Jane Lindskold's Blog, page 118

FF: Women in POV

Except for Falling Free, which is mostly told from two male points of view, although there are at least two female POV characters, everything I read this past week had female POV.  Purest accident.

The Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include either short fiction or magazine articles.

Kwahe’e Snags Karen Memory

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Mustache Mary by Wendelin Van Draanen.  Missing treasure and family feuds provide the backdrop for more serious questions of friendship and peer pressure.  More mature concerns like boys and substance abuse enter for the first time in the series.  A very large pig provides humor.

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold.  Audiobook.  Focuses on the genetically engineered “quaddies.”  (I’m guessing at the spelling since this is an audiobook!  More emphasis on “event” than on character, which was a slight disappointment, but still fun.

Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear.  More substance than much steampunk, with interesting, complex characters.  I had trouble envisioning some of the “steampunk” devices, which didn’t matter until a sewing machine became key to the plot.

In Progress:

Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold.  Audiobook.  Prequel to “Miles” stories, how his parents met told, to this point at least, from Cordelia’s POV.

The Sword Woman by Robet E. Howard.  Wanted to read some early takes on “strong female characters” after writing my two WW on the subject.

Also:

Finished proofing Curiosities!  (That’s my forthcoming short story collection…)

TT: The Golden Age of Wonder

News Flash!  This week’s winner of the Help Make Artemis This Summer’s Hot Destination contest is Steven Sheeley.

Remember…  The contest ends on August 10.  Need the details?  Don’t miss out on your chance!

And now, back to our regularly scheduled Tangent.

ALAN: Okay, Jane.  Last time I asked you what sort of stories inspire “sense of wonder” in you and you weaseled on me.  No more delays!

JANE: My problem is that in order to give you a fair answer, I need to Tangent off onto a point…

Ready?

Wonderfully Fortuitous

ALAN: Ooh! A tangent! I love those.

JANE: Someone said something about the age for discovering SF or Sense of Wonder or something is twelve.  I can’t remember who, do you?

ALAN: Let me see…

A rather obscure American fan called Peter Graham apparently first used the sentence “The golden age of science fiction is twelve” in an article published in a fanzine called Void in 1957. Less obscurely, the critic David Hartwell used the saying as the title of a chapter in his collection of critical essays Age of Wonders (Walker 1984, republished by Tor in 1996). The saying is also used (without attribution) in the Clute & Nicholls encyclopedia.

Does that pin it down sufficiently for you?

JANE: Fantastically…  I suspect Hartwell was paraphrasing Graham.  Hartwell’s extraordinarily well-read in the history of SF and SF-related commentary

In any case, what I was trying to get at is that I don’t have that single moment of discovery.  As I mentioned many Tangents ago, I ambled into SF/F through random selections from the library’s paperback book racks.  I certainly was a confirmed SF/F reader by age twelve, but I don’t recall any gateway book or author.  For me, it was pretty much ALL sense of wonder.

I didn’t even have many friends who read “the stuff” until I went to college.  That’s when I both met other people who read SF/F and had access to their libraries.  So, for me, there are two stages of discovery, the random one and the one where I read a lot of books that “everyone” was reading.

I hope that helps explain why I’m having so much trouble talking about specific authors.  Until college, I simply wasn’t paying any attention.

ALAN: Time for yet another tangent. I find what you just said to be a little weird. I always know the authors of books. It doesn’t matter what genre the book comes from, the author (and often the title) invariably sticks in my head, if only so that I can search out other books by those people if I enjoyed their work or avoid them like the plague if I didn’t! I simply can’t imagine not knowing.

JANE: This trait doubtless led you to becoming the excellent book reviewer that you are…

 As for me, I rarely know the author or the title…  I think that’s one reason I find the current trend of trying to make authors into celebrities so weird.  But that’s another topic entirely…

 In any case, acknowledging my handicap, let me see what I can come up with.

Anne McCaffery’s first two “Dragonrider of Pern” books really caught my attention.  I never viewed them as Fantasy.  Threadfall was some sort of alien element, not a “monster” or “magic.”  In fact, the series lost me when it began to focus more on Pern’s larger community.  The White Dragon, which was very popular, turned me off.  Everyone shouldn’t get dragons…  Certainly not huggy, crippled dragons.

But those first two books really grabbed me.  I read the more YA Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, Dragondrums and enjoyed (especially Dragondrums).  However, I read them with my “Fantasy” hat on, if you know what I mean.

ALAN: Oh gosh! You and I have so much in common. Like you, I loved the first two dragon books and like you I considered them to be SF, not fantasy. They ended on a bit of a cliffhanger and so I was eagerly looking forward to The White Dragon. I had to wait a long time, but it eventually appeared. And I absolutely hated it. I’ve been utterly unable to read Anne McCaffery ever since.

