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Sep. 25th, 2006 04:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI'm increasingly frustrated with the books I'm reading. They have none of the strength of the co-written books I read before, and heaping helpings of the weaknesses. They treat women as prizes and motivations. I just got through reading one where it went girl has sex, girl treats sex as just a thing people do and gets on with the war, girl gets killed when a troll randomly teleports into the room. Guy now has Horrible Trauma. And it is so obvious that it is (a) all about the sex and (b) you classic women in refrigerators moment. And I hates it. Yes.
I know the book is a bit old, but I don't consider that an excuse.
I keep on reading a few pages and getting too fed up of it. I should just quit and try a different author. I will, actually, once I get the reading list tomorrow. But until then, I remain stubborn.
There's also the horrible pacing based on being far too much like an RPG. You get random encounters I could calculate the relative points cost for. You get no layers, themes, metaphors, emotions, or any of that stuff. Actually, no, you get grief and determination and love at first sight. Beyond that, a bit short.
You also get some incredibly slashy moments mixed in that are the product I suspect of the way this author only writes about men. If all the continuing characters, the ones with time to build a relationship, are men, then those relationships can be read slashy. Is the classic reason. Is reminding me why I prefer the newer stuff.
I just poked around the web to find out more about the co-authored stuff, frankly because I was beginning to suspect it was primarily written by the other author. Turns out the guy says he spent a year begging the woman writer to co-write with him because he didn't figure he could write a girl.
He writes elves, dwarves, dragons, demons, the whole classic fantasy panopoly, and he cannot write girls?
*facepalm*
*in an entirely unsurprised way*
His approach to religion is really winding me up. He has an extensive pantheon, but it is clear the only reason they all exist is because That Is How It Is Done, for RPG reasons. In an RPG you want to give your characters a choice of gods, so there's something for everyone. In an actual world, the religion has to get on and actually work. I mean, why have a god of thieves? Everyone worshipping at ye standard god of thieves temple would logically get locked up! *Trickster* god, yes, or some dude like Prometheus, but your classic RPG god of thieves, not so very.
It is also bugging me more and more how they have elves and dwarves and each having their own character and such. The more I read, the more the concept strikes me as inherently racist. Not in a skin color way - more heightist if anything - but simply that nasty old construction where being born a particular way is going to give you a particular personality. Inscrutable orientals, and all that. It is such rubbish. It isn't even used to do a compare/contrast on their sociology or to show how the different lifespans interact or anything like that. It is simply a shortcut to create character. A guy acts a certain way because he was raised by elves. End of explanation.
Cheap!
Boring!
Really annoying!
In comics you get the archer guy who was raised by indians, and the other archer guy who went to be a teenage buddhist monk. But when done right those backgrounds have been about the experience of another culture and religion, not just 'here's a label, you know enough now'.
Comics are frequently not done right. This also pisses me off.
I'm in a bad mood. I admit it. I didn't sleep, and I am cranky and wound up.
But the book is also actually not very good.
I know the book is a bit old, but I don't consider that an excuse.
I keep on reading a few pages and getting too fed up of it. I should just quit and try a different author. I will, actually, once I get the reading list tomorrow. But until then, I remain stubborn.
There's also the horrible pacing based on being far too much like an RPG. You get random encounters I could calculate the relative points cost for. You get no layers, themes, metaphors, emotions, or any of that stuff. Actually, no, you get grief and determination and love at first sight. Beyond that, a bit short.
You also get some incredibly slashy moments mixed in that are the product I suspect of the way this author only writes about men. If all the continuing characters, the ones with time to build a relationship, are men, then those relationships can be read slashy. Is the classic reason. Is reminding me why I prefer the newer stuff.
I just poked around the web to find out more about the co-authored stuff, frankly because I was beginning to suspect it was primarily written by the other author. Turns out the guy says he spent a year begging the woman writer to co-write with him because he didn't figure he could write a girl.
He writes elves, dwarves, dragons, demons, the whole classic fantasy panopoly, and he cannot write girls?
*facepalm*
*in an entirely unsurprised way*
His approach to religion is really winding me up. He has an extensive pantheon, but it is clear the only reason they all exist is because That Is How It Is Done, for RPG reasons. In an RPG you want to give your characters a choice of gods, so there's something for everyone. In an actual world, the religion has to get on and actually work. I mean, why have a god of thieves? Everyone worshipping at ye standard god of thieves temple would logically get locked up! *Trickster* god, yes, or some dude like Prometheus, but your classic RPG god of thieves, not so very.
It is also bugging me more and more how they have elves and dwarves and each having their own character and such. The more I read, the more the concept strikes me as inherently racist. Not in a skin color way - more heightist if anything - but simply that nasty old construction where being born a particular way is going to give you a particular personality. Inscrutable orientals, and all that. It is such rubbish. It isn't even used to do a compare/contrast on their sociology or to show how the different lifespans interact or anything like that. It is simply a shortcut to create character. A guy acts a certain way because he was raised by elves. End of explanation.
Cheap!
Boring!
Really annoying!
In comics you get the archer guy who was raised by indians, and the other archer guy who went to be a teenage buddhist monk. But when done right those backgrounds have been about the experience of another culture and religion, not just 'here's a label, you know enough now'.
Comics are frequently not done right. This also pisses me off.
I'm in a bad mood. I admit it. I didn't sleep, and I am cranky and wound up.
But the book is also actually not very good.
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Date: 2006-09-25 09:35 pm (UTC)He writes elves, dwarves, dragons, demons, the whole classic fantasy panopoly, and he cannot write girls?
LOL!!!!! (Maybe because he's spent more TIME with the rest of the panoply?)