Fifteen Authors Who Have Influenced Me Greatly

There are various lists making the rounds lately, most notably the ten books that have stayed with me lists. I have one of those, but it occurred to me that some of my favorite authors are not on the list, because some of them wrote series where it is impossible to ferret out which book was the most influential. And of course, there are some stand-alone books out there too (To Kill a Mockingbird comes to mind) where the authors did not go on to write more.

But my favorite genres by far are fantasy and SF, and authors of these genres tend to write series or create universes that pull their readers back time and time again. So I decided to list my favorites. But then I got to thinking. Should I limit my selections to books that I've read as adults only, or only to adult books? Should I have only SFF books? Should I make an effort to include some classics that I didn't actually like very much, even though they've probably influenced me and everyone else who grew up when I did speaking English as their sole or primary language? I'm humbled by the prevalence of classics that are not remotely contemporary, or even SF or F on most of my writer friend's favorites lists. Makes me feel like an imposter.

But in the end, I have to be true to my own perceptions. I ended up with fifteen authors, not ten. And even so, there are some favorites I have left off.

One sobering thing for me is the lack of diversity on this list. Of my fifteen, only two are writers who are not white. Ten out of fifteen are women, which is rather biased towards one gender. But given the lean that most people's lists have towards men, I don't feel too bad there. I'm not sure about the sexual orientation of most of these writers. Five of these writers are/were British, Nine are/were American, and one was an American who adopted Ireland as her permanent home. I suppose this bias is understandable, given that I am white, English-speaking, heterosexual, cis-gendered, female, and American. I'm going to have easy access (and relate to) to more books by people who are like me in some ways at least. But still, I want to do a better job of reading books by people who come from different cultures than I do.

1. JRR Tolkien. I think this is the book that really made me fall in love with fantasy. I don't seek to emulate Tolkien's style, but I've probably re-read The Hobbit and LoTR more than any other novels.

2. C.J. Cherryh. One of the unsung SF greats in my opinion. She was and is a master at weaving intricate worlds and cultures, and she is one of the people who pioneered the use of a more "limited" point of view in SF. When she started writing, many SFF writers felt you "had" to lapse into telly omniscient from time to time, because the reader wouldn't "get" the world building otherwise. She has a special talent for immersing you in the perceptions of a character and for making their reality yours. I think she's had a pretty strong influence on me stylistically.

3. Ursula K. Le Guin. She also had/has a flare for world building and a simple, yet lyrical way with language. She proved to me that you don't need purple prose to paint a clear picture of a world and character. And she deserves kudos for writing fantasy where the default race wasn't white and for exploring our assumptions about gender.

4. Alice Walker. She did such an amazing job of bringing me inside the heads of characters who have lived very different lives than I have, yet to whom I can relate so utterly and completely. She has a talent for writing in a very colloquial voice without making it inaccessible or distracting. I cared deeply for Celie and Shug in particular, but all of her characters were real people to me.

5. Robin Hobb. There's an uneven and somewhat bumpy ride here (I liked her Shamen Trilogy, and Rain Wilds books, but they weren't as good to me as her earlier titles), but her Farseer and Tawny man books moved me deeply, and her latest Fitz and Fool book has pulled me back into that world with a vengeance. She doesn't get much credit for this, but her character of the Fool was definitely outside of the binary concept of gender. She just handled it much more subtly than some writers have. She made me fall in love with modern fantasy and showed me that broken, flawed people make the most compelling characters. There's probably a bit of Fitz in my current protagonist, for all that he's a very different person in a very different situation.

6. James Herriot. I just loved his books growing up, and I've read and reread them over the years. He's one of those rare authors who really felt like a friend, even though I'd never met him. Last time I was in the UK, I was able to go to the Herriot Museum, which is in the house where he (real name Alf Wight) really practiced with Donald and Brian Sinclair (aka Seigfried and Tristan Farnon)  for many years. It was just so cool to see the places I'd read about coming to life.

7. William Shakespeare. Regardless of how you feel about his plays, he is probably the greatest and most versatile writer the English Language has produced. His work resonates even today, and it's impossible not to be influenced by it.

8. Judy Blume. I loved her books as a pre teen and teen. She portrayed issues that I may or may not have been able to relate to initially, but once I read about them, I couldn't help but do so. They made me into a more empathetic human being, and her book Forever, which portrayed a teen aged girl having her first sexual relationship as if it were not (gasp) a terrible thing had a profound influence on my own attitude about sex in general and my own resolve to never have unprotected sex unless I wanted to become a parent.

