Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 346

Quiet moments in epic fantasy

Here is a post by Beth Bernobich at Fantasy Book Café.

Beth says:

I love epic fantasy. I love the drum roll of its vast armies, the crescendo when kingdom battles kingdom for the fate of the world. I love its thousand­-voice chorus of political intrigue, secret agendas, of heroes and heroines. I love its quests and sweeping drama of events writ large. It’s the 1812 Overture with extra cannons.

But you know what else? I love the quiet moments in epic fantasy too.

In between the explosions, I want to catch my breath, to absorb what all that action means for the characters. Most important, I need to connect with individual people, and not nations.

I agree. I would go further than that, because I don’t think I’m all that big a fan of epic fantasy, actually, so I’m not too keen on the vast armies. I want to connect to one or a few main characters and follow them; once we get past, say, four pov protagonists, I generally become less involved in the story. (I say four because I’m currently working on a book with four pov protagonists, so that limits my ability to stomp my feet and declare I dislike multiple pov.)

While I do appreciate quiet glimpses of daily life in an epic, I also appreciate books that are quieter overall — more intimate, less epic. Here The Sharing Knife series comes to mind, for example. So does Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn. In books like that, stuff may happen, but there is a gentler pace for much of the story and a definite focus on the day-to-day life of one or a few pov characters. I like that a lot.

Anyway, Beth offers a good handful of examples of the kinds of moments she’s talking about.

I have her Passion Play on my Kindle, incidentally, but I haven’t read it.  The whole trilogy is complete, though.  I’m certain I picked up Passion Play because of a recommendation from Liz Bourke, not that I can find that right now.  It was probably on Twitter. Here’s a snippet from Liz’s review of the second book of the trilogy:

The prose is strong, expressive, rising occasionally to understated elegance. Bernobich has a good hand with a descriptive turn of phrase, and a robust grasp of characterisation: for the most part, everyone in this book has reasonable, internally consistent motivations for the secrets they keep and the actions they take. With intrigue and machinations and danger around every corner, secrets are understandable. The rare moments of trust are startling by comparison.

Also, just FYI, Beth Bernovich is running a Kickstarter for a novella that’s connected to and takes place after the trilogy. I kicked in, just on the weight of Liz Bourke’s opinion and a general desire to be helpful. I guess that will probably make me read her trilogy a bit sooner. Maybe this year.

The list of Books I Really Want to Read This Very Year is getting uncomfortably long, and it’s not even April. Well, I will soon finish my current project — I’m thinking I will be able to tie a bow around it over Easter weekend — and then I will be able to take off a few weeks. But I better not take too long a break: Saga is expecting a full ms from me by mid-May, so I will need to revise that, too.

Revising the high school lit curriculum: a modest proposal

Since I have mostly avoided reading classics all my adult life, naturally I am just the right person to pick out an appropriate high school curriculum. One that would have a chance of turning kids onto reading rather than off; or, at least, that is the plan. Yet still a curriculum that involves classics.

What could we choose?

1) The Lord of the Flies, fine, because it’s horrible but part of American culture and I guess it is not a bad idea to be familiar with it, but mostly because it would be interesting to contrast with Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens. Or so I hear. I have not read the latter, but I’m looking forward to it. BUT! Though I haven’t read Bray’s book, I would not want to risk suggesting any such message as Boys Turn Savage, Girls Pull Together, because ugh. Therefore, also Heinlein’s Tunnel in the Sky. That one strands both boys and girls in a survival situation, plus there is a lot to discuss at the end.

Ah, and in the same unit, how about Infinity Hold by Barry Longyear? That one is about adults, not kids; and they are surrounded by enemies, not just trying to stay alive until they can be rescued. But it would fit quite perfectly into a discussion about a) a small group of people, (b) who are stranded and alone with very few resources, (c) who form a new society. You could hardly prevent the class from having a splendid debate about how societies form and what law is. Also, assigning a book with adult protagonists gets away from the modern idea that young-people-should-be-limited-to-young-protagonists.

Are any of these stories as good as Lord of the Flies considered as literary works? Ah, good question, class! Let’s discuss literary quality and see if we can figure out why Lord of the Flies is part of the canon in the first place. (Me, I think it’s largely because people really do have the (deeply mistaken) notion that Depressing = Depth.)

