So I’m sitting in the car, the Hubs and I are driving someplace and we’re listening to an audiobook of his choice.
Fiction, fantasy.
I’m getting ready to roll down the window and dash my brains out on the pavement at 70mph because the story is so boring.
Thing is, I’ve already read a dozen variations on this theme.
We’re focused on a young lady who is to be married to the king. She’s naieve, bordering on stupid. She’s trapped in this destiny engineered for her. We’re going on and on about how young and nubile her body is. The physician has inspected her to make sure she’s a virgin… Now we’re going on and on about the quality of the cloth that makes up her gown. The cut and drape of her gown. The way the laces work. How long the sleeves are… Huh. Now she’s getting detailed instruction on how to dupe this king into believing that he’s not raping her on their marriage night…
Why is this so intolerably boring to me? Am I old and cynical? Why can’t our fantasy fiction be about older women? Why can’t her area of expertise expand beyond the clothes she’s wearing? Why can’t the world building include a world that’s not obsessed with a woman’s physical beauty? Why can’t the totally imaginary society value their women for something other than their single-use-only fuckability?
It’s an imaginary world. Can’t we invent something better for ourselves?
Nuts. Hubs has turned on the child-lock for the window controls.
at least when you’re reading, as opposed to listening, you can skip through the boring and annoying bits.
ahh, the joys of being defined by my clothes, my physical looks, and my fuckability (totally stealing that word, btw), never gets old, amiright?
although, if this was a Jim Hines, those long sleeves would need to be that long to hide the stilettos, and the bodice laces are really a coiled up strangling wire and the underskirt needs all that beautiful fabric so it folded/balled up to be used as a blackjack. and maybe this is a Ninja Scrolls rip off, and her virginity is a type of biological weapon and she’s got to seduce the lecherous king to kill him? ehhh, but some how I totally doubt it.
Sarah Zettel totally needs to write one of these epic fantasy type things where the political marriage is a second marriage between adults who have lost their loving spouses to war or childbirth or something, and they both laugh at the ridiculousness of the whole thing.
Hah! Coincidentally just started the same audiobook today and stopped at the same point you’re blogging about (not because I was ready to quit necessarily, but because my battery ran out). Sanderson’s work usually has me full of promise this early on in the story, and usually he turns conventions (especially limiting ones) on their heads (to a degree), but this started well and then took a turn for the mehhh-st. Maybe it will get better? (I hope so too, actually).
… said the lurker.
Yes, I love most everything by Sanderson. This one was… eh. No stillettos, no secret hidden powers disguised by vulnerability, etc. This was already about 3 hours into the book. Let me know if you end up liking it.
If this is the Sanderson I am thinking about, it does get better. I have read it (Warbreaker) twice. You will be surprised… hehe…….
I’m glad you enjoyed it.
I’ve already lost three hours of my life to this and have moved on.