Recently I’ve been on about what I do and don’t like in science fiction, so I thought today I’d round it off with another post-from-the-past, peeking at what I didn’t like about female roles in early sci-fi and explain how I managed to end up with Sasha, only I don’t quite manage that explanation – maybe because I don’t know how she got to be there, it was certainly not a conscious choice (but my male characters liked her A LOT and it’s true that you do actually get some women like that, so I guess that equals an uncomfortable realism that has to stand).
For all her fluffy-headedness, she’s quite cute and she does evolve into someone serious about what she wants, sneaking in a few surprises for me at the end of the first book and into the second.
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Don’t mind the sale’s pitch at the end of the linked post. I contemplated editing it out, but it rolls into the whole “and there’s Sasha, too” so I let it stand.
So, here it is:
Science fiction “classic” errors and Bimbos are People, too.
Cheers!
😀
Allyson
Bloodstone Sci Fi 
One of the things I struggle with the most in reading are the absence of strong female characters. People eat up the Bella Swan(n?) type of character while I just want to punch her in the face a few good times. Even Katniss got on my nerves then you have the polar opposite like the MC in Freehold, which has every quality of a man. No balance.
Hi Nina,
I know what you mean. I have a couple of strong female leads without making them masculine. Even Sevi (the killing machine) has her own feminine dignity, not to be confused with weakness. A lot of writers – and film makers – seem to mistake masculine traits for strength, and apply them in huge quantities to female characters as though that will make them “equal”.
As for the two characters I refer to, yes, I have made both women professional soldiers, but neither of them are out there picking fights every two minutes (I went more for elite-soldier realism of being more laid back and less likely to “flaunt it” – which, of course, is not what an action director wants, but fitted well enough in my story as a tension-builder).
More importantly, I left out “personal issues” that often get dumped on female characters with or without their “macho” suit on – i.e., finding a husband or proving themselves “as good as a man”. So their main strengths are confidence and intelligence and both get on with what they have to do, while being at ease with who they are.
Cheers! 🙂