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Jan. 9th, 2009 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pebblerockerMy sister lent me a stack of Georgette Heyer novels to read and I'm working through them with a surprising amount of enjoyment. Recently ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jekesta talked about how having low expectations of media portrayals of women makes watching films a bit more enjoyable, because of the chance of being pleasantly surprised. These books were published between 1926 and 1940 and are set a couple of hundred years earlier, so I wasn't expecting much... but some of the characters are actually somewhat cool. The heroines are always getting kidnapped and rescued again, and end up redeeming the man (who isn't always old enough to be her father) by warming his cynical heart and becoming the first person he's ever cared about apart from himself. But they do say what they think and take actions which are important to the plot from time to time... and I enjoy reading about them. I've almost given up on trying to find new books to read or giving a new author a go because there have been so many disappointments, so many stories I can't be bothered finishing because I don't care what happens to any of the stupid people in them. Genuinely likeable characters are a wonderful thing to have in a story and more authors should try them out.
My partner is currently reading a book a friend lent him and it was so exciting he had to tell me about it: "There's a canister of antimatter hidden under the Vatican and they have to find it before the battery goes flat and it explodes!" And he's only a third of the way into the book. What's the climax going to be? How is the author going to top that? I'm not going to find out because I'm not going to read it. Blowing up the Pope just isn't enough to hold my interest; I need something in a story that makes me want to find out what happens next and care about how the situation is solved. Good writing and good characters do that for me; an escalating series of meaningless explosions doesn't.
jekesta talked about how having low expectations of media portrayals of women makes watching films a bit more enjoyable, because of the chance of being pleasantly surprised. These books were published between 1926 and 1940 and are set a couple of hundred years earlier, so I wasn't expecting much... but some of the characters are actually somewhat cool. The heroines are always getting kidnapped and rescued again, and end up redeeming the man (who isn't always old enough to be her father) by warming his cynical heart and becoming the first person he's ever cared about apart from himself. But they do say what they think and take actions which are important to the plot from time to time... and I enjoy reading about them. I've almost given up on trying to find new books to read or giving a new author a go because there have been so many disappointments, so many stories I can't be bothered finishing because I don't care what happens to any of the stupid people in them. Genuinely likeable characters are a wonderful thing to have in a story and more authors should try them out.My partner is currently reading a book a friend lent him and it was so exciting he had to tell me about it: "There's a canister of antimatter hidden under the Vatican and they have to find it before the battery goes flat and it explodes!" And he's only a third of the way into the book. What's the climax going to be? How is the author going to top that? I'm not going to find out because I'm not going to read it. Blowing up the Pope just isn't enough to hold my interest; I need something in a story that makes me want to find out what happens next and care about how the situation is solved. Good writing and good characters do that for me; an escalating series of meaningless explosions doesn't.
