another month at SF Novelists

Man, I'm having a much harder time remembering to think up topics for my SF Novelists posts (and get them written on time) now that I've stopped doing the "writing women" series. Anyway, this month I muse on ensemble casts, and why I like them.

As usual, comment over there; no reg required, though if you're a first-time commenter I'll have to fish it out of the moderation queue.

I should have posted this on Valentine's Day. (Or not.)

So in my SF Novelists post, I made a mention of how a lot of romance novels don't work for me because they're often too focused on the hero and heroine, to the exclusion (or at least sidelining) of other characters. And that reminded me that I had some thoughts I'd meant to post, about why, despite giving it a good shot, I don't think I'll ever be a romance reader.

Before I get into those thoughts, however, let me say up front: the tl;dr version of this is not "romance novels suck." Anyone using the comment thread to bash the genre wholesale will be invited to do their bashing elsewhere. This is about why I'm the wrong reader for the genre.

The reason, in short form, is this: I don't find them all that romantic.

( It has to do with where my own personal buttons are. )

I'm posting this because it's been very enlightening for me to think through my expectations and the conventions of the genre (as seen through friends' reviews, the Smart Bitches website, and the twenty or so romance novels I've read). The more I understand what I'm looking for in a story, the better I'm able to find stories I will like.

But I am definitely willing to take recommendations from those of you who are romance readers, of books you think are likely to supply what I'm looking for. Short form is, more plot = more good (though I will roll my eyes right out of my head if the characters are running for their lives from the bad guys and then stop in a stairwell or broom closet for random nookie). Also, I like stories where the protagonists have known each other for a while, rather than just having met; this, to me, is one of the big romantic selling points in pameladean's Tam Lin. My ideal of romance grows out of friendship and partnership, which both fare better when they're given lots of context. Finally, because of my interests, I tend to gravitate more towards historicals or things with speculative elements, rather than contemporary realistic romance. But they'd better do their history or speculation well, or I'll be kicked right out of the story.

Yeah, I know. I'm not asking for much at all. <g>

I do love a good title

Congratulations to my friend Von Carr, whose short story "Sister Jasmine Brings the Pain" placed second in the Intergalactic Medicine Show readers' awards. You can read the whole thing at that link; it's a humorous post-apocalypses* tale featuring a heavily armed nun as the main character. What more need be said?

(All of the winning stories are available until April, I think, if you want to see what else won.)



*Yes, I meant that to be plural. To quote the story: "In the old days people had -- maybe -- worried about one apocalypse. At most, two. Global Warming and an ice age. Vampires and zombies. Nobody had expected all of the apocalypses to happen at once."