Welcome to Wednesday Links! As usual, here are some pretty cool things the Bitchery has found around the internet recently.
Author Ilona Andrews recently wrote a blog post on the Alphahole trope in romance and it is spreading like wildfire!
This construct has less to do with preconceived gender roles and more to do with the story arc. A hero or heroine’s journey must be a climb or a descent, otherwise the story has no momentum. Since we are dealing with fiction that, by definition, requires a happy ending, that journey, at some point, must become a climb, which means the point of view character has to start on the bottom and work their way up.
There are pictures, fancy charts with hearts, and even a graph. Seriously, it’s worth a read and it’s a very thorough examination on Alpha heroes in romance.
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Until the end of February, Penguin Random House is offering a chance to win a dozen romances! And c’mon, who doesn’t want a shot at some free books? Titles include Only a Promise by Mary Balogh, Emma by Alexander McCall Smith, and Grey by E.L. James.
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Big thanks to Jimthered for sending us Geek.com’s list of “Greatest Romances in Science Fiction.” The list isn’t just limited to books of science fiction, but runs the gamut of scifi media.
Sci-fi isn’t really known as a genre that gives a lot of attention to romance, but some of the greatest franchises in its history have had true love at their core. We often use our shared human experiences as a gateway to understanding fictional worlds, and love is one of those things. It can give us empathy, anger, and compassion for aliens and humans alike, and truly great creators use it in their narrative toolkit with aplomb.
I’m sure the list will inspire some debate, but as someone who has Rachel from Bladerunner as her phone’s lock screen, it warms my heart to see her and Deckard make the list.
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I can’t remember how I discovered Placing Literature, but I do know that it was a total time sink for me. Using Google Maps, users can pinpoint literary locations on a global map. You can mark homes of literary characters, famous landmarks found in fiction, and even write up the scene that features a particular location. Here’s a good rundown from Placing Literature’s “About” section:
Placing Literature is a crowdsourcing website that maps literary scenes that take place in real locations. Anyone with a Google login can add a place to the literary database and share it over social media. Since its launch in May 2013, nearly 3,000 places from MacBeth’s castle to Forks High School have been mapped by users all over the world.
Readers, tourists, authors, publishers, librarians, museum directors, cultural organizations and academics all use Placing Literature geo-tagged information to provide location context to literature.
Happy browsing and keep an eye on the clock in case you have any appointments to make this afternoon!
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Femscriptintros is a genius (though kind of depressing) Twitter account that posts the introductions for female leads from scripts. The actual character names and otherwise identifying details have been taken out, so have fun trying to guess which scripts they’ve come from!
JANE (late 20s) sits hunched over a microscope. She’s attractive, but too much of a professional to care about her appearance.
— Ross Putman (@femscriptintros) February 10, 2016
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Lastly, this is my favorite thing I’ve read in the past week, even though it was originally published in 2010. I give you “Building Code Violations for the Love Shack.”
INITIAL OBSERVATIONS:
Only marker to indicate the location of the building is a sign at least 10 miles away. The sign was not installed by the county, and is not in the county-mandated colors for road signage (should be green and white, is actually hot pink and cardboard).
Building is set farther back from the rode than necessary, and only accessible via a long driveway, which appears to be permanently blocked by a large Chrysler. Car will have to be towed before further action is taken.
And just in case the song is now stuck in your head, feel free to give it a listen!
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What interesting things have you read this week? Tell us your neat, amazing, and funny internet finds!
I love love love Ilona Andrews! I loved her before, I love her even more now. If you want to invite her back to the podcast (to talk about whatever), I wouldn’t object. 😉
The reference to the Love Shack reminded me of a recently-learned bit of gaming fun. In the board game STONE AGE, there’s some not-so-subtle sex goin’ on: If you put two people in the Hut, at the end of the turn three people come out. When played online at BSW http://www.brettspielwelt.de/?nation=en putting the cursor over the Hut reveals that they named it LoveShack. Hah!
If you’re looking for a good sci-fi romance (that is also about philosophy and cultural theory), I recently watched “Frequencies” and thought it was great. It does the “two sides of the same love story” thing really well and for a non-gimmicky purpose.
Also I probably cried at some point during it because that’s what movies do to me now that I’m 30.
Great discussion of alphas, and I appreciate the nuanced consideration of how different readers have different opinions of where the line lies between problematic behavior that can be overcome, and outright emotional abuse. Though I personally would prefer to reserve the term “alphahole” as a negative name for a character who falls on the wrong side of the line in the opinion of the person using the term.
So I was trying to come up with female alphaholes where it is like Andrews describes for the males – that they must learn to open up emotionally and not what I feel like usually happens to the perfectly competent females which is that they must be taken down a peg. All I’ve got so far is The Enchantment by Betina Krahn. But then, as I headed over to the sci-fi romance bit, muttering as I clicked that “John and Aeryn better be on that list,” it occurred to me that Farscape actually plays out the female alphahole thing really well.
John comes aboard Moya and proceeds to make friends with everybody. He hangs out and asks questions about their lives and listens and supports. Meanwhile Aeryn is completely closed off emotionally but for sure who you want front and center when the shit hits the fan. They both grow and change over the series but I think they embody this pretty well (also I love the slow build of the romance – it’s not will they won’t they from the get go, it’s that each episode they sit a wee bit nearer to each other than the week before.)
