Nothin'. I just wanted you to face me so she could get behind ya.

Mal ,'The Train Job'


Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.

There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."


meara - Mar 24, 2021 7:38:11 pm PDT #26562 of 27942

Yeah she’s a good writer but I don’t need so much trauma right now! It sounds interesting though


amyparker - Mar 24, 2021 10:15:26 pm PDT #26563 of 27942
In the end it's only ever been one step, and then the next.

My friend Helen can never see the shelf where my favorite popcorn Celtic fantasy series lives, because she would lovingly mock me until we're both dead. She grew up in an Irish-speaking part of the island and one of her siblings is a historian; she could point out aaaaaaaall the ways in which it's trash. I know it's trash. I don't care: women have swordfights and fly spaceships and no one is sexually assaulted, and that's a horribly low bar but I will take it.


askye - Mar 25, 2021 7:16:08 am PDT #26564 of 27942
Thrive to spite them

Beverly in the series I'm reading there is one nobleman character who starts talking about his wife and how she seems in his POv chapters makes it seem like she is sweet but not a woman who understands or wants to understand about the current events/politics. Once it's her POV chapter it unfolds that this is not the case.


Jessica - Mar 25, 2021 7:42:36 am PDT #26565 of 27942
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?

women have swordfights and fly spaceships and no one is sexually assaulted, and that's a horribly low bar but I will take it

Honestly, it's distressing how high a bar "no one is sexually assaulted" can be. It's an *important* bar.


-t - Mar 25, 2021 7:54:09 am PDT #26566 of 27942
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

I don't necessarily set that standard for what I read. I do find that I am reluctant to read something by an unknown-to-me male sounding author just in general.


sj - Mar 25, 2021 8:20:30 am PDT #26567 of 27942
"There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea."

I don't necessarily set that standard for what I read. I do find that I am reluctant to read something by an unknown-to-me male sounding author just in general.

-t is me.


amych - Mar 25, 2021 10:20:06 am PDT #26568 of 27942
Now let us crush something soft and watch it fountain blood. That is a girlish thing to want to do, yes?

A couple of years ago I set myself a challenge of not reading anything by white men for a year, and while it's no longer something I'm doing as a rule, I just ... don't, 90% of the time. And when I do, it's someone who I know to be not like the crappy-my-wife-writing run-of-the-mill dudes, and even then it's an imperfect filter.


-t - Mar 25, 2021 10:25:07 am PDT #26569 of 27942
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

I think I followed your lead on that, amych, although I don't know that I did it for a year but I did consciously have that criteria for some period of time and then just having it in the back of my mind for a while broke the habit, I guess.


DavidS - Mar 25, 2021 11:43:05 am PDT #26570 of 27942
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

Clearly my decision to write under a gender neutral pseudonym going forth is the right plan.


Toddson - Mar 25, 2021 12:15:22 pm PDT #26571 of 27942
Friends don't let friends read "Atlas Shrugged"

I have adopted a standard of reading almost exclusively books written by women, unless it's by a male author whose work I know.

And, not quite as bad as the automatic sexual assault feature, although possibly worse because he seems to be for real, there's this guy writing about his paternity leave.