asterroc | Entries tagged with sf

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.

Am I the only one who is severely bothered by the seasons in "A Game of Thrones"? A big premise of the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series is that seasons last multiple years. But, at least in the first book, there isn't any explanation of this given, not even a supernatural/fantasy one.

( Cut for people who don't care about why this bothers me. )

In the end, I think I have to conclude that Martin doesn't know jack about astronomy, even what they teach you about the seasons in elementary school, and just move on and try my best to stop gritting my teeth every time he refers to multi-year seasons.

And I'll leave you with this.

Is it a common stale sci-fi trope to have a supposedly sentient alien race actually have only males be sentient and females are bestial breeding stock, or is it only Orson Scott Card (the Piggies in Speaker for the Dead) and Larry Niven (Kzin and Puppeteers in the Ringworld/Man-Kzin Wars universe) who are guilty of it? This sort of things is really the worst possible example of how many authors assume males are standard and only put in females if they're making a point.

Are there any cases of the reverse, a supposedly sentient alien race where actually only the females are sentient and males are bestial breeding stock?

Relatedly, does anyone remember enough about Anne McCaffrey's Catteni (Freedom's Landing series) to recall much about Catteni females? I've a distinct impression that either their females were also non-sentient, or at best they weren't mentioned as being anything special. Certainly the protagonist female wasn't anything special, with her battered woman syndrome that's taken for entirely normal.

I just started the audiobook of "The Giver" by Lois Lowry, and I'm nearly done, it's a short and enthralling read. It's aimed at young adult readers, but it's really secretly hard Sci-Fi / speculative fiction in the grand style of old: it proposes a future setting and explores how people (in this case an 11-year-old boy) would react within that setting.

calzephyr77 I think it was you that liked YA and wanted to read more SF; this one is definitely worth the (short) read. The audiobook production tries to enhance things by adding ambience music; I recommend the print version instead.

Edit: I didn't realize that this book had been out forever, so it didn't occur to me that there might be spoilers in the comments. There are, though not horrible ones as of yet. Just don't read the comments if you don't want to be spoiled.

I was recently talking with

calzephyr77 about how so few SF pieces include people with disabilities. The only book/series I could come up with, The Ship Who Sang by Anne McCaffrey has the same problem with disability as her other novels have with feminism, in that although she puts the disenfranchised individuals in the limelight, she does nothing to challenge the discriminatory nature of either present day or her fictional society. The only movie I could come up with while thinking then was Avatar, though Daredevil could also do.

I'm currently rereading Heinlein's "The Cat Who Walks Through Walls," my intent being to examine his treatment of women with my current understanding of feminism, rather than how I thought about the issue when younger. I have been pleasantly surprised when ever half hour or so something reminds me that the main character uses a prosthetic leg. It's an unavoidable part of the narrator's life and affects fro the little things like his walking speed to his choice to live in a low gravity environment, but it's not something that permeates every moment of his (or the reader's) thinking.

Can anyone make any other recommendations of SF books with characters with disabilities for me to read? The overall read needs to be good, but I'm curious about both good and bad treatments of disabilities.

Your results:
You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)

Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)		90%
Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)		80%
Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)		70%
Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic)		60%
Wash (Ship Pilot)		50%
River (Stowaway)		45%
Inara Serra (Companion)		45%
Derrial Book (Shepherd)		40%
Alliance		5%
Jayne Cobb (Mercenary)		5%
A Reaver (Cannibal)		5%

Honest and a defender of the innocent.
You sometimes make mistakes in judgment
but you are generally good and
would protect your crew from harm.

Click here to take the "Which Serenity character are you?" quiz...

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transversely.

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this is not a journal title

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Entries tagged with sf

Feminism has ruined Ben Bova for me

"Winter is coming"

Trope?

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Disability in Sci Fi

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