I hope you will all entertain me in something of a social experiment. Who are your favorite authors? Who, in your opinion, writes the best fiction in your favorite genre? Does the gender of your favorite authors coincide with your own gender? Certainly anyone can be an exception to the rule, but do you notice any gender trends in the fiction you enjoy most? _________________ Violet "Violanthe" Kane
[email protected] ARWZ.com: A Magazine of Alternative Reality Fiction
I have to say I find myself drawn to female characters more than male characters but not always. I think authors either write with a "masculine" tint or a "feminine" tint regardless of their own gender. For example, I find that Douglas Adams, Neil Gaiman, and Margaret Atwood all write with a "feminine" tint. Even the male characters are in touch with their feminine side. I hate it when they are "very masculine". An example of what I mean is the book "War Surf" by M.M. Buckner, Buckner is a woman, but the main character of this book is over-the-top masculine and I couldn't stand him so I got about 1/4 of the way through the novel and gave up.
Regarding your question as to whether I like male or female authors better that's a difficult one. But I think I am probably drawn to female authors more for obvious reasons but not always...
I do notice that I read more female than male authors.
At the same time, quite a few of my favorite authors are male.
Take fantasy. I'm a huge fan of a David Eddings and Jim Butcher. At the same time, I adore the work of Jacqueline Carey and Anne Bishop.
I do tend to favor female-centric books, hence Jacqueline Carey and Anne Bishop, as well as Lilith Saintcrow, Rachel Caine, SL Viehl, amongst others.
When it comes to Young Adult books, it's pretty balanced. I like Scott Westerfeld as much as I do Louise Rennison, and Holly Black as much as I do Philip Pullman. _________________ Twists & Turns
Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 318 Location: Milwaukee, WI
Posted: Wed May 17, 2006 1:47 pm
Lately the stories I've become interested in seem to all be written by females. There was a time when I was younger and there wasn't a single female author I bothered with.
Now some of my current favorites are Laurel K. Hamilton, Anne Bishop, Kim Harrison, Kelley Armstrong, and Charlaine Harris.
(All names that I completely forgot to add to my favorite authors list in that other thread. )
In horror I tend to be drawn more to male writers. No specific reason. They're just the ones book shops happen to stock the most. There are plenty of female horror writers out there if you order online-they just don't seem to get on the shelves very often. Of the ones I've seen in the past couple of years, I have noticed some gender trends. Female authors seem to focus on such characters as vampires, witches, and werewolves. Deborah LeBlanc's Family Inheritence is a somewhat recent exception. Male authors, although they do write about such characters, seem to also include demons, ghosts, etc.
But, at the end of the day, I let the stories speak for themselves. I think an interesting expriment would be to hand a bunch of readers a bunch of stories, without revealing the authors, and then take a poll.
This question is pretty broad. To over simplify, I'm just going to say that I don't think I specifically prefer either gender. There are too many brillia.t female writers (the gender that tend to be thought of as not as well represented) like Kelly Link (who just may the best period), Catherynne M. Valente (who I think is the most amazing styllst right now), Margo Lanagan, Catline Kiernan, Theodora Goss, Tamar Yellin, Nalo Hopkinson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Patricia Mckillip, Mary Gentle , Maureen McHugh, Susanna Clarke, KJ Bishop, Kiji Johnson, Elizabeth Hand, Elizabeth Bear, Liz Williams, Steph Swainston, Sarah Monette, Vera Nazarian Justina Robson, Connie Willis and past authors like James Tiptree Jr., and Angela Carter as well as works by Atwood, L. Timmel Duchamp, Ali Smith not to mention dozens of others.
Obviously more classical authors like Austen, Woolf, and especially Mansfield are capable iof ncredible work.
One thing I'd add is that I think that a lot of female authors in horror unreadable, which isn't to imply they can't write horror (because Kiernan certainly can), but authors like a Hamilton or Rice and all the authors who followed similar paths, I have found to be rather forgetable. _________________ The Bodhisattva
I think it is, in part, a matter of how well-read a person is. Jay, you are, quite needless to say, extremely well read so I would expect you to have an appreciation what's being done well - and badly - in all categories of fiction. Truly, I think that nowadays gender has no bearing on the quality, or more importantly, I believe, for this discussion, content of a story.
