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loloteheRight now, I'm reading Decoding Gender in Science Fiction by Brian Atteberry and it's been a pretty fun read. It might come across as a bit dry, but the text is challenging and engrossing, so I'm having fun.
Chapter three is specifically about sci-fi in pulp magazines and it got me thinking about One Woman Army, which I haven't thought about for a while. I finished writing it back in 2009 and pretty much stopped going back to it when I started working on World Without Scars. Work on that has stopped as well, but I think I need to go back to OWA and take a look at something.
Attenbery suggests reading a pulp sci-fi mag as one complete text. This makes a lot of sense if you're trying to understand the gender coding in an issue. The ad for weight-gain pills (promising increased virility and masculinity) and the article about radio-waves (and its hints of a secret knowledge) both align with the tropes of the stories contained therein.
Looking at the stories themselves, there's generally three main characters: the hero, the mentor, and the daughter. The hero is a young man who will be “made a man” by receiving some level of knowledge from the mentor. The mentor is not sexually interesting, but that's excused because he has knowledge of some sort. The daughter is a prize the hero earns by the end of the story who exists so the mentor or the hero can explain things. Sometimes, she's a creation of the mentor.
So, I'm thinking about OWA and wondering who is who.
Becca's the hero of my story, and yeah, she wins the daughter by the end, but it's her own daughter and Huri is more a symbol of home and stability than a person in her own right. Also, Becca doesn't “win” with new knowledge or power, but by accepting what she is (a mother).
Evie can't be the hero, even though she goes through the process of gaining knowledge from the “mentor” (the Vencume?). It could be that Evie is the mentor character to a point, in that she does not have sexual appeal but does have secret knowledge. If she's the one who has to explain how things work (which she tries with Becca early on, but gives up quickly). Evie does not gain any power from the Vencume, so that blows the hero\mentor relationship with them; however, she does “win” the daughter character: the clones.
We could see Gordon as the hero character as he gains knowledge of the Vencume and wins the daughter (if the daughter is Evie. He does “win” the actual daughter of Ulan, but that's in the second book and kinda gross). His biggest win is redemption, but then he also acts as the mentor later when teaching the Vencume how to lie.
I'm not sure if any of it matters in the end, but it does lay out some of the history that will be used to critique the book. I'm still being slow in deciding what I want from the book, and until I have that, I can't go to print with it.
Chapter three is specifically about sci-fi in pulp magazines and it got me thinking about One Woman Army, which I haven't thought about for a while. I finished writing it back in 2009 and pretty much stopped going back to it when I started working on World Without Scars. Work on that has stopped as well, but I think I need to go back to OWA and take a look at something.
Attenbery suggests reading a pulp sci-fi mag as one complete text. This makes a lot of sense if you're trying to understand the gender coding in an issue. The ad for weight-gain pills (promising increased virility and masculinity) and the article about radio-waves (and its hints of a secret knowledge) both align with the tropes of the stories contained therein.
Looking at the stories themselves, there's generally three main characters: the hero, the mentor, and the daughter. The hero is a young man who will be “made a man” by receiving some level of knowledge from the mentor. The mentor is not sexually interesting, but that's excused because he has knowledge of some sort. The daughter is a prize the hero earns by the end of the story who exists so the mentor or the hero can explain things. Sometimes, she's a creation of the mentor.
So, I'm thinking about OWA and wondering who is who.
Becca's the hero of my story, and yeah, she wins the daughter by the end, but it's her own daughter and Huri is more a symbol of home and stability than a person in her own right. Also, Becca doesn't “win” with new knowledge or power, but by accepting what she is (a mother).
Evie can't be the hero, even though she goes through the process of gaining knowledge from the “mentor” (the Vencume?). It could be that Evie is the mentor character to a point, in that she does not have sexual appeal but does have secret knowledge. If she's the one who has to explain how things work (which she tries with Becca early on, but gives up quickly). Evie does not gain any power from the Vencume, so that blows the hero\mentor relationship with them; however, she does “win” the daughter character: the clones.
We could see Gordon as the hero character as he gains knowledge of the Vencume and wins the daughter (if the daughter is Evie. He does “win” the actual daughter of Ulan, but that's in the second book and kinda gross). His biggest win is redemption, but then he also acts as the mentor later when teaching the Vencume how to lie.
I'm not sure if any of it matters in the end, but it does lay out some of the history that will be used to critique the book. I'm still being slow in deciding what I want from the book, and until I have that, I can't go to print with it.
