Another of the Benbella Smart Pop books, Ardeur is a collection of essays about the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels by Laurell K Hamilton. The coup for this particular book is that they have scored the author herself as “editor” of the essays, a role she shares with the more discreetly credited Leah Wilson. Hamilton contributes an ‘introduction’ to each of the essays, though they are really more personal reactions and in some cases justifications for the themes raised by the essayists. I felt the formatting let Hamilton down a little here, as her pieces often don’t make sense unless you’ve read the essay, or at least looked at the title and beginning – they would have been better off to put her pieces on the left facing page, or indeed after each essay instead of before.

I did like comparing Hamilton’s reactions to the essays, though, the funniest being the one paired with the “Dating the Monsters” essay where the writer attempts to place Anita Blake in the context of the romance genre, and Hamilton undercuts this by discussing how she naturally fails at writing romance, because she’s completely uneducated in the tropes and traditions of that genre. Once again, the essayist might have had more of a chance to get her point across if the Hamilton introduction came after rather than contradicting her before she got started!

I enjoyed the collection, as a whole, especially for the perspective it brought not only to the Anita Blake novels as a body of work, but also to the urban fantasy genre, which I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I enjoyed the Nick Mamatas essay which lays out what Hamilton has achieved in her career – it was a good introduction into the book, though it’s an interesting choice as it means the collection begins by addressing the cultural cringe many have about Hamilton’s books. Surely the main audience for Ardeur would be fans of Anita Blake, rather than the more jaded readers who roll their eyes at all the vampire stripping and group smut?

(more…)

Lovers of paranormal romance may be interested in this new Australian anthology: Scary Kisses, edited by Liz Grzyb for Ticonderoga Publications. There have been a couple of attempts to get a paranormal antho off the ground in Australia. One that I know of fell through due to lack of submissions, and another due to not being able to secure a publisher (right at the time the global financial crisis hit). It’s lovely to see one that’s finally made it out into the public eye.

Featuring authors such as Felicity Dowker, Kyla Ward, Nicole R. Murphy, L.L. Hannett & Angela Slatter, the anthology will be launched at Swancon on 2 April and is available now for pre-order.

(oh and the lovely cover design is by Amanda Rainey, who also does most of the covers over at Twelfth Planet Press.)

I’ve been thinking about urban fantasy and the kickass heroine lately, and chatting about her over at Marianne de Pierres’ Facebook page.

I first started turning this over in my mind when I read a piece on critiquing groups in one of the Wiscon Chronicles by a woman who struggled because her female characters, who acted logically within her own cultural context, were being criticised for not being more active, aggressive, “kickass”.

And I wondered if the kickass heroine had maybe become a millstone around our necks.

The kickass heroine has become a mainstay of SF films and gaming. She has led TV series such as Xena, Alias, Buffy. She is Sarah Connor, Ellen Ripley, Lara Croft, some other characters played by Angelina Jolie, Kate Beckinsdale in Underworld…

She is tough, violent, uncompromising, ruthless, broken. You don’t mess with her.

There are many things to like about these women, particularly because they provide such a contrast to the kind of female roles that have generally been available in SF and fantasy. But it concerns me when these become the only kinds of women that there is room for in speculative fiction – particularly in SF films where Ms Kickass is the only female character, and her appeal seems to revolve around the fact that she acts like and is accepted by all the men, plus bonus boobs.

I talked about lone princesses here – I think the same can apply to Ms Kickass. Don’t get me wrong – if there’s only one woman on screen I’d rather she be kicking arse and taking names than throwing up, screaming and being rescued… but do they all have to be wearing leather trousers and tramp stamps?

There is a fine line between empowering, and objectifying. Sometimes the difference comes down to who is holding the camera, and who is sitting at the keyboard.

(more…)