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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36049 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 20, 2023

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A less hyper-woke writer could have written a pretty good book. Instead, she wrote a Hugo-worthy one.

Best burn I've read in a while.

I... I just can't do fiction written by most female authors. I wrote before how in a mostly male dominated Battletech fiction library, a female author snuck into a short story compilation. It was immediately obvious. I got 4 pages in before I had to thumb back to the table of contents and check the credit.

There are a grab bag obvious tells. Long introspective monologues. Often a touch of female chauvinism around motherhood. And of course all the characters emote like a knitting circle full of menopausal aunts. But undergirding all of it is an undercurrent of neuroticism that utterly stifles anything from actually happening. I'm not even talking about big fancy testosterone boosting action sequences. I mean even simple causality flies out the window. Things happen, characters feel. More things happen, with no one exercising any agency what so ever. More feelings. Something resembling a conclusion occurs, but I can only tell because the book is almost out of pages. Once again, without anyone exercising any agency at all. Some more feelings end the... story? Is that a story? Or was it a therapy journaling session?

I can't do it. I simply cannot do it. I refuse to read fiction by women. Frankenstein gets a pass, and that's about it.

Please stop writing this to what you presumably hope is a sympathetic anti-woman audience who won't laugh you out of the thread, instead go and read Patricia Highsmith, Donna Tartt, Hilary Mantel, Robin Hobb and Gillian Flynn and report back.

  • -10

Please stop telling people what to write or not to write - and you are engaging in the same kind of consensus-building you accuse him of.

Several people have already said pretty much the same thing you did ("this is a bad opinion" followed by recommendations for women writers) without sounding like someone from reddit coming in to wag their finger.

Oh, I guess I am coming in from Reddit to wag my finger. I did consider fully disguising my feelings beneath a more constructive-sounding comment but I decided it would be dishonest; frankly, I was motivated to respond to the comment by a feeling of strong distaste for the bigotry of the comment, so I wanted that to come through at least a bit. (I am perfectly happy to abandon this forum if such things are taboo'd here? Let me know.)

  • -11

It's not against the rules to express distaste for bigotry. But you are required to engage civilly with people and avoid unnecessary antagonism (like by going out of your way to express your disgust for someone), even if you do think they hold abhorrent views.

Fair enough, it's your house. I am not sure if you can draw a bright boundary between expressing abhorrent views vs expressing disgust for someone (my disgust for a racist, say, is based on their disgust for others). In my view someone who says they never read female writers is being less civil than someone calling that person a bigot.

Perhaps it's a 'know it when you see it' thing.

Expressing "a feeling of strong distaste for the bigotry of [a] comment" is taboo here because it doesn't actually add anything to the discussion. This is an anonymous forum; none of your friends will be outraged that you tried to engage a neo-Nazi/incel/paedo-fascist constructively instead of dismissing them without a second thought.

Realistically, a large proportion of the users and comments here are bigoted by the standards of Reddit. If you're going to post something that amounts to "yikes, sweaty" under one in every 3 or 4 comments, then you should leave, for your sake and ours. But I believe a constructive and mutually beneficial discussion can be had as long as everyone sincerely tries to "be no more antagonistic than is absolutely necessary". If you can do that, I urge you to stay. We could use more ideological diversity.

I mostly agree with the policy as far as it applies to completely informationally empty comments. I would say mine was one part salt and one part recommendations of really good authors, however, and was actually mostly well intended (I wanted to make the poster think, "I have gone too far, I am grossing this other commenter out, maybe I need to go and get some different experiences, such as reading the authors they mentioned."

I suppose one danger of this no-expressions-of-distaste policy is that it could leave posters unaware that they are causing contempt/disgust reactions in others. Though to be honest, in the case of someone given to generalisations of the level 'I will not read books by women', said posters are probably getting that feedback elsewhere in their lives anyway, even if they are unable to receive and act on it constructively.

