Tuesday’s Child Gets Distracted
Some linkspam this Tuesday, since I’ve spent the day running all sorts of errands. I did break for a lovely lunch, and came home to find a picture had arrived. So all in all, a good day. But still, I’m itching and aching to get back to the story, and resenting the interruption of Life Stuff That Must Be Done.
Onward!
* Realthog on Swiftprobers. When Thog (otherwise known as John Grant/Paul Barnett) gets out his katana to face down some idiocy, it’s always a good time.
* If Star Wars was an Icelandic saga. No, really. Really. The Selkie gave this to me a couple nights ago, and it about broke my brain. I replied with Monty Python moose jokes. I, uh, guess you had to be there.
* Phillip Palmer asks if urban fantasy is REALLY all about sex. While I don’t quite completely agree with his analysis of the Valentine series, I don’t disagree with some points he makes. And hey, there’s room enough for all sorts of different analyses of Danny and Japh’s relationship and its importance in the series, so there it is.
There you go. If you trek on over to those places, play nice in the comments, mmmkay? I’m off to do some cleanup on the 4K I wrote yesterday, most likely while I drink some coffee and ruminate on just how good lunch was. Nummy.
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Tags: linkspam!
March 16th, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Nnn. I dislike the claim that a woman’s story – her triumphs and struggles against evil and her own past and for her own freedom – is all about her love life on principle. I mean, what the hell? Japh isn’t even IN one of the books, and in none of them is their relationship the main point. (A big point, yes. Not the main one.) And then he said Heathcliff was sexy and my brain stalled. The psycho puppy-hanging dude?
No wonder he thinks vampires are all about sex.
I – I don’t know. I mean, I’m as dirty minded as the next girl. But claiming that ‘it’s all about sex obviously there’s no other interpretation available!’ is painfully ridiculous.
True Blood as an example is kind of laughable; it’s filled with tawdry porn because it’s filled with tawdry porn, not because it’s the natural and inevitable metaphor for murder and/or assault.
Important distinction: because authors have used the ‘violent assault is sexy’ so long it’s been a trope does NOT mean it actually automatically is. Vampires have been, fairly recently, used as a metaphor for sex. That doesn’t mean they naturally are. They are actually kind of analogous to ASSAULT and MURDER.
And then he makes sweeping statements about how sci-fi is about epic battles and tech and urban fantasy is all about emotions that seem kind of belittling to the genre – urban fantasy is usually actually about mystery, adventure, horror, magic – and blatantly untrue, as is his assertion that you couldn’t make a detective story that had more focus on the romance than the who-dun-it. I’ve seen it. I’ve been aggravated by it. I’ve enjoyed a few.
I just – rgh. Not feeling his theory. Not in a friendly way, anyway.
March 17th, 2010 at 8:58 am
Love the link to the Icelandic “Star Wars”! Priceless. Though… I find myself thinking that someone has too much time on his hands…
@ shiegra – my favorite thing about that blog post was the implication that vampires are all about sex, and werewolves are all about sex, and selkies are all about sex, therefore urban fantasy is all about sex. Hello? Since when are vampires and weres and etc the defining point of urban fantasy? But anyway… it’s too early in my day to be ranting, so I’ll stop now.
March 18th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
I have just finished reading the first Dante book (and rushing out to buy the rest) and have read all of the published to date and i have to say before i even read the review about urban fantasy being about sex i was thinking that lilith Saintcrow deals really well with the sex/love part of the books and by this i mean – they dont dominate – kick ass action does dominate but the emotional side is done more through carefully worsmithes phrases and innuendo and lets face it hotter for all of that! Laurel K hamilton turned into porn pretty much so i know a lot of authors dont seem to pay the time and attention to keeping the right balance of action and emotion and making emotion emotion not just sex. some of the most erotic scenes i have read in books have had no sex at all! sometimes it seems that writing about sex just seems like the easy way out to me….
March 18th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
oops i meant to say i had read all of the published Jill Kismet books – sorry about that
March 19th, 2010 at 5:34 am
Well, I have to agree with you and Urban Fantasy is not all about sex. At least to me. I am probably one of the few people still out there that loves the genre for everything but the sex. Oh, don’t get me wrong the relationships with the characters are part of the book, but I don’t have to have sex to make the story go. I have not read the article written yet by Palmer, but I like all they mystery and magic that goes with it.