And so Brandon Sanderson betrays me too.
So, on top of the fact that I couldn’t watch Alice tonight because I only sometimes get SyFy, and this wasn’t one of those times, and the fact that, not only does Dollhouse still exist, but I seem to be almost tripping over people saying positive things about it (Said there were good rapists and bad rapists and textually justified a man literally beating a woman into having the personality he told her to have. Seriously, people. And apparently still telling us how utterly fascinating rapists and slave traders are.) but Brandon Sanderson apparently wants to be an example of why female genre fans are often leery of buying books by male authors (And so proving we don’t exist. Or something.)
Brief breakdown of 2 1/3 of his Mistborn books (not-hard-to-see-coming spoilers, but too annoyed for spoiler cut):
Mistborn: Main character is awesome street rat heroine with superpowers. All other characters are male with token evil/dead women. Very interesting story and world, and at least the men are interesting.
The Well of Ascension: Heroine still awesome, but more men and more male narratives. Some male narratives determined to angst selves into dullness. One succeeds before he even shows up. Definite narrative shift away from heroine, but 2 other non-evil important women. One, sadly, exists to die and give a man a reason to angst.
The Hero of Ages (through page 300): Heroine still awesome, but almost irrelevant now that boyfriend has superpowers too. Even more male narratives introduced. Formerly most interesting male character has successfully angsted himself into dullness. Only other female character only in about 5 pages.
And so I mentally throw the book against a wall. In many ways, cases like this are worse than when they don’t even bother to have women outside of bit parts for girlfriends and prostitutes. Unless a villainess is needed, of course. At least then the hope isn’t built up and you can tell in the first book (even part of it) if it’ll be worth it for you. It makes me even more grateful for writers like Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green and George R. R. Martin, who may tend towards male leads, but also tend towards tons of major and minor female characters consistently doing things.
I may attempt it again when less annoyed, but for now, I think I’ll just read more Christmas Regencies and maybe Super Girly Shoujo. Though I do also have Green’s third Secret Histories book and Butcher’s last Codex Alera book.
Brief breakdown of 2 1/3 of his Mistborn books (not-hard-to-see-coming spoilers, but too annoyed for spoiler cut):
Mistborn: Main character is awesome street rat heroine with superpowers. All other characters are male with token evil/dead women. Very interesting story and world, and at least the men are interesting.
The Well of Ascension: Heroine still awesome, but more men and more male narratives. Some male narratives determined to angst selves into dullness. One succeeds before he even shows up. Definite narrative shift away from heroine, but 2 other non-evil important women. One, sadly, exists to die and give a man a reason to angst.
The Hero of Ages (through page 300): Heroine still awesome, but almost irrelevant now that boyfriend has superpowers too. Even more male narratives introduced. Formerly most interesting male character has successfully angsted himself into dullness. Only other female character only in about 5 pages.
And so I mentally throw the book against a wall. In many ways, cases like this are worse than when they don’t even bother to have women outside of bit parts for girlfriends and prostitutes. Unless a villainess is needed, of course. At least then the hope isn’t built up and you can tell in the first book (even part of it) if it’ll be worth it for you. It makes me even more grateful for writers like Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green and George R. R. Martin, who may tend towards male leads, but also tend towards tons of major and minor female characters consistently doing things.
I may attempt it again when less annoyed, but for now, I think I’ll just read more Christmas Regencies and maybe Super Girly Shoujo. Though I do also have Green’s third Secret Histories book and Butcher’s last Codex Alera book.