The original comment could have been phrased better, and perhaps criticism along those lines would have been more acceptable to the admin above. However, it seems your objection is not to the comment's tone but to its content. I agree that the near-total dismissal of female writers is based on ignorance, but the correct response is a counterargument, not finger-wagging and pearl-clutching.

The comment's author has now received many suggestions of writers whose works may change his mind. Surely you agree that this is a good thing. But this is only possible because he posted his comment. The alternative is him not posting anything, and hence not getting any recommendations, and hence remaining ignorant. Surely you agree that this would be a bad thing. Therefore, it makes no sense to scold him for posting the comment. Your comment, even if well-intended, was counterproductive.

This forum's rules are the way they are because its purpose is to facilitate free discussion, and we want free discussion because it is the only path to progress. Self-censorship cannot eliminate incorrect or disagreeable beliefs: at best, it will hide them; at worst, it will cement them.

I admire your attitude, but don't see it quite that way. If he was posting in good faith, then yes, he got recommendations and his ignorance is ameliorated. Hurrah. But if he's not, and was rather hoping to garner emotional reward from the rise and attention he gets out of people, or their sympathetic and confirmatory anti-woman posts, then engaging with him is just entertaining him.

But if he's not, and was rather hoping to garner emotional reward from the rise and attention he gets out of people, or their sympathetic and confirmatory anti-woman posts, then engaging with him is just entertaining him.

That's not your call, though.

Your choice is not "engage with him in good faith" or "scold him to let him know how disgusting he is."

Your choice is "engage with him in good faith" or "do not engage."

More comments

How do you feel about the Vorkosigan novels? In my experience they have a solid voice, fleshed-out settings, and loads of highly agentic characters. All things which this book seems to lack.

Bujold's Barrayar series does a bit of the female essentialism, especially when totally not a self-insert Lady Vorkorsigan is on the page, but she's very much not going to run into the causality problems: Komarr and Memory in particular are masterpieces in fair-play whodunnits.

From the other direction, Diana Wynne Jones's Dark Lord of Derkholm is far more paternal, but there's a reason she got picked up for a Miyazaki movie in Howl's Moving Castle. She very much is against the menopausal neurotic aunt annoyances.

I will highly recommend Robin Hobb's works. Farseer, Liveship Traders, Tawny Man, Rain Wild, and Fitz and the Fool. I haven't read her other works, but the 16 books over 22 years constitute one of the best fantasy series I've ever read. There are stopping points, and the connections don't show up until the last two groups, so you can take it on in groups of 3 at first.

That said, she's the only female author that comes to mind when I think of books I've enjoyed.

Eh, I tried her books and got a good way into the Farseer series but I had to eventually give it up because it was too talky and emotional and all the flaws about women writers above. It reminded me of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books, that same kind of treacly 'outsider saves everyone but is universally despised but never mind we know he's heroic' attitude, and there came a point midway through one book where I was just "No, to hell with this, no. Don't do the big stupid elaborate psychological manipulative scheme, just do the clear practical action thing".

But of course you couldn't do that because then you wouldn't have the maaagic and how unfaaaair it is about Fitz being a bastard and all the rest of the glurge. I mean, look at this bloody synopsis extract from the Fitz and the Fool trilogy:

Web asks Fitz to meet a crow who is not bonded with a human, but is in danger from other crows by having white feathers among her black ones. She can speak some words. Through Fitz, she meets the Fool and they connect. The Fool names her Motley. Fitz paints her white feathers black so that she can go out without being attacked by regular crows.

Do you get it, huh, huh? Do you? It's about racism, see! And homophobia and pretty much any -phobia or -ism you want to slap in. With goddamn racist, exclusionary animals. Because of course we must have the cuddly-wuddly animals that are sentient beings too, and make Victorian Moral Lessons out of them.

