Caroline remembers a lot of this book – I know someone is going to recognize this one.
Ok, I have been driven insane remembering this book, and really hope someone
can help. I think it is based on Fairy Tales and such, and was a time travel
romance. I can remember it being written by a man, which, when I read it,
surprised me, since, like, dudes don’t write romance, do they? (and yeah,
they do, and its awesomesauce.)Here goes:
It is set in Europe somewhere (I am thinking Eastern Europe), and a young
man remembers a fairy tale his grandparents told him about a guarded
princess or something. For some reason Babba Yagga springs to mind as a
villian in the fairy tale. Grown up, he goes back to the farm they spent
summers on for some reason and finds some weirdness goin’ on in the back
forty. There is some random woman on a pedestal, sleeping away, and in a
moat surrounding the pedestal is some type of beast.The man runs around and around and around the moat tiring the evilnastyroary
beast out, who follows him, so that he can jump over the moat and get the
girl, who it turns out is a absolute, genuine, one of a kind princess
(Disney copyright not applied). She thinks, in part of their introduction
that he didn’t smell bad, just sweaty, but clean (I guess dude was cleaner
than the old-timey warriors who never bathed?) They return to her time
through a portal at the site of the Amazing Running Rescue, and he’s
questioned on his weirdo factor (being tall, clean etc) and I think
eventually helps stop a rebellion or something, and becomes the non-smelly,
sweaty, tall hero. The princess and he fall in love in the book, but really,
I can’t remember if there is any smuttiness in the book (hence why I wanna
read it again, O_o).The end of the book has them with kids, spending half their year in the
“present”, and half the year “in the past” ruling their kingdom
together. They travel safely through the portal where the hero defeated the
beast to save the princess.OK, so have at it! Tell me what this book is! Please! Its driving me crazy
not being able to remember it better!!!
Time travel with moats and beasts? This sounds terribly intriguing. Anyone remember this book?
I, too, would rather he said it if he thought it, for the same reason that I’d prefer Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise were vocal about their…beliefs: I like to know just what kind of person my eight bucks is helping support. Or, in this case, not—I love the weird alternate history fantasy of the first couple Alvin Maker books, but I get them from the library or secondhand.
I liked his stuff before he went fundie. These days…there are a lot of books in the world, and I might as well read ones where the author’s misogynistic, homophobic, and generally sex-negative views don’t show through the text.
LMFAO! I would love to see the Queen say this in her snotty, we-are-not-amused tone. “You, Sir, are a tool.”
Re: Card.
It depends on how we interpret the author’s intention: Is the book a soap box for to express their own views, etc? Then read it as such. Is it just a story with luscious knocking of boots and a HEA. Then read it as such. Is the author misrepresenting his or her work? Then stake them to an anthill and flame them on teh Internetz.
Let’s look at Suz. Brockmann: Her writing has mutated into a platform for political correctness and gay rights, to the point where it’s even beginning to piss off her most devoted readers.
I read the story, not the author. Hunter S. Thompson was a nutcase but I enjoy his work. The Marquis de Sade is a crappy a role model but his 120 Days to Sodom is still a literary classic.
Freedom of speech is a difficult ideal to adequately define and even harder to live up to. After all, whenever someone says something we don’t agree with our first reflex is still generally “STFU or I bash u with my mighty weapon you tool.”
Well hey! Thanks for the quick identification! Enchantment was the only Card story I ever read. My father has read more of his stuff, since he is into Sci-fi/Fantasy way more than me. He’s digging through his piles of books, he may still have it! I remember the chicken legs thing! Doesn’t Babba Yagga steal a whole plane at one point? Ech, I think this is officially on the re-read list.
When I read a good story, I tend not to think about what the author is like IRL. The story is a part of their imagination and creativity, and I tend to separate them from that. If an author is really someone that makes people go OMGWTFBBQ, but I like the way he/she writes, then I won’t stop reading them. If their writing gets weird, then, well it changed from what I liked, and I wouldn’t keep reading. But, at the core, what they do with their royalties from book sales is none of my business, so I tend not to worry about giving money to authors who have vocalized beliefs different than my own. Its just like what I do with my paycheques. It is none of anyone else’s business (except hubby, yeah…).
