My first thought is that this will be even more worked than I planned on. These are great questions.
I need to put a lot of time into this, no one should expect the story to get started for at least a few months.
I need actual women or actual feminists to talk to me; I live in a red state and don’t ever see these people speaking up about patriarchy. I’m only familiar with feminism through books, and a couple discussions every now and then. What are the biggest pitfalls that I risk? Whose books should I read?
Tentative advice: Read books by women with female viewpoint characters. Make note of anything that seems odd, especially if you see it from more than one author.
Paladin of Souls and Cordelia’s Honor (I liked this one way more, and the series it’s at the start of is fantastic, though the main character of that one is male) by Lois Mcmaster Bujold
In the Garden of Iden, by Kage Baker, the start of one my other favorite scifi series.
So if you’re like me, you start reading that book, and almost immediately need to read a bunch of other books, because the main character has read them and how can I understand without reading them? I think I can resist a lot of them, and there’s already a good amount of overlap but when she starts actually mentioning plot points from other books in ways that seem emotionally relevant is when I need to read them. So I can recommend the start of this book but am now reading Triton before I can get back to it.
If I were a very cruel person, I’d recommend Greer Gilman’s Moonwise—it surpasses the formal specifications (female author, main characters are two middle-aged women and two goddesses), but it’s extremely referential we’d probably never see you again, and honestly, it’s probably not particularly relevant to chaosmosis’ quest.
My first thought is that this will be even more worked than I planned on. These are great questions.
I need to put a lot of time into this, no one should expect the story to get started for at least a few months.
I need actual women or actual feminists to talk to me; I live in a red state and don’t ever see these people speaking up about patriarchy. I’m only familiar with feminism through books, and a couple discussions every now and then. What are the biggest pitfalls that I risk? Whose books should I read?
Tentative advice: Read books by women with female viewpoint characters. Make note of anything that seems odd, especially if you see it from more than one author.
Recommendations, anyone?
Sunshine, by Robin Mckinley.
Paladin of Souls and Cordelia’s Honor (I liked this one way more, and the series it’s at the start of is fantastic, though the main character of that one is male) by Lois Mcmaster Bujold
In the Garden of Iden, by Kage Baker, the start of one my other favorite scifi series.
Among Others by Jo Walton.
So if you’re like me, you start reading that book, and almost immediately need to read a bunch of other books, because the main character has read them and how can I understand without reading them? I think I can resist a lot of them, and there’s already a good amount of overlap but when she starts actually mentioning plot points from other books in ways that seem emotionally relevant is when I need to read them. So I can recommend the start of this book but am now reading Triton before I can get back to it.
If I were a very cruel person, I’d recommend Greer Gilman’s Moonwise—it surpasses the formal specifications (female author, main characters are two middle-aged women and two goddesses), but it’s extremely referential we’d probably never see you again, and honestly, it’s probably not particularly relevant to chaosmosis’ quest.
However, I’ve started a reading group about it.
My book queue is already functionally infinite so adding another infinite to it doesn’t really harm me :)
“The Omniscient Breasts” might be a somewhat useful post when writing female characters.