My God, and this is only off the Wikipedia article, I think if I had read this book I would have clawed my own eyes out. I dunno who the villains of that set of books were, but I'm already cheering them on to massacre the feckin' heroes with their handy pots of crow feather paint.

I admire the Farseer books, although I found them frustrating as a boy. The weakest parts are, as you say, the hamfisted social commentary. Hobb could not have been more blatant about the analogy between closeted gays and wit-bonders if she tried.

What fascinated me was her anti-fantasy approach. From just the plot synopsis, FitzChilvary seems to have gone on a standard set of fantasy adventures and achieved a standard set of fantasy great deeds. And yet he never gains status. Near the very end of the series, he is the equivalent of the CNA in a group care home. No one knows his name. Those who do have a low opinion of it.

But Hobb doesn't present any wallowing by FitzChivalry as valid. He was acting out of selfless intentions, not for personal glory... right?

I thought her basic take on this was original and good: the royal family needs assassins, but who do you trust? Well, your own family. But if you give them that kind of ability, and trust them with those kind of secrets, what's to stop them from deciding the crown would look as good on their head as on yours? You make sure they can't inherit. Thus you have a line of bastards who can't inherit because they're not legitimate, but they are close enough in blood to be amenable to the demands of the royal role.

That's clever. But the way it worked out was poor - so you need people with the royal blood but not too close to the throne? That's what the minor branches of the family are for, as every noble house knows. Put the poor relations to work this way! You don't need to have bastards. And bastards can be recognised and legitimised, this has also happened historically. The set-up where "okay, main line prince, go out and have a bastard or two for us to have our new pool of assassins" was clunky. It could work in a Machiavellian world, but this world was supposed to be" if you're named after a heroic virtue, you embody that virtue" and that doesn't work well when you have honourable people as royals. Prince YesI'mHorrible can do that, but not Prince Generous or Prince Noble or whatever.

But that didn't suit Hobb, because she wanted the "Alas! 'Tis so tragic, the selfless heroism of the exploited bastard who is never valued or given his proper due!" bit, and after a couple of books it grated on me. Fitz was so groovy he should have been acknowledged as a legitimate royal but that's not going to happen because the main line are so ungrateful and they prefer to cynically use him to get his hands dirty so they can keep their hands technically clean.

But that's okay because Fitz is so noble himself, he only did it for the greater good and not for personal gain, even though he totally could have tricked them all and taken over because he's so smart and capable and and and....

Yeah, I get it, he's Marty Stu.

Have you tried Earthsea?

If you do, stick to the original trilogy. The later books are disappointing.

deleted

I'm the type to read romance novels, if any on earth were written for straight men -- and trust me, I've looked.

I'm not sure if Sir Walter Scott's novels count as romance novels (I imagine that some of them do) and they're usually from a very straight male perspective, though it's true that many women enjoy them, e.g. Waverley, The Bride of Lamermoor, Ivanhoe, The Heart of Mid-Lothian, The Talisman, and Rob Roy. These have non-romantic historical stories in them, but (sexual) romance is ultimately the point, I think.

My main objections to his writing occur in the passages where Scott is writing a romantic ode to Latin, Scots, or legalese, rather than telling the story. See also Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I'm the type to read romance novels, if any on earth were written for straight men -- and trust me, I've looked.

What's the difference between a romance novel for men and a romance novel for women? Is it something like this:

  • regular novel for men: man wants X, gets X (or Y), gets woman as a bonus;

  • romance novel for women: woman wants man, ends up doing X to get him;

  • romance novel for men: man wants woman, ends up doing X to get her?

Another thought. Male-oriented romances do exist in droves, but they tend to be chameleons. One, it's easy to mischaracterize a male-oriented romance ("Man believes he cannot do X, woman sees man's potential and falls in love with him despite not doing X. Inspired, man does X.") as a novel about X. Second, the flipside of the open secret that females are hypergamous is that males want to sleep around, or at least be the sort of man who is able to sleep around but virtuously declines. In male-oriented romances, the protagonist will have one madonna they want to prove themselves to, and a gaggle of discreet admirers.

