!January's rant!

Promise to self and digiblips: at least one rant per month!

Because I ended reading this in an attempt to put off studying for my Russian exam tonight, I'll lift out some random replies.

"This is really not a positive representation of women with agency."
I've commented here before on discussions I've had on the theme of women, the cliches and genre elements surrounding them, especially in "epic" fantasy. Most of such discussions end in women  not speaking to me, and helpful men trying to tell me that She is right, and I am wrong. Right there's the paradox in Female Power, you see, my dearest digiblips, because female power works like Bush's Axis of Good: you are either with them, or against them. It's a game women folk play, dear gents, and in the world of chickens, it even has a name.
Anyways, the last couple of years there has been much ado about the place of Woe-man in fantasy and science-fiction. To some points I agree: there is no reason why female authors, nor female characters, should be given less consideration and care. These are mainly issues of marketing and . But I draw the line when the solutions seems to point to More Strong Female Characters All The Time and such nonsense. When I'm in a quaint but happy mood I see in it a plot of Emancipated Caucasian Chicks Inc. putting their hands together with Men who like Two Strong Female Characters for all the obvious reasons. Let's not turn every fantasy story into "Xena and Gabrielle", thank you very much. But mostly it makes me afraid of what Emancipated Caucasian Chicks Inc. will say upon reading my stories.
Seriously, in Dreams of Cold Stone there's only 4 females. Two are simply extras, and two aren't really there (one exists only in memory, being the deceased wife, and the other, a goddess, is an even vaguer female presence).

"If Sullivan desired to invent a dialect, he should have done so. False archaism is sloppy and lazy."
OH YEAH BECAUSE WHAT FANTASY REALLY NEEDS IS EVEN MORE IDIOTS THAT CAN SPEAK IN TONGUES ALL DAY.

"Heavy handed criticism can do wonders when it comes to the too easy habit of letting authors write disposable, unmemorable fantasy/fiction in general."
Yes, because the world absolutely and urgently needs an agency to mark people that dare to write, so a proper quality control of their produce can be done all the time. And here I thought the book-trade was a market regulated world, where--however lamentable or painful this sometimes is--if there are enough people out there willingly to buy shit, writing shit is A-ok.