From: v075q5fr@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Scott J Gorcey)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Sexual Politics and Diane Duane (was re Diane Duane, _D into Fire_)
Date: 4 Oct 92 23:37:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Oct3.150611.16782@news.cs.indiana.edu>, gemerson@cherry.ucs.indiana.edu (gennis emerson) writes..

>Hmm. I picked up a copy of _The Door into Fire_ at a used book store last
>weekend based on discussion of the books here. My main reaction was that
>the book should have been subtitled "Sex the Way I Wish It Were". 

     I couldn't disagree more.  Fantasy is about presenting stories
     in worlds that are different in some ways than our own.  Usually
     these take the form of dragons and magic and knightly battles
     upon which the life - or worse, chastity - of a princess is
     staked.

     Once in a while, however, an author comes along with a world
     that combines completely different and unexpected angles from
     our reality into theirs.  This author's works are either so
     vibrant they change the genre completely or fail miserably to
     change anything -- What does everyone think the outcome of
     Duane's _DOOR_ books has been to date?

     Duane brings physics to the familiar element of magic.  She
     brings sexual equality to the familiar love-and-rescue themes.
     She brings politics to demonic-plots-to-destroy-the-world.

     In other words, she brings a complexity to the fantasy genre
     that compels me to read.  Duane, and Tolkein, are the only
     fantasy I've read that have simultaneously stimulated my
     brain and recalled that five-year-old awe....  with neither
     negating the other.

> The plot seemed sort of a side issue to the
>presentation of the relationships and the "look how reasonable we are about
>sleeping with each other" attitude.

     No it didn't.  Maybe it's just that you couldn't get past
     the fact that they were both men and so felt compelled to
     think about that aspect every time Herewiss and Freelorn
     made some innocuous comment that a knight-and-princess
     couple would have made without raising an eyebrow.
     If you accept, "They're men, they're lovers," you'll see
     that Duane doesn't harp on it needlessly - only when it's
     necessary to the plot.



 It does lead to an interesting feel to
>the book, but it feels like the wrong balance to me. I think I would have
>preferred slightly more story and slightly less sexual treatise.

     The book IS NOT a sexual treatise.  Relationships create
     stories, first of all, in any organically plotted and well
     written work.  The DOOR series is no exception.  Duane
     obviously labored long and hard over these characters 
     and their richness on the page shows marvelously.

     She labored equally hard on the creation of this world (see
     the maps, the times-of-year and orbit and time charts, etc
     included in various of the three books now in print).  Part
     of this world is a complete acceptance of homosexuality as
     being entirely normal as heterosexuality.  Love is not gender    
     specific - or need NOT be, at any rate - in this world.

     Nor was it in many of the "heroic" nonWestern civilizations
     Duane draws her research and inspiration from - Greece and
     Rome for example.  

     If you think Herwiss and Freelorn is a "sexual treatise" maybe
     it's just because you feel compelled to harp on the issue.  It
     certainly isn't because DUANE harped on it.  It's there.  That's
     all.  

 It's still
>an enjoyable couple of hours, though. Whenever I get time to track them
>down, I'll probably read the rest of the books. 

     DOOR INTO SHADOW is a much better book than the first.  Sengbora
     is wonderfully vibrant - and so is Sunspark.  You'll like it.

>As for it being a rich world, I couldn't agree with that, at least not based
>on the first book. It feels like a few parts exist, but the rest are just
>names, tossed in for effect. What I notice most is that the only parts that
>seem real are the places the characters are at at any given point.

     I'm sorry you feel that way.  I didn't feel like the world
     was just "names thrown in for effect" in FIRE, but that's
     your prerogative.  But know this: you SEE these places in
     SHADOW and SUNSET.  You get MUCH DEEPER into the structuring
     religion, mythology and legend of this society.  
     Once you've read the other two I think you'll see that FIRE
     isn't contrived, it's a tease for what was yet to come (and
     I mean that in the most complimentary way to Duane).

 It's not
>just this book; I've read several fantasies that give me that feeling.
>Names are escaping me; CS offices do that to my brain. I'm going to use a
>bad word here for lack of a better, but there seems to be a sort of "New Age"
>feel to some fanatasies, full of all-embracing religions and goddess
>worship and hit-you-over-the-head-with-it gender equality.

     It's better than Merlin and Smoting Dragons and Heroically Comic-Book
     Simplistic Heroes etc.  And I don't think that's an apt explanation
     of the Doors-universe at all.

 Occasionally I
>find that annoying, although I can't help wondering how I'd feel if I'd
>read a little more of that and a little less Heinlein back when I was young
>and impressionable.

     Maybe so.  Also if you were a bit less inclined to think of
     Heterosexuality as universal in literature: it doesn't have
     to be.


                 Shortly  thereafter, the health of  Annie
                 Blackburn still in question, the behavior
                 of Special Agent  Dale Cooper was noticed
                 __________________________to have changed.
                                              Scott Gorcey.