To give an example, Name of the Wind is secretly male Twilight.

I think male romance novels were Westerns. That's the romantic image of the male heroic lead, and the villains he has to overcome, and the woman he wins along the way.

Look at Louis L'Amour's books - some of them are what in other terms would be called family sagas. To take a snippet from a sniffy critic quoted in the Wikipedia article:

His Western fiction is strictly formulary and frequently, although not always, features the ranch romance plot where the hero and the heroine are to marry at the end once the villains have been defeated.

I think male romance novels were Westerns.

Let's test Cormac McCarthy

  • All the Pretty Horses? Check

  • The Crossing? Nope

  • Cities of the Plain? Check

  • Blood Meridian? Nopenopenope

Two out of four ain't bad, but I wouldn't say that his books are entirely full of internal monologues, undercurrents of neuroticism, and sweeping character emotions at all.

Whether the male or female lead gets more attention from the author.

Well. Male Gaze alone isn’t enough to make a romance novel; it still has to have the pursuit/conflict of the relationship front and center. But given that a book is about a couple, the character that’s more fully realized is probably the intended interest. In (female-oriented) romance this is usually the man.

This intersects with viewpoint characters in the form of self-inserting. Romance novels are often 1st or close 3rd person, putting the reader in the head of one character. Obviously, that’s a big clue as to the intended sex of the audience!

It’s not foolproof, especially for slash. Consider MDZS, a famous cultivation web novel. The gay main pairing is front and center despite very definitely being marketed to women. Likewise, romance genres like yaoi which use the more distant 3rd person of manga can’t rely on self-inserting. All bets are off when it comes to lesbian romance.

Maybe men are less likely to self-insert, or maybe there’s an author bias against writing accordingly. I can’t say. But there is definitely a style which tells me a book is intended as romance.

romance novel for women: woman wants man, ends up doing X to get him;

This doesn't feel quite right to me. Women tend to be the objects more than the actors in romance novels geared towards women. I think it's more like:

Woman is irresistible to man for some reason. Man, despite being rich and handsome has awful flaw. Man approaches woman. Woman rejects man. Woman is worried man is gone. But man is still irresistibly attracted. Man pushes through objections (could be kinda rapey at this point). Woman is overcome.

Well, I've heard it said that The Dresden Files are harlequin romance novels for lonely 20something men. But, women who encounter the books also tend to really really like them.

Similar to The Witcher, which is really just a bodice-ripping sex romp with some fantasy monster-hunting thrown in, and also has a sizable female fan base. Maybe this is more a case of dudes getting tricked into reading romance novels.

Both series are also very Detective Noir, so maybe that's the secret gender fandom crossover element.

I do like the Dresden Files, but Harry's track record with romance? 🤦‍♀️ Also, the sure-fire way to lure him into a trap is to dangle a damsel in distress before him. By this stage, he should have copped on but no, he keeps rushing to the rescue no questions asked. It is a very sympathetic flaw, but one of these days it will get him into serious, serious trouble.

Only if Butcher writes more, which seems unlikely. And he's already one of the most powerful beings in creation (that we know about), so how much worse can it get? (LOL, don't ask THAT, Harry)

Yeah he doesn't seem in any hurry to start the next novel, does he? I think he wrote himself into a corner with the cliffhanger he left us all dangling on, and now doesn't want to tackle the next book and I can't blame him. Plus, there are a lot of hints about Harry and his ultimate meaning that he now has to start paying out on, because he's dropped too many hints and built Harry up to this peak of power, so the next step will turn Harry from "all these Big Powers push the little people around but I stand up for the plain folks" to being a Big Power himself, and I don't think Butcher is ready to shift gears like that.

romance novel for men: man wants woman, ends up doing X to get her?

