message 0042

• Gender roles in C.J. Cherryh's writing; incl. Azi and aliens (huge thread!)

>From: Lesley Grant <lgrant>
>Subject: cherryhlist
>Date: Tue, 1 Dec 92 13:13:03 GMT

> >From: Nick Janow (who shows his impeccable taste by agreeing with me :-)
 
> There are times when I'm in the mood for that "easy" reading: a SF novel with
> a simple plot, a simple hero, and a happy ending.  There are other times when
> I won't be satisfied with that.  At such times, I'm more in the mood for
> "Downbelow Station", or even "40000 in Gehenna".  When I'm in that sort of
> mood, I do enjoy the male protagonists, with all their psychological problems
> and inadequacies--and their hidden strengths.

	Why do you think she is described as having 'unrealistic' male
characters? Every time a discussion of her books comes up on the net, several
people will more or less say all her male characters stink. Why do they
ignore the existence of characters like the ones I listed? Surely someone
like Mazian would satisfy calls for 'realistic' men (you know, the ones
who go round committing outrages and subjugating planets :-) What is it about
the other male characters that arouses irritation in some readers? Do
people feel that children, traumatised young adults,azi and so on should all
be 'he-men'? 

> Maybe she's not interested in writing "yet another heroic-male SF novel".
> Should every writer ignore male protagonists who aren't Hollywood hero
> material?  

	Obviously not, but most writers unfortunatly do. I recently had the
misfortune to have a copy of Poul Anderson's _Orion Shall Rise_ pressed upon
me with high praiseThe insipid, stereotypical characterization made me
give up about half way through. To confirm my suspicions about where the
plot was going I peeked at the end and found Mr Manly Man, male lead
and Ms Amazon (transformed into Miss Lean-On-His-Shoulder), female ditto,
were about to live happily ever after. With Cherryh I wouldn't have been
guessing things 200 pages in advance, and (thankfully) I wouldn't have been
faced with a sail-into-the-sunset ending. 
	Anyhow, I'd far prefer a character like Nhi Vanye or Justin Warrick
than a 'Hollywood hero' type. You could probably have a conversation with
most of Cherryh's male characters -- something it's difficult to imagine
with some other author's creations.

				Lesley