JANE: Ah…  Your “Rama” moment.  I understand completely.

ALAN: Shortly after the publication of The White Dragon, I was at a convention where a fan asked Anne when she’d be writing some more dragon books.

“Never!” thundered Anne, and she went on to explain that she was bored by dragons and bored with Pern. Unfortunately, in later years she really needed the money, and so she returned to Pern again and again, for purely commercial reasons. But I can’t help feeling that her heart wasn’t in it.

JANE: I didn’t pursue Pern, either, although I dipped in occasionally, hoping to find some of the same feeling I’d gotten from the first couple of books. There was lots of interesting material and some nice world-building, but the Sense of Wonder wasn’t there.  If I wanted to read peasant politics, I’d rather read straight, unapologetic Fantasy.

However, I didn’t reject the books I’d liked and, in fact, a few years ago Jim and I gave them to our then high-schooled aged nephew, who apparently enjoyed them.

ALAN: Oh good – it’s always nice to introduce a new generation to the books we enjoyed.

JANE: Jim and I do a lot of that, actually.  Our nieces and nephews are resigned to receiving books as gifts for Christmas and birthdays.  Actually, “resigned” may be too strong.  I just heard from my sister that the least readerly of her children was so happy with the book we sent him (baseball anecdotes) that he’s asked for it to be his bedtime story.

ALAN: That’s my job as well – I’m in charge of books for my godson and his sister, a responsibility I take very seriously indeed.

JANE: Maybe we should form a club…  The Serious Book Givers…

But, we tangent again, which seems to be the theme of this week’s piece more than ever.  Next time, I’d really like to bring up something that occurred to me when we chatted about Arthur C. Clarke a few weeks ago.

For now, I’ll leave you wondering!

Crazy Busy

It’s been a crazy, busy week…  That and a tree have me thinking about how important weeks – or at least days – that are not crazy-busy are to a writer.  First, the crazy-busy stuff…

Imagination in a Tree

Curiosities, my forthcoming short story collection, is now proofed and in the hands of the production people.  Will we make our goal of having it ready for Bubonicon at the end of August?  Stayed tuned…

Last week, I mentioned that I’d written some pieces for Marshal Zeringue’s  Campaign for the American Reader blog network.  The link for Artemis Invaded in “My Book, the Movie” wasn’t available until later in the week.  Just in case you missed it, here it is.

I also put in a bunch of time on those “backstage” things everyone assumes a full-time writer has an assistant to do.

And that brings me to the tree…

About a year ago, the house diagonally behind my own sold to some people who, on an erratic schedule, have a passel of kids visiting.  They must like those kids because one of the first things they did (well before the cosmetic work on the front yard, which is what most people think is important) was transform the big mulberry tree in the back yard into an inviting play space for the kids.

They did this by artistic pruning that eliminated a bunch of small lower limbs, leaving only those strong enough to take the weight of an adult.  This, combined with the tree’s own sturdy and not overly tall, structure, created what seems to be the most wonderful place ever for games of pretend.

 In warm weather I work with the office windows open.  I’ve quite enjoyed the variety of games I’ve overheard unfolding.

There was the superhero one that involved Fireball and Thunder – and other heroes, too.  Those were just the names I heard yelled most often.

There was one that involved lots of wolf howls.  I had to restrain myself and not howl back.  I didn’t want to break the illusion that they were playing unheard and unseen.

There was one that I couldn’t guess the theme of, but during which one girl kept calling “Roxy!  Roxy!”  At first I thought she was trying to get the attention of one of the other kids, but then I realized that Roxy was one of the other characters – possibly a completely imaginary person.

There was one where “Bombs Away!” was a key element.  I couldn’t decide if they were imagining themselves on the decks of a ship or of a plane or of something else entirely.  There did not seem to be any actual dropping of anything although, given the heat that day, water balloons would have been a good addition.

There was the day the tree was definitely a pirate ship.

And, just a few days ago, I glimpsed a Ninja.  Well, a partial ninja.  He had a mask/head wrap, appropriate upper body garb, and a very nicely curved plastic sword.  His lower body, however, sported khaki shorts and sneakers without socks.

It’s nice to see kids playing without adult supervision or input.  It’s lovely seeing kids play unstructured, especially when so many of the kids I know seem tightly scheduled – often by their own choice – into various afterschool activities or summer camps or sports teams.

It’s nice to see kids just pretend.  Without a computer game or an I-pad or a phone screen as an intermediary.  I don’t have anything against structured play.  (I play computer games myself.)  However, I have fond memories of play – whether by myself or with other kids – that was built on nothing by odd scraps of information turned into dreams.

