In Which Yr Hmbl Hostess Has Not Had Enough Caffeine

[rolanni]

Bruce Sterling is trying to make a point over here.  Mind you, I’m not sure what his point is.  It sorta smacks of the old assurance from A Certain Male SF Writer that his female colleagues didn’t have to write fantasy!  They could, with only a little research, learn to write science fiction, too.

Lack of caffeine, right.

Anyhow, Mr. Sterling provides a list, lifted from a Must Read SF posting at The Galaxy Express, with the note that there is not a single male author appearing.  One of the authors listed is Steve Miller, who, last time I checked — quite recently, in fact — was male.  And an author.

When this was pointed out to Mr. Sterling, he amended his editorial to exclaim that there was a male author of half a book! on the list.

Since there were three books listed by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Mr. Sterling clearly can’t do arithmetic, either.

Back to the point of the thing.

If there is only a single male author of SFRomance on the list compiled by Galaxy Express, does that mean there are no men writing SFRomance?  I confess that I can’t think of a name — ref. lack of caffeine — but perhaps someone else can?

And!  If there are “no” men writing SFRomance, does that automatically make SFRomance an Inferior Form, as Mr. Sterling’s commentary seems to suggest?

Discuss.

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[k-10b.livejournal.com]

I have not read all, or even most, of the books on this list. But, I must say some took me by surprise as SF Romance. I read SF in most of its guises and I enjoy Bathtub Books (aka romance novels).
I LIKE emotional entanglements in whatever I read, since most people can't avoid them. However, I felt my eyebrows rising at some of the inclusion on this list of SFR.

1. Kate Elliott's "Jaran" ... This excellent novel is about culture clash, first contact, technology, and - above all - politics. There ARE relationship elements, but not HEA, or even HFN, romance. Kate Elliott writes complex and tightly plotted books squarely in the SF genre, and writes about human emotions as part of the mix. That's not Romance, that's humanity.

2. C. J. Cherryh and Lois Bujold: really? If someone asked me for SFR, neither of these writers would occur to me. Maybe Bujold's Chalion books, but not any of the Cherryh I've read.

3. Ann Aguirre: "Grimspace" hit more SF notes than Romance ones in my lexicon. In fact, it was so relentlessly SF and gratuitously violent that I never read past the first one in the series.

So, I wonder ... what was the criteria for SFR for the person who compiled the list in the first place? Maybe it was SF written by women - for the most part - that involved emotional entaglement. The list felt much more SF, and much less R, imho.

Kristen
who has read "Saltation" from the Library, greatly enjoyed it, and is looking forward to owning and rereading it. when it arrives, no hurry. This weekend: Mouse and Dragon!

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I agree that Cherryh was an odd choice for SFR, or even for Romantic SF. She does, however, deal with making emotional connections -- Merchanter's Luck leaps to mind, as does the Chanur series and certainly the Bren Cameron books.

It looks like Heather's original purpose (http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2010/05/what-are-must-read-science-fiction.html) was to woo readers who may be more accustomed to paranormal romances, to edge closer to the SF side of things. I may be reading too much into her explanation, so you might want to take a look for yourself.

[k-10b.livejournal.com]

That's quite a list in the left sidebar. I've bookmarked the page for when I'm looking for something new.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

If you're using the loose standards that any SF containing a romance is ipso facto a romance, most of Poul Anderson.

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

Lois Bujold has stated in my presence that Shards of Honor was intentionally written as a romance, and I once heard Jim Baen say that he bought Shards of Honor because it was "...a damned good science-fiction novel in spite of the fact that it was a romance." Which probably says a great deal about the state of SF publishing in those days.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

It said a lot more about Baen. I've never forgotten that the original blurb on the inside of the first Miles book said "This girl [sic] is good!" Nice that Baen added the sic, unbelievable that they chose that sentence for the blurb.

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

Which is, I think, why slrose's link downthread to Debra Doyle's epic "Theory of Girl Cooties" is so utterly apt to this conversation.

I'll even admit to have suffered from a fear of Girl Cooties at one time my own self. Fortunately, I managed to grow up and grow out of it.

As rolanni has already pointed out in another thread, the big problem with SF as romance (as opposed to SF as "Romance" in the literary sense,) is that SF doesn't really lend itself to "Happily Ever After" endings.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

The HEA used to be pretty much conventional in the SF standalone hero-story: solve the problem, win the war, get the girl. As I mentioned elsewhere, it's pretty much canonical in Poul Anderson unless he's going for a tragic ending. It's much harder to do an HEA in a series -- romance writers find this difficult as well.

[k-10b.livejournal.com]

interesting. and you're probably spot on with the "publishing in those days" view. I guess I read enough Historical Romances that my definition of what qualifies as Romance (and not simply romantic) is slightly skewed. ; )

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Actually, it says a lot about Jim Baen.

[k-10b.livejournal.com]

I've often thought that the cover art that Jim Baen encouraged to be perpetrated on his readers said a lot of his worldview.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

Based on everything I've heard, it had more to do with the fact that Jim Baen was a cheapskate who wouldn't buy good -- read "expensive" -- cover art when cheap cover art worked just as well.

[k-10b.livejournal.com]

yes, but does cheap have to be sleazy/sexy?

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

They don't have to be . . . but it seems that they often are.

Alternatively, mediocre sleazy/sexy covers are the ones that stick in the brain afterward; the merely bad ones fade into a general blur. Which would over time cause a general tilt toward a preference for sleazy/sexy in mediocre book covers, since most publishers (being profit-oriented beasts) are more concerned that a book's cover be memorable than that it not give offense.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

But "stick in the brain afterward" is already too late. You want me to grab the book off the shelf *right then* or all is lost. Or so I hear.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

Book covers speak in a weird language of their own, so far as I've ever been able to discern, and the messages they're sending are not necessarily as simple as "pick me up and buy me now!" -- they range from "I am a serious award contender; you won't lose intellectual credit by being seen reading me" (monochrome or limited color palette; abstract or nonrepresentational art) to "I want to show you a good time; do you see something you like?" (multi-colored palette, possibly with bright colors and metallic foil; representational art depicting a scene from the book or an attractive character), with a lot of stops in between.

[berneynator.livejournal.com]

Well, mostly I would agree with you, but the two Bujold books mentioned are Shards of Honor, which definitely focuses on Cordelia and Aral and pretty much ends with them getting together; and A Civil Campaign, which covers Miles' courtship of Ekaterin. Like the Lee and Miller books on the list, I can see these particular choices even if I would not have thought of these authors as Romance authors, necessarily.

[k-10b.livejournal.com]

true. I guess when I see Bujold I think more about MIrror Dance and Memory, which are my faves. Civil Campaign is definitely a Romance - guess I overlooked the books listed as specific recommendations. I concentrated on authors more than titles.

[readinggeek451]

I've long thought that if I were recommending books to a romance reader who had to read SF (for a class, some such), Shards of Honor and A Civil Campaign would be on my shortlist.

[k-10b.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Along with many Lee/Miller titles. Sharon Shinn would be good for that list too.

[readinggeek451]

Anne McCaffrey would also work.

Lois Bujold...

[(Anonymous)]

I think Bujold's Komarr, A Civil Affair, Winter Fair Gifts, and Diplomatic Immunity include sufficient romance to be counted, IMHO. (Admittedly, from a male perspective, Lois' treatment of Miles' relationships throughout the Vorkosiverse stories have been quite welcome, especially for those of us who are a tad altitudinally challenged)

Jim