[amphibian]

If the argument is too lengthy to follow, consider how Gemmell describes Nogusta over and over.

Consider that this is comparable to how he treats women characters mostly.

[Andorion]

Read the Poppy War.

The first half does not prepare you at all for how utterly dark everything gets. Excellent book though.

[Macros]

A fair enough point I suppose, when you consider the length of his career.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

 amphibian, on 19 August 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

This is a problem even if Gemmell is someone you like the works of. His books started coming out in the mid eighties and they don't improve demonstrably for almost fifteen years of highly successful writing.

Did you read White Wolf or The Swords of Night and Day? The main antagonist (and by nature one of the main characters) is female, and they were (I think( the latest of the Drenai books. Whilst I'm not denying the things you point out, it's demonstrably untrue that later books didn't improve and do more with the female characters (or at least some of them).

[Macros]

And iron hands daughter, let's not forget.

Also Andromache

[amphibian]

 TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 19 August 2018 - 09:41 AM, said:

 amphibian, on 19 August 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

This is a problem even if Gemmell is someone you like the works of. His books started coming out in the mid eighties and they don't improve demonstrably for almost fifteen years of highly successful writing.

Did you read White Wolf or The Swords of Night and Day? The main antagonist (and by nature one of the main characters) is female, and they were (I think( the latest of the Drenai books. Whilst I'm not denying the things you point out, it's demonstrably untrue that later books didn't improve and do more with the female characters (or at least some of them).

White Wolf was published 19 years after Gemmell published Legend. 22 books were written in between them with most really not featuring any stylistic or character shifts of the kind I'm talking about.

Ironhand's Daughter was published 11 years later. 10 books in between.

I'm not saying they don't exist or anything other than that the guy literally wrote a buuunch of books that are weirdly constricted in treatment of women and people of color. He made the books and the world. He chose everything about this and they are the way they are.

I'm sure Erikson and many others reacted to this by being better. But my point is that even in the 80s and 90s, people were reacting to this dynamic and doing better!

This post has been edited by amphibian: 20 August 2018 - 12:20 AM

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

I didn't actually argue that it took a damn long while or that most of the books fit the same pattern... just that the odd shift did in fact exist.

It's a fair point that it's a long career without arguably moving with the times... I still enjoy them though.

Horses for courses though.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 20 August 2018 - 09:14 AM

[Cause]

Ill just throw in my 2 cents. Gemmel is not a complex writer. His books are often relatively short, simple to follow stories of heroic fantasy. Take Legend; its a book about 3 main characters I would argue, Drussas, the duke and the primary member of the thirty. Its a book about one long siege, the citizens are evacuated and men have come to man the fortress. In the simple narrative of the book we don't learn about the average soldiers longing for his wife, or the complex workings of real world social order in which the army might have female camp followers. Gemmel made the conscious decision to not write about any of these things. It was not the kind of story he wanted to tell. Could he have written a female heroine into legend. Sure. Did he want to? Did he have to, to make sure womena got their fair share of pages? No. Gemmel is not out to write feminist fiction, he has no agenda. He wants to tell a fun story and sell books to his audience of primarily boys and men.

The bechdel test is imo more useful in examining books or movies which are about more everyday life. If you write a book say about a married man as he copes with the death of his father, having his wife never say more than 2 words is unrealistic as compared to real life. Its not a valid criticism of a black and white photographer however to say he does not use color.

Similarly Bakker gets a lot of criticism in that the women in his story are treated like crap. However that's the very point Bakker wants to make.

[Maark Abbott]

 End of Disc One, on 17 August 2018 - 03:22 PM, said:

 PARADISE is here bitches, on 17 August 2018 - 03:03 PM, said:

Bk 3 was a piece of shit. My 2nd least favorite book ever now that Slogbringer bumped it out the top slot.

I envy you if these are the two worst books you've ever read

To be fair I could have told BK that any book in Slogshite was gonna be bad.

[QuickTidal]

 amphibian, on 19 August 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

I used the Bechdel test because it's an easy stand in for "do the women characters get significant screen time and do they interact with each other?"

Which isn't something anyone was thinking about in that specific way in 1980. So you can probably take your "easy stand in" to the 2000's where it belongs. Listen, you can use the Bechdel test for stuff from the Middle Ages if you want...it's still not going to tell you anything other than "fail" or be an accurate metric for anything. You don't exactly need it as a measurement in that era of fiction. You can just assume that things were not great for women in fiction, because 99.5% of the time...they were not. The test is for things that have been written much more recently amongst the writers who made conscious decisions about that kind of thing. It's not for digging through history. You could, I'm sure, make a website dedicated to applying it to books and movies prior to 1990 and gleefully watch every one fail...but I'm not sure people would visit...because, duh.

 amphibian, on 19 August 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

The answer seven books into Gemmell's Drenai series is "mostly no". The murderous woman archer gets a total of maybe three pages of screen time in a book of 415+ pages.

