Author: Ruth Arnell

It’s been a long hard slog through dissertation land. Yesterday I got an email telling me I really will get to defend in April and graduate this semester (Whoohoo!). Also, one my committee members is in the hospital with a heart attack (Crap!). Don’t worry, though, he’s going to be fine. Hopefully. For many reasons, the most important of which is that he is awesome and should not die because of his awesomeness.

So, do you know what this means?

I can start reading fantasy again! Double whoohoo! I haven’t read a fantasy book since Christmas break because I’ve been up to my eyeballs in drafts and revisions and formatting and 8 1/2 hours double-checking citations.

Back in the day when I played D&D, one of my favorite characters was a gnome druid. She planted a grove in the back of a wagon that was pulled by her companion dire badger. Sometimes she would ride the badger, and the badger would fight with her in combat. It was awesome.

Yes, my dungeon master was… flexible… when it came to the rules.

In last week’s comments we started a discussion about pets in fantasy books, and were hard pressed to come up with many examples. While this is probably due to the adventuring lifestyle being hard on four-legged friends,

Our long time friend and former reviewer Tia wrote a post on her blog a week ago about what blurb elements inspire her to pick up a book.  Warrior Women, ancient historical settings, secrets, the word “epic” and clash of culture stories all do it for her.

For me, there’s a few things that will usually cause me to pick up a book I haven’t heard of. Nature-based magic systems, strong religious or political themes, any retold fairy tale, and Victorian or Ancient Greek and Roman settings all seem to make it into my shopping cart.

Well, I set off a bit of a firestorm last week, didn’t I?

I want to follow up on a point that came up in the discussion.

Kat said:

Ruth, I don’t like rape scenes, either, but it’s a fact of life just like murder, war, animal cruelty, and child abuse. If we wiped it out of our books, they’d be more pleasant, but they wouldn’t be real. Why not wipe out all the other distasteful stuff, too, then?

And then Greg responded:

I agree with Kat’s point about the medieval settings.

[Ruth’s post reflects her own opinions and not the opinions of the entire FanLit staff. We love Ruth, so we sometimes let her rant here.]

Justin, I love you like a brother, you know that right? That said, your claim that “I may have agreed with her 15 years ago, but I think the gender bias in epic fantasy has balanced out pretty evenly” in regards to N.K. Jemisin‘s post about the feminization of epic fantasy struck me a bit as “the lady doth protest too much.”

Now,

My sister Sarah emailed me earlier this week:

Someone mentioned in a comment on your Name of the Wind review that this book is what got them re-excited about Fantasy the way Dune was the book that got them excited about SF or something like that.I’ve been trying to think… what book got me excited about fantasy or SF? Can you remember? Does Lion, Witch and Wardrobe count? Is there a book that you can point to? I think there is more than one at different times in my life and different types of SF/F.

First off, congratulations to noothergods. For his suggesting the funny Looking for Group comic, he has earned a book of his choice off of our stacks. Contact us soon to let us know which you want.

Secondly, I’m going to eat a little crow here. I’ve gone on record before disparaging the whole Pride and Prejudice and Zombies trend in fantasy literature. However, it turns out some of those books have gotten really good reviews. I think I may be a bit of a stick in the mud when it comes to the classics.

Several of you recommended that I break outside my normal fantasy genres in response to my ennui. So I took your advice, and found some really interesting stuff. Did you know that you can read a lot of really fun fantasy online? And even better, it comes with pictures! (And no, I’m not talking about the latest photo-shopped magazine covers of the celebrity of the week.)

I’ve known for a while that you can read fantasy comics on-line. For example, have you read Order of the Stick, a cartoon version of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign?