Reading

[pbray]

I've been trying to make a dent in my to-be-read stack, which overflows both the coffee table and designated bookshelf. One of the books that I dug out was an urban fantasy set in an alternate version of present day New York city.

The book started off well, but by the time I was fifty pages in I had a vague feeling that there was something wrong. One hundred pages in and I could see the problem--the world felt narrow and claustrophobic. Why? Because it was almost entirely inhabited by white men.


The protagonist and all of the people he interacts with who are of equal or higher status are all male, with Western European names, and the physical descriptions given don't specifically say that each of them is white, but there's nothing contradicting this. I find myself thinking if this is New York, then where are the African Americans, Asians or Latinos?

And where are the women?

The main female character is a damsel in distress, whose role is to look beautiful and (so far) be completely passive as she waits for the protagonist to solve her problem. There's also a woman as a token lust object, apparently to establish the protagonist's heterosexuality, since she only appears in one scene and then disappears.

The book is competently written, with humor and a neat twist on how the magic and mundane coexist side by side, but it's not enough to satisfy me.

It's not that I'm advocating tokenism, nor do I require that books be cast to precisely reflect the diversity of their settings. But by failing to take advantage of the diversity that is part of our world, the author fails to convince me that this is a real place. It's just as much a worldbuilding flaw as it is when a novice author constructs a medieval fantasy where everyone is a noble and there are neither servants nor peasants.

Yet I know that there are people who have read and enjoyed this book, who must not be seeing the same flaws that I do. I find myself wondering if I'm simply more attuned to these things than the average reader. As an author there's almost always a part of me that's reading for technique as much as pleasure, evaluating what works (and doesn't) and why.

More likely it's because I've read so many good urban fantasies that featured strong female and minority characters that I take such things for granted, and am surprised when I don't find them.

If this book had been written thirty or forty years ago, it would have passed without comment. But today? It's a bit old-fashioned for me.

Time to move on to the next one.

Comments

[antonstrout.livejournal.com]

hmmm.. potentially my book!

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Hmm, interesting.

[antonstrout.livejournal.com]

some days are just whiter and more testosterone laden than others...

[elfs.livejournal.com]

One of the things I did with my Lucky Starr pastiche was emphasize how the next generation of Science Council agents were a very mixed bunch. I tried (and mostly succeeded) in explaining how the previous generation was so very white and so very male, and how the incoming generation of Council Academy students were better suited to the native risks Council Agents were likely to encounter.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

An excellent point, since a diversity of views and experiences would obviously be extremely helpful in exploring strange new worlds and civilizations, as it were.

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Doesn't sound good. It's pretty hard to have no contact with anyon outside your own class and social circles in NYC, not unless you're so rich you never get out of the limo. Where's the local color? If it's going to be NY it's got to be a place where everyone rubs shoulders.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

So you'd think.

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

Life is just a box of white boys?
Dear me. I agree, some people go overboard with the tokenism, but how can you live in present-day NYC (Even if there are elves or vampires or whatever) and not run into anyone from a different ethnic background? Or, for that matter, any women?
Be glad the damsel was in distress. How would you feel if she was out of datress?

[pbray.livejournal.com]

To be fair, there were females seen in "spear carrier" type roles. But it was telling that there were no females or minorities visible who were of equal or higher status than the protagonist, given that he himself was fairly low on the totem pole.

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

It's astonishing that any fantasy book at all, whatever the sub-genre, should be exclusively white-male, when Andre Norton, who was one of the giants of the field, had both female and non-white characters forty years ago! I discovered her sf/f when I was 13, and loved her so much more than Heinlein or Asimov, because her characters were so different from me, yet so very human. She taught me a lot. It's a shame that a lot of current fantasy (even best-sellers such as Jordan and Eddings) don't have the variety that she showed so well!

[pbray.livejournal.com]

And her books were written at a time when there were few examples of diversity in the dominant institutions of the day.

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

I don't blame you for not liking that book - it sort of redefines the cocept of "urban fantasy," really. (And I correctly guess the book you are reviewing...I had other reasons why I couldn't read it).

[pbray.livejournal.com]

We'll have to compare notes :-)

[jjschwabach.livejournal.com]

To say nothing of Alfred Bester.
Who even hid a few minority characters.
Both my brother and I assumed (with no physical description) that the protagonist of The Demolished Man was black. I mean, "Lincoln Powell?" (Okay, he later describes another man who Powell meets as being black, but that just felt to me like something an editor made him stick in there.)

Neil Gaiman, in Anansi Boys, gets away with no white characters at all, without ever actually coming out and *saying* it. We've come a long way, baby.

Which, in all the time between Andre Norton and Neil Gaiman, makes there be even less excuse.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

It bugs me because it's not an invented world, it's a version of present day New York where any large business or government office would have at least one non-white/non-male in a position of authority. Even if such an individual was only referenced in passing, it would have been one of those telling details that helped convince the reader that this was the real world.