Man believes he cannot do X, woman sees man's potential and falls in love with him despite not doing X. Inspired, man does X.

romance novel for women: woman wants man, ends up doing X to get him

Man courts woman with low self esteem. Man has severe character flaw or skeletons in closet. Man fixes woman's self esteem, woman fixes man.

Man courts woman with low self esteem. Man has severe character flaw or skeletons in closet. Man fixes woman's self esteem, woman fixes man.

Don't forget the: Woman is presented as ugly or non-atractive at the begining but with a plucking of eyebrows and a wardrobe change everyone else finds out she is beautiful. And first sexual encounter between the love interests being nonRape.

If you like historical fiction I would consider the Wolf Hall books. Told from the perspective of Henry VIII's Prime minister. Written by a woman but no wokery or historical anachronism in sight.

Written by a woman but no wokery or historical anachronism in sight.

Uhhhhh...

Okay, admission of bias time up front: I am a St. Thomas More stan and Catherine of Aragon stan, so a novel which is a love letter to Thomas Cromwell is going to have a hard time winning me over from the start.

The trilogy is good, and it's a great primer in the absolute snake-pit that the Tudor court was (I was going to say "under Henry VIII" but I think that during the War of the Roses and when his father, Henry VII, was the last man standing, things were not too peachy either). It deals with the religious upheaval and the rise and fall of great families, as well as Henry's marital travails and why these mattered, and it's all from the viewpoint of Thomas Cromwell, one of Henry's New Men who came from humble beginnings, rose to the heights and - like his patron Wolsey - fell at the moment his influence and power was at its zenith.

Mantel is a Cromwell stan, there's no denying that; she's half in love with her character (you can always tell when an author fell in love with their character). He was genuinely smart and capable, but she makes him omnicompetent, he's a Marty Stu. The one good trait she gives him that I can appreciate is his loyalty to his old master, Wolsey.

It's very good on how Cromwell both was an innovator, who updated the bureaucracy and laid the foundations for the modern parliamentary system, and how he bent the laws around to serve Henry's purposes in a very nasty way, so that it's satisfying (if you're like me) to see him hoist with his own petard. Bills of Attainder are a lovely little legal device where we don't need to give you a trial, we've already decided you're guilty, now just confess like a good chap (or lady).

Mantel tends to slide over the nasty implications of what her boy is doing; she dislikes More (being a Cromwell stan, and for the same reasons I dislike Cromwell, being a More stan) so he gets to be a bigot fanatic torturer etc. etc. etc. while Cromwell, well gosh gee he just sort of had to do these things, you know? Seemingly she's ex-Catholic so that explains a lot of her attitudes to "bad old church, bad old pope, Reformation great, we'll just pretend it was all about now you can read the Gospels in English and be vaguely uplifted spiritually".

I would recommend the trilogy but with the caveat that Mantel thinks Cromwell was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

EDIT: I'd recommend, as non-fiction, the biography by Diarmaid Macculloch; a 1523 letter shows that politics hasn't changed much in 500 years 😁

Cromwell’s letter rounds up London gossip for his friend in Spain, and demonstrates a relaxed satirical wit on the subject of Parliament, speaking volumes about his capacity for making friends:

by long time I, amongst other, have endured a parliament, which continued by the space of seventeen whole weeks, where we communed of war, peace, strife, contention, debate, murmur, grudge, riches, poverty, penury, truth, falsehood, justice, equity, deceit, oppression, magnanimity, activity, force, attemperance [moderation] – treason, murder, felony [?]concealed – and also how a commonwealth might be edified and also continued within our realm. Howbeit, in conclusion, we have done as our predecessors have been wont to do, that is to say, as well as we might, and left where we began.

I completely agree with your assessment. Mantell definitely seemed like she was trying to rehabilitate Cromwell, and her depiction of Moore was cartoonish.

In particular, the (not) torture of Mark Smeaton before he confessed to adultery with Anne Boleyn was absurd. The idea that he would confess to a crime that guaranteed his death due to being put in a scary cellar wasn't exactly convincing.