However, the genesis for this question is the number of more occasional readers I've encountered who let a variety of circumstances limit their reading lists. Whether consciously or unconsciously. _________________ Violet "Violanthe" Kane
[email protected] ARWZ.com: A Magazine of Alternative Reality Fiction
I think it is, in part, a matter of how well-read a person is. Jay, you are, quite needless to say, extremely well read so I would expect you to have an appreciation what's being done well - and badly - in all categories of fiction. Truly, I think that nowadays gender has no bearing on the quality, or more importantly, I believe, for this discussion, content of a story.
However, the genesis for this question is the number of more occasional readers I've encountered who let a variety of circumstances limit their reading lists. Whether consciously or unconsciously. _________________ Violet "Violanthe" Kane
[email protected] ARWZ.com: A Magazine of Alternative Reality Fiction
Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Kent, England, U.K.
Posted: Sat Sep 30, 2006 5:23 am
Like Queen and Jay I have noticed that lot of female Horror authors tend to lean more towards Dark Fantasy. Writing about Vampires and Werewolves in a more (gothic) romantic way.
My favourite female Horror author is Charlee Jacob who writes the most beautiful prose I have ever read. However, I don't recommend her books to just anyone as they are so extreme.
I've yet to see an author admit that they write with their genitals.
Yet, it seems that people look for different things from an author based on soley their gender. On the forums that I read, I've often seen people saying that female authors include too much romance while a male author is praised for writing romance. Often that male writer is Guy Gavriel Kay.
I've been on forums and livejournal communities where people have said, some proudly, some with a little embarrassement, that they don't read female authors or books with female main character(s). They say that female writers are too mushy and include too much romance and that female MCs are too emotional and navel-gazing. I immediatly recommended Ash by Mary Gentle, but sadly I don't think any of these people will read it.
I happen to enjoy female MCs simply because they are rare and I'm baffled about where these other readers come up with too emotional female MCs. A discussion about them can be found on my lj:
https://bright-lilim.livejournal.com/8530.html#cutid1
I think that male writers (or at least male pen names) are more likely to be published and sell more. Teenage male readers, who are the stereotypical fantasy readers, are not likely to read a book with a female writer. IIRC, Rowling used just the initials of her first names exactly to combat this attitude.
My favourite writers currently: Neil Gaiman, Steven Brust, Roger Zelazny, Jacqueline Carey, Lois McMaster Bujold. Then there are, of course, the comic book writers who then to be 99% male.
On the forums that I read, I've often seen people saying that female authors include too much romance while a male author is praised for writing romance. Often that male writer is Guy Gavriel Kay.
It depends on how the romance is written. And GGK writes a much different kind of romance than the average romance novelist. The problem I've had with SOME female fantasy writers is that they write romance that looks more like a romance novel than like GGK. _________________ Violet "Violanthe" Kane
[email protected] ARWZ.com: A Magazine of Alternative Reality Fiction
Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Kent, England, U.K.
Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2006 4:03 am
Mervi wrote:
I immediatly recommended Ash by Mary Gentle, but sadly I don't think any of these people will read it.
I wanted to read "Ash: A Secret History" by Mary Gentle but the fact that the medieval characters were using American slang from many hundreds of years in the future put me off it.
Mervi wrote:
and I'm baffled about where these other readers come up with too emotional female MCs.
Well, I can give you one example: "Bitten" by Kelley Armstrong. Too much of the book seems to be one long inner monologue of the main character, much too 'dramatic' and long winded.
I immediatly recommended Ash by Mary Gentle, but sadly I don't think any of these people will read it.
I wanted to read "Ash: A Secret History" by Mary Gentle but the fact that the medieval characters were using American slang from many hundreds of years in the future put me off it.
Clearly, this time it was good to be a foreigner. I didn't notice. But language it always a tricky question in historical novels. Of course, people at that time used slang, too, but it's impossible for us to know what terms and how. Also, most of the readers wouldn't know that slang. Generally, I'm not bothered by it as long as the writer acknowledges what they do.
