The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

For once I'd like to see an aro-ace protagonist for a cozy mystery. If I wanted romance, I'd read a romance book.

I'd like to see them in other genres too (as I seldom read cozy anything), but so far they've been pretty rare. Of course people like us are probably pretty rare in real life too, but no one knows for sure.

There have been some SF series with non-human protagonists who are pretty much aro/ace. In mysteries and thrillers, though... can't think of any at the moment (which doesn't mean they don't exist).

[Wiggo]

You always learn something new here. Had to google what aro-ace is supposed to be - never heard of it before

[hildea]

I can think of one: A study in honor, by Claire O'Dell. Near future scifi from a USA in (under? what's the right word here?) civil war. The protagonist is captain Janet Idara Watson. Her room mate, the brilliant detective Sara Holmes, is aro-ace. (I bought it because the Holmes/Watson variant tempted me, but I think the book would have worked better without it. But it was still good, well worth reading.)

One of the first books in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series has an ace (but, I think?, not aro) protagonist. The ones I've read are crime/thriller/horror-ish. Also very good -- it's a series about those kids who come back from Narnia/Wonderland/Oz/etc, and how they deal with being back in our mundane world where noone believes or understands them.

And in T.Kingfisher's A sorceress comes to call, the protagonist is completely uninterested in sex and romance, but that may be because she's 14 (might be a late bloomer) and trying to deal with her abusive evil sorceress mother. That one is also crime/thriller/horror-ish. Strongly recommended, I missed a bus stop while reading it, and it's been a while since that happened
Minor spoiler about something that might make some readers want to avoid it:

Spoiler:

Avoid it if you don't like books where bad things happen to animals.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Wiggo

You always learn something new here. Had to google what aro-ace is supposed to be - never heard of it before

aromantic-asexual. Basically just a lack of romantic or sexual attraction, and yes it's possible to be one but not the other.

[svenlind]

Originally Posted by Wiggo

You always learn something new here. Had to google what aro-ace is supposed to be - never heard of it before

Me Too

[Freeshadow]

Originally Posted by svenlind

Me Too

+ 1 on that, and I too think that most non-involved people see it already covered by asimov'ish detective stories with robotic characters. (I don't mean it as an offense)

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

+ 1 on that, and I too think that most non-involved people see it already covered by asimov'ish detective stories with robotic characters. (I don't mean it as an offense)

Eh? I don't recall reading any detective stories with robotic characters, but then I tend to read newer books overall, and modern fiction usually doesn't have robotic characters. Unless you mean literally, as in robots? That would make it SF, and still only one genre.

Edit: by saying "I don't recall..." I assumed you meant detective stories with robot-like, unemotional characters, not the actual robot mysteries by Asimov - those are well known, of course, and I've read them.

[Karellen]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Eh? I don't recall reading any detective stories with robotic characters,

You mean by Asimov? There are a few...
The Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
The Robots of Dawn
Robots and Empire

[DNSB]

Isaac Asimov as part of his Robot series wrote 5 stories about detective Elijah Baley and his robot partner R. Daneel Olivaw. There were 4 novels and one short story in that arc from 1954 to 1985. Admittedly the first books were written at a time when a lot of SF had characters with extremely limited emotional range.

The Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
"Mirror Image" SS
The Robots of Dawn
Robots and Empire

There were several other robot detective novels but Asimov's are the only ones from that era that I have found worth re-reading.

One of Asimov's short stories that I liked but which John W. Campbell rejected with the chemical formula for butyl mercaptan was Victory Unintentional.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Karellen

You mean by Asimov? There are a few...
The Caves of Steel
The Naked Sun
The Robots of Dawn
Robots and Empire

No, I didn't mean by Asimov - I've read those. I assumed Freeshadow meant "robotic" as in "robot-like", i.e. unemotional, not literally robots. I may be mistaken, of course.

I edited my previous post accordingly.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

No, I didn't mean by Asimov - I've read those. I assumed Freeshadow meant "robotic" as in "robot-like", i.e. unemotional, not literally robots. I may be mistaken, of course.

There are you describing most of the characters from SF's Golden Age.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

There are you describing most of the characters from SF's Golden Age.

Yeah, I must admit I've read only the most famous of those. And wooden characters are one of the reasons I prefer modern fiction to older books. Not that all older books have wooden characters, of course - but SF and mysteries often have.

Anyway, yes, SF is one genre where you most often see aro/ace characters (usually nonhuman), even if they're not defined as such. Other genres? It's very rare.

And of course I don't mean I want most protagonists in most books to be like that. It would be nice to see such characters sometimes, though. It's already pretty ordinary these days to have protagonists with various different sexual orientations and identities, but a protagonist not interested in sex and romance at all is still very uncommon.

[Freeshadow]

@sirtel yes I meant exactly those, David and karellen nailed it.
Btw. taking into consideration how much other 'subsystems' of human behaviour are indirectly influenced by the sexual subsystem (eg. aggressivity) average humans must be pretty alienating for aro/ace people. Is it so? Is it like being Mr. Spock? I'm not mocking, it's just because there were times in my life when I knew I wasn't going to find any social contacts in sexual or romantic fields and thought it would be practical to be able to shut down it all temporarily.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Freeshadow

@sirtel yes I meant exactly those, David and karellen nailed it.
Btw. taking into consideration how much other 'subsystems' of human behaviour are indirectly influenced by the sexual subsystem (eg. aggressivity) average humans must be pretty alienating for aro/ace people. Is it so? Is it like being Mr. Spock? I'm not mocking, it's just because there were times in my life when I knew I wasn't going to find any social contacts in sexual or romantic fields and thought it would be practical to be able to shut down it all temporarily.

I guess it depends on the person. Me, I'm also exceedingly introverted (borderline autist, but not quite), so other people in general, their goals and interests often seem alien to me, and not only in romantic/sexual areas. But I'm sure there are socially active and outgoing aro/ace folks as well.

That said, I don't mind romances and sex scenes in books and movies - for me, they're pretty much like any other scene and can be interesting if well done or boring if not so well done. I don't necessarily want to read about people like me all the time - that would bore me to death.

[JSWolf]

How can so many people be murdered in such a small town/village/area? And how can one person come across so many murders (aka Jessica Fletcher, Miss Marple, Father Brown)?