That said, it is important to stand for what you believe in, and if Card makes people uncomfortable with his exuberant (read: zealous) campaigning on abolishment of gay rights and homosexuality, then you have a right to say you will not read his books. I think its vitally important that people can be free to have an opinion in our wonderful country (waves with mittens from Canada to the US), and are able to speak freely and debate their ideals. Without that, we wouldn’t have passions! Lead it not to violence, discrimination, or criminal acts, of course. Because well, that would suck.
Thanks everyone!
Yes, all this talk of “gay rights” is sooo boring – we already have all the rights in all the parts of the world, including Uganda, every single country has an openly lesbian president, hate crimes ceased to exist, gay characters in soap operas they have lives beyond being mostly invisible Gay Best Friends/predatory villains/lisping comic reliefs/tragic victims, have exactly the same amount of onscreen sex as straight ones and almost never get killed off… We have officially sanctioned Gay Pride in Mioscow every month. All the celebrities got out of their closets ages ado, because they have absolutely nothing to fear. Can’t this Brockmann support us quietly, not making a big fuss out of it? All this donations, talking about her son… My parents would never ever be so brazen as to tell anyone that I’m a lesbian and they support me!…
Guess I found a new author to read. Now, if only I knew where to get her books offline…
(Oh, and just in case someone takes everything I wrote earlier too literally, though I have no idea how would anyone manage it – no, I don’t see what’s so “wrong” about writers, even straight writers – especially straight writers – being all about gay rights all the time. Ben P, do you really think that being a too-vocal-for-your-tastes gay ally is pretty much the same/just as bad as being a hateful bigot? Seriously?
I’m pretty sure Suz. Brockmann’s readers were looking for a fictitious novel, not to be spoon fed a political agenda (any political agenda). Of course authors work changes over time, and they bring their views into their books, that’s inevitable. But it’s not automatically disagreeing with The Cause to stop supporting the author because they don’t like the tangent her books have gone on either. Sometimes people actually pick up novels to escape.
Personally, I want to read an author whose primary priority in writing a novel is to entertain. I don’t need to be handed a guidebook on How And What To Think by a gay rights activist, any more than by a raging misogynistic homophobe.
So, wait. In Ender’s Game Card calls the evil aliens that are trying to destroy the Earth “buggers”? And no one copped to the fact that he just might be a homophobe?
That must have been some pretty dazzling verbal tap dancing he was doing! I just might have to read this “classic” now.
Checked out from the library. Of course.
People can spout any damn nonsense they want. Makes it easier for me to vote with my pocketbook, or my feet, or whatever is appropriate. That way, we both get to express ourselves. It’s what they call a “win win.”
Haven’t read Brockmann, but I’m kind of with geekgirl. I’m a vocal feminist, pro-gay-rights, liberal in most ways…
…but I don’t necessarily need to read fiction that is, as TVTropes would put it, “anvilicious” about these subjects. Some of Mercedes Lackey’s less-well-written stuff, for example, and some of the PSA-y Buffy episodes, just make me want to scream: yes, women are people! Gay is okay! Rape is bad! Abuse is bad! I get it! I, in fact, got it TEN YEARS AGO, so perhaps we could get back to slaying vampires? Maybe?
See also: Captain Planet, oh my GOD.
Redcrow, you’re missing the point. Geekgirl summed it up: Suz. Brockmann’s writing has developed into a soapbox for spoonfeeding readers her political views. That’s just as annoying as Card’s own wierdness and bigotry seeping through into his work. Suz’s work was once a daring inclusion of really excellent gay characters, she did a great job of making readers think “hmm being gay sounds hard” and drawing attention to some of the pressures and the level of alcohol abuse on the scene. Something I’m intimately familiar with.
Now her work has become a clumsy facade of romantic suspense wrapped around a political agenda.
I’m happily, proudly and openly bisexual and don’t make a secret out of it. But if I want to write about that, make gay rights or sexuality into a major theme I’m going to write a book called “Things I won’t swallow” focusing on the life and times of Niell Down.
I’ll also make it clear what I’m writing about. I will not, as Suz has done, mislead my readers by promising a romantic suspense but delivering a political treatise. That’s what has pissed her readers off.