Some years ago, I crossed paths with someone I’d played with as a kid.  She asked me if I remembered how we’d talked about how neat it would be to grow up and have horses and then ride all the way across the continent to California.  We’d spent a lot of time talking about what color of horse was best.  None on the practical aspects.  She clearly thought this had been completely stupid.

I wistfully thought how wonderful it had been to actually believe something like that was possible, to have the freedom to dream and to dream BIG.  (I decided I wanted a pinto, if you wonder.)

I would have loved to have a tree like those kids have, a tree that can be anywhere, anyplace, anytime.  I hope I hear those adventures for a long time to come.  Maybe Roxy’s a wolf.  Maybe she’s a superhero who runs with Fireball and Thunder.  And maybe they get on a pirate ship, but end up needing to become ninjas…

I didn’t have that tree but, thanks to the generosity of a neighbor, I had woods in which to run.  Thanks to the willingness of my parents to let us take risks, I had water in which to swim and the world’s most indestructible rowboat.  And best of all, I had time to dream.

Time to dream is important.  It’s at the heart of creativity of many sorts, not just writing stories.  But these days, as I noted above, even the writers of stories don’t seem to get as much time to dream.  We’re all told to be crazy-bizzy, building mailing lists, fan bases, doing social media.

Gets so even a professional dreamer feels as if taking time to dream is a mistake.  There’s something twisted about that.

Maybe I should see if I can borrow that tree.

FF: Pigs, Priests, and Pegasi

If it weren’t for audiobooks, I’d have had trouble getting my “book fix” this week…

A lovely summer read

The Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include either short fiction or magazine articles.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold.  Audiobook.  Three excellent stories.  The “frame” in which they were presented also worked well.

The Sky Chariots Saga Book 1: Restless Earth by Emily Mah.  Part one of a serial, so this was mostly set-up and presentation of characters.  Setting is an alternate southwestern U.S.  May be an alternate future, despite the fantasy elements.  Includes pegasi, but a very different take.

The Father Brown Mysteries.  Audio.  Radio dramas based on the stories by G.K. Chesterton.

In Progress:

Sammy Keyes and the Curse of Mustache Mary by Wendelin Van Draanen.  Missing treasure and family feuds provide the backdrop for more serious questions of friendship and peer pressure.  More mature concerns like boys and substance abuse enter for the first time in the series.  A very large pig provides humor.

Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold.  Audiobook.  This one seems to be a prequel to the “Miles” stories.  Focuses on the genetically engineered “quaddies.”  (I’m guessing at the spelling since this is an audiobook!  Just started getting tense.

Also:

Almost done proofing Curiosities, my forthcoming short story collection.

TT: Arthur C. Clarke — More Than “Hard SF”

JANE: Last time I asked you which authors gave you the “sense of wonder” feeling.

ALAN: Arthur C. Clarke can do it to me every time. I think the best examples from his body of work are Childhood’s End and The City and the Stars. The latter in particular still has the power to move me almost to tears, despite the fact that I must have read it at least a dozen times.

Wonders of Outer Space

JANE: Can you go into a little more detail?  Some of our readers on are on the younger side and may not be familiar with Clarke’s work.  I think we owe them an idea of what is “wondrous” in his work.

ALAN: Certainly. Childhood’s End starts very conventionally with an invasion of the Earth by aliens who quickly become known as the Overlords. They initiate a utopian golden age, but there is a time limit on it. Initially, it isn’t clear just what this means, but eventually we learn that the Overlords are, if you like, nursemaids here to guide and supervise as humanity evolves into a new order of being.

Ironically (slight spoiler here) the Overlords themselves are not capable of achieving this new state and remain relentlessly curious about what is involved; hence their appearance as nursemaids to those species about to achieve it. It’s this thinking about what might be the next stage of evolution that gives the novel its impact (though it’s not short of spectacle either!). There’s a spiritual depth to it combined with a sense of poignant yearning, particularly on the part the Overlords who are forever denied access to what might possibly be the gates of heaven, however you care to define that particular can of worms. Clarke was a thoroughgoing atheist, but his novels are full of religious speculation.

JANE: I hadn’t read this one…  I may need to add it to my ever-growing list.  Funny thing, these days when Clarke is mentioned, it’s almost always in the context of “hard” SF.  I think more stress should be put on this element of religious, philosophical speculation.  I certainly would have read more of his work!

ALAN: Clarke himself had a degree in physics and was always interested in exploring the limits of technology.  (In one novel he defined the ideal machine as something that contained no moving parts; that way there was nothing to wear out!). But he had a spiritual side as well, and an almost Buddhist appreciation of the sanctity (and beauty) of life. This manifests again and again in his better novels.

JANE: You also mentioned The City and the Stars.  Again, I’ll be honest and admit my ignorance.  Can you tell me a bit about it?

