Bonny Braes and Banks
Jul. 11th, 2007 02:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bibliogrammaOutlander, by Diana Gabaldon
I have no idea why I waited so long to read this book. I'd heard about this great series about a woman from modern times (well, post-WWII, anyway) who is magically transported two hundred years into the past, where, despite having a nice husband in her own time, she falls in love - somewhat unwillingly - with another nice man in the past, and gets all mixed up in the events preceding the battle of Culloden.
But for some reason I just didn't get around to reading it until recently - and now I find that I must go out and buy about half-a-dozen sequels, because the first book was every bit as good as everyone has been telling me it was.
Outlander begins with one of the lead characters, Claire Randall, an English nurse, on a second honeymoon in Scotland. There's some discussion of the role her husband's ancestor, a Captain John Randall, played in the bloody hisory of the Jacobite Risings - the long attempt by the Highland Scots to return the house of Stuart to the throne of England and Scotland following deposition of James II in 1688, which was finally crushed in 1746 at the Battle of Culloden. (I should digress here to note that I myself am part Scot, part Welsh, and all Celt, and as far as the history of the time is concerned, my sympathies are all with the Scots and not the slightest with the Sassenach.)
While in Scotland, Claire discovers that there is a standing circle near where they are staying, where some of the local women still worship in the "old ways." When she explores the circle herself, she finds herself drawn back to 1745, where she finds herself caught up in the politics of the clans, the cause of the Jacobites, the invading Sassenach - one of whom is her husband's ancestor, and eventually a bold Scotsman named Jamie Fraser who wins her heart.
It's fascinating historical fiction wrapped up in a time-travelling frame, with all the complications that entails, it's a refreshing romance between two people who become friends and partners as well as lovers, and it's - most welcome of all - a story of an intelligent, resourceful, courageous and tough woman who survives and thrives despite being thrown out of her own time and all that she knows and understands.
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Date: 2007-07-11 07:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-11 09:51 pm (UTC)Ditto with the new category of supernatural and fantasy romance - there's got to be an engaging story there, and solid characters that I'd enjoy even without the romance, for it to really be something I like reading.
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Date: 2007-07-11 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-11 10:37 pm (UTC)Romance is a fact of life. Sometimes, who loves who can change everything (this, for instance, is a very big thing in most Arthurian literature). I think one of the reasons people are making such a big deal about romance in SFF is that when it the genre began being a popular and clearly identified genre back in the early 20th century, it was presumed to be something men wrote for other men, especially young men, and romance was deliberately excluded by a number of writers, and considered "icky" by many fans.
SFF is all grown up now as a genre, and some authors put romance in, and some don't, whatever suits their style and the kind of SFF stories they want to tell. But somehow, if a writer, especially a woman, puts a lot of emphasis on the emotional relationships in the books she writes, it gets call "romance" and that still sounds like it's trivialising the work, and the writer.
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Date: 2007-07-12 05:51 pm (UTC)Then there's the fact that my own book that I'm working on is SFR...that couldn't be a reason for my critical behavior, oh no...
;)
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Date: 2007-07-12 07:38 pm (UTC)I just remembered that when I was rather young, I read a lot of Mary Stewart's romance novels, and Some of Georgette Heyer's Recency romances, many of which had the kind of character/plot scenario mentioned above. This could have prejudiced me against the pure romance genre. ;-)
Also, I've read a fair amount of lesbian romance and slash from all sorts of fandoms, and... as a queer person myself, sometimes one tires of seeing pairings being written in an almost arbitrary fashion just so that there will be a queer love story. Which has happened more than some care to admit. It's the difference between creating two characters who suit each other, and at the same time creating them to be the same sex, and taking two characters of the same sex and writing them as falling in love even if there's no reason for them to do so. Which is a pity, because I have very strong feelings about the necessity for greater representation of honest and believable same-sex relationships in fictional works.
But when the romance is part of a good story that has other goals than to lust tell a standard love story, and when the romance develops in a believable fashion out of the characters and the experiences they have together, then it can be very enjoyable.
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Date: 2007-07-12 07:58 pm (UTC)But romance is a delicate subplot/plot, and should be handled with care, no matter what the pairing.
