Thanks to the many who sent this link: Salon talks about urban fantasy and the kickass heroine – which is kind of awesome. Candy is quoted! Woot!
As M. E. Raney wrote to me about this Salon article regarding Urban Fantasy heroines:
While the author notes that this boils down to the fact that detective fiction is privileged over romance fiction (gee, I wonder why?), she ultimately decides that “urban fantasy—a cross of fairy tale, noir and classic coming-of-age narrative—is peculiarly suited to wrestling with the quandaries of early 21st-century womanhood, which is itself a hybrid of age-old preconceptions and fledgling, undreamed-of promise.” Sounds a lot like a certain other genre I read…
Don’t it, though?!
Librarian Jude sent me this link: alternative search engines for books you should know about – 100 of them!
One of them, AddALL.com, is very cool – it searches a bunch of online book vendors, some of which have in-stock data (i.e. how many copies, etc) in the search results. For example: looking for Bosoms? They’re all over the place.
And a two-for-one Jezebel linkage. First, stay tuned as they figure out who is the worst 80’s romance hero in a continuing series. And while you wait: help me figure out what is so wrong with that picture of Lance Bass. Was his head attached to someone else’s body – someone about 34% shorter than he is?
Lance’s head has never been in proportion with his body, and that pic just exaggerates the hell out of it.
While Jezebel bemoans the cover-model shots, I thought they were not that bad. Bret makes a believable pirate – although I have my doubts about hero material.
OT at Jezebel – my new favorite phrase – zipper rippers – M/M romance.
OMG! Now I remember WHY I quit reading romance in the 80s! If it weren’t for my marriage and the birth of The Only, I would fire the decade!
Covers? Wait. Will Demp as a Roman soldier? And his heroine in a Regency(?) gown? What’s up with that? The other covers just creeped me out. A lot. A good idea turned into a train wreck, IMHO.
Lance’s head is too big for the body as well!
I think the pants are the reason that pic of Lance Bass makes him look even more out of proportion than his is. The length of the crotch is bad and the fact that they stop right below the knee is worse. That breaks the line of the leg in a way that makes anyone who isn’t 8 feet tall look stubby.
This is way capri pants and all their kin are from the devil. I have no idea why they continue to be made or why women continue to buy them. Unless your legs make up about 80% of your height they just don’t do you any favors.
Gahh!!
Did they realllly have to mention Anita “these boots are made for boinkin” Blake as a kick ass heroine ??
Even with the explanation in the article, there are so many other *cough*notwhoreish*cough* heroines…
Those are some truly atrocious heroes.
And Lance needs to learn his angles! Tyra is very disappointed.
The one thing that annoyed me about the Salon article was the fact that they focused purely on urban fantasy and/or paranormal romance for said kick-ass heroine. I’m sorry, but there are more out there in all types of genres. My personal favorite would have to be Eve Dallas from J.D. Robb’s (aka Nora Roberts) mysteries. Anne McCaffrey’s heroines are mostly that strong, but another personal favorite from SF would have to Honor Harrington by David Weber. Tough chick, great adventures.
myself19…hmmm, I wasn’t really myself at 19. I didn’t reach that point until I was about 24.
But for that particular article the focus wasn’t kickass heroines in general. It was on heroines that are sort of like, or are genre descendants of, Buffy.
I love Eve Dallas but if someone who loved Buffy asked me for book recommendations for stuff like Buffy Eve is not where I’d start. I’d start with UF.
I concur. What with the whoring (I mean, legitimate quest for love from amongst 20 some odd perfectly wonderful, sane, and disease free ladies on a TOUR BUS), drugs, and arguably bad hygiene (does he wash that bandanna? What about the hair? Has he heard of conditioner?), Bret makes a very convincing pirate. He just doesn’t make a remotely plausible Romance pirate, which is a different breed altogether. Also, I’m glad to see a ANTM winner getting work. You go girl, you’ll be a supermodel yet…
Picture34: From the picture, you can tell Bret hasn’t seen 34 in quite some time, and his dream girl can’t even see it coming over the horizon.
I’ll share something I’ve been using to browse authors…
http://www.literature-map.com/
I found a couple of new authors to read using that, in conjunction with various search engines…
Just thought I would share a link as well, fiction database:
http://www.fictiondb.com/default.asp?genre=G
This site is not a sale site, but it has a heap of information, it has blurbs even from category romances published 20 years ago, it has series and linked book lists, as well as it lists whether the author has been published under any pseudonyms.
Very handy in my line of work, but also very handy when trying to chase up authors backlists etc.
Regency dress was actually based on classic Greek and Roman costume but those tassels are a bit much.
As for Lance Bass, I think he needed a better tailor. I just spent about a week watching people wearing 16th through early 19th century outfits—most of which seemed pretty accurate down to the fabric—linen is the most comfortable I’m told when the temperature edges above 90 degrees—and definitely looked pretty good on some of the role players.
Bret Michaels: Is that a gun in your crotch or are you just glad to see me!
Hmmmm. AddAll is neat, but not entirely accurate. I searched for Ties that Bind by Jaid Black and Lora Leigh. AddAll said B&N had it for sale for $9.89, but when I went to the B&N site, they didn’t have any new avail, and had 3 used starting at $63. Interesting though…