A not-uncommon problem for male authors, even male authors who are generally considered to be among the best, is a difficulty with writing women.
Sometimes, this manifests in blatantly misogynistic writing, denying female characters agency, making them wholly reliant on and/or subservient to male characters. But often, the problem isn’t so straight forward. Sometimes, a character who is adequate, if nothing special, if considered on their own becomes a crap character due to either being a tired character trope and/or the only major female character in the book.
Mark Lawrence completely sidesteps that last problem by making nearly every major character in The Book of the Ancestor trilogy a woman. Of course, if there are problems with the way he writes women, then that also means that it sinks the whole series.
I read this series on the strength of fantasy BookTuber Daniel Greene‘s recommendation, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. (Here are his reviews of Red Sister, Grey Sister, and Holy Sister) It was a bit uneven in both its plotting and characterization in parts, especially in the first book, but overall, it was quite an enjoyable read, I thought.
Still, I wondered if there were things I was missing, problems with the characters that I as a male reader who, admittedly, does not always catch these things, missed.
So, if you have any interest in reading a fantasy series about a group of girls training to be warrior nuns on planet where only a thin band of land around the equator is habitable because its sun is dying, I would love to hear what you have to say about it, especially the characterization.
You can leave your thoughts on the series in the comments below, or you can reach out to me on Twitter or Facebook.
I only read the first book, and I’m not sure it even has enough characterization to be bad at it. I actually went to an all girls’ religious boarding school and… there’s so much that happens at a place like that that isn’t there. There are so many girls, some of whom are true friends and some who will end up being bad, and there could have been an accurate characterization of female friendships at that age. The need to have a single person who’s your best friend and all the jockeying over who’s closest to the most popular people. Telling secrets late at night or getting up to hijinks. Instead our heroine mostly makes friends by….showing off?
Yeah come to think of it, that does ring a little false. Preteen girls hate a showoff and will carefully avoid looking like they’re competing, and the school seems to be all about competing. Why do they do that? I get why the MC does, she seems a little socially clueless, but not why it works for her.
You *almost* make me want to read it again to analyze this. For the most part the relationships were too undeveloped for me to even keep track of anyone’s names till about the 3/4 mark so I can’t say if there was something subtle in there I missed.
Those are some good points, especially about the nature of an all-girls boarding school. I may have to reread the first book with that in mind.