My favorite Alphahole is the lead guy from Ruthless by Anne Stuart. I remember Elinor, the mc, very vividly as being an excellent character but alphahole…I don’t recall his name. Something Rohan because that’s the series. Francis, maybe? If you like the trope, it’s your catnip. If you hate Alphaholes, do avoid it!
I love Doctor Who. I still get emotional when I see the episode were the Doctor and Rose are separated. However, River Song’s relationship with the Doctor is my favorite. Their story is tragic from the beginning. Since this is time travel, we first meet River on her last adventure with the Doctot. But their relationship is so beautiful and funny – she makes fun of the Doctor and will not miss a chance rub in how clever she is. All that joy makes the pain worthwhile.
Deckard and Rachel. Roy and Pris. Blade Runner is a fantastic existential love story. The complicated, mature depictions of love in that movie still resonate with me after countless viewings and 33 years. (I saw it in the theater when it first premiered.) Interesting that Harrison Ford is on the sci-fi list twice.
Love the Ilona Andrews article. @Teev – The only female alphahole I can think of is Judith in Courtney Milan’s Once Upon a Marquess. I know Milan is a SBTB fave, but that book is one of the worst stories I have ever (tried to) read, largely due to Judith.
@Madge – oh good one, she did have that “the world ain’t gonna run right unless I oversee every detail” thing going on, IIRC.
I don’t…I mean…I understand the point of the Alphahole as being a person that need character development, that makes narrative sense to me. It is a trope I hate, but that’s fine.
But, I just find it ironic that to me, that Curran was at his most alphahole-ish in book six, when I finally broke up with the series because I realised he was irredeemably a jackass. He basically had no character development, then.
But I am aware I am in the minority about being infuriated by that, so maybe I am just one of those people she mentioned with an extremely low tolerance for alphaholeness.
That is a great SF list. Surprised and gratified to see Starman on the list, that is SUCH a great movie. I remember going to see it with a couple of friends and we were all PMSing and it was the perfect PMS movie, we. Cried. SO. HARD. All the way through.
@Madge, OF COURSE he is, you could probably have put Indy and Marion on there too and made it a trifecta.
That inspector needs check their measurements. I’m pretty sure that sign says it’s 15 miles to the Love Shack.
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Loved that the SciFi article listed John Crichton and Aeryn Sun. They were a fantastic romance (but describing her as ‘Space Cop???’ Whaaa? She was a Sebacean fighter pilot who got branded a traitor. ). I always loves that she was the jaded warrior to John’s heart-on-his-sleeve astronaugt phycisist. And they even HAE.
Autocorrect sucks.
If you like the femscript tumblr, there’s also a great blog done by a woman that looks at casting calls:
http://castingcallwoe.tumblr.com/
Cakewrecks.com = awesome epic gigglesnorts
I got so excited when I saw the title “Greatest Romances in Sci Fi,” and then when it said it ran the gamut if Sci Fi media, I was even more excited! But when I followed the link it was TV, movies, anime, and comic books Not sure “gamut” means what you think it means … Not even one novel? Really? And here I was hoping for some recommendations to authors I haven’t heard of or read before!
Am I being cranky? Maybe I’m being cranky. Perhaps I should go eat a Snickers or something …
No, Karen, you’re not excessively cranky. Between you and me there are at least two people on the planet who enjoy science fiction in written form; and I think that articles that neglect prose miss most of the really inovative work in the genre. To tell you the truth, though, I’m having a hard time thinking of great romances in science fiction books. I concur with this site’s readers’ unanimous enthusiasm for Miles & Ekaterin, Cordelia & Aral; beyond that, though… While searching for great, how about good? I have a weakness for Pyanfar Chanur’s relationship with her husband, though it’s a relatively small point in the “Chanur” series. Trouble and Her Friends is so-so science fiction but has a very nice second-chance romance between two women who have to negotiate the ways they’ve both changed since their fiery younger days.
And what about you, your nominations?
Thanks for the support, Vasha! I actually can’t think of any romances in Sci Fi books, maybe that’s why I got so excited when I saw the link. I read a lot of Sci Fi when I was a kid, but have been more into fantasy since being an adult (which I have been for a very long time :-). I have been casually looking for new Sci Fi books/authors lately, but have trouble finding stories that intrigue me. Maybe I just won’t be able to recapture my childhood enthusiasm! I will check out the Chanur books, maybe they will be the magic pill 😉
@Vasha: After I posted my comment (of course!) I thought of a couple of books that I read long ago that I think had some romantic component to them, The Snow Queen and The Summer Queen by Joan Vinge. IIRC they weren’t romances, but I do think there were relationships in them that were central to the story. Perhaps I should reread them …
@Vasha and @Karen – There is also Stephen Brust’s Vlad Taltos series, which begins (well, time is kinda fluid in this series, so I’m going with book publications order) with the protagonist, Vlad, in love and married to a kick ass woman, Cawti. However, the series is in a lot of ways a typical hero’s journey, and the romance isn’t front and center. I do like their relationship because Vlad really loves Cawti, which is cool. The series quickly takes a political bent – this being Brust – instead of an interpersonal one, but hey, the first couple of books are fun.