As a quite startling perk, I find that Infinity Hold is actually part of a trilogy. I had no idea. Now I am absolutely dying to read the sequels. The two sequels are Kill All the Lawyers and Keep the Law, and I see both are available on Kindle. Yay!

2) I would be perfectly okay with assigning both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. But maybe just one and then students who like it can read the other? While we’re at it, let me just mention that a decent school library is an awesome thing.

Anyway, what to assign to read as companion pieces? How about Delia Sherman’s The Freedom Maze? Tom Sawyer is set in about, what, the 1840s or thereabouts? AndThe Freedom Maze is set in about 1860, with the frame story taking place in 1960. What else would make a good companion piece? How about Thirteenth Child by Patricia Wrede? That would give students a look at fantasy settings and how they can riff on real historical settings. I trust the school library would be able to find room for a good handful of Patricia Wrede’s other books, too.

3) What do you think of 1984? I think if you must assign a horrible dystopia where a boot stamps on the human face forever, then for heaven’s sake, let’s also assign a book where the horrible repressive government gets torn down and a more hopeful future is at least glimpsed. You could hardly do better than The Hunger Games. The whole trilogy, because you must reach the end or you don’t get that contrast. I had quibbles with the ending, but it’s a great series overall, plus can you imagine the debates that would ensue at the end? Also, you can contrast Mockingjay with, say, For Whom the Bell Tolls. Both are about both the brutality and the necessity of war.

4) I’m more or less keen on including A Tale of Two Cities, because I’ve heard good things about it but have never actually read it. If we’re going to assign that, then maybe Tell the Wind and Fire by Sarah Rees Brennan? That’s supposed to be a retelling of A Tale of Two Cities. I really loved The Demon’s Lexicon trilogy. While we’re on subject of classics and retellings, I didn’t like Moby Dick one bit, but I’m inclined to at least look at it before reading China Mieville’s Railsea, which is supposed to be something of a retelling. Also in the same category — and here I’ve read both — we have Sharon Shinn’s Jenna Starborn, which is a retelling of Jane Eyre. What do you all think? A classic plus a retelling equals fun for all? Or twice the turnoff for students who aren’t keen on the original?

5) Gulliver’s Travels. I don’t remember if that was assigned in high school, but I know I read it at some point, and liked it. If we’re going to assign satire, though, clearly we should also assign modern satire — eg, Terry Pratchett. I would vote for Making Money, which is one of his most satirish satires. Other votes?

6) What about Jane Austen? Would that be an example of tl;dr? Or would a reasonable proportion of high school students get into something like Pride and Prejudice? I think Austen’s language is beautiful and I enjoy her writing. But the movie version of Sense and Sensibility is so good, and shorter than the movie version of Pride. My suggestion is, watch the movie of Sense and Sensibility, then read the book, the reach for a different kind of comedy of manners — for example, Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton. Or Sorcery and Cecilia by Wrede and Stevermer. Or Ellen Kushner’s Swordspoint. I can see all three appealing to a broader base of high school readers than Austen.

7) I know a lot of people are probably now growing up with the movie version of “The Lord of the Rings” as the definitive version. I would be inclined to assign the books. Especially since I just read Tom Shippey’s books on Tolkien. There’s a lot in those books. I wouldn’t want to destroy them for readers by diagramming every sentence, but I can see students having a fruitful discussion about the differences between the Shire and Rohan and Gondor, about free will and “fighting the long defeat” and just how happy was that ending, anyway?

8) Shakespeare’s plays are fine. But include as many comedies as tragedies, and for heaven’s sake, be sure and watch them instead of just reading them. I vividly remember reading “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and thinking it was the stupidest play ever written. When I actually *saw* it, I thought it was great. This experience has stuck with me. Plays are meant to be seen. I know, kinda obvious. But then why make students read “Hamlet” rather than watching it?

Okay, that’s eight, that’s plenty. Weigh in in the comments if you’re so inclined! If you got to design a high school curriculum, which commonly assigned books would you keep, if any, and what would you add to balance them?

Books you read too young

Allison Peters at Book Riot has a post up about getting turned off by books because you read them before you were able to appreciate them.

I’ve never read Tess of the D’Ubervilles, which is one of the titles specifically mentioned. Or The Color Purple, which is another.

In the same post, Becky mentions The Great Gatsby and how she didn’t “get it” when it was assigned, but loved it when she read it much later on her own. Well, this kind of post always makes me think about WHY I have spent my life mostly avoiding classics.