9. K.M. Peyton. Another YA fiction writer from the 70s. Her stories about the horse-crazy Ruth Hollis pulled me in, but she had a number of other stories too, most notably about Pennington, a very troubled musical prodigy, and her Flambards books (set around the time of WWI). She didn't talk down to teens at all, but she also didn't sugar coat the consequences of bad decisions or promise her readers that every good decision, personal victory, (or love affair) would end in a happily ever after.

10. Micheal Moorcock. I don't know why his Elric stories have stayed with me the way they have. I didn't especially like Elric, and his whole situation was rather depressing. But darn it if some of his plight doesn't carry over into my current work (though I really hope I can have a happier ending).

11. Amy Tan. I love her books. Her characters are relatable, even when I am angry at them for their flaws and foibles. I think my favorite was The Hundred Secret Senses, but they've all spoken to me in one way or another.

12. Connie Willis. Her stories set in the universe of her time-travelling Oxford Historians are my favorite, but Passage and Bellwether also pulled me in. She has a knack for making me laugh and cry at the same time, for weaving everyday frustrations and absurdities into the darkest stories. And she never fails to remind me that the biggest heroes often go unnoticed.

13. Margaret Atwood. Lovely writing, memorable characters, fascinating, non-linear approaches to narrative that would be too unexpected and unintuitive for me to like at the hands of anyone else. I don't think she's ever written a dud. I don't think I'd ever in a million years try to write the way she does. But I've been enriched by her prose.

14. Anne McCaffrey. Her work  helped pull me into modern SF as well. She gets dinged a lot for (possibly) flogging a successful series into the ground, and in spite of her many awards and huge following, she doesn't seem to get included on many lists of masters or all-time greats. And there was that stupid "tent peg" comment that reminded me how someone can be admirable in so many ways, yet hurtfully wrong in others. But I have read and re-read her Dragonrider books over the years, and they've stuck with me in ways many other series have not.

15. David Brin. I loved his Uplft books, and I have wished so much that he would return to that universe. If I wrote SF, I'd probably be shooting for something in between him and Cherryh in terms of style and approach.

Most Annoying Approaches to Portraying Women in Fantsy Novels

This week, the Pentagon announced that it was officially opening up combat positions in the US military to women. This got me to thinking how much has changed during my lifetime. Back when I was in college (in the 1980s), there were a lot of people who insisted that this wasn't going to happen in our lifetime, both because there were insurmountable physical differences between men and women, and because there is just an innate "human male" tendency to be more protective and solicitous of females, whether or not they were "really" more helpless. As one friend said to me, "I just don't think our society is ever going to be ready for daughters coming home in body bags along with sons."

Although this decision is not without its detractors, it's amazing how much had changed in twenty five years.

This got me to thinking about how much has changed in fantasy fiction. I've run across a number of blog posts lately that address gender issues in fantasy. These days, there are lots of female fantasy writers and lots of female fantasy readers, so the days when fantasy was a "boys only" club, if such days ever really existed, are long over. But there is still plenty of controversy about various modern fantasy writers and whether or not their work is sexist, either by omission, or in a more overt way. I'm not going to cast stones at any particular authors here today (there are plenty of sites and discussion forums that do this already), but I thought I would enumerate some of the things that give me pause when I encounter them in fantasy novels, or on sites where fantasy fiction is discussed.

1. Novels where there are no female characters at all, not even secondary ones. Okay, there's The Hobbit. It was written 75 years ago, and the protagonist was hardly your stereotypical macho man. So I don't really have a problem with it. In fact, it's one of my all time favorite fantasy novels. But if you're writing in the modern era, it's pretty hard to miss that women participate in society, have goals, dreams and personalities, and can do, at least occasionally, the same things men do and have done throughout history. And women who are confined to traditional roles, whether because their society forces them to be, or because they enjoy those roles, can still be interesting and important people. It's also true that there are numerous examples, even in the "olden days" of women who stepped outside of their normal and expected roles and acquitted themselves admirably. When females don't exist at all in a world, or are only there to provide "male gaze" fodder, I do wonder whether the author has noticed that half the species is, and always has been, female.