Firstly, I thought it was 5 books you read? Second, no one here has ever disputed that his early books don't have a lot of female representation, not the least of which myself. We've be saying from minute one that they got better and better.

 amphibian, on 19 August 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

This is a problem even if Gemmell is someone you like the works of. His books started coming out in the mid eighties and they don't improve demonstrably for almost fifteen years of highly successful writing.

This is incorrect. And seeing as how you've not actually read the books in which he does make those improvements, how can you even try to make that claim? Also, we're putting a time frame on how long it takes for someone to change their social and world view on gender and diversity now? Like because it took fifteen years (it didn't....but for the sake of argument), that somehow that's a reason to hold his feet to the fire? That seems awfully bad form in my opinion. If people aren't allowed to change because YOU (you the end user) basically say "If you don't change in the amount of time I see fit, you're shit and useless".....what impetus would ANYONE have to reform? I'll go further, without old school authors like Gemmell visibly changing over their careers from industry changes and learning...you would not have new authors now avoiding falling into traps that 1980's fantasy authors did.

 amphibian, on 19 August 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

Gemmell created every bit of his fantasy world and he made lots of money and fans doing so. However, Terry Goodkind actually treats his women characters better - even with the ludicrous Mord Sith and Kahlan dynamics.

^^This right here, is straight up fucking lunacy and you know it. Good kind would not know how to treat women if he actually knew any....which I'm sure he doesn't. He's arguably worse than Jordan with creating pastiche's of "strong women" while they are anything but. I can see what you were aiming for there, but man did you choose the wrong horse to try to prove it.

 amphibian, on 19 August 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

Gemmell had control over what happened in his books and he continually chose to make women almost entirely fringe players in his Drenai stories ten to fifteen to twenty plus years

Nope.

 amphibian, on 19 August 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

after sea changes began to happen in fantasy to bring women and non white characters to the forefront.

Yes. This is why these authors changed. This is the very reason. The industry changed around them and it was adapt or die. Gemmell adapted, and learned. What are you saying here as far as I can tell is "Too little too late. Screw Gemmell"....and I ask again "why should ANYONE change if this is how you treat/regard them after they have done so?" What would be the point. Wrote some books with bad diversity and gender dynamics? You're screwed for your career now....apparently?

 amphibian, on 19 August 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

I can't go along with QuickTidal's "judge the author by their times" idea because even considering them within his time, Gemmell's books are full of problems that affect my enjoyment and they didn't need to be for any reason beyond authorial desire.

Why would anything be in a book by an author, if not by authorial desire? That's a weird statement.

Sufficed to say, you don't like Gemmell. I get that, and I accept it. Everyone's tastes are totally subjective....but it's the painting of the author with one brush based on a few of his early books, for his whole career that I'll continue to take issue with. The man changed and got better. I don't think it's off base to allow for that change especially considering the eras he straddled in his career.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Goddamnit I've run out of rep - you all made too many excellent kestrel related puns in the other thread!

[amphibian]

I'm currently on Winter Warriors. That's the eighth book of the Drenai series, published in 1996, 11ish years after Legend. Guess what dynamic is still present?

You seem to think the movement among SFF authors to better treat women and people of color as characters and authors happened in the 2000s. It didn't. Significant events, changes, and published books were happening in the 70s and 80s. LeGuin won her Hugo and Nebula braces in the 70s. Anne McCaffrey made tons of money on Pern. Marion Zimmer Bradley made money (while perpetuating abuse, sure). Octavia Butler rose to critical if not all that much commercial success in the late 80s and early 90s. The 90s as a whole saw an explosion of sea changes and Gemmell lagged behind.

Saying this and seeing this doesn't mean you can't enjoy him, but it does mean that your view of him probably should be a bit different than the current one telling me that "the Bechtel test only counts for works written after the turn to the 2000s".

And honestly, Wizard's First Rule gives more screen time and agency to its women than the first seven Drenai books put together.

This post has been edited by amphibian: 20 August 2018 - 02:10 PM

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

From memory, I'll be incredibly surprised if Ulmenetha in Winter Warriors doesn't pass the Bechdel Test. Axiana I suspect probably doesn't, but then criticism of the societal norms that allowed for the marriage of Axiana to Skanda and the way she was then treated (as well as how Skanda treats everyone and everything) are very much there (some of them come from Ulmenetha herself I think).

Give Winter Warriors a chance before you throw it on the pile you're discarding the previous books on is all I'm saying. There's some hefty criticism of the racism peddled at Nogusta's family in there if I recall as well.

Also, I'm really surprised at the mention of Anne "It might as well have been rape unless the dragons were involved" McCaffrey in the list of better options from the same time frame. Sure, Lessa turns out awesome, but not before F'lar's virtually admitted on page to repeatedly assaulting her whenever he has an itch as if it's nothing at all.

