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edenfallingL. E. Modesitt is a... 'guilty pleasure' is really not the right term, because that implies a level of active joy I don't get from his books. Semi-inexplicable fascination, perhaps? Yeah, let's go with that. Like, his protagonists are all slight shading variations on the same cardboard cutout, he is not a deep philosophical mind regardless of what he'd like you to think, he has what might as well be a fetish for including the letter Y in proper names, and he literally writes out sound-effects. But I do genuinely enjoy the parts of his books when he plays the show-my-research game about practical things like woodworking or road-building, and about half the time he does manage to hook me into vicariously enjoying the power-fantasy aspects of his work.
But man, he is so weird about such a lot of stuff. Like, he has a veneer of feminism? His books are very clear, on an explicit textual level, that toxic patriarchy and misogyny are bad. He also manages to extend the thought and say that any culture where one sex dominates and restricts the other is bad, because women are people rather than plaster saints. But he has a strong tendency to turn his male protagonists into living avatars of 'Not All Men' -- people are constantly telling them that most men are terrible but they're decent people, and obviously they keep getting in trouble because they're not acting like violent brutes. Which, uh. Undermines the explicit message. A lot.
I'm thinking of this mostly because I randomly reread Fall of Angels last week and was struck by the utter weirdness of telling a story about a majority female spaceship crew stranded in a patriarchal fantasy world and struggling to survive both the physical and social environmental hazards through the POV of the single surviving male crewmember. I didn't notice that the first time around because A) I was young, and B) all of the Recluce Saga novels are from male POVs (some interstitial chapters follow female characters, but always from third-person omniscient rather than third-person limited) so this seemed like an obvious extension of that pattern. But in retrospect, that's screwy, and the way all the female characters keep reassuring Nylan that he's Good and Special and Not Sexist comes off skeevier and skeevier the more it happens.
Anyway, I was at the library a few days ago and figured I'd see what Modesitt had been writing over the past decade or so, and I discovered that he'd finally written one Recluce book with a female protagonist! (That was in 2009. Then he promptly went back to the relentless male-centrism.) But Arms-Commander seemed like it might be worth reading to see how he handled female protagonists in this particular setting -- especially since it picks up the thread of that stranded spaceship crew about fifteen years down the road.
Well, on the one hand he writes female protagonists almost exactly the same as male protagonists -- in the sense of the interminable ethical quandaries that just go around in circles, the tendency not to notice the obvious, and the constant lament over money and violence ruling the world. This matches what I remember of his occasional attempts to write female protagonists in other series. On the other hand, his romances, already questionable from male POVS, get even worse from female POVs.
The romance in Arms-Commander -- insofar as one can call it a romance -- consists of Sarryn (our hero) feeling uncomfortable at the adoration/worship of Dealdron (a man she meets by taking him prisoner after a minor skirmish)... and then every single character who meets them both keeps telling her what a catch he is and how lucky she is to have the adoration of a man who won't beat her, who has practical skills with horses and construction, and who can manage money intelligently and honestly. In the end she marries him because she needs to have kids for political reasons, and as a foreigner, he won't cause any factional strife in the country she's kind of accidentally taken over.
The trouble is, Modesitt does a really good job of showing how Dealdron's worship makes Sarryn incredibly uncomfortable. She spends about 90% of the book assiduously trying to avoid him except when she feels guilty (because of capturing him and bringing him to Westwind, even though she knows he'll have a hard time there) or when the twenty gazillion matchmakers wink-wink nudge-nudge her into stilted and vaguely creepy interactions. What Modesitt doesn't do is show any glimmer of Sarryn being attracted to Dealdron. She never thinks of his appearance, or his sense of humor, or anything about him as a person. She only cares about his practical skills, and those only insofar as they help her manage military logistics. She also keeps telling herself that he isn't overtly pressuring her with his adoration, isn't outright asking for anything in return, but despite those repeated attempts at rationalization, his constant attention always makes her feel trapped.
That is not romantic. That is creepy as fuck. Modesitt tries to use Sarryn's handwavey magical ability to read emotions/intentions to 'prove' that Dealdron really doesn't expect anything in return -- he is a Genuine Nice Guy, not one of those Fake Nice Guys! -- but that doesn't matter. His actions make her uncomfortable; therefore, he needs to stop and back the fuck off.
I think that even with that creepy undertone, if Modesitt had cast their eventual marriage solely as a least-worst political necessity, I could live with it. Not everything has to be a romance, or even a healthy friendship. But the way all the background characters keep telling Sarryn that Dealdron's Nice Guy shtick is somehow the height of romance, and her discomfort must mean she actually loves him back but is too shy/scared to admit it? That squicks the hell out of me.
