Rebecca Allen

Okay, so last year at some point, I found a book that looked kind of neat: Nightlife by Rob Thurman, an urban fantasy novel about half-brothers, one of whom is half-monster, the other of whom is fully human but is among the world’s greatest ninjas. In their New York, a troll lives under the Brooklyn Bridge, Puck is a used car salesman, werewolves run the mafia, and the protagonist’s monster side of the family is conspiring to destroy humanity. Clearly, it is up to the brothers to stop them. I enjoyed it enough that when I discovered its sequel, Moonshine, was available, I picked it up and tore through it.

The books aren’t perfect; the second book’s writing and plotting is smoother (not surprising, as the first book was Thurman’s first ever book), but there are elements of it that didn’t sit as well with me — I’m always a little ambivalent about plots that center around rescuing the hero’s true love*, and I deeply detest basically all variants of, “Our love would harm you so we must not be together!”

With that said, as I read the book I kind of felt like it was written by a woman. I think that’s because I’ve spent a lot of time in fandom, a largely female-dominated space, and there are a few things fandoms tend to latch on to: angsty, brooding protagonists; ninjas; non-heterosexual characters; strong, devotion-driven bonds between male characters (and given the reaction to Supernatural, I’ve got to say, especially brothers), for example. This book has all of those in spades. It didn’t read like something that came out of fandom, but because of those associations, despite being a series that’s heavily weighted towards male characters, it read to me as though it had been written by a woman.

Then I found out the author has a LiveJournal, and found this in the userinfo:

I am female. Rob is short for Robyn. Quite a surprise to most, as was apparent at my first book signing. People looked to my right, left, behind, and eventually focused on a nearby loitering guy who was there delivering coffee to the bookstore (and never mind the distinctive you-know-who logo on his shirt.) Rob. Robyn. Female. I am woman, hear me…ah, hell, just get me a coffee with caramel and whipped cream.

Interesting!

But it does make me wonder a little, so excuse me while I pontificate at the internet. I kind of feel like fandom/the internet (the combined force) is creating new tropes for genre fiction, based more heavily on female desire and female readership. For me, the disconnect between a guy writing the sort of stuff I associate with female readers was pretty big. I have no idea if Thurman has a fannish background, but it was the elements I find over and over in fandom that caused me to associate the series’s style with a female writer (and I definitely wonder about the male/female breakdown of the books’ fans).

Now, I’m always hesitant to try and split things into “what girls like” and “what boys like”, but he tropes of genre fiction — and basically every other kind of fiction, now that I think about it—all come from the assumption of what male consumers want. Hence, I don’t know, sexbots and explosions**; certainly hence the fact that it’s only recently that women are evolving out of several static archetypes.

What I’m kind of wondering, though, is if thanks to the internet and fandom — places where women write for their own entertainment and for an audience that’s largely other women — there are a set of new emerging new tropes, which cater to a presumed female consumer. I don’t know if they’re really showing up in the publishing industry yet, since most of what I read is aimed a lot younger than the writing I’m talking about, but maybe it’s starting the slow transition from the internet to mainstream publishing? Which would be neat. Whether or not it’s “what girls want” it would still be a broadening of the genre, and I feel more comfortable about “what girls want” being driven by people who are actually female (which is not the power structure in, um, any industry).

Of course, then the question becomes, why these tropes? That I haven’t worked out yet, but I’d definitely be open to ideas and discussion about a) whether or not this seems to be going on or if it’s just in my head; and b) what is it about these kinds of stories (especially the beautiful, angst-filled male lead) that appeals to women?

*Doubly so when it’s a male protagonist rescuing a female love interest, because that so often reduces her character to… well, a plot point instead of a character. Particularly annoying in this novel, because I’d really liked the girl in question and the plot effectively took her out of the book. There’s only one other female character, and while she’s quite awesome, I still feel a little cheated.

**It’s worth noting that every female geek I know loves explosions, however.