Books that I was forced to read in high school: Animal Farm, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men. And plays: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear.

Books that I was never assigned: Anything by Jane Austen, A Tale of Two Cities, Jane Eyre, any Shakespearian comedies.

If I ever, ever saw an optimistic ending in an assigned book, I don’t remember it. The implicit belief of my lit teachers that tragedy automatically confers depth and that happy endings are automatically suspect turned me off classics SO HARD. It’s a miracle I ever got into Austen — or actually, it’s solely because of the movie version of “Sense and Sensibility,” which a friend dragged me off to see over my strenuous objections.

I finally read Jane Eyre in order to appreciate Sharon Shinn’s Jenna Starborn. I didn’t particularly like it, but at least its overall message isn’t grim and despairing.

I’ll never know whether I would now be able to appreciate Lord of the Flies, because I do not plan to re-read it. Or anything else I loathed in high school. Maybe I would love those books now; we’ll never know.

So, yeah. Tip for teachers: if you want to encourage a love of the classics, maybe lighten up the curriculum a bit?

I realize it would be impossible to choose great stories that would appeal to all young readers. Hah hah hah. Naturally plenty of students would be bored to tears by Pride and Prejudice. I don’t know what I would actually choose to assign if I were teaching high school lit classes. But if I wanted to assign 1984, I would warn students that the book’s overall message is dark, dark, dark. And then I would also assign a dystopia with a more hopeful ending. That would even allow a discussion of hopeless endings vs hopeful endings. Wouldn’t that be better than assigning nothing but All Is Despair books from front to back of the curriculum?

My most loathed book ever: Madame Bovary, which was not assigned in high school, but which was assigned twice in college. I can’t imagine why I didn’t just glance at the Cliff Notes for the second time through, but no, I actually suffered through the book twice. OH THE TRAUMA.

The single book I most wish had been assigned: Pride and Prejudice. I would have discovered Austen much sooner and perhaps not be so thoroughly put off classics in the first place.

The one classic I would most like to read but probably won’t: War and Peace. My TBR pile is so huge, and there are so many books I really want to read, and I still have to overcome a good deal of fear-of-classics to reach for one. But that’s too bad, because I’d sort of like to have read War and Peace.

How about you? Did you enjoy the books you were assigned to read in high school (or college) lit classes?

Unexpected good news: a new Vorkosigan novel

I was resigned to Lois McMaster Bujold lowering the curtain on the Vorkosigan universe, but it seems otherwise.

This is a Cordelia book rather than a Miles book, I see. The title is Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. I dislike that title myself, but the title is a trivial detail in this case. The release date is early next year.

So, happy dance here.

ALSO, if you were in charge of assigning LMB a writing project, what would you most want?

a) Another Miles story, filling in a gap somewhere in the extant chronology. For example, I always wanted to see the rescue story where Miles went off to rescue those Barrayaran subjects who were taken hostage by bad guys at the end of Brothers in Arms.

b) An Elli Quinn story. She was pretty cool as a secondary character in Ethan of Athos.

c) A prequel story, dealing with General Piotr and the Cetagandan invasion.

d) A story set in the future, focusing on the children of Miles and Ekaterin.

e) Something else, but in the Vorkosigan universe.

f) Something else in the Sharing Knife universe.

g) Something else in the Chalion universe.

While I would welcome any of the above, I have always wanted a prequel novel.

Spring!

Or close enough to spring, anyway.

I hope we are all done with snow by this time, because it’s time for us all to make strawberry shortcakes. I personally feel that you shouldn’t get too fancy with strawberry shortcake. Freshly baked biscuits, which can be sweeter than usual; scones if you prefer. Not cake. Slice the biscuits in half, layer the bottom half with sliced, sweetened strawberries, put the top back on, spoon more strawberries over. Top with sweetened whipped cream, not cool whip. I personally beat 1 C of cream with 1/4 C of sugar and a half tsp or so of vanilla. Anyway, bake the biscuits, assemble the shortcakes, and serve at once, possibly with a little crocus floating in a bowl of water for a centerpiece. Because, spring!

If you want to celebrate spring with something fancier, perhaps this strawberry coconut pie, offered here by Julie at WillowBird Baking, in one of the most charming blog posts I’ve ever seen.