It's even more annoying because Modesitt does take the time to build a plausible and healthy relationship for Sarryn, between two people who like each other, who talk about serious issues that matter to both of them, who get along reasonably well even when they sometimes disagree, and who clearly care about each other's feelings. This, of course, is her 'friendship' with Zeldyan, the Regent and dowager Overlady of Lornth to whose service Sarryn is nominally sworn for the majority of the book. There's a scene at the end where they hug, and I just. Dammit, they should have kissed! They should have been the romantic couple. Yeah, keep Dealdron as a beard and because Sarryn needs an heir, but stop trying to tell me he's Sarryn's ~destined match~ because if you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
But man, he is so weird about such a lot of stuff. Like, he has a veneer of feminism? His books are very clear, on an explicit textual level, that toxic patriarchy and misogyny are bad. He also manages to extend the thought and say that any culture where one sex dominates and restricts the other is bad, because women are people rather than plaster saints. But he has a strong tendency to turn his male protagonists into living avatars of 'Not All Men' -- people are constantly telling them that most men are terrible but they're decent people, and obviously they keep getting in trouble because they're not acting like violent brutes. Which, uh. Undermines the explicit message. A lot.
I'm thinking of this mostly because I randomly reread Fall of Angels last week and was struck by the utter weirdness of telling a story about a majority female spaceship crew stranded in a patriarchal fantasy world and struggling to survive both the physical and social environmental hazards through the POV of the single surviving male crewmember. I didn't notice that the first time around because A) I was young, and B) all of the Recluce Saga novels are from male POVs (some interstitial chapters follow female characters, but always from third-person omniscient rather than third-person limited) so this seemed like an obvious extension of that pattern. But in retrospect, that's screwy, and the way all the female characters keep reassuring Nylan that he's Good and Special and Not Sexist comes off skeevier and skeevier the more it happens.
Anyway, I was at the library a few days ago and figured I'd see what Modesitt had been writing over the past decade or so, and I discovered that he'd finally written one Recluce book with a female protagonist! (That was in 2009. Then he promptly went back to the relentless male-centrism.) But Arms-Commander seemed like it might be worth reading to see how he handled female protagonists in this particular setting -- especially since it picks up the thread of that stranded spaceship crew about fifteen years down the road.
Well, on the one hand he writes female protagonists almost exactly the same as male protagonists -- in the sense of the interminable ethical quandaries that just go around in circles, the tendency not to notice the obvious, and the constant lament over money and violence ruling the world. This matches what I remember of his occasional attempts to write female protagonists in other series. On the other hand, his romances, already questionable from male POVS, get even worse from female POVs.
The romance in Arms-Commander -- insofar as one can call it a romance -- consists of Sarryn (our hero) feeling uncomfortable at the adoration/worship of Dealdron (a man she meets by taking him prisoner after a minor skirmish)... and then every single character who meets them both keeps telling her what a catch he is and how lucky she is to have the adoration of a man who won't beat her, who has practical skills with horses and construction, and who can manage money intelligently and honestly. In the end she marries him because she needs to have kids for political reasons, and as a foreigner, he won't cause any factional strife in the country she's kind of accidentally taken over.
The trouble is, Modesitt does a really good job of showing how Dealdron's worship makes Sarryn incredibly uncomfortable. She spends about 90% of the book assiduously trying to avoid him except when she feels guilty (because of capturing him and bringing him to Westwind, even though she knows he'll have a hard time there) or when the twenty gazillion matchmakers wink-wink nudge-nudge her into stilted and vaguely creepy interactions. What Modesitt doesn't do is show any glimmer of Sarryn being attracted to Dealdron. She never thinks of his appearance, or his sense of humor, or anything about him as a person. She only cares about his practical skills, and those only insofar as they help her manage military logistics. She also keeps telling herself that he isn't overtly pressuring her with his adoration, isn't outright asking for anything in return, but despite those repeated attempts at rationalization, his constant attention always makes her feel trapped.
That is not romantic. That is creepy as fuck. Modesitt tries to use Sarryn's handwavey magical ability to read emotions/intentions to 'prove' that Dealdron really doesn't expect anything in return -- he is a Genuine Nice Guy, not one of those Fake Nice Guys! -- but that doesn't matter. His actions make her uncomfortable; therefore, he needs to stop and back the fuck off.
I think that even with that creepy undertone, if Modesitt had cast their eventual marriage solely as a least-worst political necessity, I could live with it. Not everything has to be a romance, or even a healthy friendship. But the way all the background characters keep telling Sarryn that Dealdron's Nice Guy shtick is somehow the height of romance, and her discomfort must mean she actually loves him back but is too shy/scared to admit it? That squicks the hell out of me.