ALAN: The City and the Stars explores similar concerns to those of Childhood’s End. The story takes place in the city of Diaspar, one billion years in the future. The Earth is so old that the oceans have long ago evaporated and humanity has all but died out. As far as the people of Diaspar know, they are the only city left on the planet. Diaspar is completely enclosed. Nobody leaves. Nobody enters.

All the citizens have lived many lives – when their time comes they are reabsorbed into the central computer’s memory banks, only to be re-born later. But Alvin is unique, he has had no prior existence, and he is insatiably curious…

What Alvin finds outside Diaspar forms the bulk of the novel. The novel dates from the 1950s, but Clarke’s speculations haven’t dated at all.  Again, he is really talking about spirituality rather than technology and those concerns are timeless. When Arthur C. Clarke died, this was the novel that I chose to re-read, the novel that I wanted to remember him by.

JANE: Now that I think about it, I realize I actually haven’t read much Clarke.  I read Rendezvous with Rama and was very excited – until I wasn’t.  The ending left me decidedly flat.  It turned me off to Clarke in a big way.

Yet that was a very popular book.  How did you feel about it?

ALAN: It started out well, but really it didn’t go anywhere. It was just a travelogue. The giant artefact arrived in the solar system, a group of people went and explored it, they left, and it went away again. Clarke had lots of clever ideas about the way that Rama was put together, but really, nothing much happened at all in the story. And the final punch line, clever though it was, cheapened the book by turning it into a shaggy dog story. So it remains one of my least favourite of Clarke’s books. I think he was looking hard for significance, but that this time he didn’t quite manage to pull it off.

JANE:  I’m sorry that this was the Clarke novel I read first.  I can see now that I need to go try other of his works.

ALAN: There are several really good ones that I think you might like. The Songs of Distant Earth is particularly good in terms of the sense of wonder feeling we’ve been talking about (it’s also Clarke’s own favourite of all his novels). It is set in the far future, on Thalassa, a colony world that was populated from Earth many centuries before the opening of the book. Now, in the timeline of the novel, the Earth’s sun has gone nova, destroying the solar system. Some starships managed to escape before the catastrophe, and one of them visits Thalassa – a brief stop on its way to its final destination.

The themes of the novel are both apocalyptic and utopian (by any definition, Thalassa is a utopia), together with an examination of the effects of long-term interstellar space travel and the possibilities of extra-terrestrial life.

I suspect that one reason why Clarke likes this novel so much is because he also used it to explore the passions of homosexual love. Clarke himself was homosexual, and there are hints of homosexual relationships in some of his other work, but in this novel he allowed himself to deal with the topic explicitly. Clarke has often been criticised for his cardboard characters (a criticism I disagree with strongly), but you certainly can’t say that about this novel. The passions are very real and the book is all the stronger for it.

The novel was much admired by Mike Oldfield (of Tubular Bells fame) and in 1994 he produced an album of music inspired by the story.

JANE: Okay…  I’m adding it to my list.  Any others?

ALAN: I’m also very fond of Imperial Earth which follows one Duncan Makenzie on a trip to Earth from his home on Titan, ostensibly for a diplomatic visit to the U.S. for its 500th birthday, but really in order to have a clone of himself produced. Thematically, the novel has a lot to say about the nature of change and transition. It also examines ideas of sexuality and attitudes towards race (again, there are hints of bisexuality as a way of life and, quite a long way into the novel, we learn that the protagonist is black. Not that anyone cares…)

And The Ghost from the Grand Banks is a wonderful bit of fluff about raising the wreck of the Titanic in time to celebrate the centenary of the sinking in 2012. There’s nothing very deep (pun not intended) about this book – but it’s marvellous fun.

JANE: Fun sounds good…  And you’ve reminded me of something I want to bring up later on.  (Scribble…  scribble.)

ALAN: But that’s enough from me. What about you? What stories inspire that “sense of wonder” in you?

JANE: Ooh…  The answer to that is actually much more complicated than naming an author.  Perhaps we can get to it next time.

Wandering Down a Wide Variety of Roads

After two weeks of focusing hard on a single topic (the complexities involved in writing realistic female characters), this week I’m going to Wander to my heart’s content.

Terrell by Cale Mims

Once again, I’ve taken up the challenge and answered several questions for Marshal Zeringue’s  Campaign for the American Reader blog network.  He did a lovely job of changing down illustrations for Writers Read: Jane Lindskold.  Next, I took on the challenge offered by the The Page 69 Test: Artemis Invaded.

Finally, for the first time ever, I answered the question “My Book, The Movie.”  I think you’ll find the answer interesting – if not, at least for those of you who have been wandering along with me for a while, completely surprising.

