Sci-fi heroines

Late night, at random: Even though I like both science fiction and fantasy fiction very much, I realised a few days ago that my favourite female characters are all in SF and not fantasy. The problem with fantasy heroines is that many of the writers are from new-agey backgrounds and tend to flavour their writing with strong feminist overtones. Mother goddesses give you power. Bonus points if you like girls. Extra bonus points if you like girls AND boys. It's only ok to like men if they're not macho and have long hair. It's just blatant and annoying. (Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mercedes Lackey, Tamora Pierce, et al.) And I don't know what's wrong with fantasy writers of this stripe, but they just CAN'T do good dialogue.

The problem with these writers is that they're from countries where women already have gained suffrage, at least nominal equality in education and the workplace, etc., quite some time ago, so they have a lack of imagination as to what it's like to live in a really old-fashioned culture. You can't run around making strident declarations of emancipation and jumping on horseback waving a sword straightaway the way these bra-burning heroines do. People wouldn't even persecute you - they'd just laugh at you like crazy.

Sci-fi heroines, on the other hand, are strong women making their way in a world which, no matter how developed or how far in the future, is to some degree still more influenced by men. They live in worlds where the ultimate arbiter of fate is how tough and ingenious you are (and obviously you have to be on the side of Good as well, this being fiction), which to my mind is much more realistic. I love Ellen Ripley. Love Kathryn Janeway. Love Cordelia Naismith, Samantha Carter, Mara Jade, Leia Organa, Molly Millions, Lilith Iyapo, Anyanwu, et cetera, et cetera. Starting to get into "Firefly" and Zoey is cool too.

On the other hand I find most of Anne McCaffrey's characters annoying, possibly because she's from the same aging-hippy background.

(Star Trek and Stargate SG-1 are written by multiple people, many of whom are women, Lilith and Anyanwu are from Octavia Butler, Cordelia Naismith is from Lois McMaster Bujold, so don't tell me it's cos I only like female characters written by men. =P)

The only strongly feminist fantasy writer that doesn't annoy me is Robin McKinley, not sure why. (I like Ursula Le Guin's "The Tombs of Atuan" because the main character was trapped in a female-only environment which was portrayed as being ultra - hee.) Too late at night to do analysis. Figure out later. [Incidentally, FlowerMoonFish told me why almost all McKinley's novels involve romance between the younger female lead and a much older male character - her husband is Peter Dickinson and he's pretty old compared to her.]

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me
Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me
There's no place I can be
Since I found Serenity
But you can't take the sky from me...

- "Firefly" theme