Mervi wrote:
and I'm baffled about where these other readers come up with too emotional female MCs.
Ian wrote:
Well, I can give you one example: "Bitten" by Kelley Armstrong. Too much of the book seems to be one long inner monologue of the main character, much too 'dramatic' and long winded.
Bad writer is a bad writer no matter if they have male or female MCs. I find it almost offensive to blame the gender of the MC for the faults of the writer.
But clearly, I've just been lucky in choosing my books.
Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Kent, England, U.K.
Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 11:08 am
I know what you mean about Anita Blake.
Quote:
I didn't notice.
You did not think it was odd that medieval characters were saying "What the f---?, "Who gives a f---, and "Son of a b---!" Also, according to one reviewer who did a long and painstaking count found that the 'f' word was used by the main character 373 times during the course of the novel. Whilst the word did exist back then it was not a swear word.
I
You did not think it was odd that medieval characters were saying "What the f---?, "Who gives a f---, and "Son of a b---!" Also, according to one reviewer who did a long and painstaking count found that the 'f' word was used by the main character 373 times during the course of the novel. Whilst the word did exist back then it was not a swear word.
Errr, are you suggesting that the book should have been written in middle English? That would have been unreadable. If not, why are you singling out the sweare words?
While they might not have used those excat words, they did sweare and so had to use some words for it. I'm betting that modern readers wouldn't have known them or what they were for. I wouldn't have.
Boy, that reviewer must have loved that word. I'm not bothered by swearing as I happen to do it myself from time to time. Part of life. There were parts of the book that I was much more bothered with.
Typically I find that I more often read books written by men, although my favorite book (please, no laughing) is Charlette Bronte's Jane Eyre. I also absolutely love Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.
I'd boil it down to coincidentally reading more male-written books, although when judging books I concern myself with only the merit of the text, and not the author or any other external factors. To do so would be to give in to the greatest evil of reading (not judging a work based on the text). _________________ "It ain't all buttons and charts little Albatross. You know what the first rule of flyin' is?... Love. You can know all the math in the 'Verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she ain't keepin' up just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her up when she ought to fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens, makes her home." Captain Malcom Reynalds, "Serenity"
Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Kent, England, U.K.
Posted: Wed Oct 04, 2006 5:36 am
Quote:
Errr, are you suggesting that the book should have been written in middle English? That would have been unreadable.
No, I am not suggesting that writers should for example use Old English Saxon words/phrases that would need explaining to the reader but that they should use modern everyday language with medieval implications/words to give the flavor of the times (and not jolt the reader with modern slang and phrases).
For example when writing about King Arthur you would use words like 'sire' etc. and observe the manners of the time.
Example scene - Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone.
Scene with modern dialogue:
Knight: I can't pull it out. I'm not strong enough! Son of a bitch!
Page: Why even try, sir? It's just a sword.
To make the reader feel a medieval flavour:
Knight: I can't pull it out. I'm not strong enough! Son of a dog!
Page: Why even try, sire? It's just a sword.
Whilst I do not necessarily as a reader believe a medieval knight would say "Son of a dog!" I would accept it before "Son of a bitch!"
I haven't a problem with modern sentences - "it is just a sword" rather than "it is but a sword" but I would rather have "sire" than "sir" I defintely do not go along with "Who gives a f*ck" as a medieval sounding phrase. There are so many understandable ways of saying the same thing and giving a medieval flavour e.g. "I bite my thumb at you," "I care not a fig" etc. etc.
All I am saying is that there is no need to use American modern slang in a medieval novel. I am arguing the obvious, it is just comman sense.
Quote:
If not, why are you singling out the sweare words?
No, not the swear words but the phrases. "Who gives a 'f'?" is anachronistic, and even fairly recently American, as is "F. me..."
Quote:
Boy, that reviewer must have loved that word.
No, I think he was suggesting that having the main character use the 'f' word 373 times as a way to make the reader think the character is tough is unrealistic and simply does not work.
I think we're looking at this from the opposite ends. Ash isn't meant to portray authentic mediavel Europe and the language could refect that. I'm used to fantasy worlds where writers say that the book was orginally written in another language and the translated into modern US English. I don't see any reason why some of the expressions would have to be mediavel and others can stay in thier modern usage.