Winding down the lane toward a not completely unrelated topic…  I’ve been asking to see fan art related to the “Artemis Awakening” series.  Just the other day, Cale Mims sent a dramatic picture of Terrell leaning on his lance, contemplating spiders to slay.  Last week, Tori Hansen contributed a wonderfully whimsical portrait of Sand Shadow during some downtime on the shores of Spirit Bay.

Sand Shadow by Tori Hansen

Artistically inclined?  Know someone who is?  Since I can’t draw anything more complicated than petroglyphs, I’m always eager to see how artists might depict my characters or scenes from my books.  If you’re on Facebook, we’re going to have a gallery there.  Even if you’re not, you can send me files.   You’ll retain all rights.  I’ll just delight in helping you show off your work.

Please include your name (or artist pen name), title of the piece, permission for me to post it to Facebook, blogs, website, and Twitter.  Short anecdotes as to what inspired your piece are very welcome, too.  Files should be X and Y.

Turning down another side road…   Last week, we finalized my late summer touring plans.  The first event is Bubonicon, right here in Albuquerque, August 28-30.  The following weekend, I’m off to Washington D.C. for the National Book Festival on September 5, hosted by the Library of Congress.

The weekend after that, I’m off to Las Cruces, New Mexico, for a September 12th signing at Barnes and Noble along with Victor Milan (Dinosaur Lords) and Melinda Snodgrass (The Edge of Dawn).  Then, on Tuesday, September 22nd, the three of us will be in Scottsdale, Arizona, at SIP Coffee and Beer House for a book chat and signing.

After that, I think I’m going to come home and crawl under my tomato plants and sleep…  For further details of any or all of these events, check the Appearances page of my website. [link]

Speaking of tomato plants…  Some of you may recall how back in April (WW 4-15-15) I told you how Jim and I had decided to start our tomato plants from seed this year.  We planted twenty-one seeds, with the goal of having twelve plants bearing by the end of summer.  I told you I’d be happy if we ended up with six plants.

Well, the first surprise was that all twenty-one seeds germinated.  Not only that, all twenty-one survived transplants.  We put fifteen into the ground, the remainder into larger containers.

We lost one tomato plant either to wind or cutworm grub.  Given the nature of the injury, it was hard to tell which.  We lost a second plant to a wind-broken stem.  We lost a third to a virus called “curly top” that’s common in our area, although not so much east of the Mississippi.  In each case, we replaced with a seedling from one of the containers.

About a month ago, we realized the seedlings in the containers were beginning to struggle.  Yes, yes, I know.  Many people grow tomato plants in containers.  However, when the temperature reaches 110 in the shade, as we were back in June, the soil gets too hot and roots start cooking.  We scrabbled around for room in our already full garden beds and finally decided to plant them behind some very tall (as in 5’ high in some cases) Oriental lilies.  They are behind the others in growth, but are definitely shooting up.

So, as of this date, we have eighteen tomato plants, lots of green tomatoes, and expect to have ripe cherry tomatoes, possibly before this time next week.  We also have four varieties of summer squash, string beans (including liana beans), cucumbers, Swiss chard, peppers (ripening, not yet ripe, although we have thinned the bell peppers), radishes, ichiban eggplant, and a fair variety of herbs.

Dinner is now dictated by what the garden is producing the most of…

When I’m not messing with the garden, I’ve been reading the proofs for my forthcoming short story collection, Curiosities.  My hope is to have it ready in time for Bubonicon, at the end of August.  If I want to make that goal, I’d better transplant myself from in front of my computer and onto the sofa with red pens, coffee, and, doubtless, Kel the cat, who is my constant editorial assistant.

FF: Wildly Mixed

As far as I can tell, my reading this week has nothing in common.  Wait!  Two of the SF could be said to be “military,” but both are so much more.

Kel Relaxes with a Good Book

The Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include either short fiction or magazine articles.

The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a few opinions tossed in.

Recently Completed:

Lupus Rex by John Carter Cash.  A beast fable.

Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber. Book one of his “Safehold” series.  I read it when it first came out and decided to dip in again.

In Progress:

Borders of Infinity by Lois McMaster Bujold.  Audiobook.  In the last story…  Very good collection.

The Sky Chariots Saga Book 1: Restless Earth by Emily Mah.  Just started.

Also:

Proofing Curiosities, my forthcoming short story collection.

TT: Wondering About Sense of Wonder

News Flash!  Peter Donald is this week’s winner of the Make Artemis This Summer’s Hot Destination contest.  You can still enter. Details here.

And now to our regularly scheduled Tangent…

ALAN: Last time we both used the term “sense of wonder” when we were talking about what made us like Jack McDevitt’s stories. We agreed that, for both of us, it is this sense of wonder that attracted us to SF in the first place and it is something that we always look for when we are reading SF books.

