book: Dragon Girl, by Todd McCaffrey (meh.)
Aug. 31st, 2010 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serynI read the latest Todd McCaffrey. Dragon Girl
Honestly, I'm still bitter that Anne McCaffrey was so nasty in her "no fanfic" rules when she let her kid play in the sandbox. He's not a very good writer. He's got no story (which doesn't ruin a book for me, I rather like that, but it's still a criterion for authorial talent). His technique is lax, both in terms of the content and style. If you're looking for a worthy successor based on talent or experience, he's not it.
There's a lot of Pern that I find extremely off-putting as an adult that I just didn't notice as a child, or that I avoided because those books weren't entertaining. (I avoided the Moreta books because they're tragic. But when I read them later, as an adult, I found a lot of it repellent for the enforced lifestyle choices.)
Dragon Girl has a lot of that. It's essentially a plotless book which attempts to be exploring the beginnings of a polyamorous relationship. But that's alluded to, never addressed specifically. There's no actual sex in the book, even when it's crucial to the plot.
I didn't notice as a child that green dragons' riders were often homosexual. We're told they congregate together and they're known to be promiscuous like their dragons. But that doesn't mean they don't have groupies. I really didn't get it until I was old enough that my mind has a season pass to swim in the gutter.
A lot of the early Pern books have women in them who don't want to be pregnant but who don't seem to have any choice in the matter. This newest book has a lot of offers to help the women terminate. I feel so damned sorry for Lessa (central character of much earlier books) who hated her child, who hated the way its conception felt like rape (she was pretty asexual and definitely virginal until her dragon rose, so the aftermath was traumatic) and she didn't fix her problem. The women in the current book know that they can take their dragons Between for a longer trip and it will cause them to miscarry, but they're pretty appalled because babies are so wonderful. It makes me wonder why that knowledge was lost for Lessa (whose timeline is much later.)
I really don't understand why this was a book. We're told over and over and over and over again that Fiona is absolutely amazing. We're told over and over again that Lorana is absolutely amazing. We've just come off several books which told us that Kindan was absolutely amazing. So not!watching them have sex while in bed with a comatose man really was the entire point of the book.
I loved these books when I was a child, because, hello. dragons. Dragons that are so emotionally attached that if you die, they kill themselves in grief. You're always the most important person to your dragon. And your dragon is the most important thing to you, the bond forms magically, you don't have to know how to love your dragon, it's instinctual, bred-in, something that happens to the special chosen people, but not something that people can question. It's seriously a lot like Twilight when I explain it that way.
Then set it on an agrarian world written by a woman who wanted more babies than she had, who bought into that historical romance type philosophy that women aren't supposed to enjoy sex (and the purpose is just to make babies)... and a lot of it sounds fundamentalist in terms of the lack of rights for women. I wonder why I liked these books until I realized my favorites starred male characters. I didn't notice that the women were being raped and forced to breed off to the side of what the page was showing.
The way Todd McCaffrey writes the female characters, they all want that kind of lifestyle and life choices, but they all realize they have that as a choice. It's much less repellent. It's hard to understand why women would want to live in the world Anne McCaffrey created, but when I was young and stupid and didn't notice, I did. Of course back then I hadn't quite consciously realized that one doesn't get to pick one's gender role. So of course if I was a character in the books, I was going to be one of the backgroundish blue riders who have weird but stable loving families... where I'd have a wife and children and my dragon who takes priority over all that family shit and my family would just understand that I couldn't really love them in comparison to my dragon. So I'd get the regular life but without all the drama and hassle.
I'm not completely sure why I thought when I grew up, I could be the man, that being female was something you grew out of. But casual oppression of women and casual oppression of children is pretty similar and everyone told me I could do what I wanted when I was the grown up.
Honestly, I'm still bitter that Anne McCaffrey was so nasty in her "no fanfic" rules when she let her kid play in the sandbox. He's not a very good writer. He's got no story (which doesn't ruin a book for me, I rather like that, but it's still a criterion for authorial talent). His technique is lax, both in terms of the content and style. If you're looking for a worthy successor based on talent or experience, he's not it.
There's a lot of Pern that I find extremely off-putting as an adult that I just didn't notice as a child, or that I avoided because those books weren't entertaining. (I avoided the Moreta books because they're tragic. But when I read them later, as an adult, I found a lot of it repellent for the enforced lifestyle choices.)
Dragon Girl has a lot of that. It's essentially a plotless book which attempts to be exploring the beginnings of a polyamorous relationship. But that's alluded to, never addressed specifically. There's no actual sex in the book, even when it's crucial to the plot.
I didn't notice as a child that green dragons' riders were often homosexual. We're told they congregate together and they're known to be promiscuous like their dragons. But that doesn't mean they don't have groupies. I really didn't get it until I was old enough that my mind has a season pass to swim in the gutter.
A lot of the early Pern books have women in them who don't want to be pregnant but who don't seem to have any choice in the matter. This newest book has a lot of offers to help the women terminate. I feel so damned sorry for Lessa (central character of much earlier books) who hated her child, who hated the way its conception felt like rape (she was pretty asexual and definitely virginal until her dragon rose, so the aftermath was traumatic) and she didn't fix her problem. The women in the current book know that they can take their dragons Between for a longer trip and it will cause them to miscarry, but they're pretty appalled because babies are so wonderful. It makes me wonder why that knowledge was lost for Lessa (whose timeline is much later.)
I really don't understand why this was a book. We're told over and over and over and over again that Fiona is absolutely amazing. We're told over and over again that Lorana is absolutely amazing. We've just come off several books which told us that Kindan was absolutely amazing. So not!watching them have sex while in bed with a comatose man really was the entire point of the book.
I loved these books when I was a child, because, hello. dragons. Dragons that are so emotionally attached that if you die, they kill themselves in grief. You're always the most important person to your dragon. And your dragon is the most important thing to you, the bond forms magically, you don't have to know how to love your dragon, it's instinctual, bred-in, something that happens to the special chosen people, but not something that people can question. It's seriously a lot like Twilight when I explain it that way.
Then set it on an agrarian world written by a woman who wanted more babies than she had, who bought into that historical romance type philosophy that women aren't supposed to enjoy sex (and the purpose is just to make babies)... and a lot of it sounds fundamentalist in terms of the lack of rights for women. I wonder why I liked these books until I realized my favorites starred male characters. I didn't notice that the women were being raped and forced to breed off to the side of what the page was showing.
The way Todd McCaffrey writes the female characters, they all want that kind of lifestyle and life choices, but they all realize they have that as a choice. It's much less repellent. It's hard to understand why women would want to live in the world Anne McCaffrey created, but when I was young and stupid and didn't notice, I did. Of course back then I hadn't quite consciously realized that one doesn't get to pick one's gender role. So of course if I was a character in the books, I was going to be one of the backgroundish blue riders who have weird but stable loving families... where I'd have a wife and children and my dragon who takes priority over all that family shit and my family would just understand that I couldn't really love them in comparison to my dragon. So I'd get the regular life but without all the drama and hassle.
I'm not completely sure why I thought when I grew up, I could be the man, that being female was something you grew out of. But casual oppression of women and casual oppression of children is pretty similar and everyone told me I could do what I wanted when I was the grown up.
