Books!

[vaznetti]

I am currently reading two books, both trying something similar -- epic fantasy based on non-European model worldbuilding.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf, by Marlon James. This is, objectively speaking, very good, but I am making very slow progress at it; I was put off at the start because I thought it was going to be a book about a man and his penis -- which to be fair to James, is the category most actual epic falls into, and he is definitely trying to write epic. I am not sure now that it is just that kind of story, but it is still slow going.

The Bear and the Serpent, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This is the second in a trilogy set in a sort-of-native-American world; it is much more a straightforward narrative and I really enjoyed the first novel, which has a strong coming-of-age narrative for what I thought was its main protagonist. This second book is also good, so far, although I am a little worried about how the great existential threat from across the sea is going to be handled.

What I am realising from both of these is that I have more or less completely lost patience with fantasy sexism and fantasy misogyny in my fantasy narratives. I do not want to read about made-up worlds in which female bodies are intrinsically dangerous and icky, or in which some societies just happen to structurally subjugate women. I wonder if it's particularly striking here because both books are working so hard against fantasy racism, and I know it's unfair to expect these books to do all the things for all the readers -- but this one reader is just really tired of it.

Comments

[isis]

Huh, I think the book I'm reading now (The Wall of Storms by Ken Liu) fits into this as well. This is the second book of a fantasy-Asia series; the first book was mostly terrible to women, but in this one the women are both the strongest heros and the worst villains. However, a large part of the narrative is that the land of Dara is male-centric and change is coming slowly, that the established order distrusts and denigrates the abilities of women, and that it's clear that in order to succeed the women have to be allowed to excel - but you know, I think I'd just as soon ditch the "overcoming" narrative and start with equality.

[vaznetti]

The first of the Adrian Tchaikovsky series also has an overcoming-sexist-structures element -- I could have lived without it but it was integral to the character's development and the events of the book. I should say that not all the societies in that book are sexist (or are sexist against women -- there are hyena people where the men seem to be lower) but it just got tiring after a while, the way the story was dwelling on it. It starts to feel weird and almost fetishistic.

Are there fantasy books that don't have fantasy sexism of misogyny? The closest thing that I could think of off the top of my head was McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy: that doesn't have complete equality, but it also doesn't dwell on the inequalities that do exist...

[cofax7]

I think there are fantasies with less sexism in the world-building, and there are definitely fantasies where the story isn't misogynistic even if the culture in which it's set might be. But I guess that's what you mean about overcoming. Still, if you don't want a story soaked unthinkingly in male privilege, I'd recommend looking for more female authors, of which we have no shortage.

... I would point out that in the Riddle-Master trilogy, Raederle's father promised to marry her to whoever won Peven of Aum's crown. Even in the High One's Realm, women are not free from patriarchal constraints. ::shrugs::

If you want epic or long-form fantasy that I think does a good job with a wide variety of gendered distributions of social & economic power, give Kate Elliott's Crossroads series a try, starting with Spirit Gate. Her work tends to allow for social inequities without having her characters be bound by them necessarily.

Oh, also Sherwood Smith -- her Sartoran novels do have a gendered division of labor, but it's explicitly a world without sexual violence or the threat of it. Start with Inda.

Martha Wells' Wheel of the Infinite, or the Raksura novels -- in which there are no human beings, and the gender roles are entirely different.

Fran Wilde's Bone universe novels don't concern themselves with gender too much, as I recall; the social structure treats girls and boys roughly the same.

[vaznetti]

I don't think that either of these authors are soaking in unthinking male privilege -- I think they're both very conscious of various different kinds of privilege. I just found it interesting that in both cases, in what are in effect very different stories, both of which are actively working against fantasy racism, elements of fantasy sexism and misogyny seem to be "baked into" the fantasy setting or the epic genre. It probably stands out more in works like this.

I think the "overcoming" narrative actually contributes to that sense that sexism is "baked in" -- and of course fantasy sexism can also serve as a narrative shortcut for "this is a bad society" in a lot of constructed universes. This can be true for female authors as well as male -- I've read a lot of overcoming-sexism narratives written by female fantasy suthors. There's nothing wrong with that (although they can get a bit "not like those other girls"), but it isn't the story I always want to read.

Good point about McKillip, and in addition the Riddle-masters and the Traders seem to be male professions. Although Mathom's decision about Raederle's marriage is highlighted as abnormal and potentially unjust within the text. I might re-read the Cygnet books, which I recall having a broader range of female characters; I mentioned Riddle-Master because it's the closest to traditional quest fantasy of McKillip's work, and I think this is an issue in "traditional" fantasy. Thanks for the other recommendations -- I'll keep an eye out for them.

[aceofkittens]

Martha Wells is great. I really like her series about the Fall of Ile-Rien, but the standalone Death of the Necromancer is best.

On the topic of misogyny, this is one of the problems I had with Melanie Rawn's Glass Thorns series. It was all about some boys and their penises. I really expected better, and I read all five books hoping it would get better... and it didn't.

Now I'm reading Patrick Rothfuss' second novel in his unfinished Kingmaker (?) trilogy, and there's so much ego and penis in this that I feel like I just want to throw the book back into the library and try again with another series.