Leaping Sky Sheep of Wonder

But what exactly is this sense of wonder? And why is it so important to us?

JANE: For me, sense of wonder has to do with books that get me excited, make me believe that there are things bigger, grander, more exciting out there.  And “in here,” too.  SF introduced me to the idea that “we” still don’t know what a large portion of the brain does.  So I was open to the idea that psionic powers might work, despite the fact that numerous “scientific” tests seem to disprove them.

I could go on, but let me give you a chance to get a word in edgewise.

ALAN: For me, it’s a definition of my place in the universe. The fact that the universe even exists at all is something that’s so hard to get my head around that I’m just lost in awe whenever I contemplate it. I want to ask just how the human race fits in to the grand scheme and whether or not people (or things, I’m not biased) elsewhere in the universe have ever asked themselves that same question. And, if so, what answers did they come up with?

JANE: Interesting…  Many years ago, on a moonless night, I was lying on my back staring up at the sky.  I just kept looking and somewhere along the way the sky “flipped” and I was seeing not black dotted with white, but white sparkles and colored sparkles and they were going on and on.

For that brief moment, I came as close to seeing infinity as I ever have…  Wonder, indeed.

ALAN: That’s it exactly! The best SF can induce exactly that same feeling. I’m not trying to turn SF into some kind of deep philosophical speculation (though it can be) – if I really wanted that, I could read books of philosophy. But I don’t read books of philosophy, because by and large they are dull and often incomprehensible.

But I do ask SF to give me stories that convey some sense of scale, some hint of place and time, some appreciation of mystery in the might-have-been or the maybe-it-will-be. The story doesn’t have to be explicit – metaphors often work better when you are dealing with such large ideas. It doesn’t even have to be serious – the very best comedy can often achieve transcendence.

In 1989, Alexei and Cory Panshin wrote a very large history of science fiction, examining the literature from just this point of view. It’s called The World Beyond the Hill and it is sub-titled Science Fiction and the Quest for Transcendence. My autographed copy is number 76 of a limited edition of 500. The book was later re-printed in much larger numbers and it won a Hugo award in 1990.

If that sense of wonder, or transcendence if you like, is not present in a story, then it often fails to hold my attention.

JANE: I agree.  Lately, I can’t help but feel a lot of SF is “shutting down,” focusing on plagues, ecological disaster, failed space missions…  Who would want that future?

Now, I’m not saying that the stories need to be all happy and all…   Characters who become involved, who care about finding what will open up possibility, these can make the most dystopian of futures interesting – because a willingness to combat whatever is dystopic creates the sense of wonder.

ALAN: Quite right. There’s nothing nice about George Orwell’s 1984. But it’s a powerful and moving work nonetheless.

JANE: Have you read any of James S.A. Corey’s “Expanse,” novels?  The first one is Leviathan Wakes.

ALAN: No, I’m sorry but I’ve never heard of James S.A. Corey. You’ll have to tell me more.

JANE: Well, first, James S.A. Corey is really two people: Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham.  They got to be friends as part of the rambling vine of social interactions that exists here in New Mexico.  Ty had created an elaborate future history of our solar system for a role-playing game he had run when he lived elsewhere.  He tried the same setting on a new audience here in New Mexico.  This game – as I understand it – didn’t take but Daniel was impressed by the detail Ty had put into the setting.

In the best tradition of creativity, he said to Ty: “Let’s put on a show!”

They did.  I read Leviathan Wakes out of curiosity regarding what these two had come up with.  I read the next one, Caliban’s War, because I’d liked the first book.  Ditto the third, Abbadon’s Gate.  I’m behind.  And now “The Expanse” is being made into a TV series on SyFy.

ALAN: SyFy will probably be the kiss of death as far as creativity goes – but I was with you all the way until then!

JANE: Ah, but they already had at least four novels written before the TV project came up, so they had a nice lead.

Anyhow, the Expanse novels are a good example of what I mean by characters helping create the sense of wonder element.  Otherwise, what with spit-zombies, world-eating bio weapons, and all the rest, I wouldn’t have read more than a couple of chapters.  However, the two main characters – idealistic Captain Jim Holden and cynical yet oddly determined cop Detective Josephus Miller – carried me along.

I’m haven’t read the fourth book but, at least at the end of the third, rather than degenerating into military action, doors into a larger universe have opened up.  I’m curious as to what they characters will discover next.

Who gives you that sense of wonder?

ALAN: That’s a very big question with very big answers – perhaps we could go into more detail next time?

HELP MAKE ARTEMIS THIS SUMMER'S HOT DESTINATION!

