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San Francisco, 4:41 PM
Fri Nov 27
19 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/11/09
Whelan gallery
10/10/09
10/11/09
Though I can't speak to the Cross novels, which I'd never heard of until now. Tongues? Yikes.
10/10/09
They were interesting books to read as a 5th grade girl, though. The main character Lessa isn't precisely willing the first time she gets all dragon-sexy, and I was very aware of that; in a weird way, I'd say that reading about that situation probably established something in my mind about hormones being separate from rational thought, or at least that it's dangerous to let hormones completely overwhelm you without your rational side giving the go-ahead.
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10/10/09
I have a problem with that, which should be pretty self-evident. Not only is it inaccurate but it's a pretty dangerous assertion, even to make in a fantasy novel.
So, Annalee, I totally trust your taste. Should I read these novels anyway?
10/10/09
I liked the books a lot, but they're not for the faint of heart. In large part they deal with stuff like childhood abuse and religious/patriarchal abuse of women. They're not really "sexy" and even though the characters triumph in the end it's at horrific personal cost. So - be warned.
10/10/09
I also appreciated your reading of the class/economic relationship in the novels -- often missing from critiques of fantasy.
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10/11/09
I don't know why he didn't just remove the parrot.... maybe he didn't want to stick his beak out.
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10/10/09
The line between fantasy and sf and horror is pretty permeable, and much of the most interesting work takes place in the mushy areas between them.
McCaffrey's novels take place on an alien planet, featuring exotic animals fighting an extraterrestrial threat. Sounds like sf to me . . .
10/10/09
10/10/09
The people know all along they came from somewhere else and had to adapt.
10/11/09
Arguably the first two trilogies and some associated books were fantasy, but can now be squeezed into science fiction.
It's all sf (spec fic) to me!
10/15/09
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10/10/09
Me too; I've read about 5 or 6 of them and I don't remember tons of dragon related sex.
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10/10/09
I don't think she ever had 2 male riders hanging around as an actual *couple* which would have made things a bit more obvious. However, this does explain some of the attitude from the holder society in general vs the weyrs: the holders were basically conservatives and they were looking at the weyrs as dens of sometime gay inequity. Going to a weyr must have seemed like moving to San Francisco in the early 70s.
10/10/09
I remember the psychic sex and constant hook-ups but totally missed the gay sub-text. I just thought green dragons like worker bees and gold dragons were the queen bees and the male dragons were drones.
10/10/09
I got that the Weyrleaders swooped in, scoped out the most attractive girls and took them back home basically to screw them -- everyone else was angry that they were abusing their position by not looking for someone likely to bond with a dragon (and thus providing weak Weyrwomen), just looking for someone they'd like to fuck.
Not so much that the girls just liked being sex toys.
10/11/09
10/11/09
Also it's very obvious in the beginning of Dragonquest, the scene where F'Nor is injured by the Oldtimer green rider. The green rider and his blue rider partner were away from the weyr when his dragon was close to mating. They are very clearly a couple.
10/11/09
10/11/09
I'm not saying your read's wrong -- I agree that most of the women stuck around because they preferred liberal Weyrs, and those we meet generally seemed to do okay. But the fact that teenage girls were selected by older men and forcibly relocated to an essentially free-love commune always struck me as not in the teenage girl's favour, necessarily.
10/12/09
All the women/girls chosen (even in the first) have to have some inherent psychical bent. Yeah, some of them are really hot, but the first book only really discusses the way two of the candidates look. There were, what, a dozen-ish?
10/12/09