Ian wrote:
No, I think he was suggesting that having the main character use the 'f' word 373 times as a way to make the reader think the character is tough is unrealistic and simply does not work.
He did go through the trouble of reading the book several times just to find all of the f words... More to the point, it didn't work for him or you but it does work for other readers.
The way I figure, I speak modern American English, so I'm going to write in modern American English, just like any Russian is going to write in modern Russian and any Brazilian is going to write in modern Brazilian Portugese.
That said, any slang words phrases that are obviously dated, anything that takes most readers out of the moment, I'm not going to use - or I will removed if informed so.
But I must express myself in the language I speak, and differentiate between the formal, informal, educated, uneducated speech of my characters using that language. Is it going to be perfect? No. Are some of my choices going to bother some reader? Yes. But what else can I do? It's the language I have to work with.
Coincidently, I once wrote a story for a fiction workshop in college, and people in the class told me that the characters' dialog sounded like they were speaking in British accents. _________________ Violet "Violanthe" Kane
[email protected] ARWZ.com: A Magazine of Alternative Reality Fiction
_________________ "It ain't all buttons and charts little Albatross. You know what the first rule of flyin' is?... Love. You can know all the math in the 'Verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she ain't keepin' up just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her up when she ought to fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keens, makes her home." Captain Malcom Reynalds, "Serenity"
Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Kent, England, U.K.
Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 8:43 am
Quote:
More to the point, it didn't work for him or you but it does work for other readers.
Of course. I only said that it did not work for me, I did not say that it would not work for other readers.
Quote:
I don't see any reason why some of the expressions would have to be medieval and others can stay in their modern usage.
None of the expressions have to be medieval. Modern language does not affect my suspension of disbelief. Modern slang does affect my suspension of disbelief.
Quote:
Ash isn't meant to portray authentic medieval Europe
So why does the author go into great detail describing medieval amour (hundreds of pages including footnotes) if she is not trying to portray authentic medieval times? Is she just trying to impress us with her research? Why ruin it with modern American slang? The fact that she describes herself as "an avid collector of university degrees" tells me all I need to know about her. Now I come to think of it the whole novel is about a woman who wants to be a man LOL (Joke!).
Seriously, we will have to agree to disagree and to end this conversation, as your commendable enthusiasm, youthful passion is indefatigable and I am old and tired. However, if I live a long time I may decide to finish the book. That is if I can bring myself to read a book in which the author uses an earthquake as a plot device in order to get the characters out of a tight place.
Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Kent, England, U.K.
Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 9:21 am
Just to clarify when I said "The fact that she describes herself as "an avid collector of university degrees" tells me all I need to know about her." I meant that she had something to prove.
(As a person, not as a woman).
That comment was not related to the one about her main character wanting to be a man.
Just to clarify when I said "The fact that she describes herself as "an avid collector of university degrees" tells me all I need to know about her." I meant that she had something to prove.
Interesting as I took it to mean that she loves to study.
On rereading what I have written, I realize that I sound like I'm a passionate fan of Ash. I'm not. I have a love-hate relationship with medieval fantasy at best and at times it changes into a hate-hate. What I love about Ash is the structure: the emails between the translator and the publisher and the way that history slowly turns into fantasy. I was mostly bored or disgusted with the medieval parts of the book. Maybe that's part of the reason why I didn't really pay much attention to the language.
I could theorise that partly why I didn't react so strongly to the f word, is that I hear spoken English only from tv. I don't hear it from people around me and so swearing isn't something I even hear a lot. The English that I use much, much more is written, not spoken. As a native speaker you probably hear swearing often and so clearly assossiate the word with modern times.
Swearing is one of the hardest things to translate since people react to it so differently, so I'm professionally interested in it. Also, there's been some rumours of Ash being possibly translated. Finnish didn't have a written form until early 19th century, so I'd be very curious to see what they would do with it.
Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Kent, England, U.K.
Posted: Sun Oct 22, 2006 5:52 am
Quote:
Interesting as I took it to mean that she loves to study.