However, to use the same argument, they do get better as they go along too.

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 20 August 2018 - 02:35 PM

[Macros]

QT, your signature has always annoyed me. Attributing the quote to Loki feels superfluous when the quote starts I am Loki.

I think it would read better just with the quote.

That is all

[QuickTidal]

 amphibian, on 20 August 2018 - 02:07 PM, said:

I'm currently on Winter Warriors. That's the eighth book of the Drenai series, published in 1996, 11ish years after Legend. Guess what dynamic is still present?

The Hawk Queen duology came out in '95 and gives you exactly what you want here...you've just not read it. So you're judging based solely on Drenai.

 amphibian, on 20 August 2018 - 02:07 PM, said:

You seem to think the movement among SFF authors to better treat women and people of color as characters and authors happened in the 2000s. It didn't.

It did.

And oh yes, I'm sure you could name me a few authors who bucked the trend at the time...they are not and were not ever the wide spectrum, nor the industry standard of the time. You could never convince me otherwise. Sorry.

 amphibian, on 20 August 2018 - 02:07 PM, said:

Significant events, changes, and published books were happening in the 70s and 80s. LeGuin won her Hugo and Nebula braces in the 70s. Anne McCaffrey made tons of money on Pern. Marion Zimmer Bradley made money (while perpetuating abuse, sure). Octavia Butler rose to critical if not all that much commercial success in the late 80s and early 90s. The 90s as a whole saw an explosion of sea changes and Gemmell lagged behind.

So not only have you cherry picked out the authors who have a shot at proving your point...you're still on the "Gemmell didn't do this FAST enough for me." point. Are people allowed to change? In their own time?

 amphibian, on 20 August 2018 - 02:07 PM, said:

Saying this and seeing this doesn't mean you can't enjoy him, but it does mean that your view of him probably should be a bit different than the current one telling me that "the Bechtel test only counts for works written after the turn to the 2000s".

I never once said it didn't "count" for works. I said it's "pointless" for works before the test caught on or was known about. I said applying it to older works in decades where the industry norm would usually fail the test is useless. You're essentially using a calculator to find out 2 + 2 = 4. Yes, you can pull out a bunch of exceptions to the rule. But find me the top 20 SFF lists from 1985 and 1995...and I flat out guarantee you most of them would fail it. It is what it is.

More than anything else, this just shows me that you entirely misunderstand the point of the Bechdel test, or why it was a watershed moment when it gained popularity and became an industry-wide tool post 2000's. The entire point of it, and why the comic was written in the 80's to begin with is the very fact that most things in the industry of the time failed it.

 amphibian, on 20 August 2018 - 02:07 PM, said:

And honestly, Wizard's First Rule gives more screen time and agency to its women than the first seven Drenai books put together.

Nope. Not a chance. Sorry. I've never BEEN so offended by the portrayal of women in SFF than I was reading that POS book.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 20 August 2018 - 03:05 PM

[QuickTidal]

 Macros, on 20 August 2018 - 02:47 PM, said:

QT, your signature has always annoyed me. Attributing the quote to Loki feels superfluous when the quote starts I am Loki.

I think it would read better just with the quote.

That is all

Jeezus...you're right. How silly!

I need a new sig quote anyways, so I'll drop one in.

[Andorion]

 QuickTidal, on 20 August 2018 - 03:00 PM, said:

 Macros, on 20 August 2018 - 02:47 PM, said:

QT, your signature has always annoyed me. Attributing the quote to Loki feels superfluous when the quote starts I am Loki.

I think it would read better just with the quote.

That is all

Jeezus...you're right. How silly!

I need a new sig quote anyways, so I'll drop one in.

In reply to your new signature
"We were never what people could be

We were only what we were.
Remember us"

This post has been edited by Andorion: 20 August 2018 - 03:27 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

 QuickTidal, on 20 August 2018 - 03:00 PM, said:

 Macros, on 20 August 2018 - 02:47 PM, said:

QT, your signature has always annoyed me. Attributing the quote to Loki feels superfluous when the quote starts I am Loki.

I think it would read better just with the quote.

That is all

Jeezus...you're right. How silly!

I need a new sig quote anyways, so I'll drop one in.

I'd go with

"Like most men, I really wish I was Tiste Simeon"
Some guy (definitely NOT Tiste Simeon)

[Abyss]

“I regret nothing. ...except watching The Bachlorette. And that Taylor Swift concert. Oh, and Downton Abbey.”

[Maark Abbott]

All this srs bsnss in this thread and here's me just like yeah I'll read basically anything as long as it isn't ass garbage.

I am rather enjoying light novels at the moment. My hope is that this helps me claw out of my reading slump. Beyond Tower of Living and Dying, there isn't a book due out this year that I'm really excited for. Once I get out of the slump I may go back to Kate Elliott, I wanna see Hugh get rekt.Seriously, fuck that guy.