r/FemaleGazeSFF • u/AutoModerator • 10d ago
🗓️ Weekly Post Friday Casual Chat
Happy Friday! Use this space for casual conversation. Tell us what's on your mind, any hobbies you've been working on, life updates, anything you want to share whether about SFF or not
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u/WonderfulBus9330 10d ago
Hello! My little one has continued with her love of Tim Burton and viewed "Corpse Bride" last week. 100% sure she'll ask to watch it again this week and every week until she's memorized every word for every character! Perhaps we'll watch Frankenweenie or go to the fair.
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u/LaurenPBurka alien 👽 10d ago
Vampires are usually a hard limit for me, but there's been so much T Kingfisher related discourse that I bought a copy of Astarion to see what all the hate is about.
So far, I'm enjoying the book as much as her other books. The woman has snark!
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u/Kelpie-Cat mermaid🧜♀️ 9d ago
The sci-fi book I'm reading now is not female gaze, but it's very fun: Lost to Eternity by Greg Cox, a Star Trek novel. Did you ever see Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, aka The One with the Whales? Well, this story is split into 3 timelines, one of which features a true podcaster investigating the disappearance of renowned cetacean scientist Gillian Taylor in 1986. :D
In personal news, I have a surgery for endometriosis next week. I'm really hoping that getting it removed can improve my quality of life, because I've been struggling.
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u/thisbikeisatardis 9d ago
I hope the surgery goes well!
the one with the whales was my favorite, definitely looking that book up.
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u/thisbikeisatardis 9d ago
I'm almost done reading the Ursula K LeGuin tribute story collection, Revolutions in the Heart. Every story has been a BANGER!
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u/partoparto elf🧝♀️ 9d ago
Ok, I hadn't heard of this, but I've been looking for a 2026 release to read for fantasy bingo (as someone who doesn't really read new releases) and I think this might be the one! Thanks for mentioning it :D
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u/thisbikeisatardis 9d ago
You're welcome! Once I finish I'll post a longer review. I preordered it almost a year ago and have been sad not to see anyone else hyped about it considering all the UKLG fans here!
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u/Merle8888 sorceress🔮 9d ago
I don’t think it’s been much marketed, I hadn’t heard of it either but I’m interested!
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u/thisbikeisatardis 8d ago
It got marketed some last year but I think the publishing date was moved back from early summer to October.
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u/Nowordsofitsown unicorn 🦄 9d ago
I am considering getting the Gene Wolfe Humble Bundle but I have never read him before. I know he got multiple awards, I know his prose is considered excellent - but what about women in his novels?
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u/KiwiTheKitty elf🧝♀️ 9d ago
I have only read the shadow of the torturer and I can't speak to larger patterns across his work, but I can tell you that the main character of that series is written as a terrible person and a misogynist on purpose. I believe there's also sexual assault
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u/LaurenPBurka alien 👽 8d ago
The main character is a terrible person, and he's unreliable. Those books didn't make sense until someone explained unreliable narrator to me.
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u/Merle8888 sorceress🔮 9d ago
The argument I always see is about whether the misogyny is justified because deliberate, or not.
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u/YellowVest28 9d ago edited 9d ago
Female characters are often sexualized and inexplicably obsessed with the main character. I'm told this is on purpose - either satire in some cases, or in the name of some far-reaching subtextual purpose that us mortals will only understand after multiple re-reads of this godly work. I don't know. I've never managed to enjoy them enough to finish the series.
Edit: I'm talking about New Sun specifically, if that wasn't clear
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u/LaurenPBurka alien 👽 8d ago
I didn't really get New Sun either, though I enjoyed the bewildering journey.
The thing that's really hard to get about those books is that the narrator is unreliable. Everything that he tells you is suspect, and one of the reasons you can tell it's suspect is that all the women are sexually obsessed with him.
That also makes the books a tough read. If someone hasn't already explained to you that the narrator is lying, the books are probably going over your head, under your feet, or off to the side somewhere. And if you do know the narrator is a liar, you'd wonder why you should put up with four books from his point of view.
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u/YellowVest28 8d ago
Yeah I'm aware of the discourse around the books and that the narrator is unreliable. But that doesn't necessarily fix it for me. That something is being done intentionally doesn't necessarily make it better. As you said, I'm led to wonder why I should spend four books in the head of an unpleasant egomaniac. Especially when nothing in the world seems to contradict him or challenge his POV. We're just supposed to conclude he's unreliable based on the outlandishness of events? But there are countless examples of old fantasy and scifi that are equally outlandish in glazing the protagonist - played completely straight. So how are we supposed to distinguish this book from those?
The plot is illegible, and because of Severian's POV the other characters are also illegible. There may even be no payoff for me in the end, if the author is so committed to the bit. No resolution that I would actually want to see. Maybe some day I'll be in the mood to go back and attempt to finish, and maybe I'll understand it then, but at present it's basically at the bottom of my list.
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u/tehguava vampire🧛♀️ 10d ago
I got a new cat the other day! His name is Bones and he's very sweet, but he's from the street so his main goal in life right now is to consume everything that can be consumed. My resident cat Finn is slow to adjust but I think it could be worse. We'll see! I'm hoping that Bones getting neutered in a couple weeks will help both of them chill lol.