all there is to it. The other two are single and not exactly hunting for partners. There is some romance in the Freedom series, but easy to read past.

I wouldn't even mention Gor and Darkover in the same sentence, not to speak of calling Darkover in any way Gorean. That's fundamentally misunderstanding both 'verses. It's again simply a feudalistic society dealing with stringencies set by the premise itself. To understand that reading at least one book out of each time period of Darkover indeed does help a lot.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

The Camber cycle sounds delightful, especially the setting - and I'll see if it meets challenge criteria or not. :) Even if it doesn't it does sound like an interesting read.

I wouldn't even mention Gor and Darkover in the same sentence, not to speak of calling Darkover in any way Gorean. [...] It's again simply a feudalistic society dealing with stringencies set by the premise itself.
Oh, ok! I based my description on reviews I read alone, and one enthusiastically drew parallels. Not being terribly familiar with Gor (I only ever read the first novel a couple of years back), it seemed to check out, but I must have mis-understood something there.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

The FeministSF Wiki has a pretty good overview of gender issues on Darkover:

http://wiki.feministsf.net/index.php?title=Darkover_series

(I am personally...not convinced by how everything is handled, particularly the queer issues. MZB had quite a lot of baggage, and it sometimes shows, although not as badly in Darkover as elsewhere. I'm also not convinced that all the sexism necessarily develops from the premise--I am generally skeptical of "fantasy/SF world X is super-sexist because of HISTORY" as an argument--certainly the Dry Towns are exaggerated to the point of Gorean ridiculousness, probably on purpose. MZB was quite aware of Gor and wrote a non-Darkover novel directly in response to it.)

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Oh, I read that summary when looking this series up, and look, they also compare it to Gor ("The Dry-Towns are a combination of Muslim society and John Norman's Gor novels, with women literally kept in chains and owned by men."), I had forgotten all about that, seems not only to be that one reviewer. Also, the degree of sexism doesn't sound like something that's within the ordinary enough to be unintentional.

Warrior Woman I read in my teens and while I loved it, I can't really remember much about her way of dealing with gender. I also didn't get far enough in my Norman reading to draw anything but the most the obvious parallels there.

I'm also not convinced that all the sexism necessarily develops from the premise--I am generally skeptical of "fantasy/SF world X is super-sexist because of HISTORY" as an argument
Depends on whose history - especially in Fantasy novels it's fair to assume that unless the sexism present in the worlds has a reason within the world's history it's part of the implied author's views and prejudices.

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

The Dry Towns are a very small subset of Darkovan society, and not really integrated into the main society--they don't even figure in most of the books. So I think that's where the "Darkover is not like Gor" comes from--the rest of Darkover isn't.

Sexism in the rest of Darkover is more typical feudal "women have limited rights" with a dose of "telepathy breeding program" thrown in. In some of the books there's an explicit argument that as long as telepathy is so vital to Darkovan society, women will never be truly equal. MZB was absolutely addressing sexism and patriarchy all over the place in the books; I don't always agree with her conclusions (part of that, I think, is the time she was writing in, and part of it is her...iffy views on some topics).

Anyway, at least MZB was a whole lot better writer than Norman, and certainly she had quite different motives for portraying sexism. The Darkover books are really interesting, and can be a lot of fun if you're in the right mood. I like TODAY I AM A DARKOVER BOOK for a silly (but disturbingly accurate) summary, although it's probably funnier after you've read some of them.

Depends on whose history - especially in Fantasy novels it's fair to assume that unless the sexism present in the worlds has a reason within the world's history it's part of the implied author's views and prejudices.

I don't like using Earth history--and usually an incorrect, even-more-sexist-than-reality version thereof--to justify prejudice/injustice in a fantasy world. Just because real feudal societies were sexist doesn't mean a fantasy feudal society has to be. Feudalism is built on classism, not sexism. If an author wants to set up a sexist fantasy society for some reason, fine--but I'd rather they justify it in-world than with appeals to (misconceptions of) real history. Real history is a lot more complicated and varied than a lot of SFF authors seem to think.

[mothwing.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link, I am dying over her, reading "Anne Bishop does not CARE what you think" (http://www.sarahpin.com/2008/05/01/anne-bishop-does-not-care-what-you-think/). I'll read the Darkover one next when I've recovered.

I do remember MZB simplifying a lot, and I tended to dislike the way she writes queer people, but, again, I'll have to reread the books to get a better view on that.

Feudalism is built on classism, not sexism. If an author wants to set up a sexist fantasy society for some reason, fine--but I'd rather they justify it in-world than with appeals to (misconceptions of) real history. Real history is a lot more complicated and varied than a lot of SFF authors seem to think.
This bugs me a lot with all the books set in versions of medieval Europe, and it's not as though stuff about that period is simply unknowable! And there are reasosns for why medieval Europe was the way it was, too, it didn't just sort of happen (like, you know, the church and its influence was kinda important)!

[holyschist.livejournal.com]

Snarp is very funny!

I think with MZB--there is a lot of hesitation to bring her personal life into discussion of her books, but I think it's actually highly relevant. Her personal issues show up all over her books.

First, she was married to a pedophile and there's evidence that she may have known and covered for him. Some of her books come off as apologia for pedophilia. The Catch Trap (which has a really, really problematic portrayal of pedophilic gay incest--I couldn't even finish it) is where these issues show up the most, but they show up in Darkover, too. She probably had at least one relationship with a woman for a while and always had queer leanings--but I believe rejected that aspect of her life when she began identifying strongly as Christian, and I don't think she was ever really comfortable with her sexuality--which, I think, explains a lot about how she handles queer women in the Darkover books. I wouldn't call her a "feminist" writer, either, not really.

So I don't know--I am always hesitant to recommend Darkover. The books are incredibly variable in quality, they have a lot of awesome aspects, they have a lot of really problematic aspects. They are very much a product of their period of feminism. I loved them as a teenager, but I'm kind of afraid to go back and read most of them now.