This past week, I took a break from academic reading to enjoy the fourth installment of the Mercy Thompson series, Bone Crossed , by Patricia Briggs. The series, if you haven't already encountered it, is a fantasy series centered around a young woman who works as a car mechanic and happens to be a walker raised by werewolves. At the beginning of the series, Mercy is trying to avoid her supernatural past as much as possible, a goal that becomes increasingly untenable as she is drawn deeper and deeper into local politics and relationships with a cast of characters both human and non-human (and, often, somewhere in between).
I've been looking forward to this book since the last one came out, and I definitely wasn't disappointed. The fourth installment is on par with the other three novels in the series (Moon Called , Blood Bound and Iron Kissed ) and manages to balance Mercy's newly-established significant-other relationship with a plot involving the local vampire seethe, a malevolent ghost, and tense inter-species politics. Furthermore, Briggs deserves major kudos for writing Mercy into an emotionally and physically intimate relationship with a super-dominant werewolf without finding it necessary to alter Mercy's basic personality or downplay her established ability and willingness to stand up for herself and the people she cares about.
But (you knew there was going to be a "but . . ."), as the series moves forward I've become increasingly aware of a weird dynamic: the absence of other central women characters . Or, more specifically, the lack of central female characters with whom Mercy has primary relationships that aren't either (1) protective, or (2) antagonistic. Jesse, the adolescent daughter of the local alpha werewolf, is a wonderful character -- but of course she's still a child to be cared for by the adults in her life. There are dominant female werewolves, but they're jealous of the attention Mercy receives from the male werewolves and disdainful of her non-werewolf status. And Mercy's human and other non-werewolf connections are pretty much exclusively male -- at least the ones that make it into the narratives for more than a passing glance. This is a dynamic I've noticed in a few genre series lately, and reading this book is giving me the opportunity to throw a question out to all of you: what's going on here?
It's not her choice of a partner that's a problem, or the fact that many of her close secondary friendships are with guys. The men in the story make up a great cast of characters. I realize that Mercy is straight, so her sexual relationships are going to be with men, and her strongest primary ties will be with her significant other. As the story stands, he's not the sole focus of her life, but he's a solid component of the core. In my opinion, Briggs is striking a successful balance on that score. What is striking to me isn't the presence of men in Mercy's (albeit fictional) life, it's the absence of women.
Why? Is there something inherent to the genre that makes it particularly difficult to write a fully-realized female protagonist who isn't a sort of token woman amid a cast of male characters? I don't think so: consider Emma Bull's War for the Oaks or Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely , both of which feature great women protagonists who are in primary relationships with male characters, but who nevertheless sustain relationships with other women too. Perhaps in this case, Briggs' hands are somewhat tied by the fact that her werewolf society is deeply patriarchal -- highly aware of gender and hierarchy. In fact, it's the patriarchy of the pack dynamics that's made Mercy wary of getting involved with werewolves (personally or politically) at the beginning of the series. Working within a patriarchal framework creates a situation where Mercy has to out-guy the guys a lot of the time, in order to make sure she isn't dismissed. But surely Mercy isn't the only woman in Briggs' alternate universe bloody-minded enough to fall in love with a werewolf and fight to establish a relationship on equal terms . . . and what about the werewolf women? In short -- where are Mercy's female friends, mentors and allies?
If you've read any of the Mercy Thompson novels, or any other fantasy/science-fiction novels that suffer from this problem (or are an example of how it could be done differently), I welcome your thoughts, and suggestions for further reading, in the comments!
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I am unfamiliar with the Mercy Thompson novels, but my guess would be that in general, female friendships are ignored in fantasy/sci-fi because most of it is written by men, and even when it's not written by men, it's written for men. Although, without any numbers handy on how many women read SF/F, it might be more accurate to say that there's definitely a PERCEPTION that men are the writers and the readers. (There is to me, obviously.)
Now, either way, that's painting with a VERY broad brush. There are undoubtedly counterexamples: the first that comes to mind are the generally well-written Uglies books by Scott Westerfeld, which feature a female protagonist and focus heavily on her friendship with another girl. They may be YA novels, but they were entertaining to this adult, and I don't think they were meant to target either gender.