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Date: 2007-07-12 08:17 pm (UTC)Aside from getting the sexual mechanics working more or less effectively, I really don't think there's much difference writing the essence of boy/boy, girl/boy, or girl/girl romances. Contexts can influence a lot, of course - boy/boy in ancient Sparta is way different from girl/girl in a medieval monastery, which is again different from girl/girl in suburban North America in the 1950s, which could be very similar to girl/boy in an alien SF society where the exchange of genetic material required for sexual reproduction occurs in some manner totally unrelated to love and sex, and while there is a physical distinction between people who are equipped to bear children and people who are not, everyone is expected to have have romantic relationships only with members of the same sex, and all other relationships are illegal, furtive, or confined to the "shocking classes" such as artists and the very rich.
But I think, based on my own experience, that once you sort of screen out the overtones of societal proscription and prescription and what that does to your head, there is more difference in relationship dynamics based on personality than there is on whether your partner is male or female.
But then, I'm more of a social constructionist than an essentialist when it comes to gender, so I'd be more likely to interpret my experiences that way anyway. ;-)
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Date: 2007-07-12 08:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 06:45 pm (UTC)I think there's still a lot of the icky reaction and girl cooties. A lot of the criticism I've read of authors like Asaro and Bujold stems from their romantic elements. People are embarrassed that a "romance novel" won the Nebula, even though it was written by a Harvard educated chemical physicist. And there's a lot of prudish reaction to Bujold's new book precisely because it features a female character discovering a healthy sexuality with her husband! I've even seen arguments online that science fiction belongs to men and women should stop reading and writing it, especially since they are polluting the waters with their sappy romance elements. There was also a blog post somewhere about why science fiction sales have fallen. The theory was that since more women read and buy books and there's so little SF out there that appeals to women, they are instead flocking to paranormal romance because that gives them what they want.
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Date: 2007-07-17 07:36 pm (UTC)I think I read that post, or one of its siblings. ;-)
There has always been a core of little boy geeks (of all ages) who don't want girl cooties anywhere near their slide rules and spaceships, especially if the girl who's dripping those cooties can use the slide rule and fly the space ship just as well as the little geek boy. Look up Justine Larbalestier's great feminist history of SF, Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction - there's some wonderful stuff from the early days where all the boy geeks are writing letters to the editor about keeping SF pure and manly.
If science fiction book sales are falling because a significant proportion of women readers would rather read material that has the characters having relationships that are written in interesting, smart and sexy ways - which is happening in a lot of fantasy and paranormal romance texts - then maybe the answer is to write science fiction that includes the characters having relationships that are written in interesting, smart and sexy ways.
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Date: 2007-07-12 05:48 pm (UTC)(this is
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Date: 2007-07-17 06:30 pm (UTC)I loved Susan Krinard's Prince of Shadows (but still haven't read the rest of the series). I also moderately liked Krinard's futuristic Kinsman's Oath, but the speculative elements worked a lot better for me than the romance did. On the other hand, I hated Krinard's first Luna book.
I'm not sure if futuristic romance is considered paranormal or not, but I liked the first J. D. Robb book and one shorter piece set in that universe, although I haven't liked most of Nora Roberts' other books I've tried.
Oh and I've read a few time travel or ghost paranormals by Lynn Kurland, which I liked.
Let's see, the paranormals I hated... I tried two Christine Feehan books and I thought that not only were they badly written, but they were horribly misogynistic and celebrated the rape culture. Silver Shadows by Sylvie Kurtz was a mediocre book. Several of the Lunas by romance authors were more paranormal than fantasy and had all of the gender stereotypes. And even in the romance/fantasy crossover anthologies that have come out in recent years, I've liked the SFF stories and hated all but one romance story.
Even in Warprize by Elizabeth Vaughan, which I thought was more fantasy than paranormal, the gender stuff really pissed me off.
Once a Pirate by Susan Grant did nothing for me, although I think I might like her futuristics a lot more.
Shield's Lady by Amanda Glass (aka Jayne Ann Krentz) was okay and I kind of wish I didn't get rid of it because I'd like to try it again now. I'd also like to read her books as Jayne Castle.
I'm trying to read Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris now and it's not the romance angle or any kind of sexism interfering with my enjoyment of the book, it's Sookie's voice. So I guess I'm destined not to like most paranormals or romantic fantasy that paranormal readers love too.
Warrior's Woman by Johanna Lindsey is right up there with Feehan's books as being one of the most offensive books I've ever attempted to read.
Awaken Me Darkly by Gena Showalter had a kick-ass heroine, except every time she was with the hero, she was shown to be less than he was. Here's a great post about this trend: http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/2007/03/15/the-envelope-that-still-needs-pushing/
There's a few more I can't remember now, all of which had very sexist themes.
Then there's a few books which I consider half romance and half SFF, like Finders Keepers by Linnea Sinclair. I loved the heroine, liked the space opera story (although the world building felt cardboard), but hated the domineering alpha hero. And in Elphame's Choice by P. C. Cast, the world was really neat, but I didn't like how the heroine turned into a wet dishrag as soon as she met the hero.
I would like to try Marjorie Liu, more by Grant, J. R. Ward, Nalini Singh, Robin D. Owens, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Patti O'Shea, Karen Marie Moning, Liz Maverick, more Tor Paranormals, and I put the first Shomi book on reserve at the library.
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Date: 2007-07-17 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-17 06:54 pm (UTC)Oh, I remembered that the other paranormals I couldn't think of were mostly published by Love Spell. I've been going through a very negative toward romance period for a while now though and a lot of those books were attempted recently, so my mood might have biased me against some of the books. But I stand by what I said about Feehan and Lindsey. ;-)
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Date: 2007-07-17 07:15 pm (UTC)I've read a few of Asaro's Skolian Empire books and have enjoyed them, but I can't think of other writers, off the top of my head, that write SFR.
But Juno Books's anthology, Best New Paranormal Romance had some good stories in it, and introduced me to Sandra McDonald, whose SF (with a romantic subplot?) novel, The Outback Stars debuted earlier this year. I've got it, but haven't read it yet.
Alas. So many books, so little time...
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Date: 2007-07-17 07:52 pm (UTC)It was probably the first book I've read that way officially labelled as paranormal romance - unless you count Laurell Hamilton's books, the first of which kind of predate the growth of the genre, or half a dozen other books that have both paranoraml urban fantasy elements and romance elements.
I enjoyed it a lot, but that's probably because I enjoy Morehouse's work a lot. I know there are other paranormal romance writers out there that I will like, becasue for years and years there have been people who have been writing books that I've liked that would now be marketed under that label. Tanya Huff's Victory Nelson books (and to a lesser extent, her Keeper Chronicles, too). Mercedes Lackey's Diana Tregarde books. And so on.
And on another note, I'm looking forward to reading Sandra McDonald's book, too. I read her Tiptree Award-winning short story "The Ghost Girls of Rumney Mill" earlier this year and was highly impressed. I think I put the anthology you mention here on my wishlist based on one of your reviews - is this the one edited by Paula Guran?
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Date: 2007-07-17 07:55 pm (UTC)Yep. :)
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Date: 2007-07-11 12:41 pm (UTC)Question: without spoiling too much, can you talk about how the relationship with Jamie played out? I ask because I've found a certain kind of bias against female characters who are married but end up having affairs with someone else. I know it can be done and done well and still keep the woman sympathetic (the obvious trick is having the woman's husband be a jerk), but I'm curious as to the dynamics in this, and how Gabaldon pulls it off?
Keep in mind, I could be completely crazy too. :)
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Date: 2007-07-11 09:23 pm (UTC)Once Claire is in the past, there is a slow-growing but obvious attraction and respect between Claire and Jamie - although it has ups and downs, because she is in a culture she doesn't understand, and he behaves in ways she does not expect. As she becomes more enmeshed in 18th century Scottish culture, he makes more sense to her, and she to him. They are friends and partners well before they are lovers.
Also, while she never gives up hope of getting back to the 20th century, she doesn't know if it's possible, and she is a young woman, possibly trapped forever in a time and place where her husband isn't even born yet, and it is difficult for a woman to make her way without being in a relationship with a man.
Then, through a set of specific actions that would be serious spoilers if I discussed them, but which arise naturally from the plot and setting, she finds herself in a position where a relationship with Jamie is the most practical way for her to achieve her goals - one of which is staying alive, and one of which - and this is an important thread that runs through the book, for reasons that are also spoilers - is making sure that Frank's ancestor lives to carry on the line so Frank can be born.
It helps a lot that she is conscious of and conflicted over the issue, and it also helps that she has a practical and earthy frame of mind, rather than a romantic "one twwu love" frame of mind.
And finally, Gabaldon, conscious of the problem this situation is going to raise for a lot of people, makes a point, very early on while Claire is still in the 20th century, of having Claire and Frank - who have been apart long periods of time during the war years - talk about issues of fidelity while one is separated from one's spouse in a relatively non-judgmental way.
I understand, however - and there is foreshadowing of this early in the first novel - that as the series goes on, it turns out that various people can and do move back and forth in time, and that will certainly make the situation more complicated - I'm not sure at all how Gabaldon handles that. But in the first novel, it's done in a way that does not detract from the respect one has for Claire - or for Jamie.
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