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Real Women As Main Characters

As I mentioned last week, in “Not Just Crossplay,” lately I keep coming across discussions complaining that there aren’t enough female main characters in adult SF/F – and this sweeping complaint often includes comics and movies.  Frankly, I don’t agree that this situation even exists.  I’ve written more than my share and so have a lot of other writers, male and female alike.   So we’re not going to beat this dead horse.

SF/F With Female Main Characters

What bothers me is the underlying implication that the way to right this implied misbalance is as easy as swapping pronouns and a few descriptive elements, that female characters and male characters can and should be interchangeable.

I don’t agree.

Last week, I took a look at how even with minor “walk-on” characters, gender isn’t interchangeable, that in many cases the social matrix dictates that some jobs are more likely to be done by “guys” and others by “gals.”

This week, I want to take a look at some of the complexities involved in creating female main characters.

Gals aren’t guys.   Even if writers want to create an egalitarian society where males and females are indeed equals on all levels, this takes considering differences on all levels and dealing with them.  If writers are working in a context that is not egalitarian – for example, any historical society up to and including the present day – then these differences need to be part of the female character.

Before I start, let me lay down some ground rules.  When I talk about “women” and “men,” I’m talking about the groups in general.  Obviously, there are individual men and women – even entire groups of men and women – that will violate some or all of these elements.  Okay?

Let’s start with the most basic, which is also the most complex.

Women are not men who wear their hair long and have interesting chest bumps.  Women are physically different.  That’s why they’re women, not men.

Women are not as strong as men, especially in the upper body, but also overall.  Women tend to have higher pain tolerance than men.  There is some evidence women may have quicker reflexes than men.

And here’s the biggie.  Women can get pregnant.  From sexual maturity on, aspects of how the female body is set up to carry a baby will dictate the woman’s life.  Many of these will also influence her social role in a wide variety of ways.

The difference in strength is among the easiest to deal with.  You can simply take the easy way and say that Conanna is stronger than most women.  If you do this, though, please give her a realistic build!  She’s not going to be slim, lithe, with a pinched waist, and big breasts.  She’s going to look more like a standard peasant woman: stocky, with thick arms, legs, and torso.

She’s not going to have six-pack abs.  (As Batgirl did in a recent depiction I came across on-line.)  Women do not form six-packs without extreme diets, steroids, and body sculpting – none of which fall into the “easy” category of “Well, she’s just strong for a woman.”

(Aside: Men don’t always get six-packs either.  My husband, Jim, is very strong, as one would expect an archeologist who has done field work for over forty years to be.  However, even when he was a young man and lifted weights, he never got that “sculpted” look.)

Keladry, the main character in Tamora Pierce’s “Protector of the Small” series, is the only girl in a training class for potential knights.  She does very well in many of her classes, but using a lance is frustrating for her because she doesn’t have the upper body strength that comes naturally to her male classmates.  When she learns that someone has tampered with her lance to make it even heavier, does she whine?  No!  She requests permission to continue to use the heavier lance in training because she knows she needs to compensate, so that in the field, when she needs to use a lance effectively against larger opponents (like ogres and dragons), she won’t be hampered.

Want your slender beauty who can pick up a car?  Fine.  Come up with a reason for her being that way.  After all, we’re writing SF/F here.  Here are a couple examples.

David Weber’s Honor Harrington and her ancestress, Stephanie, about whom I’ve written in Fire Season and Treecat Wars, are both very strong compared to the average woman in the Star Kingdom of Manticore.  Yet no one would guess it from their appearance.  Why?  Both come from a genetically modified heritage that give them greater strength.  Weber goes to great trouble to explain how and why this works, and to point out that there are problems associated with the benefits.  Add to this that Sphinx, their homeworld, has a gravity roughly 1.3 Earth standard and their environment provides additional training in using all that strength.

Adara the Huntress, one of the main characters in my novels Artemis Awakening and Artemis Invaded, is also strong without being bulky.  Again, the reason is genetic engineering.  Although apparently human, the people of Artemis are all, to a greater or lesser extent, the result of genetic engineering.

By contrast, Firekeeper, in my “wolf books” (Through Wolf’s Eyes and others) is fairly strong because of her childhood among wolves.  However, she’s not superhumanly strong.  She’s just in good training.  If she doesn’t continue to live a life that includes the equivalent of a heavy daily work-out, she’ll lose her edge.

But strength is really peripheral to the question.  I only bring it up because so many “strong, female main characters” also seem to be physically fit warrior women.

Let’s look at that squishy subject: Women are designed to be baby makers.

And, before I go any further, let me clarify.  I am not one of those writers who think that every trip to the toilet (or outhouse or head or whatever) needs to be mentioned for the sake of “realism.”  But if you write with a female point-of-view character, whether in first or third person, you absolutely can’t skirt around all the biological elements that go into being a woman.  You should consider these differences and incorporate where they would impact your story.

