Feminism has ruined Ben Bova for me

[asterroc]

I'm reading Ben Bova's "The Alien Within", Book 2 in the Voyagers series, and it's been years since I read the first one. Bova writes interesting complex characters^*, with layers upon layers of deception, sometimes including self-deception as well. His women however are always described in terms of their sexuality - their appearances are described in sexual terms, they react to the other characters^* in the story in sexual ways, the other characters (both male and female) react to them sexually (men analyzing their sexual attractiveness, women treating other women as rivals for sexual favors), and every woman with a name slept her way into her current position. It's absolutely disgusting.

^*Where for Bova "character" means "white male", and everything else is an exception.

Bova also exoticizes the "orientals" in the story, using the exoticism as another sexual attribute in the "oriental" women, and as a sign of strength/power/fighting skill in the "oriental" men.

This book is really the product of a maladjusted mind. I'm willing to finish it (there's very few non-fiction books I won't finish after I've voluntarily started them^%, and fewer yet in SF/fantasy), but I don't think I'm ever going to read another Bova novel. Shame, he's written so much.

^%A couple corrections are noted in this sentence - strike throughs indicate removed, italics indicate added.

Comments

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

I found an SF anthology called More Women of Wonder and if I didn't hold my copy so dearly, I would send it to you. It was published in 1976 and I'm sure a side by side comparison with other SF of the day would be quite fun. It's always a little sad when the future is not so futuristic :S