♥ 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

[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.