Wisdom of the Internet, I ask for your help

[jamjar]

Throwing myself on the mercy of the internet: can you give me the names of any living and active writers you particularly like. The writers should be thinky people,* but their books don't have to be Deep Worthy Tomes- middlebrow is ideal, genre is fine. Also preferably female, but this isn't massively important.

*Thinky people is a bit vague, and is kind of "I know them when I meet them/read their work/listen to an interview.", but I mean the people that give the impression of liking to think, liking to know and learn and explore and analyse, whatever field they write in.

ETA sorry, should have mentioned that they should be fiction writers, rather than non-fiction.

Comments

[lunar-scythe.livejournal.com]

Mercedes Lackey(her books have a kind of 'ideal world' undertone, but not everything's perfect in them)

and Tamora Pierce?

both write fantasy; Pierce's books are usually in the YA section; and please tell me you've of Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books? Especially Magic's Pawn, lol; that book introduced me to both adult fantasy novels, and the concept of homosexual romance, back when I was 12 or so.(gee, is it any wonder I read so much slash?)

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

I don't know that I'd call Mercedes Lackey a thinky author. Her books aren't-- hm. They aren't convention-breaking and they don't feel like... oh, this is hard to put into words.

With some authors, their work shows a depth of creation. The world is clearly realised, the structure of it internally coherent and consistent, it's new and says things about humanity/sentience/whatever. Things are different and there's a reason for those differences, outcomes that all fit in with the logic and rules of that world.

Some authors, they show a depth of research. It feels Norse or Roman or 1960s Minneapolis, not just in decorations but in tiny details and big mindsets. Or it's a completely new world, fantasy or sci-fi, but it's perfectly realised.

I like Tamora Pierce-- one of the first books I ever ordered (back when amazon was still only a dream and you went into a bookshop and filled out a form and gave a £0.20 deposit) was the last one in the Lionness series and Amazon. The thing is, I like her, but I feel like Diana Wynne Jones (another children's/YA book writer that I still love) comes across as more thinky.

[slob-child.livejournal.com]

I actually have a lot of issues with Diana Wynne Jones. I feel that she does a stellar job with her STORY-TELLING, but that she drops the ball a lot with her female characters. I blanked most of Howl's Moving Castle out of my head, but I remember being so very outraged for the majority of her Chrestomanci series. I think the worst of the lot was in Conrad's Fate, with the mother who was villainized and ridiculed for producing works of feminist theory/criticism which never sold (I think she literally was a madwoman in the attic?) to the older sister who, I don't remember the specific detail here, but I think was a walking set of reproductive organs? And then the bad guy was a bad girl? I can't read her work anymore; it hurts me too much inside.

For kidlit, I do like Tamora Pierce, mostly in her "Protector of the Small" series and a little in her "Circle of Magic" series, because she does deal with and address issues of sex, gender, orientation, race, and class; and she does so in a way that doesn't make the issues hard to access or parody/mock them. She's honest but not obvious about the ideas she tries to get across, ie. Kel's mentioning that in the Yamani Isles, to be homosexual isn't considered wrong; Daja realizing she's gay; Daine turning from condemning Immortals to advocating for them; etc. Pierce doesn't have a thinky writing style, but she does present ideologies and deconstructs them through her narratives in a way that her YA readers can easily understand and identify with. (haha, sorry, this turned into a raaaaant)

Also, Philip Pullman wrote His Dark Materials trilogy, which was kind of ridiculously amazing, though it had its own share of problems.

/two cents

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

I think I read the first of Circle Of Magic, but never picked up the rest. I liked Protector of the Small and Wild Magic a lot, partly because I really liked the characters, but also because they dealt with things -like being openly female- that Alanna didn't have to. She had different challenges to overcome.

[slob-child.livejournal.com]

What I really, truly adore about Pierce's Tortall series is - not just that there are these female characters who are confronting societal issues and pressures surrounding their femaleness - but that they help each other out. In both the Immortals and Protector series, Alanna acts as a mentor and guide to Daine and Kel. This goes against the grain of most girl-centred children's lit, in which the strongest female presence is set in place to dominate the developing female presence, most often in a malicious sort of way. I'm thinking historically of texts such as "A Little Princess" where Sara Crewe is very much enslaved to what's her face, Miss Minchin I think - and also the contemporary Gaiman's "Coraline", where the Other Mother is inherently threatening and stifling. They present this dialectical argument that girls can only be heroines if they can struggle with and defeat villainnesses, which of course means that there is a dearth of fore-mothers because all the preceding generations to this one are obvs. so very evil omg. (Of course the inescapable irony is that the girl heroes grow into the women villains.)

Pierce disrupts that process and establishes a continuum of support, whereby Alanna acts as older sister to Daine and benefactor to Kel, and Daine acts as older sister to Kel, and Kel in turn in one scene in, I think it was Squire, provides a mentoring role to two hero-struck young girls.

Ahahaha, sorry again. It seems I have my English-major brain turned on tonight. *facepalm*

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

You make interesting points, actually. It does make me want to go back and reread a lot of my old books. There is a role in a lot of... hm. Traditional or traditionally styled children's stories for a younger sister figure, but not so much for equals giving support.

The friend or little sister is usually sweet and docile, they may be prettier than the heroine (often are, I think-- Katie Crackerjacks' sister is an example that springs to mind), but they're not as intelligent or as active. They're there to be protected or sheltered or -with The Little Princess- brought out of her shell, but they don't give peer support or support from above.

Out of curiosity, have you ever read Spell Me A Witch by Barbara Willard?