The Things, They Change…

[ursulav]

So Andre Norton’s back catalog seems to be mostly out in digital form these days-really out, and not in the shady iBook editions that had me going “I kinda wonder what’s up with that.” And while I re-read The Crystal Gryphon approximately eleventy million times as a pre-teen, I had not read most of the other Witch World books. (I think I remember “

Comments

[rabid_bookwyrm]

I still have The Crystal Gryphon and sequels on my comfort shelf. It's definitely got its rough spots, but that's some of the charm. I actually really like Joisan's character arc - she goes from very young and uncertain of herself to a really solid, well centered person who stands up for herself, even against her husband. Kerovan doesn't get nearly the same growth. A lot of his arc comes from outside himself, whether he's being told that he's not actually the product of his mother's evil pact, or he's inheriting a house from a past life.

If you're interested in a recommendation, I really like Patricia Briggs's Dragon Bones and Drago Blood. Yes, I know, they've got 'dragon' in the titles, but they are not actually about dragons, people who ride dragons, people who commune with dragons, or any other dragon cliche you can think of. Her characters are very human; they take damage and recover from it, they make mistakes and suffer for them, they carry on and are ok and have scars and that's ok too.

[zellion]

Throwing in my support for Briggs - the Hurog books are amazing. I also loved "Raven's Shadow" and its sequel. F'ing amazing. It's actually sad she got famous for the werewolf books and no one has read these!

[rabid_bookwyrm]

I like the first two or three Mercy Thompson books, but after that I'm done. And I really don't like the spin-off series at all.

I know I've read Raven's Shadow but I don't remember much about it. I really like The Hobb's Bargain, though Hurog definitely takes the cake for me.

[law_nerd]

The Hobb's Bargain is my favourite of hers... something in the tone reminds me a bit of Robin McKinley's Damar books, which is a pretty high compliment .

When the Mercy Thompson books started hitting big, Briggs' back list was going out of print and the prices on used copies started skyrocketing. I think they're all back in print now, and if that original surge means that Mercy fans also go looking for Briggs' other writing, maybe some of them will realize that there's more to fantasy than the urban kind. Couldn't hurt... I hope...

[speak_candidly]

I think the arranged marriage thing also has a good bit of captive audience fantasy to it -- like, that fabulous inscrutable being would love me if they only knew me, and an arranged marriage would force a meeting of the minds and we would be enlighted to each other and fall madly in love! Also, it gives some weight to the Mr. Darcy fantasy, or the bad-boy-redemption scenario, since to have a happy ending the slap-slap HAS to end in kiss-kiss.

[jordan179]

But the "Mr. Darcy fantasy" wasn't about an arranged marriage. That was the whole point of it: Jane Austen was writing in and about a society in which arranged marriages were mostly a thing of the past and people now had to make good marriages themselves, instead of having them set up for them.

[speak_candidly]

I think I meant a different part of the Mr. Darcy fantasy. More about the tall, dark, and anger-inducing stranger and how they are secretly a passionate, adoring individual with a great sense of honor. By putting the relationship inside the bounds of theoretically-can't-be-broken-marriage, it gives the finding-that-still-waters-run-deep an extra edge of necessity.

[jordan179]

Oh yeah, agreed that Pride and Prejudice is basically slap-slap-kiss-kiss between Lizzy and Mr. Darcy, even though the "slapping" is verbal and so is the "kissing," at least onscreen (given that they do get married at the end). The relationship between Jane Bennett and Mr. Bingley is much more placid (aside from the interference by Darcy); that between Lydia and Mr. Wickham is horribly selfish from both ends (and Jane Austen Lampshades in-story her belief that it won't prove a happy marriage, not that the reader wouldn't guess it anyway).

[diatryma]

I did not encounter arranged marriages very much, but I am willing to chalk up a lot of weirdness to Rape Is Sex You Don't Have to Feel Bad About. Because yeah, that is a fucked-up result of my sex ed.

[diatryma]

Seconding that one! A lot of fantasy stories start from a premise of 'this quest was forced upon me so I can do awesome things without feeling bad for leaving my responsibilities behind,' and arranged marriage has often read really similarly to me in fiction.

[jordan179]

In most pre-industrial societies, Arranged Marriages are the norm for anyone who comes from a family of any importance or wealth -- and I mean all the way down to the more prosperous merchants. It's only the poor (who, granted ,are most of the population) who get to choose their spouses. So the focus on Arranged Marriages (or avoiding them) in most fantasy is quite accurate for any society modeled on pre-industrial real historical ones, or facing similar economic constraints.

[eve_prime]

Even Brust’s Phoenix Guards doesn’t bear a significant resemblance-it’s too sly.

And then in Tiassa, he has Paarfi (the ostensible author of Phoenix Guards) write some about Vlad, in the exact same style. It's hilarious.

[etcet]

I don't know how Steve can even sit down to type that stuff coherently; I'd be sniggering too hard hit the right keys half the time.

[eve_prime]

I know, right?