Ah, here’s the World Fantasy Award ballot

I get to nominate works for the World Fantasy Award this year because I attended last year. This is a somewhat different award process, because the two items receiving the most votes go on the final ballot, where the remaining nominees are selected by the judges. The judges then read everything and make their own picks. Nobody else gets a vote. The judges this year are Gemma Files, Nina K. Hoffman, Bénédicte Lombardo, Bruce McAllister, and Robert Shearman. Of these people, I have read works by . . . Nina Kiriki Hoffman. And that’s all. So I have no idea what kinds of work the rest of them do.

This raises a different, speculative, question: who would be on my ideal panel of judges? Wouldn’t that be interesting to think about? I know I would pick Marie Brennan. She writes such detailed, thoughtful analysis pieces; I think she would be a good judge. Who else? People who have written a good bit, whose work I admire, who seem to think critically about what they read and about the craft of writing. Kate Elliot? Sherwood Smith?

Anyway, I feel weird about nominating SF for the World FANTASY Award, even though some people do. So I’m nominating:

Novel:

THE GOBLIN EMPEROR by “Katherine Addison”

CUCKOO SONG by Frances Hardinge

Those are the only two fantasy novels that I had on my Hugo ballet, so they’re easy choices here.

“Hold Back the Waters” by Virginia Mohlere

“The Earth and Everything Under” by KM Ferebee

“Mad Maudlin” by Marie Brennan

Those are the three short stories I liked best, of the ones I nominated for the Hugo.

Now, there is also a place right here to nominate someone for a Lifetime Achievement Award. A particular author can only win this once, which makes sense, and a list of past winners is provided so you don’t double up on someone.

I see that CJ Cherryh has never won this. I checked, twice. Unbelievable. UNBELIEVABLE. I hope her name springs to mind for lots of people and not just for me, because I would LOVE to see her win this category.

Okay, I’m off to finalize my ballot and send it in.

Competent Female Characters, Second List

Okay, lots of great Twitter action on this topic, as well as comments here. So a more complete list of competent female protagonists forthwith, plus my personal take on ‘em when I’m familiar with them, which is by no means all the time.

From my original post:

Tremaine Valiarde, Fall of Ile-Rien, Martha Wells

Maskelle, Wheel of the Infinite, Martha Wells

Honor Harrington, series of the same name, David Weber

Heris Serrano, Hunting Party and following series, Elizabeth Moon

Torin Kerr, Valor series, Tanya Huff.

Morgaine, from CJC’s Morgaine series.

Now, what all of the above protagonists have in common is: they are competent AND confident to start with. They may be in a position that is not ideal — hence, conflict and the ensuing story — but they know they can handle most problem that arise, and the DO handle problems that arise, because they are good at stuff. Yes, I agree with Maureen that Tremaine is a little less self-assured, but . . . uh . . . perfect consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds, or however that goes.

Actually, though Tremaine is pushed into a general sense of inadequacy from time to time, especially by that ass Ander, I don’t think she ever doubts her own basic competence to act effectively. She is an extremely decisive person, far more assured than, say, Menolly from the Harper Hall series — which Brenn C suggested in the comments. I loved the Harper Hall series, btw, but I would say the character arc for Menolly is a much more standard insecure –> confident arc. Brenn, Hanneke and @quartzen all suggested McCaffery’s Moreta. It’s been such a long time since I read that! I do remember that she was a mature woman character, but almost nothing else about her.

Louise Bates (on Twitter) and Hanneke (in the comments) and Estara (at Goodreads) all suggested Cordelia Naismith. For “mature female protagonist,” she’s a great choice. So is Ista from the Chalion series. But though Cordelia *is* competent to start with, she lacks confidence. That is why I left her off my initial list. AmyCat at @BookUniverse managed to capture this distinction in fewer than 140 characters on Twitter, which I hesitated to attempt: “Big difference between professional competence & emotional confidence. Cordelia starts strong w/1st, gains 2nd.” Exactly. I was specifically thinking of female characters who are already both confident AND competent at the opening of the story.

Pete Mack suggested Miri from Sharon Lee & Steve Miller’s Liaden series. Good catch; I agree. Miri has been through a rough patch, but she’s clearly both competent and self-assured when we meet her.

Michelle Sagara (comments) and Veronica Schanoes (Twitter) pointed out that Granny Weatherwax definitely counts. So she does.

