Where's the queer fantasy books gone?
Sep. 22nd, 2006 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSometimes when the story turns out to be het yet again it just gets really frustrating.
Book I'm on, third in a series, has this character who prefers the company of men. Has said so. Has been fending off marriage proposals. While every other character has been getting paired off, he stays single.
Is a slash reader seeing what I'm seeing? I think so.
It could be cool, the story of a queer Duke in a hereditary system. He already gave up his chance at the crown in order to maintain stability and avoid a civil war. Maybe he had some personal reason to suspect if he became King they'd end up with the same argument in a generation or so. Or maybe, as an important political figure now, he'd have to have a political marriage and an heir but somehow balance that with the relationships he found personally satisfying, somehow without abandoning honour.
Stories! Serious fun layered stories!
But no, they go travelling abroad and find the land of the warrior women.
Love at first sight *again*.
So. Bloody. Bored.
I like it in... I think it was one of the Vorkosigan books, but I don't remember which. Lady Captain, now married to a guy who used to be in love with a guy in a society that had no room for that, or for women warriors. She says she was a solution for him. Possible suggestion that he loves her for being like a man but permitted. Manages to queer the het.
This book I'm reading? NO such subtlety. She's just warrior woman who asks him to sleep with her the first night they meet. With the level of attention the character development gets in this series, that being almost none, I'm pretty much expecting that to be all the story they get. Unless she gets killed off to motivate him or something.
I know I've read this book, I just can't remember it at all. The more I re-read, the more I remember why.
It would be a perfectly respectable RPG campaign.
Its just a godawful novel.
Book I'm on, third in a series, has this character who prefers the company of men. Has said so. Has been fending off marriage proposals. While every other character has been getting paired off, he stays single.
Is a slash reader seeing what I'm seeing? I think so.
It could be cool, the story of a queer Duke in a hereditary system. He already gave up his chance at the crown in order to maintain stability and avoid a civil war. Maybe he had some personal reason to suspect if he became King they'd end up with the same argument in a generation or so. Or maybe, as an important political figure now, he'd have to have a political marriage and an heir but somehow balance that with the relationships he found personally satisfying, somehow without abandoning honour.
Stories! Serious fun layered stories!
But no, they go travelling abroad and find the land of the warrior women.
Love at first sight *again*.
So. Bloody. Bored.
I like it in... I think it was one of the Vorkosigan books, but I don't remember which. Lady Captain, now married to a guy who used to be in love with a guy in a society that had no room for that, or for women warriors. She says she was a solution for him. Possible suggestion that he loves her for being like a man but permitted. Manages to queer the het.
This book I'm reading? NO such subtlety. She's just warrior woman who asks him to sleep with her the first night they meet. With the level of attention the character development gets in this series, that being almost none, I'm pretty much expecting that to be all the story they get. Unless she gets killed off to motivate him or something.
I know I've read this book, I just can't remember it at all. The more I re-read, the more I remember why.
It would be a perfectly respectable RPG campaign.
Its just a godawful novel.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-22 09:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 10:14 pm (UTC)shall make a note
no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 07:05 am (UTC)We definitely need more queer fantasy. I'm working on it, though I'm not sure my stuff is quite your thing.
(I have an injured hand, so typing this has taken a long time -- not sure how easy it'll be to do your beta this weekend).
no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 07:36 am (UTC)(don't worry about beta, I'm all worrying about college now anyways)
love at first sight cannot be love, by my understanding.
quite frustrating when that is the only kind the author uses.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-23 07:43 am (UTC)Some authors are lazy, and love at first sight is presumably thought to be easier than developing a relationship over the course of the story.