Exceptions exist. If a story takes place in a WWII submarine, a boy's boarding school, or some other setting that realistically would be all male, or if the novel clearly is focused on an issue that relates very specifically to the male experience, then it makes sense for its cast to be all male. I've enjoyed many such books, just as I've enjoyed books where all the characters are female for some plausible reason.

2. Novels where all the female characters (whether minor or major) are bland and uninteresting or are only there to be burdens or obstacles for the male characters, and where they embody all the most negative stereotypes of female temperament (overly emotional, lacking perspective, manipulative, vain). This is even more annoying than the invisible female approach. This doesn't mean that a writer can't or shouldn't have annoying female characters or portray bad relationships, but if this is all their is in a story, it does make me wonder if the author has never had a good or rewarding relationship with a woman in his or her life.

3. Female characters that are all incredibly beautiful and lots of extra time is spent describing their appearance when compared to male characters. Especially vexing (though sometimes amusing) are those mirror or bathing scenes where the woman is admiring her own body. I think we all know why some writers put these scenes in if a novel is erotica aimed at males. It's less clear what purpose it serves in novels intended to appeal to a more general readership.

4. Novels where the author is clearly using the "hey, this is a gritty and historically accurate setting, and this is just how things are" excuse to portray acts of horrific violence against women (particularly women who have the audacity to buck the status quo) over and over again. Rape happens. So does murder. So does enslavement. I'm okay with characters having to deal with adversity and personal tragedies. It would be a dull story if they didn't. But when said adversity is disproportionately meted out to females, and all the characters in said novel simply accept it, and most especially when it's shown in repeated and loving detail, it makes me wonder.

5. Novels where there is some vitally important skill or ability (often magical) that women just can't do--not simply because the society doesn't allow it, but because they really just ... can't. This was fairly common in the olden days, and there was usually this, "Well, women's creative "power" is tied up with that amazing ability to make babies, so it's only right that men should get all the magic" idea going. Maybe it's because I've never been all that keen on babies, but the "women can make babies, so men should be able to do everything else," argument always left me flat. I don't want to make babies, darn it. And even if I did, it wouldn't be the only thing I want to do. I don't read novels only for wish fulfillment, but if an important premise is that half the human race is incapable of doing something vitally important in the context of the story, please don't patronize us by saying, "but you can make babies!" At least have something else mystical and important in the context of the story that the other sex can do instead.

Now having put these to paper, I can think of exceptions to all of these. I already mentioned that I loved the Hobbit, even though the world it took place in was populated by males who evidently reproduced via cloning. I loved the Wizard of Earthsea, even though women couldn't be proper magi there (it was never made quite clear if it was because they really couldn't or because it was just taboo). But I will admit, it bugged me a bit when I read the original trilogy, because darn it, I wanted to go to Roke and learn to be a wizard too. Of course, she later wrote sequels that illustrated that that wonderful art magic that only men could do was really messing everything up, but that was decades later. Okay, I lied and went and picked on a particular story. Now I feel bad, because I actually love U.K. Le Guin's stuff, and she's written some really ground-breaking work that explores gender.

I also got to thinking about the existence of reverse sexism. Some negative stereotypes about women is that they are incredibly annoying, shallow, vain, or overly emotional creatures who have no grasp of the big picture or what's really important (and the sacrifices that have to be made). Women tend to bristle when they see their sex portrayed in this light. The complementary male stereotype, of course, is that of the narcissistic, even sociopathic, boy man who won't grow up and doesn't give a crap about anyone else but himself. The guy who "just doesn't get it." Men don't seem to collectively bristle at or be offended by characters of this sort (aka Peter Griffon on Family Guy). In fact, they tend to love them even more than women do. I can think of some possible reasons why this may be the case, but as this blog is already rather long, I'll leave it for another day.

The 'World's Oldest Profession' : Considerations for Fantasy Writers

The recent scandal involving the Secret Service's advance teams has prodded me into thinking about the way prostitution is portrayed in the fantasy literature I have read. Prostitution is not well regarded in the U.S. and is illegal in most locales here. Surveys show that in the U.S., Australia and the U.K., the overwhelming majority of men do not patronize prostitutes. Many feminists, sociologists and scholars feel that prostitution leads to the exploitation and abuse of sex workers and that few enter the profession willingly. However, some activists and researchers claim that decriminalizing prostitution would lead to increased empowerment of those in the profession and that the portrayal of all sex workers as unwilling victims is simplistic and patronizing.