The BBC miniseries was also fantastic. They really went all in on the historical realism, including things like not having any artificial lighting, and even refusing to use modern candles in place of historically accurate tallow candles.

I might give Macculloch's biography a read, the reviews on Amazon seem positive.

It is good, and I say that as someone who is probably on the exact opposite of Macculloch in every way (he's English of Scottish descent, former Anglican, Unionist etc.) It's fair to Cromwell and also shows the environment he was working in, the changes going on not just in England but in Europe, and the reasons both for his success and his fall. It does show his flaws, too. And he was ruthless, there's no two ways about that. Throughout his career, he was a fixer for a lot of people, he was lobbied by people for that purpose, and he worked as Henry's fixer and his downfall came when he made missteps and could no longer provide the 'fixes' Henry wanted.

Henry VIII really is a fascinating character and despite reading a couple of biographies, I can't really get a handle on his character because nobody seems to be able to do that; one writer will describe him as a man's man, impatient of the world of women, while another will write him as brought up in a woman's world and thus being less sure of his position in the all-male world of the court. Nobody could really claim to know him, or be able to control him. And whatever one's opinions on their merits, I think More made a better end by standing up for his principles even though he knew this would probably end in his death eventually, as against Cromwell who went with the king on everything he asked and still ended up begging for mercy in one last, pathetic letter because his downfall, too, was assured.

I don't have much sympathy for Anne Boleyn because she did a lot to get herself into the position she ended up in (whatever about family pressure, and all the highborn families were dangling their daughters in front of Henry for hopes of getting advancement, she was - if we believe her supporters - smart and capable, so she was not some delicate blossom forced into chasing the king, she went for it too with her full consent). But her end was miserable, and the list of ridiculous charges was just Henry's ego at work. Smeaton is a victim, too; a bit of a cocky idiot who liked the idea of chasing the queen, did too much bragging, and ended up being used by men much cleverer and more powerful than him because he was a weak link who could be used for their purposes. I don't think anyone really believed that Smeaton was Anne's lover, but he could be portrayed as such, and coerced into a confession about it all, and that was what they wanted: the excuse to prosecute her.

Yes, I don't think it's at all credible that "we'll just sit him in a spooky cellar" was as far as Cromwell went, because (1) he was fighting for his survival against Anne himself and (2) he was not the kind of man to be squeamish about what needed to be done to get what he wanted.

There's a good video about the Holbein Tudor portraits here. I didn't see the BBC series, but I did read somewhere that the visual of Cromwell was, ironically, based more on the More portrait than the Cromwell portrait. It is fascinating to compare the two pictures, the one of More seems a lot more detailed and realistic than the one of Cromwell which is a lot flatter and old-fashioned. Does that mean Holbein preferred More to Cromwell, or that Cromwell made sure the painting would not reveal more than the surface he wanted to present?

Come on, this is ridiculous. Are there books that meet that description? Unfortunately, yes. But there are many quality female authors, both classic and modern, who are perfectly capable of writing competent plots and characters with agency. I've read romances that defeat your description in detail. Random example--no exploration of the mystery genre is complete without hitting Agatha Christie.

I can't guarantee you'd like any book or author I'd recommend, but your tastes are extremely narrow if no female author would qualify.

I was once five books into a series of police procedural mysteries with a sci-fi setting when the librarian checking out number six informed me I was reading Nora Roberts.

I quickly switched to self-checkout kiosks, which respect my desire to read male authors like Robert Galbraith or C.J. Cherryh.

I've heard good things about this new guy, James Tiptree Jr., as well 😁

You should try Deanna Dwyer, Danielle Brown, and Madeleine Brent.

I have limited free time, or reading time for that matter. If I grab a random female authored SF or Fantasy book that comes "highly recommended" or has won a bunch of awards to get it in front of my eyes, what do you think are the odds it affirms all the terrible and odious stereotypes I've come to loath? Greater than 50%? Greater than 80%?