Kate Elliot (on Twitter) suggested Signy Mallory from CJC’s Downbelow Station. Adam Whitehead (on Twitter) suggested Brienne from Game of Thrones and Moiraine from Wheel of Time. In all these cases, the woman suggested is not a true protagonist, but one member of a huge ensemble cast. I think that’s different, though granted maybe that distinction is just me.

Ben (@DefGrappler) suggested Breq from Ancillary Sword. I said no, Breq is not really a sexual creature, not human enough to count as “female.” Where does that leave Pyanfar Chanur from the Pride of Chanur series? Hanneke (comments) suggested her, and so did Sandstone (@quartzen). Here I say yes. She’s nonhuman, but she reads as a lot closer to human than Breq, imo. I mean, at least she thinks of herself as female. Breq is really a neuter person, no matter what pronoun she uses. @quartzen also suggested Diane Duane’s Ael in her Star Trek Rihannsu novels. Definitely a yes for Ael. She’s a great character and those are fantastic Star Trek tie-ins.

@DefGrappler also suggested Kate Daniels from Ilona Andrews’ series. Well, yeah, that’s certainly true. Don’t know why I didn’t think of her. Hanneke suggests Mercy Thompson from Patricia Briggs’ series. Mercy isn’t at the same level of competence as Kate Daniels, but okay, I grant you, she knows her way around a car — and she is confident by nature. That’s one big reason I love her.

Then we get to a bunch of protagonists I don’t know at all:

Kate Elliot and others (@jennygadget) strongly recommend Rowan from Kirstein’s Steerswoman series. That’s something I’ve had on my TBR pile for well over a year. I really, really want to get to it this year.

Kate Elliot Whoops, sorry, it was Jayne (@aunicorninspace) who suggested Alexis Solovy from G S Jennsen’s Aurora Rising. (Those extra @ tags confused my eye.) Anyway, that one is 0.99 on Kindle right now, so it’s very easy to add to my TBR pile. There, done.

And one more suggestion from Kate Elliot: Jirel of Joiry. That’s one classic I never read.

Pete Mack (From the comments) and Martin Wisse (on Twitter) suggested Jenny Casey from Elizabeth Bear’s Hammered, Scardown & Worldwired. Jenny Casey is evidently a middle-aged ex-veteran cyborg. Sounds great! Hammered is now on my TBR pile.

@DefGrappler also suggests Tavore Paran from Erikson’s Malazan series and Ilya Volyova from Reynold’s Revelation Space. I’m not familiar with either.

MAW suggests Priscilla Hutchins from Jack McDevitt’s Academy series, because she is a competent starship pilot from the outset.

Titinaus and Hélène both suggest Jill from Katherine Kerr’s Deverry novels. Kate Elliot suggested Lovyan, also from Deverry. Jon Chaisson, on Twitter, suggested Nola O’Grady from Kerr’s UF series that starts with License to Ensorcell; I liked License to Ensorcell and the first several sequels quite a bit, but I’m not sure that Nola O’Grady struck me as really confident and comfortable in herself at the beginning of the series. Though, I don’t know. Maybe I need to re-read those.

Katherine Kerr herself suggested Bobbie Lacey and Doctor Carol in her newer title Polar City Blues and also Ammadin in her older title, Snare.

Hanneke suggests Kerowyn in By the Sword, which she describes as the least YA of Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series. I never got into Valdemar, so I don’t know Kerowyn. Also Raine Benares, from Lisa Shearin’s Magic Lost, Trouble Found series. I haven’t read that, either, though it’s on my radar, I believe. I might even have it on my TBR pile. It’s pretty bad when you can’t remember whether you actually own a book or not.

Hanneke also suggests some of Huff’s fantasy in addition to than the Valor series. I am actually not as keen on Huff’s fantasy and don’t remember much about Wizard of the Grove or Keeper.

@quartzen, in addition to mentioning some protagonists I know, also suggested Balsa in Nahoko Ueshashi’s Moribito, Quinn Lioe in Melissa Scott’s Burning Bright, and Melisa Michaels’ Skyrider. I don’t know any of those.

I mentioned AKH’s extremely competent heroes. Naturally I see that commenters are now mentioning her heroines in the AKH titles I haven’t actually read: Stained Glass Monsters, Hunting, and now Pyramids of London. FINE. I will hopefully read all of those this year, but in fact . . . so many books . . . I can see myself simply waiting to read Pyramids until the entire five-book series is out.