I think it was the way she phrased it and the fact that she chose that particular piece of information to tell the world about herself that made me think she had something to prove.
Quote:
On rereading what I have written, I realize that I sound like I'm a passionate fan of Ash. I'm not.
I did not mean that you were passionate about Ash but that you had an opinion and you wouldn't let anyone else have one that is different to yours and that you would continue to reply to my posts rather than to agree to disagree.
Quote:
I could theorise that partly why I didn't react so strongly to the f word, is that I hear spoken English only from tv.
It was not the f word I reacted strongly against (as f was a medieval word) but the slang.
Slang = the way the word was used.
I have to work on a script now, so I will refer you to what Vio said:
Quote:
That said, any slang words phrases that are obviously dated, anything that takes most readers out of the moment, I'm not going to use - or I will removed if informed so.
On the forth page of 'Ash' when Ash says "Fuck me, that isn't one of the Commanders' standards, it's the Duke's" it took me out of the (medieval) moment.
Quote:
As a native speaker you probably hear swearing often and so clearly assossiate the word with modern times
No, not the swear words but the phrases...the slang.
I did not mean that you were passionate about Ash but that you had an opinion and you wouldn't let anyone else have one that is different to yours and that you would continue to reply to my posts rather than to agree to disagree.
That wasn't my intent and I'm sorry that I sounded like that.
As a result of this topic certain of my past comments on the subject of medieval language have showed up on the ARWZ Blog. Here's the link if anyone is interested in hearing my thoughts on the subject:
Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Kent, England, U.K.
Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 7:44 am
That was interesting. I have learned a great deal from that. I have recently been faced with a similar dilemma writing a script about submarines (the technical jargon etc).
Any specific time period? _________________ S.K. Slevinski
Senior Editor Alternative Reality Web Zine
A Literary Magazine for Alternative Reality Fiction
Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Kent, England, U.K.
Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 6:04 am
It is set in modern day. I was lucky enough to find a submariner who recommended me some books:
"The Hunt for Red October" by Tom Clancy
"Red Storm Rising" by Tom Clancy
"SSN" by Tom Clancy (more of an instruction manual to a computer game than a novel)
"Submarine" by John Wingate (where the British submarine procedures are displayed).
"The Sinking of the "Belgrano" by Desmond Rice and Arthur Gavshon (about the sinking of an Argentinean battleship by a British Nuclear submarine during the Argentine war)
Joined: 29 Oct 2006 Posts: 64 Location: Probably asleep
Posted: Sun Nov 05, 2006 5:51 am
(Hauling the thread bodily back to the original subject )
One author that I enjoy that hasn't been mentioned so far, and IMHO writes very masculine SF with female main protagonists is C.J.Cherryh. Her main characters, the Hani, in the Compact Space series are all female, while being more than capable of hlding their own in the story, while Signy Mallory in the Union/Alliance stories has to be one of the toughest characters in SF generally. At the same time, she can also write from a male point of view successfully, as in Finity's End.
Can I also say, (re previous posts) that any critic or reviewer who spends their time counting every example of a swear word in a novel the length of Ash is just very, very sad, and has far too much time on their hands! _________________ Absenen mistatengwar!
A reviewer isn't going to spend extra time "counting" swear words, especially in a book that he or she isn't terribly fond of. Then again, it doesn't take much effort to dog-ear pages as you go along, once you realize that a certain habit of the writer's is really jumping out at you. _________________ Violet "Violanthe" Kane
[email protected] ARWZ.com: A Magazine of Alternative Reality Fiction
Joined: 30 Mar 2006 Posts: 231 Location: Kent, England, U.K.
Posted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 1:18 pm
I should point out I was joking
I first discovered Ash about 12+ years ago when it first came out. It caught my attention because it got a glowing review in SFX magazine (the U.K.s best genre magazine). It was also nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award that same year so it can't be all bad. I decided to buy the hardcover but I forgot...about 8 years later I decided to finally buy it and discovered that that same Victor Golantz hardcover was a collector�s item and worth a few hundreds dollars. DAMN!!! LOL
I should point out that the reviewer I have been quoting from didn�t hate the book entirely. If anyone is interested here is his review:
Quote:
Well, I read it all, by golly! Now I'm going to tear it to shreds. This review considers all four volumes.
