Friday, September 10th, 2010
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what makes a strong female character in the realms of young adult fiction. This article by Laura Miller in particular caught my eye, not just for its (potentially inflammatory) comparison of Katniss Everdeen – the hunter-warrior protagonist of Suzanne Collins’s Hunger Games trilogy – with Twilight’s Bella Swann, but because it touches on what are, for me, the two main lynchpins of the debate. First is the question of agency: the extent to which a given heroine takes an active role in deciding her fate, whatever it might be, with preference being given to decision-making processes featuring a modicum of sense. Second is the matter of domesticity versus what in straight fiction reads as pluck or feistiness but which in SF/fantasy might be better known as kickarsity – that is to say, a separation between heroines who are content to fulfil non-aggressive roles, and those who are forever going into battle, whether verbally or physically.
(more…)
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Day four – Hamilton. I’m blogging a sentence at a time in between stuffing things into my suitcase so I can check out and go to the venue.
Yesterday’s highlight questions included:
“Were you in the army?”
“Uh, no.”
“Navy?”
And this gem:
(more…)
Sunday, August 29th, 2010
Less than twelve hours to go. At 7:30 AM tomorrow, Simmone Howell, Penni Russon, Michael Pryor and I will be in the back of a van, hurtling towards Werribee, hearts in our mouths, sweaty hands drumming our thighs. None of us knows what awaits us in the Wyndham Cultural Centre.
What if no-one shows up? Or what if lots of people do, but for the wrong reasons? (It wouldn’t be the first time a reader has been disappointed to discover that I am in fact Jack Heath, and not Jack Marx or Heath McKenzie.) What if the readers know exactly who we are, and are eagerly awaiting an opportunity to avenge the deaths of their favourite characters?
(more…)