Be vocal. That’s good. But be honest, because that is even better.
It comes down to what the novel is purported to be about and what the novel is intended to do.
If I’m marketing myself as an entertainer then I promise to deliver entertainment.
If I’m marketing myself as a gay rights activist then I promise to actively promote gay rights.
One of the major rules of writing and publishing is: Deliver what you promise.
Readers who buy a hard-boiled detective novel and get a chic lit story will be pissed off. Readers who buy a paranormal romance but get hard science fiction will be pissed off.
Just as being out is about honesty rather than living in the closet, writers need to be honest about the stories they sell.
Well, as tvtropes also say, “some anvils need to be dropped”. You got it. Okay. Someone else doesn’t. After reading the book, they might get it…
…or might scream “Where’s my escapist fiction?!” and run away to never come back. I can understand it. But, you see, I’m not yet sick of people loudly explaining how I am a human being with feelings and thoughts, and don’t need to be “cured”, and it’s not “just a phase”, and I’m not a walking fanservice for straight guys… Unless I visit specific sites, read specific books and only contact with specific groups of people, I don’t hear/see it every day wherever I go. I am, however, sick of people loudly proclaiming just the opposite. So of those two options, I’ll gladly choose the first.
(Incidentally, you can entertain and promote gay rights at the same time. No, seriously. It’s not one or the other. Maybe Ms.Brockmann fails at this – I take your words for it, since I didn’t read anything by her. I’ll have to read her to judge for myself, anyway, and I won’t have any chance to do it any time soon. I also don’t mind genre clashes, but I’m weird like that.)
Redcrow: Fair enough, and I think it might be different for gay rights issues—and “gay people are people too” doesn’t bug me as an anvil, or at least it’s hard to think of works where it has. And I certainly think that it’s possible to entertain and inform at the same time.
On the other hand, as a woman, I get really tired of ostensibly-fantasy-or-romance books that are all about “women’s issues” (which always boil down to rape or abuse—not that these aren’t serious problems, but there’s more to being female, Lifetime) because…yeah, some people might not get it. But I do, and I have, and I don’t particularly want an After-School Special, no matter how worthy the cause is. And at least PSAs are up-front about their content and intent.
It all depends on presentation, honestly. A skilled writer can present tremendously messagey plots in a compelling way: I avoid the hell out of most rape-or-abuse plots, but McKinley’s Deerskin or King’s Dolores Claiborne are favorites of mine. On the other hand, there are a lot of books where I have to stop halfway and give my friends a sarcastic “…the more you know!” bit.
So it can be done well, but I’m wary unless I know the author’s otherwise skilled.
Suz. Brockmann’s writing has developed into a soapbox for spoonfeeding readers her political views.
Y’know, people keep saying this, and I’m not sure how. Maybe it’s because I already agree with her political views, but I don’t see the “soapbox.”
Every time I ask for specific example, it usually comes down to the fact that she doesn’t shy away from depicting same sex romance in her books (even, *gasp* as the PRIMARY FOCUS! With sexxoring and stuff!) and has these characters actually reflect how the bigotry they encounter is a major source of conflict in their relationships.
Nobody seemed to accuse her of being “political”, when she featured inter-racial romances and realistically depicted the effects of racism in several of her earlier romances.
But when it comes to Teh Gay, all of a sudden we should just pretend it’s all puppies and unicorns for the sake of our precious “escape”?
Would that the real-life same sex couples I know could “escape” bigotry so easily…
P.S. Izzy, is that you @ 11:44?
It is! Hey there. 🙂
This conversation is making me want to check out Brockman’s work, for the record, despite being mostly into historical stuff.
Hapax, can I hire you as my spokeperson or something? You’re always so eloquent, and I always fail at it (especially when it comes to Sharing Thoughts On Yaoi).
I can promise not to use your services when it comes to religion and all the other stuff we might have different views on, so you won’t have to say things you don’t agree with.
Infamous is a revision of an older work of Suz’s. Over at Suz’s team ten yahoo group there is a partial list of political bits retroactively and, as the analysis there points out, clumsily worked into the text.
In fact, the two main gay characters, Jules and Robin, are among our favourite characters. None of the readers there complain about the gay sex. Most of us agree that the scene with Robin and Jules getting it on in the limousine was HOT.
