Well, this comment was a direct response to the characters comments so that's why it was all characters.
But, to use Bujold as an example again (what can I say? She's one of my favorite authors), one of the larger things going on in the series of books is how reproductive technology influences the development of societies. This is also one of the places where, while a lot of the individual books can be read as space opera, as an entire arc, it's sneakily Hard SF because of the way these technologies underpin everything. You'll probably notice that my rec list tends to lean heavily towards female authors as well though. That's not entirely by accident, but I tend to find that my list of top authors tends to be pretty female-author-heavy. In both SF and F.
Science Fiction as a genre is one of the places with the most potential to examine feminist questions and constructions of gender and culture, and there is a decent amount of stuff that does do that. It's not going to be the most popular stuff (because, gee whiz, we're still in a patriarchal society and there are plenty of troglodyte male nerds that don't like their privilege questioned) but there's really been a tradition of Feminist Science Fiction from early on and it really gained strength in the '70s. The '80s saw a lot of backlash against feminism, but it didn't go away. And nowadays, a lot of male authors are pretty damn egalitarian and/or feminist and don't think they need a cookie for realizing that girls are people too.
I like Elizabeth Moon. I haven't read her sci-fi in a while, but I liked it enough to buy a lot of it, although I've reread her Fantasy series The Deed of Paksenarrion more often. She served in the Marines, so she's probably got a better handle on portraying what it actually feels like to serve in the military than a lot of authors do, and I think that groundedness shows through in both her Science Fiction and her Fantasy. Again, I like her characters, which I find complex and believable as well as likable. (Also, Paksennarion is one of the very few well-portrayed asexual characters I can think of off the top of my head, so that's another plus in my book.) Also, Moon does really interesting things with the question how anti-aging and prolongation of life would affect both social and military power structures in the Serrano/Suiza books, which is probably one of the things that makes them better than bog standard or gear-head weapons and/or tactics geeking (neither of which I give a shit about), or the morose puritanical whining of Feintuch's Seafort saga (ye gods, won't Nick Seafort please just kill himself and put everyone out of his misery?).
(And, hey. I don't exactly mind Adolescent (geek) Male Fantasy Fulfillment fiction like John Ringo's Council Wars series. In fact, I thought it was enjoyable, if laughably silly. But, I'm very very glad that that's not the only kind of thing in the genre.)
Oh hey. A male author rec and it's more military SciFi: John Scalzi's Old Man's War works in the tradition of Starship Troopers and The Forever War pretty well. (See, I don't hate all military SciFi, I just don't like crap, books that think weapons development is more important than character or plot, or testosterone-laden oorah.)
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sarken
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Date: 2012-07-02 04:10 am (UTC)But, to use Bujold as an example again (what can I say? She's one of my favorite authors), one of the larger things going on in the series of books is how reproductive technology influences the development of societies. This is also one of the places where, while a lot of the individual books can be read as space opera, as an entire arc, it's sneakily Hard SF because of the way these technologies underpin everything. You'll probably notice that my rec list tends to lean heavily towards female authors as well though. That's not entirely by accident, but I tend to find that my list of top authors tends to be pretty female-author-heavy. In both SF and F.
Science Fiction as a genre is one of the places with the most potential to examine feminist questions and constructions of gender and culture, and there is a decent amount of stuff that does do that. It's not going to be the most popular stuff (because, gee whiz, we're still in a patriarchal society and there are plenty of troglodyte male nerds that don't like their privilege questioned) but there's really been a tradition of Feminist Science Fiction from early on and it really gained strength in the '70s. The '80s saw a lot of backlash against feminism, but it didn't go away. And nowadays, a lot of male authors are pretty damn egalitarian and/or feminist and don't think they need a cookie for realizing that girls are people too.
I like Elizabeth Moon. I haven't read her sci-fi in a while, but I liked it enough to buy a lot of it, although I've reread her Fantasy series The Deed of Paksenarrion more often. She served in the Marines, so she's probably got a better handle on portraying what it actually feels like to serve in the military than a lot of authors do, and I think that groundedness shows through in both her Science Fiction and her Fantasy. Again, I like her characters, which I find complex and believable as well as likable. (Also, Paksennarion is one of the very few well-portrayed asexual characters I can think of off the top of my head, so that's another plus in my book.) Also, Moon does really interesting things with the question how anti-aging and prolongation of life would affect both social and military power structures in the Serrano/Suiza books, which is probably one of the things that makes them better than bog standard or gear-head weapons and/or tactics geeking (neither of which I give a shit about), or the morose puritanical whining of Feintuch's Seafort saga (ye gods, won't Nick Seafort please just kill himself and put everyone out of his misery?).
(And, hey. I don't exactly mind Adolescent (geek) Male Fantasy Fulfillment fiction like John Ringo's Council Wars series. In fact, I thought it was enjoyable, if laughably silly. But, I'm very very glad that that's not the only kind of thing in the genre.)
Oh hey. A male author rec and it's more military SciFi: John Scalzi's Old Man's War works in the tradition of Starship Troopers and The Forever War pretty well. (See, I don't hate all military SciFi, I just don't like crap, books that think weapons development is more important than character or plot, or testosterone-laden oorah.)