Let’s start with the menstrual cycle.

Every twenty-eight days or so, there’s pain. This is probably one of the reasons women have higher pain thresholds than men; long term experience in learning to function while having cramps is great training.  There are also mood swings, and a considerable amount of unpredictable mess.  And this doesn’t last just a day.  The average menstrual cycle is about five days of active bleeding out of the twenty-eight.

Before a woman has her period, she’s likely to be irritable, bloated, and uncomfortable.  During and after, she’s likely to be tired and anemic.  Oh!  And when a group of women live in close proximity, cycles synchronize, so the members of your band of women warriors are likely to be all having their periods at the same time.

Many factors – such as poor nutrition, physical and extreme emotional stress, and/or a high level of physical training –  can interrupt regular cycles.   So, it’s possible that your women warriors might have interrupted, light, or erratic periods, but that isn’t necessarily good or a sign of health and well-being.

What other things come into women being designed to be baby makers?

Women have breasts.  Even small breasts are vulnerable points, not only as soft tissue but because they are very sensitive.  The huge breasts popular in illustration are an encumbrance.  Even if properly supported, large breasts can contribute to back pain, poor posture, and a host of other problems.

Women can get pregnant.  Now that “the Pill” has been available for decades, I think writers tend to forget that accidental pregnancies did happen.  A lot.  So many things can throw off even a careful calculation of when a woman is fertile.  And without modern, easy pregnancy tests, a woman might not even be sure she was pregnant for several months, because (as mentioned above) lots of things can throw a woman’s cycle off.

If you want your heroine to be sexually active and not constantly watching the calendar, then deal with this.  In a Fantasy setting, you can use magical birth control.  In a high-tech setting, medicine should provide various options.  Whatever you pick, make a passing mention that your female protagonist has taken precautions and what those precautions are.   Do they also eliminate the menstrual cycle?  Are they available to every woman?  All of this will shape your culture in myriad ways.

Don’t have magical or high-tech birth control – perhaps because you’re writing in an alternate historical setting?  Then Conanna better either keep her knees together or be willing to take time off from sword swinging when she gets pregnant.

The complexities of being female don’t end with the conclusion of the childbearing years, but since few people actually write about menopausal and post-menopausal women except as minor characters, I’ll skip that for now.

To this point, I’ve stayed tightly focused on the physical aspects that make women different from men.  However, before I close, I want to at least touch on the social consequences of putting female characters into roles – such as warrior – that were traditionally male.

The risk of rape cannot be ignored.  Although men can and do rape other men, men more commonly – even traditionally – rape women.  This is not even necessarily a sexual act.  It’s a “marking territory” act.  It’s an act of dominance.  It’s an act of violence and intimidation.

The terms raping and pillaging are lightly joined together, as if the brutalization of women and the stealing of property are one and the same.  And, indeed, in many cultures they were.  But if you have a novel where women warriors are common, we’re not dealing with cultures as they were.  We’re dealing with cultures where the dynamic has been skewed.

How do you deal with raping and pillaging when you have women on the battlefield?  Does Brunhilda smile, wave at the guys, and say “Have fun raping the women?”  while she focuses on getting the best jewelry and horses?  Is she aware of the risk that the violence turned on stranger women might be turned on her?

Then there’s the issue – already manifest in twenty-first century warfare – that a woman solider faces sexual abuse not only from her enemies, but from her ostensible allies as well.  If she chooses to have a relationship with one man in her company, others may feel slighted and resentful.  This happens all the time – but remember, this time you’re not writing about rock stars or office workers, you’re writing about people accustomed to using violence to get what they want.

When I wrote When the Gods Are Silent, my warrior woman, Rabble, and her male companion, Bryax, belong to a culture that deals with at least part of this through “Ferman’s Oath,” where they swear to be comrades, nothing more.  Since the rest of the story does not include rape and pillage as set pieces, it’s enough.  But I didn’t dodge the issue.  I acknowledged it.

When I was writing Artemis Invaded I realized that there was a point where if Adara was present for a certain event she would – not might, would – be raped.  I spent a lot of time working the plot so she had a reason not to be there.  In the novel In Enemy Hands, when Honor Harrington is captured, she is saved from being raped only because she needs to be more or less unmarred for the show trial her enemies intend, and she promises that if anyone comes at her, there will be marks.  Otherwise…

I could continue, but I’ve already written more than I usually do.

I hope this makes clear that including more women characters in major roles is not a simple matter of flipping pronouns as so many pundits seem to think.  I’m very much in favor of putting women on center stage, but let’s make sure they’re really women not men in drag.