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vaznettiI 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.
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.
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Date: 2019-05-21 02:26 am (UTC)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.