Paladins, Enlightenment, and Romance Novels

[ursula]

Went to hear Lois Bujold read today. The crowd was an interesting split between nerdy university students and nerdy people my parents' age (who presumably can afford more books); there were the requisite annoyances, including the person sitting next to me who hissed when the inevitable cell phone went off despite the fact that she was reading Diane Duane's newest So You Want to Be a Wizard? book while Lois Bujold read, and the people in line for book signing (stood in line for glasseye, since he couldn't come) discussing which of their friends had brought more books to the signing by "Misty," a.k.a. Mercedes Lackey.

However, I did get to hear unpublished pseudo-German fiction about wolves and sleepwalking. And hear answers to various questions, largely of the "So when will you publish more about MY favorite character?" variety. I write this entry, however, because she remarked that a novella about Miles' marriage is forthcoming in a collection of short stories put forward by a coalition of science fiction and romance authors. This collection was created by Catherine Asaro, who apparently writes both hard science fiction and romance novels. This fact fills me with a deep feeling of enlightenment, since I have stopped reading Catherine Asaro's books due to the general gratuitousness of her plots. (I'd prefer to like the hero for reasons other than how hot he looks in a half-laced velvet jerkin, for instance. And I don't care how beautiful the heroine's red hair is, there are limits to the amount of time I want to watch Hot Blond Android and Hot Dark, Brooding Scientist fight over her.)

I feel somewhat guilty about immediately judging Catherine Asaro by her other genre, since I am tending more and more toward the belief that society is prejudiced against romance novels for reasons that have very little to do with their writing quality or lack thereof. On the other hand, Catherine Asaro did prove to me that I object as much to blatant objectification of men as to blatant objectification of women, and can therefore dislike Heinlein in good faith.

Comments

Re: meandering whimsy

[ursula]

Well . . . I wanted to kill Anita Blake, for instance.

Re: meandering whimsy

[nobu.livejournal.com]

i do too sometimes. one more whining rant about how she is becoming one of the monsters and i was going to throttle her ;)
but the stories have merit beyond that you know... like all the really hot men. undead and were-men no less. hello? priorities? :P
in seriousness, well, more anyway... the anita blake books make my skin crawl. and some of her descriptions and action makes me physically sick or disturbed. it is a rare thing that does that to me... so i stay fascinated.
edward is the best character anyway. but i have a thing for pathological, psychotic men or something...

Re: meandering whimsy

[ursula]

Well, part of the problem is that I don't find the hot men as hot as I'm supposed to. Jean-Claude in particular is excessively two-dimensional; and no matter how lovely their hair, paper dolls just don't turn me on.

Edward is cool, since he actually seems to have a personality beyond a bad accent, albeit a psychotic one . . . But I heard he ends up with an annoying wife.

Re: meandering whimsy

[nobu.livejournal.com]

he does have an annoying wife. but he cares about her, and mostly about her kids. and they make a great front for him being psychotic and all. actually obsidian butterfly is the book where that takes place i think and is the best one so far of the series. i like the new leopard guy and the rat king as well.