Weekly Webcrawl: YA, More Women in History, and More

With an unexpected move and equally unforeseen medical issues, I have had precious little time to read let alone review. But I have still managed to collect some interesting links for this week's webcrawl.

Kameron Hurley's guest post at A Dribble of Ink has generated a lot of buzz on the topic of women in the historical narrative and in speculative fiction.

• Foz Meadows has an excellent response to Hurley's article here.
• Tamora Pierce weighs in here.
• Django Wexler has an excellent piece on women warriors in fantasy.

Additionally, here are some other items I found of particular interest.

• This excellent piece tackles hetero romance in YA, and the need for more non-het relationships in dystopian YA.
• Justin Landon of Staffer's Book Review has some interesting thoughts on what constitutes a YA novel in this review.
• Tobias Buckell has some interesting thoughts on damsels in distress in the video game world.
• Blake Charlton's op/ed piece from the New York Times on "Defining My Dyslexia" and a video of the presentation that led to the piece.

Hopefully you'll find these articles as thought provoking and entertaining as I did. My next review should be posted by the weekend.

Weekly Webcrawl: Defining the Strong Woman in Fiction

Having recently review Brian McClellan's highly entertaining Promise of Blood, I've been looking at other reviews of the novel for curiosity's sake. As I noted in my own review, I would have liked to see more female POV characters, but suspect that McClellan will likely correct this oversight with the forthcoming The Crimson Campaign. But I never felt that the novel was populated by weak female characters, a criticism I have seen leveled in other reviews. Some reviewers stop just short of claims of misogyny, and I found myself questioning my own interpretation of McClellan's characters and angry that anyone would use such a hot button word so casually. But this is the Internet, where the old adage about opinions and assholes is all too apt. With that in mind I'd like to offer the following.

In my opinion we need to reevaluate our definition of what constitutes a strong character, regardless of gender. Does being the victim of abuse, crime, or even rape make a character weak? Or is it a lack of agency? Or is it something even more complicated and difficult to define? I'm not sure, but I think it is worth noting that statistically almost every person you know has been the victim of some sort of abuse or crime. Does that victimization make them a weak person? What if it were your mother, your wife, your child, rather than a person made up entirely of an author's imagination and words? Would you feel the same way? I would like to hope so.

With that as preamble, here are some articles I've found that discuss varying definitions of 'strong women' in fiction. I found them all very enlightening, but your mileage my vary.

• SF Signal's Mind Meld has some interesting thoughts on Strong Women in SF/F: I particularly enjoyed the comments of Teresa Frohock, Lauren Beaukes, and Jaye Wells.
• Chuck Wendig's thoughts on the matter from his excellent blog.
• This post from Culturally Disoriented doesn't talk about what defines a strong woman in fiction, but I think gets to the heart of why those characters are so very important.
• And last, but certainly not least, N.K. Jemison has this to say on the subject.

Let's hear from the peanut gallery. Tell me what your thoughts are on this topic. Have you found other articles worth sharing with the rest of us? Do you think I'm full of it? Inquiring minds want to know.

Weekly Webcrawl: Art Reflects the Artist

I've been a reader of fantasy since my earliest memories. I was a fan of Kipling's Just So Stories before I could even read.  I vividly recall positively devouring everything Narnia and Oz that crossed my path. Then came comic books, and my life became consumed with longboxes, bags, and boards. To this day, my 9 year old likes to ask me questions like "What's Hawkeye's real name? And what about Mockingbird?" I answer them all, grateful to be able to share an interest with him that brought me so many hours of entertainment.

I graduated to more contemporary science fiction and fantasy novels when I was fourteen, when a friend of my parents introduced me to the Stephens. King and Donaldson to be more specific. And that my friends, was all she wrote. I've since devoured hundreds of genre novels almost to the exclusion of anything else. My fiance, who prefers non-fiction, doesn't understand why I love stories that are so "unreal". HBO's Game of Thrones has helped with that to some degree, but I'm often reminded how so many people turn up their noses or roll thier eyes when they discover that I prefer my books with swords, magic, dragons, and the like.

I've tried over the years to explain that fantasy fiction gives authors a platform to examine the real world in ways that traditional stories do not allow for. I've mentioned that The Lord of the Rings is more about Tolkien's thoughts on the corrupting influence of power, than it is about elves, dwarves and hobbits. I've mentioned that out of the twenty highest grossing movies of all time only two of those are not firmly planted in the fantasy or science fiction tradition. None of it seems to stop the eye rolling for long.

So I've decided to take a different tack. One that I never would have stumbled upon if it weren't for my decision to start blogging. My interactions with authors via interviews and twitter have led me conclude that the biggest proof that fantasy novels are worth reading is the character of the men and women that are writing these stories. Below are a series of blog posts and other items I've found in my weekly web crawling.

• Chuck Wendig gives his thoughts on how to properly 'hit on' the ladies. (Do yourself a favor and ignore the title, especially if you are one of the aforementioned ladies.)
• Myke Cole turns in a trio of insightful thoughts on topics ranging from 'getting Bible-Thumped', PTSD, and the importance of teaching our young women that they have agency.  
• Robert Jackson Bennett considers reevaluating our cultural definition of masculinity. 
• Stina Leicht talks about feminism in a way that doesn't make your man parts cringe in fear. 

I challenge anyone to read the thoughts of these artists and continue to believe that the works that they produce can be marginalized as something without value, simply because those works have magic and monsters, fairies and fantasy in their make up. Art is a reflection of the artists that create it, and these men and women obviously cast something in the mirror that we would do well to investigate and examine. We might just find the some answers to the big questions we all face about love, death, justice, war, and more. And that's something that is relative to us all.