So hapax, you’re a little off base there.
Nope, no one accused her of being political when she daringly wrote about inter-racial romances or had an african-american romance as the main plot. Because she didn’t flog us with it. The fact that Harvard was african-american meshed perfectly with the story. It wasn’t used as a club to beat us with the fact that *gasp* african-americans are people too.
The topic itself is secondary to the increasingly unsubtle, poorly integrated and inelegant way she addresses it. Head over to the team ten yahoo group and read the various topics about Infamous.
The point of contention among her fans is the fact that she’s writing Trojan Romances: Her political views masquerading as a romance.
Why is it OK to beat up on Card for being a raging homophobe but not OK to be disappointed at the way Suz is increasingly inelegantly pushing her political views in her work?
Ben: Much as I dislike anyone inelegantly pushing political views in their work, I think the answer to *that* is pretty simple.
Inelegantly pushing political views in your work (and again, I don’t know that Suzanne Brockman does this) makes you a bit ham-handed as a writer.
Being a raging homophobe makes you a craptacular person.
It’s reasonable enough to react to the two things differently.
megalith:
That’s because it’s on every school summer reading list ever, which is a whole ‘nother discussion. Google “Ender’s Game fascist Hitler Apologia” and/or “Orson Scott Card has always been an asshat” for that one.
Once school is in session again, you’ll be able to find a copy no problem.
I had read the post and the many comments and gone on to make soup and do a job application when I realised that I had to come back and say that I have been disturbed by the conflation of Suzanne Brockmann’s Robin and Jules stories with the Orson Scott Card’s homophobic ravings by some commenters. An honest writer’s attempt to write inclusively is the same thing as the prejudiced thinking and themes that OSC presents to us? I don’t think so. I have read all of SB’s Troubleshooter books and enjoy them for what they are. Like others I stopped reading OSC a long time ago. On one hand we have an author who is writing about the real world and the real people around us in a way that brings hope in both the stories and sense of possiblity for the reader together with the sense of the world becoming or having the chance to be a better place. On the other we have someone who seems to be writing and living a life based on fear and trying to engage us with that worldview. Just because both writers have views that come through their writings doesn’t make them the same.
All this reminds me that I haven’t read an Ayn Rand… um, I mean Terry Goodkind… book in a while. 😛 Talk about soapboxing in mid-series.
@BenP—
I haven’t read the revised INFAMOUS, so you’re right, I hadn’t heard those specific complaints.
The quotes you mention do sound rather hamfisted, but out of context it’s hard for me to judge. shrug I’ll take your word for it that they were inserted clumsily.
(More clumsily than the obligatory screed against “climbing boys” that used to be inserted into Every Regency Ever as shorthand that This!Heroine!Was!Different! ? Hard to say. Maybe because even Fox News hasn’t been endorsing climbing boys recently?)
Anyways, I haven’t been to Team Ten and probably won’t, because for various reasons I can’t do YahooGroups. But I did used to hang out on the message board at SB’s website (I think she eventually shut it down) and was disgusted at the many many people who posted there who were offended at Suz “shoving Jules’s gayness in our faces” (of course they loved him when he was the perpetually romantically unlucky Gay Best Friend) and at her “sermonizing” and “psychobabble” about BDSM when it was revealed that Decker was a closet sub (of course they thought it was “romantic” when it looked like he might be an uber-alpha control freak!)
So perhaps I am a little over-sensitive to the accusations of “preachiness” that frequently get flung her way.
Conflating Card and Suz Brockmann. That would be bad.
Even worse than the unfortunately conflated Jeff Goldblum in The Fly.
My wife thinks Jeff is sexy. I agree, but she can have him. I still want Vin Diesel.
Besides. Kissing tall men gives me a crick in my neck.
It is not a famous book by any means, but Silent in the Grave by Deanna Raybourn has one of the best first lines I’ve ever read: “To say that I met Nicholas Brisbane over my husband’s dead body is not entirely accurate. Edward, it should be noted, was still twitching upon the floor.” I bought that book based on that opening line, it made me laugh in the bookstore, right out loud. And it’s not a particularly funny book, but that moment of humor was unexpected and welcome.