Anyway though, I would guess that lots of these particular genre novels avoid female friendships because in general the boys/men who read them (or who are perceived to read them) are more interested in (or perceived to be interested in) reading about other types of relationships.
See, I was going to suggest Emma Bull until I saw that you already know about War for the Oaks.
Hmm. I can't believe I am having a hard time with this.
I like C.J. Cherryh's The Pride of Chanur which features mostly female characters. It is, however, science-fiction, not fantasy. The relationships are family members and crew members on a ship, not a tightly bonded pair of best friends.
I've been enjoying the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court. It's cute. I have no idea if you like comics and if you like YA stuff, but it does feature a strong friendship.
Lesbian romance fantasy novels will often focus on all kinds of female relationships, including platonic friendship. Laurie J. Marks' Elemental Logic saga is one example, but I'll admit that I just couldn't get into it.
I won't guess on the statistics of who reads fantasy novels, but Snarfer is right that more men write fantasy novels. Men might feel comfortable trying to write from the perspective of a female character, but I'll bet that falls apart when it comes down to portraying the dynamics that take place in friendships between two women.
I'm thinking about it.
I'd like to add Pamela Dean's Tam Lin to the list.
I had mixed feelings about that book too, actually. The representation of birth control in the 1970s was interesting. I wasn't really happy with how the romantic relationships were portrayed, but I realize that has partly to do with the ballad the novel was based on.
I hadn't noticed this before in the Mercy series before. It's interesting. Charlaine Harris does that too. I also realized that my own stories (yeah, I write, but just for fun, nothing published) are kind of like this too. I think it's just a mirror of my own experience- all of my close friends are guys, so my protagonist's buddies are usually guys too. Maybe that's a factor at play in the books you were talking about?
Scifi/fantasy novels with multiple central female characters:
Green Rider by Kristen Britain
most of Mercedes Lackey's stuff
The Chronicles of Narnia and the Twilight series(everyone says those books are sexist, but I disagree!)
SM Stirling's and Harry Turtledove's alternate history novels
and... damn, i thought i could think of more, but i can't at the moment
I hadn't noticed this before in the Mercy series before. It's interesting. Charlaine Harris does that too. I also realized that my own stories (yeah, I write, but just for fun, nothing published) are kind of like this too. I think it's just a mirror of my own experience- all of my close friends are guys, so my protagonist's buddies are usually guys too. Maybe that's a factor at play in the books you were talking about?
Scifi/fantasy novels with multiple central female characters:
Green Rider by Kristen Britain
most of Mercedes Lackey's stuff
The Chronicles of Narnia and the Twilight series(everyone says those books are sexist, but I disagree!)
SM Stirling's and Harry Turtledove's alternate history novels
and... damn, i thought i could think of more, but i can't at the moment
I don't read much sci-fi, but I did want to recommend Native Tongue, by Suzette Elgin. It's a feminist sci-fi novel about a group of women who create their own language in order to communicate in a world where men have stripped them of their rights. It's a great book and focuses quite a bit on the relationships between female characters.
Charles de Lint's Newford books and short story collections are lovely urban fantasy novels that feature a huge assortment of characters, both male and female, in both friendships and relationships.
Try reading the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. There are several of the type of female relationships that you seek.
the Petaybee trilogy (Power Play, Powers That Be, and Power Lines) by Anne McCaffrey, have a female protagonist and several strong female secondary characters, all of whom interact and support each other throughout the series.
some of her books (namely the Pern series) are not as good at having relationships between women, even if they do have women in them, but I remember the Petaybee ones as pretty good.
Also, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The books about the Lancre witches are excellent, and entirely woman-centric.
They're YA, but the female relationships in Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic and The Circle Opens books all have a lot of strong female characters with strong relationships and ties to one another. (The relationship between Lark and Rosethorn being the most obvious and interesting.)
I love the His Dark Materials series, and though since Lyra, the protagonist, is a child (so her relationships with the mostly adult secondary cast will be in a sort of motherly light), the relationships between the witches and particularly Serafina Pekkala and Mary Malone are quite interesting.