Column.
I’m alternating between two fantasy / romance series, Faith Hunter’s Jane Yellowrock and Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson, trying to understand the appeal and writing styles.
It’s interesting to see how they both approach the classical notion of vampires and werewolves, and twist the readers’ expectations, whilst on the other hand serving them exactly what they want...
Unconditional submission
There’s an undertone of… helplessness, total surrender, outright submission in these books that seems to sell well to the mostly female reader base. Such an approach is as non-feminist as it gets these days 🤔
The contrast with the female driven part of the ‘woke’ movement is stark. Why, on the one side, do these novels suggest strong Alpha male characters with submissive female protagonists, whilst on the other side anything male-touched is considered mysogenic by default? Are these …
1. Different demographic groups with different tastes?
2. Is the woke crowd simply saying A but doing (buying) B, or
3. Does taste (and book purchases) change when people get older?
4. Is this a group of older readers anyway? Who are still toiling away under their patriarchs? < insert appropriate irony >
Oldies
Yes. I know some of these titles are older, but they’re still selling… It can’t be just old readers sticking to a series, can it? Older titles shouldn’t sell any more, once all the older readers have already bought them… but still they sell, if not by large numbers.
Anyway, both series are your regular action / fantasy / romance, with a tough heroine, one or more dark brooding love interests, and some vampire / werewolf butt kicking. I think the Yellowrock stuff is a little better written, but that might just be the male in me.
More
(Dapper #191 / TellTales #117)
No comments:
Post a Comment