I like a lot of what ive read from him, and he had a lot of views that were ahead of his time (on social issues as well as scientific), but he absolutely could not write women. You could read full length books of his without a single named female character.
Yeah, that’s not great, but honestly, I feel like it’s better than a lot of alternatives. It feels even worse when the women in the book don’t pass the Bechdel test, or worse, end up in r/menwritingwomen posts.
Yeah, I think he actually admitted that he didn’t really know any women when he first started writing until he met and then married his wife, so he avoided writing them. It is weird though cause his writing style (from what ive read) is not very character focused, anyway, so a lot of his male characters could easily just be declared female and no one would spot the difference.
I wonder if he just assumed that his own bias would affect the gender of the characters or if that just wasn’t a consideration. It would have been pretty cool if he had used gender-neutral names to the point where it was never clear, but also didn’t matter anyway.
I’ll have to go back and read. The gender dynamics of competitive sci-fi literature would be a wild class.
Edit: I meant “comparative sci-fi literature,” but I’m leaving the mistake because I think it’s funnier, not unlike the grammar mistakes that I try to pass off as erudite subversion of trite conventions, not unlike this meandering, run-on sentence, and I stand by it.
I actually want to hear more about this. What’re your supporting arguments?
I like a lot of what ive read from him, and he had a lot of views that were ahead of his time (on social issues as well as scientific), but he absolutely could not write women. You could read full length books of his without a single named female character.
Yeah, that’s not great, but honestly, I feel like it’s better than a lot of alternatives. It feels even worse when the women in the book don’t pass the Bechdel test, or worse, end up in r/menwritingwomen posts.
Yeah, I think he actually admitted that he didn’t really know any women when he first started writing until he met and then married his wife, so he avoided writing them. It is weird though cause his writing style (from what ive read) is not very character focused, anyway, so a lot of his male characters could easily just be declared female and no one would spot the difference.
I wonder if he just assumed that his own bias would affect the gender of the characters or if that just wasn’t a consideration. It would have been pretty cool if he had used gender-neutral names to the point where it was never clear, but also didn’t matter anyway.
He almost does that. He uses a lot of made-up scifi names that aren’t obviously gendered, but then point out that the character is male.
He does get a lot better over time, though.
I’ll have to go back and read. The gender dynamics of competitive sci-fi literature would be a wild class.
Edit: I meant “comparative sci-fi literature,” but I’m leaving the mistake because I think it’s funnier, not unlike the grammar mistakes that I try to pass off as erudite subversion of trite conventions, not unlike this meandering, run-on sentence, and I stand by it.
I read two of his popular stories and they both ended with some nonsense about infinite recursion.
Asimov is a Thesaurus writer.
How do you feel about Hemingway and Faulker?
I have not read both of them. Most of my reading these days is Lemmy comments or news
Sorry you’re getting downvoted. I appreciate you taking the time to share your opinion.