Best. Leeloo. Costume. EVER.
Okay, yes, this is problematic because it’s turning a woman into a dog but it also makes a totally ridiculous costume look even more ridiculous.
- Escapism in Historical Romance Lots of food for thought here. I enjoy the “hero with daddy issues + unfettered by social constraints heroine” as much as the next person, but I also do like my books to be more complicated than that–because life is more complicated than that.
- And another one from Wonk-O-Mance because it made me laugh and laugh and laugh (I would link to everything there if I could): Jondalar, Father of the Alphahole Jean Auel’s books were smutty books I could get away with reading because they were “educational” (they appeared on the list of acceptable book report books in my 9th grade science class; don’t ask me why we had to write book reports for science class, I haven’t yet figured that out). Also, let me send you all to read one of my very favorite fanfics: Simmering. Ayla invents sliced bread. It is amazingness.
- On Sagan “If you wish to talk about what Carl Sagan means to science fiction, you must first invent the universe.”
- Black Women in Speculative Fiction Does what the link says–it’s a great overview of a lot of great writers. I’ve seen this attributed to Chesya Burke on Twitter, but a bit of investigation reveals that this is a class project inspired by Burke’s recent short story collection, Let’s Play White.
- “Fake” Nerd Girls, “Whores”, and Sexism Oh yes. THIS AGAIN. Also: Nick Mamatas reads the comments so you don’t have to (bless you, Nick).
- Five Things Academic Writers Can Learn from Genre Fiction Writers I’d also say that these are also things that anyone who has a hard time writing can use (I count myself among that group).
- YA Fiction and the Many Possibilities of Manhood Great blog post from Malinda Lo about manhood and gender fluidity.
- Predators, the GOP, and you A truly magnificent rant from N.K. Jemisin on politics and the American media machine.
- What living in South Africa taught me about racism in America Lots of great–and absolutely true–points here.
- How the Oxford University Press decided Word of the Year
- Reading on a Kindle is not the same as reading a book Published in an internet magazine. I know that I read more books and read more widely with my Kindle than I did before I had an e-reader. When can we stop fetishizing the book-as-object already? I mean really.
- The Gendering of Anger, Vice, & Violence
On some level, the cultural derision of female anger as hysteria seemingly stems from a belief in female physical impotence: if verbal disagreements are seen as either analogues for or precursors to physical altercations, then our tacit assumption of female weakness serves to characterise female anger as being somehow disembodied; as though our implied inability to (if necessary) take things outside means that our anger can never be physically felt, and is therefore inadequate when contrasted with proper, red-blooded, bodily male anger.
Jondalar? He is the stupidest, most self-centered character I have ever come across. Did I mention he’s self-centered?
I admit to reading the Ayla chapters from Valley of the Horses because in spite of many, many problems, Ayla is an appealing character. Jondalar? If that is romance, I can do without that, thank you very much.
I was in 9th grade when I first read the books. I suspect that the books haven’t aged well at all–I’m re-reading Clan of the Cave Bear right now and while the first chapter is really great in terms of setting things up (it is surprisingly compelling reading), by chapter two it starts to get problematic.
I remember even when I was 14 thinking that Jondalar was selfish, jealous, and overly prone to jumping to conclusions, especially where Ayla was concerned. So much of the conflict in the books is reliant on him being a jerk. But as a 14 year old, there weren’t exactly a lot of smutty books I could get away with reading, either. And smut is something a lot of 14 year olds are interested in.