Intense, sexy, bold ... a superb debut - Nalini Singh
Two wonderful Voyager authors will be at Angus & Robertson bookshop, River Plaza, Queanbeyan from 11 – 1pm TODAY (Saturday 31 October) – and they’re getting dressed up!!
Tracey O’Hara, author of Night’s Cold Kiss
K J Taylor, author of The Dark Griffin
Come adorned in your favourite Hallowe’en themed garb and armed with questions and praise!
Enter a world where griffins rule ...
Book Seven of the Dragon Mage
The 15 Days of Deverry Party starts today with the release of The Silver Mage. Everyone is invited!
The Silver Mage is the final volume in the Celtic inspired cycle of interbraided lives, personalities and events in the alternate world of Deverry, through eras and generations of Deverry’s historical and chronological time!
15 Days of Deverry is an online celebration of the successful conclusion of Katharine Kerr’s vision for this Celtic knot of inter-braided novels. The 15 Days stands for the 15 titles that constitute the cycle’s sequence.
A community at livejournal, deverry15 , is now up and running – so go and post away to your heart’s content!
Two wonderful Voyager authors will be at Angus & Robertson bookshop, River Plaza, Queanbeyan from 11 – 1pm – this Saturday 31 October (Hallowe’en):
Tracey O’Hara, author of Night’s Cold Kiss
K J Taylor, author of The Dark Griffin
To quote Katie: ‘ … since she writes urban fantasy and I’m… well, a bloodthirsty character-murderer, I guess they figured it was appropriate for the holiday.’
Duncan, author of The Wounded Guardian. will be at Borders in Westfield at Hornsby on Sunday 1 November (a great way to start the month), at Borders in Tuggerah on Sunday 15 November, and at A&R Warringah Mall on November 22, in all cases from 11:30 – 1pm.
Part 1
A Writer Goes on a Journey calls Twilight clichéd, and considering the sexist views throughout the series, it’s not hard to see why. The story revolves around a helpless heroine who is constantly in need of rescue by supernatural men. She has no sense of self outside of her relationship to them. Given the demographic—teenage girls—the popularity is disturbing, or at least revealing. It did make me wonder though: How is speculative fiction representing gender? Are we writing brave new worlds of equality or reinforcing more traditional roles?
A quick way to assess gender bias is to give the protagonist a sex change and see if the plot still holds. I tried this on my first love, LOTR. (I am a huge Tolkien fan. I actually leaned Elvish when I was a teen so I could write in my diary without fear of discovery!) However, when Frodo becomes female, the story just doesn’t work. Tolkien wrote in a masculinist hegemony, and it shows.
Eowyn, the maiden of Rohan, has to disguise herself as a man ...
He portrays women via the male gaze—maidens with flowing hair, long dresses, and male protection—fathers, brothers or husbands controlling their lives. Eowyn, the maiden of Rohan, has to disguise herself as a man to ride into battle and kill the Nazgul lord. She must reject her feminism and lie to achieve her goals. This tells us something about the gender constructs of Middle Earth.
In the Shire, we don’t meet any females aside from Sam’s Rosie, who gets a few paragraphs, and Bilbo’s hostile aunt, who gets perhaps less. The temptation is to assume the females are in the role of child rearing, bread-baking and other domestic tasks. If Frodo were ‘Froda,’ he wouldn’t make sense as the ring bearer without reconstructing gender norms in the Shire—a full rewrite.
For example would we find ‘Froda’ living sequestered with bachelor Bilbo for all those years, and later living alone with her faithful servant Sam? Although a homosexuality is not implied when these figures are male, heterosexual complications arise with the gender switch. We have no model for it in the present ‘life in the Shire’ and to avoid jarring the reader the ‘feminist’ qualities of hobbits would need more development.
To remain consistent to the work—where females must become like males to have an impact—hobbits might have to be written as an androgynous race (much like the Dwarves). In this way female hobbits would lose the feminine identity and gain effectiveness. Another possibility is to give them ‘higher powers’ as in the race of Elves.
How many parts of Lord of the Rings would change if the main character changed gender?
Conceiving that female hobbits could be rewritten to accommodate ‘Froda’ as ring-bearer, Smeagol the Gollum would have to switch gender as well. As a shadow figure—the dark side of the psyche that knows nature’s ways and the hidden paths yet is damaged and twisted by life—Gollum’s gender must match the ‘light’ figure’s as they do in myths, dreams and fairytales. Again, more rewriting.
What do you think? Is speculative fiction widening our views of classical gender roles or reinforcing traditional ones? Does your favourite hero or heroine withstand a gender switch without confusing plot or meaning? Does it matter? I’d love to hear your comments!
Kim Falconer is the author of the Quantum Enchantment series, beginning with The Spell of Rosette, and continued in Arrows of Time. She is currently working on a second trilogy, and yet has the time to also run Falcon Astrology!
This isn’t actually a Voyager book, nor is it strictly fantasy but it speaks to me as a fantasy fan, so thought I would share it on the blog:
Book Seven of the Dragon Mage
The Silver Mage by acclaimed fantasy author Katherine Kerr is out at the end of this month from Voyager in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and from DAW in the US.
The 15 Days of Deverry Party Committee are delighted to share the news of an online-everywhere celebration in honor of the publication of The Silver Mage. Everyone is invited!
The Silver Mage is the final volume in the Celtic inspired cycle of interbraided lives, personalities and events in the alternate world of Deverry, through eras and generations of Deverry’s historical and chronological time!
15 Days of Deverry is an online celebration of the successful conclusion of Katharine Kerr’s vision for this Celtic knot of inter-braided novels. The 15 Days stands for the 15 titles that constitute the cycle’s sequence.
A community at livejournal, deverry15 , has been set up and will be used to house all links to all things Deverry over the next two weeks and more.
For further information, join the deverry15 community at livejournal where you can ask questions, join the discussion, and make additional suggestions.
We encourage you to post about your experience reading these books, as well as to post your congratulations to the author and her grand vision. You can post about how and when you first read one of the books, what attracted you to the series, which of the Deverry heroes ranks #1 in the Hotness Factor, the overarching themes and structure of the series — or anything else about the Deverry world and books that has affected you. We hope you all will share your own unique views of Katharine Kerr’s achievement.
We’re very excited by the successful completion of this Grand Fantasy Vision, so we’re throwing a big party to celebrate! All of you are special guests. Please come! Post often! Bring your friends, your dog, your cat and your dragon too!
Meet Kylie Chan
If you live north of Brisbane … or even if you don’t but might wander that way as a result of this post … you can see Kylie at:
If you’d like to come along to the Arana Hills appearance, please book a place with Pam or Karen on (07) 33513401 at the Arana Hills Library, or with the staff of Brookside Angus and Robertson on (07) 38551612. It’s free but they need numbers.
Get a signed copy this weekend ...
Duncan Lay will be speaking about his first fantasy novel The Wounded Guardian at the Maitland Angus and Robertson (Stockland Green Hills Shopping Centre) from 11.30am tomorrow (Sunday October 11) and at the Kotara Angus and Robertson (Westfield Kotara) from 11.30am on Sunday October 18.
Don’t miss out on hearing Duncan speak and make sure you get your copy of his book signed too.
For centuries war raged between the humans and Aeternus vampires—until courageous efforts on both sides forged a fragile peace.
But the rogue Necrodreniacs will never be controlled—addicted as they are to the death-high . . . and bloody chaos.
Since witnessing the murder of her mother, Antoinette Petrescu has burned with fiery hatred for the vampire race—even for Christian Laroque, the noble, dangerously handsome Aeternus who rescued her. Now an elite Venator, Antoinette must reluctantly accept Christian’s help to achieve her vengeance—even as he plots to use the beautiful, unsuspecting warrior as bait to draw out the bloodthirsty dreniacs.
(editor’ note: phwoar! I picked this up purely because of the above description of Christian – if you do similar things then you’ll be pleased to know Night’s Cold Kiss is available across Australia and New Zealand, and is published in the US by Eos as well)
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