Andrea K Höst herself suggests Claudia J Edwards Taming the Forest King. All right; it is now on my TBR pile. This one seems to be available only in the form of physical used copies, but on the other hand, it is available, so there’s that.

@harmony_fb suggested Loch from The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes. I actually have that in audio right now.

@glenatron suggests Juliet E McKenna’s female protagonists, starting with Livak, the protagonist of her first series. That starts with The Thief’s Gamble. Okay, I’ll try it.

@RobotArchie suggests Grand Captain Lady Laurr of noble Laurr from Mission To The Stars by AE Van Vogt. I really enjoyed some of AE Van Vogt’s work, but never read this one.

@pixelherd suggests Muire in Elizabeth Bear’s All the Windwracked Stars and Delarua in Karen Lord’s The Best of All Possible Worlds. Those were already on my radar, but I haven’t read either of them yet.

Okay, and from Sarah Beth in the comments at Goodreads, we also get a suggestion for Beka Rosselin-Metadi from the MageWorld series by Debra Doyle, James D. Macdonald, and Mercedes Lackey’s Diana Tregarde, neither of which I’ve tried.

As far as YA female characters who start off competent, we get these suggestions: Katniss of The Hunger Games, Sabriel from the Garth Nix’s book of the same name, and Tiffany from the Tiffany series by Terry Pratchett — who starts off as a nine-year-old, but a confident and competent nine-year-old. Sabriel I simply don’t remember that well, but I agree with the other two. They may have areas where they’re less confident, but overall they believe in themselves, and with reason. Also Mosca is suggested from Fly By Night by Hardinge. That seems like another possible choice for a confident MG girl protagonist.

All right, I THINK that’s it for suggestions, though I wouldn’t be astonished if I missed a couple given the plethora of comments here, on Twitter, and at Goodreads. Thank you all for contributing! I hope we will all find some new-to-us titles we really love from this list.

Update: pml comments on Goodreads:

UN Peacekeeper Major Catherine Li in Chris Moriarty’s Spin trilogy. That’s a harder SF trilogy, I see.

Perhaps FBI profiler Jace Valchek in D.D. Barant’s The Bloodhound Files — that appears to be a UF series.

Gale in A.M. Dellamonica’s Hidden Sea Tales, although she’s the protagonist only in the short stories Among the Silvering Herd and The Ugly Woman of Castello di Putti.

I’ll just add other suggestions in addenda as they come up.

Favorite Female Protagonists: Competence Edition

I was seeing various lists of favorite female protagonists here and there recently, and I thought, How could you even begin to narrow this down?

Then I thought, well, how about female SFF protagonists who a) are competent, b) from the first moment they step on stage. This eliminates virtually all modern YA heroines in one fell swoop. Poof! Because the only acceptable character arc for a YA protagonist involves gaining competence or confidence or both as the story unrolls.

Feel free to mention exceptions if you can think of any.

Meanwhile, this is actually an interesting category in which to separate male and female protagonists, something I tend to resist. This is because it seems to me that there are MANY uber-competent male protagonists out there, but a relatively small number of highly competent female protagonists. Granted, my list of super-competent male protagonists may be slanted because I immediately thought of Andrea K Höst and her male leads tend to be very much of that type (which is why I love them so much). But we also get, say, Travis Chase in Patrick Lee’s THE BREACH. And so on, and so on. I could come up with fifty examples without trying, probably. I think in general this occurs because both authors and readers gravitate toward younger female protagonists, and if you’re young, then your character arc is going to involve growing up and gaining in competence. A lot of male protagonists are already at the height of their careers when a story opens, and I’m not sure that tends to be the case with female protagonists.

But sometimes it IS the case. Here is my Top Five Competent Female SFF Protagonists, in the order they came to mind. Wait, Top Six, I just thought of another one.

1. Tremaine Valiarde from The Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy by Martha Wells. I think Tremaine is the youngest protagonist on my list, but she is a highly competent person right from the beginning. I particularly love her ruthless streak. She is one of my favorite protagonists ever.

2. Maskelle from THE WHEEL OF THE INFINITE by, yes, Martha Wells. What can I say? There’s a reason Martha Wells is one of my favorite authors. Maskelle is at the height of her power when the story opens. This gives every single situation a great slant. The challenges Maskelle face have nothing to do with the sorts of problems a younger, more uncertain, less powerful woman would face. I love Maskelle.