This isn't the trite old talking about about the bowl full of M&M's with a few poison ones sprinkled in. It's a bowl of poison with a few... mediocre candies. The juice simply isn't worth the squeeze.

Motte, meet bailey. This is a very much narrower and more defensible claim--yes, the awards are owned by woke activists. "Hugo-winning" is still an unmistakeable mark of quality, but not good quality. But even if we narrow to SF/Fantasy--you originally made claims about fiction written by women generally--there are still female published authors who are not woke, or are even anti-woke. Baen is the obvious place to start; Sarah Hoyt is one example. (No promises that you'll like her writing, but if you don't, it won't be for woke reasons, and she actually likes men!)

There's also good stuff to be found outside traditional publishing, both indie and web serial, though as always, a random grab will not serve you well. The Wandering Inn is a web serial with a pseudonymous author (though I have high confidence she's female), and it's excellent. Unfortunately, "The Wandering Inn" and "limited reading time" are not concepts that work well together.

you originally made claims about fiction written by women generally--there are still female published authors who are not woke, or are even anti-woke.

My complaints about what I perceive to be the female writing style are orthogonal to complaints about wokeness. You'll notice I didn't mention politics at all.

I also didn't say it's all trash, or terrible, or that women can't write. I laid out a list of characteristics I've found endemic in women's writing, and said I can't do it. I simply cannot. I'm not sure how well you digested my tastes, since you went off about "wokeness" instead of addressing my specific dislikes.

But there are many quality female authors, both classic and modern, who are perfectly capable of writing competent plots and characters with agency.

Already addressed.

I'm not saying you should like or even tolerate a lack of plot or agency--I agree that any work meeting your original description (or even close to it) is crap. The common modern failing is to replace the missing plot and agency with wokeness, which is why I brought it up. But you are painting with too broad a brush to say there aren't any female authors in SF/Fantasy worth reading, which is exactly what you did here:

It's a bowl of poison with a few... mediocre candies.

I was going to bring Madeline L'Engle up as a counterexample, but she's a fantasy author with a few (very few) sciency-themes; no more of a sci-fi author than Susan Cooper.

For me, this is a things/ideas vs. people interest problem. If I want very acute novels about people's personalities and interactions, I can read classic literature and get something far beyond what a sci-fi author will manage. I go to sci-fi for either descriptions of cool stuff (paradigmatically, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) or explorations of ideas (paradigmatically, Frank Herbert or Isaac Asimov).

EDIT: For kid's sci-fi, I suppose some of Gillian Cross's work is good in every respect, though even it tends to be more fantasy e.g. the Demon Headmaster books have a lot of sci-fi, but the Headmaster himself is fundamentally a fantasy figure, since there's no scientific reason for his powers.

I agree that Madeline L'Engle is more of a fantasy author than a sci -fi author, but to be fair the statement wasn't "I refuse to read sci -fi written by women", it was all fiction written by women. So L'Engle is a good counterexample here.

antasy author than a sci -fi author, but to be fair the statement wasn't "I refuse to read sci -fi written by women", it was all fiction written by women. So L'Engle is a good counterexample here.

Good point. Say what you like about L'Engle novels, but plenty of stuff happens in them, and in my opinion it's often (bizarre) fun stuff. It's hard to say what L'Engle is interested in most of the time, which is part of the joy of her books, but she's definitely interested in something other than just people and their inner lives.

I can't do it. I simply cannot do it. I refuse to read fiction by women. Frankenstein gets a pass, and that's about it.

This is funny, because I didn't like Frankenstein very much, precisely because it was so full of histrionic monologues and Dr. Frankenstein acting like a dude written by a woman.

Frankenstein is about as Romantic as it comes, but it should be understood that this was the prevailing style of the time - overwrought and emotional. Men wrote this way back then too.

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