It's even more annoying because Modesitt does take the time to build a plausible and healthy relationship for Sarryn, between two people who like each other, who talk about serious issues that matter to both of them, who get along reasonably well even when they sometimes disagree, and who clearly care about each other's feelings. This, of course, is her 'friendship' with Zeldyan, the Regent and dowager Overlady of Lornth to whose service Sarryn is nominally sworn for the majority of the book. There's a scene at the end where they hug, and I just. Dammit, they should have kissed! They should have been the romantic couple. Yeah, keep Dealdron as a beard and because Sarryn needs an heir, but stop trying to tell me he's Sarryn's ~destined match~ because if you believe that, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-08-26 12:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-08-26 01:04 am (UTC)I vaguely remember thinking The Soprano Sorceress and at least the first two of its sequels were all right, though they were basically Recluce with a different magic system. He bangs the same damn 'money and power rule everything, and you have to beat people up because nobody listens to reason or respects mercy' drum he always does. His books are remarkably pro-dictatorship, with the stipulation that you need the 'correct' dictator. (Actually, they're anti-democracy even on very minor levels -- for example, in Fall of Angels Nylan realizes partway through building a tower for the spaceship crew that he forgot to put drains and toilets in the design... and apparently he never thought to do a public brainstorming session with the crew to cover any of his blind spots. He just assumed he was the only one who knew/cared what needed to be done, and presumably they picked up on his attitude and didn't volunteer advice.)
Anyway, while I liked that he put some thought (and consequences) behind the thing where Anna got shoved into a conventionally young and gorgeous body as part of being summoned between worlds, I kept wishing he'd had the guts to write the thing with an overweight middle-aged woman who stayed overweight and middle-aged and kicked ass anyway. *sigh*
(no subject)
Date: 2016-08-27 10:13 pm (UTC)I read Arms Commander a while ago. I didn't really like it, though I ended up "back reading" previous books so I'd know what was going on. (Then I tried to figure out the Cyador and the other continent books.)
Though I like/liked the Imager Portfolio, though he tried to input Real Supernatural Entity/Encounter, when his general fantasy worldview has been very atheist, which threw me for a loop. (IP features "power-behind-the-throne" magic users. And the First Time Modesitt Has Written POC in a Fantasy As Far As I Know. They are vaguely Fantasy Romany.)
(IP in the first few books has a more or less acceptable romance-via-letters. Generally speaking though, Modesitt should Stay Far Away from Romance because he kind of fails in that regard. He is worse than Weber, I swear to god. )
I think he is attempting to be feminist? But severely failing due to a)failing at basic emotions b)still considering females to be mysterious creatures with different and significant motivations, abilities and thought processes from a male.
I am really annoyed at the "Yay! Dictatorships! All the Dictatorships All the Time!"
(no subject)
Date: 2016-08-27 11:19 pm (UTC)Modesitt's done some stuff with quasi-gods before... or rather, people who have paranormal talents and kind of set themselves up as gods, and the religions that develop around them, but those are very early works. (Hammer of Darkness, a little bit in Timediver's Dawn and The Timegod. Those three are not very good books, btw, though they mash my power fantasy narrative kink buttons hard.) And he has used theocracies in at least some of his science fiction -- come to think of it, there are signs that the two cultures whose spaceships crash in Candar are a theoretically egalitarian theocracy and a militant atheistic culture kind of like internet MRAs and 'rationalists' had a totalitarian baby -- but again this is more in an anthropological way.
It's like, when he's writing a female protagonist and we can see her thoughts, she comes off as a perfectly normal person, though maybe with a few weird moments as Modesitt tries to signal her femininity. (This may simply be a happy side effect of his inability to write more than one basic personality type.) But women we aren't following in tight third-person, particularly ones who get shoved into the 'love interest' role, often turn into blatantly obvious and unfortunately stereotyped plot devices.
Tangentially, I think this is one reason I liked Zeldyan so much. She is a secondary character in three Recluce books -- Fall of Angels, The Chaos Balance, and Arms-Commander -- and arguably comes out of them as a better developed and more coherent character than either Nylan or Sarryn, the official protagonists. She definitely comes out more coherent than Ayrlyn and Ryba, probably because her story doesn't revolve around Nylan.
The dictatorship cheerleading pisses me off so much. I guess it's slightly better than the divine right of kings so much fantasy and space opera are hung up on. But not very much, particularly when accompanied by all that 'point of a sword' rhetoric.