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

[samcallahan.livejournal.com]

I'm not terribly versed in form, but it would seem to me that most Later Heinlein would qualify, by the standards of the list.

[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.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I think some of those authors are crossovers from traditional romance writers. If so, one shouldn't assume that the corresponding writer is female -- male writers of romance almost always pick female pseudonyms. In any case, Bruce Sterling is asking me to play "Why can't a woman be more like a man", and I ain't gonna.

However, I shall always treasure your question because it led to the following dialogue.

Me, scanning shelves in bedroom: Do any of Tim Powers's books have a strong romantic through-line leading to a happy ending? Don't mention Declare, I haven't read it yet and I don't want to be spoiled.

Husband: Tim Powers tends to be more about bodily mutilation than romance per se.

[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.

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reminding me -- I just suggested:

ust for fun... what about

Poul Anderson, Operation Chaos
E.E. Smith -- Galaxy Primes, Skylark series?
Christopher Stasheff -- The Warlock in Spite of Himself series

Operation Chaos has a love relationship at its core -- and boy, is their relationship tested!
E.E. Smith -- both of those have some relationships involved. Admittedly, they are not very detailed about what goes on behind the scenes, but...
Stasheff, again, is based around a relationship -- between the interstellar agent and a witch (but it is not fantasy, exactly).

I know, I'm probably pushing the edges of what people consider SFR, but...

[shana.livejournal.com]

I think it's related to Doyle's Girl Cooties theory of Literature. http://www.sff.net/paradise/girlcooties.htm

[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.

[6-penny.livejournal.com]

What about David Weber's Honor Harrington series ...yes LOTS of explosions, but also a pile of angsting about her love interests!

[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.

[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.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Excellent catch.

[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, Mr. Heinlein's later work appears to squick out a lot of female readers. Friday especially is a lightning rod for vilification.

To be perfectly fair, I don't think that Mr. Heinlein thought was writing SFR, which didn't exist at the time, or even Romance. I think he thought he was writing competent women characters -- which he did. I also think he was trying to expand envelopes -- which he also did. Unfortunately, you can't always expand envelopes without pushing buttons.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Actually, it says a lot about Jim Baen.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

LOL!

[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.

[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.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I like this. Mind you, I only ever read On Basilisk Station because Honor makes me NUTS and I already read Hornblower once. I realize that I stand nearly alone on this peninsula.

However! Imagine the horror -- if all the guys who spend days of their lives, apparently, discussing the Tactics and Supply Lines and Government Systems, Lack of; Government Systems, Wrong-Headed, in the Honor Harrington-verse to Suddenly Realize that they're reading --

Romances!

[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.

[(Anonymous)]

Late Heinlein does *not* IMHO expand envelopes. Late Heinlein is actually more confining than not. Consider, for instance, Lazarus Long's twins. Offstage they are competent pilots; onstage all we see them do is flirt and have sex.

Friday was published in 1982. By 1982, Friday already looked very old-fashioned: a kickass heroine whose true and lifelong goal is to wind up barefoot and pregnant is rather reactionary than not. If you want envelope-expanding, look at Modesty Blaise, who began, in 1963, displaying a kickass heroine who had no interest in longterm romantic relationships or domesticity, who had a happy nonsexual relationship, and who careened through life saving lives, having a good time, and remaining independent. In 1963. Modesty is radical.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

Argh! I lost my login cookie and I don't understand why! The Heinlein rant above was me.

[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.

[brock-tn.livejournal.com]

I think there's a distinction to be made between SF Romance and SF With Romantic Elements. The plot in Weber's Honor Harrington novels is never driven by the romantic elements in the story: they are nearly always a sub-plot, of much less importance than the military and political events that drive the main plot.

Heck, by that argument you could call The Lord of The Rings a romance, because Aragorn finally weds Arwen toward the end of Book 6. Even if you have to read the appendices to get the whole tragic story of the relationship.