SF OR FANTASY?
Ms. Gentle wants to write both at once, so we start in medieval Europe and soon are up to our necks in robots (golems), flame-throwers (Greek fire), electric lighting (more Greek fire--versatile stuff), a tactical computer, and a parallel universe which isn't really our Europe. Eventually the whole story becomes SF. We are regaled with many pages of e-mail among modern researchers. These should be torn out and burned. Doing this would in no way diminish the story of Ash but would make it commendably shorter and more coherent.
LOOK MA, NO EDITOR!
Ms. Gentle has said that the book was passed around by several publishers. That may explain why it never had decent editing. The book is far too wordy, repetitious, and diffuse. An editor could have cut it to three volumes. I have never seen a book more in need of someone who could wield a red pencil like Ash can wield a sword.
LIFE BEYOND THE GRAVE!
To put readers through the trauma of a major character's death and then have that character revived is cheating of a most tawdry kind. Of course, it has ample precedent: Tolkien himself (all bow) does it with Gandalf. But when one man cashes in his chips and then survives as an etherial voice, we are not amused. Ms. Gentle even gets to kill him again, thus showing a formidable talent at wringing the most out of a character. And then there are the last ten pages....oh, please.
NO RUSH TO GET THERE
One sometimes feels that the author is being paid by the word. The events are so embedded in baroque descriptions of clothes, buildings, scenery, etc. that eventually the reader feels like screaming as he struggles to get on with the story. Ash never just goes from point A to point B. A transition from the street to the council chamber requires a chapter.
PANZERKRANKHEIT (ARMOR SICKNESS)
Getting Ash into or out of her tin suit consumes an awful lot of ink. Metallic haberdashery has an effect on the author similar to that of catnip on a cat. How lovingly we are told, over and over and over, of tassets and cuisses and plackarts and bevoirs and faulds, as the author indulges her unusual fetish. There is no end to it. Alas, there is an end to the reader's patience. (We can be very grateful to the Faris for stealing Ash's armor, which spares us further descriptions of it for a while. Unfortunately, she sends it back.)
PS - Anyone desirous of becoming an instant authority on plate armor can consult page 113 of Edge's and Paddock's -Arms and Armor of the Medieval Knight-. (Pity that the diagram could not have been included in the book.)
PRIDE OF KNOWLEDGE + LACK OF COMMON SENSE = OBFUSCATION
One characteristic of those possessing knowledge recently acquired is a desire to display it, and certainly anyone who collects college degrees as a hobby could not be expected to hide her light under a bushel. So we are treated to an enchanting demonstration of erudition on late-medieval weapons, flora, fauna, medicines, a little Latin and French, etc. And, conscious of her ignorant readers, our learned author helpfully provides us with footnotes. Yes, footnotes, in a novel, 50 to 100 per volume. How edified and improved we feel for this invaluable tuition! But these scholarly trappings seem misplaced. The book employs such inappropriate conversational language--the English of modern hoi polloi--that any sense of being in the Middle Ages is effectively destroyed, despite the pourpoints and the poleyns and the self-heal.
YUCK!
As a describer of the vile and the sordid Ms. Gentle has no peer.(Or, if she does, I don't want to know who it is.) The author must have cudgeled her brains--I certainly hope these parts did not flow naturally from her pen--to come up with such sewage. (I am referring to events. For language, see below.) On the other hand, she seems oblivious of those parts of the Middle Ages which were noble and splendid.
THE HEROINE (SUCH AS SHE IS)
Ash is very brave and very charismatic. Ash is also happily illiterate, dead to altruism or generosity, paranoiacally mistrustful, and static. I have always thought that long books centering on a single character were supposed to see that character develop, alter, change. Ash doesn't. The key to this poor girl's moral handicap is at II,76. Charles of Burgundy--about the only appealing character in the book other than Brifault and Bonniau (who are dogs)--has put honor above law, and guaranteed a war, by refusing to hand Ash over to the Visigoths. Her reaction to this chivalrous and noble deed is, "I don't -get- it." And she never gets it. As for her charisma, well, although Ash had many victories in the past, her feats upon the field of Mars as chronicled in the book are usually less than unqualified successes. Nonetheless, her simple-minded followers constantly hail her as a hero, the "Lioness," the successor of Joan of Arc. What an insult to St. Joan.