Although it is not really thought to be the world's oldest profession (that would be hunting and gathering), prostitution has been ubiquitous throughout recorded human history and across cultures. Therefore, is hardly surprising that it crops up frequently in fantasy novels, where prostitutes working in brothels, as streetwalkers or as courtesans sometimes appear as characters and the presence of streetwalkers or bordellos, even in the background, often provide atmosphere for a story.

One thing that interests me is that prostitutes and at least some of their customers are often shown in a positive light, and the dangers associated with the profession (rape, assault, STD's, unintended pregnancy, loss of autonomy, mental illness, substance abuse) are often skimmed over or not portrayed at all.

The hardest part of writing this piece for me was deciding on what aspect of the institution to focus on. There are so many questions about the issue that a fantasy writer could benefit from researching before he or she can decide how to portray the institution in the context of his or her world. What has its legal status been in various times, cultures and locations? What have religious attitudes about it been in different times and places in history? What are the differences in male and female attitudes about prostitution and do these attitudes vary in different cultures? How common have male prostitutes been throughout history, and how common has the practice of men selling sex to women been? What is the effect of gender equality, contraception and the liberalization of pre-marital sexual relations for both genders on demand for paid sex? What are the characteristics of the males who use the services of female prostitutes in different cultures? What reasons do women/girls (and or men/boys) have for taking up the profession and have these changed throughout history and across cultures? How common is the prostitution of children in different cultures? Does prostitution either arise from or result in the objectification of women? Can it ever be empowering for a women to be a prostitute or is it always degrading? Are there women (or men) who enjoy being prostitutes?What kind of effect does prostitution have on a woman's (or man's) non professional sexual/romantic relationships?

Any of these topics could be the subject for a long paper, even a thesis study, by themselves. I got pretty overwhelmed when I started researching this. After some deliberation, I decided that this is a topic that I may revisit from time to time, as a lot of what I have read so far is fascinating ... and also very confusing. As it turns out, there is not a clear consensus among scholars, sociologists and women's rights activists on many of these questions.

The question I started out with was, 'how do I want to portray prostitutes and prostitution in my own fantasy world?' Since it has been such an ubiquitous institution, at some point or another it is going to crop up, at least in a peripheral way. Is it reasonable, for instance, to assume that any or all of my male characters have obtained the services of a sex worker at some time in their lives? Would this reflect or shape their attitudes about sex and women in general? What about my female characters? What would their attitudes about it be? Would the presence of male prostitutes who service women be plausible in the context of my world? What circumstances would lead someone to become a prostitute? How do the religions I've created regard it? What is its legal status? Would prostitutes, in general, be degraded or empowered or something in between?

Next time I write on this topic, I think I will go through some of the perceptions/portrayals of prostitutes in literature and the media. I will then use this as a springboard to summarize/discuss the way it's been portrayed by some of my favorite authors and to determine if there's any sort of pattern. At some point, I will attempt to determine which, if any of these portrayals is most 'realistic,' given the context of the world the author has created.

So if anyone who stumbles across this has any suggestions about stereotyped portrayals of prostitutes and prostitution (I've already come up with six) or has any suggestions about fantasy novels where prostitutes or prostitution is fairly prominent (doesn't have to be related to the main plot, but it should be there in the background and in sufficient detail to get a sense for how it's regarded), I'd love to hear them. I already have a list of six or seven novels I've read over the past few years, but I know they are only the tip of the iceberg.

References:

Brents J. (2005). J. of  Interpersonal Violence. 20(3) 270-95

Farley, Melissa, and Barkan, Howard, "Prostitution, Violence Against Women,and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder"Women & Health 27 (3): 37-49. The Haworth Press, Inc. 1998

Liberator, M (2005) http://www.liberator.net/articles/prostitution.html

Maron, D.F. (2008). What Sex Workers Want: Will Decriminalizing Prostitution Make it Any Safer? http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2008/12/18/what-sex-workers-want.html

ProCon.org. http://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004119

http://prostitution.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=000121

Weitzer, R., (2010). The mythology of prostitution: Advocacy research and public policy.

Sexuality research and social policy, 7: 15-29

 A less that romantic portrayal of some aging prostitutes by Otto Dix in the 1920's