3. Honor Harrington from David Weber’s well-known series. This is by no means my favorite-ever series. On the other hand, I do find myself going back to it every couple of years.

4. Heris Serrano from HUNTING PARTY by Elizabeth Moon. Another ship captain, another excellent, competent, decisive, mature female protagonist. This is one series where I think the early books are better than the later ones, btw. HUNTING PARTY does stand on its own very well.

5. Torin Kerr from the Valor series by Tanya Huff. Huff is writing at her best in this series, and she made an excellent choice when she made her protagonist a master sergeant rather than a commander. That gives her series a different slant from virtually all other military SF and space opera out there. I sure hope she goes on with the series, because I don’t think it really reached a stopping point after the five books that are out so far.

6. Morgaine from Morgaine’s Saga by CJ Cherryh. Because, hello. Morgaine just about is The Type for a female protagonist at the height of her power.

Okay, who am I missing? I would definitely appreciate pointers to other great books featuring mature, highly competent female protagonists.

Great satire

Satire, as this site declares, “Satire is the form of humor that holds people, or society in general, up for examination, and ridicules the follies revealed.”

I think this is a good thumbnail definition.

The post — by LORDZB at Listverse — then goes on to list the ten greatest satirists of all time: Aristophanes, Plato, Juvenal, Chaucer, Erasmus, Jonathan Swift, Voltaire, Ambrose Bierce, George Orwell, and . . . I can’t comment on this, never having watched the show . . . Matt Stone and Trey Parker, who write “South Park.”

Well, not to take anything from any of the satirists mentioned, but seriously, one of the leading satirists of the modern era, if not THE leading satirist, was clearly Terry Pratchett.

Terry Pratchett’s first books were light fantasy, and I didn’t care for them. But somewhere around MORT, he found his true niche as a writer of satire, and after that he only got better — more incisive and biting, more insightful and laugh-out-loud funny. I’m not sure there’s ever been a satirist to top Pratchett, but I’m sure I can’t take any list of satirists seriously if it leaves him off.

I’m sorry he died so young, but grateful he had time to write upwards of forty books.

My favorites, hands down, were the later Sam Vimes titles. I don’t think GUARDS! GUARDS! was his best — but I think many of his best are in this set, especially NIGHT WATCH.

I love GOING POSTAL and MAKING MONEY; I love the Tiffany series; I love REAPER MAN.

I’m glad I still have quite a few of Terry Pratchett’s titles that I haven’t read, and sorry that from now on when I read one of his books, I’ll know there won’t be any more.

A self-published book challenge

This is a nice idea of someone’s. Perhaps of Mark Lawrence’s; the home of this Self-Pubbed Book Challenge seems to be his blog. It seems that ten fairly well-known book bloggers have each signed on to read about 25 self-published SFF titles, with a commitment to review at least some of them, and select just one title to move into the finalist’s round.

I found out about this from Ria at Bibliotropic, who is participating. Looks like other participants include Bookworm Blues, Elitist Book Reviews, Fantasy Faction, Fantasy Book Critic, Lynn’s Books, The Fictional Hangout, Beauty in Ruins, The Speculative Book Review, and Fantasy Book Review. You can see each blogger’s list of titles at Mark Lawrence’s site.

I hadn’t previously heard of Lawrence or, in fact, any of the authors on any of these lists of 25+ titles, at least so far as I can tell with a quick scan through the lists. That’s why I think this is a great idea. We all know that discoverability is THE issue for all authors, but surely none more so than self-published authors. I would never have discovered Lindsay Buroker without Sherwood Smith reviewing her books, or L Shelby without Elaine T suggesting to me I might look up hers. Andrea K Höst is a special case, since I saw reviews of AND ALL THE STARS everywhere the year it came out and discovered her that way. For self-pubbed-only authors, I think that’s it for me so far.

Ria at Bibliotropic has a post up describing how she chose which 25 titles to read: she picked ‘em on the basis of title, cover, and back cover copy, and shows examples of each. I must agree that THE BONE FLOWER QUEEN is an evocative title.

It’ll be interesting to follow along with these bloggers and see what gems they find in this stack of titles. I see that Lynn has already given one of hers, HIS OWN GOOD SWORD by Amanda McCrina, a thumb’s up.