POV
Ash is in every scene. It was certainly an error to write so long a book from a single point of view, especially with a character as one-dimensional as Ash. Sixteen hundred pages of Ash is just too much. Since her reactions and vocabulary are so predictable, the book becomes boring.
NO LAUGHING MATTER
We would assume there would be some comic relief in so long and depressing a novel, yet we search for it in vain. Ash's sordid world is generally unrelieved by any humor. But every so often we are told that some characters chuckled, guffawed, or burst into laughter. It is fortunate that we are told this, because we can then re-read the text to try to find out why. The wit and humor in this book are so feeble and simple-minded that one is forced to conclude that the characters are the type of people who would convulse in laughter if somebody merely broke wind. While reading this interminable work we are usually in the company of simpletons (i.e., the men of the Lion Azure passant guardant affronte look-I-swear-I'm-a-lion-and-not-a-leopard, really.)
TWO HEARTS THAT BEAT AS ONE
Ash's love for Fernando del Guiz is even weirder that the alternate universe flapdoodle. She says she hates him (as well she should), he is a coward, a wimp, a swine....but Ash just loves him to pieces, because he's handsome. This must be a "woman thing." A man cannot understand it. It tends to destroy the whole feminist agenda of the book. It turns Ash into a giddy teen-age girl (instead of the homicidal, sociopathic teen-age girl we know and love.) But wait, wait--maybe this whole episode is the comic relief I thought wasn't there???
PATTON--WHAT A GOOD MOVIE!
"I don't want you guys to die for your flag--I want the Visigoths to die for theirs." [II,80] I was disappointed that Ash didn't add something like, "And when your kids ask you what you did in the great Visigoth war, you won't have to say you shoveled muck in Antwerp." But at any rate, I then understood the earlier slapping incident. Could Ash be George Patton? (Considering that Old Blood and Guts believed in reincarnation, we may have a hook for a whole new series here.)
DEUS EX MACHINA
An earthquake is a pretty feeble plot device to get characters out of a tight place.
EXPLETIVE NOT DELETED, NOT EVER
Question: How many times is a certain four-letter profanity used in the book?
Answer: 590
Question: How many times is it Ash who uses it?
Answer: 373
Question: Does this bother you?
Answer: Yes
Question: Did you actually count the times?
Answer: Yes
Question: Where is the editor when you need him?
No Answer
The churls of Ash's world do not impress us by their mindless and repetitive profanity. Ash herself should have her mouth washed out with soap. (Too bad Leofric didn't think of that.)
TO BATTLE! (WHAT'S HAPPENING?)
The fog of war never billows more thickly than when a battle occurs. From the first skirmish, which is so vaguely narrated as to seem surreal, to the Battle of Auxonne--a pitched battle if ever there was one, just begging for a map, an OB (order of battle, troop list), and clear prose, but which is instead described only from Ash's confused and incomplete viewpoint--we are usually unsure as to what is happening. We do not even get a map of Dijon, where we are stuck for two volumes.
FINALLY
Anyone who has had the patience to read this whole review might well now ask why I read all four volumes when I found in them so much to dislike. I could take the easy way out and say it was because I had bought them and wanted a return for my money, but that is not the case. No, I finished them, and gave them 2 stars instead of 1, for several reasons. The main one is that, in spite of everything, I liked Ash--or at least I felt sorry for her. She never gives up, and is strong and brave. I kept hoping she would grow and show some recovery from her horrible past. I hoped she would give up on Fernando and turn to Floria. I wanted to see how it ended (as disappointing as that was to me.) I also have to admire an author who can write so long a story and get through the enormous task of seeing it into print. Ms. Gentle also never quits, and is strong and brave. But when all is said and done, I do feel that the limitations of this work far outweigh its virtues. Caveat lector (Let the reader beware.)
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