SM Stirling describes a lot of war and a lot of women at war.
Stieg Larsson begins his Millennium Trilogy Volume III with a discussion of women at war.
The Wonder Woman film, about an Amazon or woman warrior, is about to be released.
Anderson's Time Patrol series begins with Manse Everard although Wanda Tamberly becomes a central character in later installments.
Anderson's Terran Empire series begins with Dominic Flandry but ends with his daughter, Diana Crowfeather.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I believe Poul Anderson's sparing use of women at war to be more realistic and PRACTICAL than the implausible numbers of women soldiers we see in Stirling's works. For the reasons given by both myself and David. Stirling's appalling Draka females are almost the only women soldiers in his works I can accept as possible. With a few, rare exceptions in his other works like Marian Alston and Tiphaine d'Ath.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I believe I can think of one exception in Anderson's works: one section of The Game of Empire follows a junior officer named Kittredge, from Vixen, as she fights for Emperor Magnus in the civil war which he has begun at the behest of the Merseians. She might be, although this is not stated, a daughter or other relative of Catherine Kittredge. We see a little of the horrors of war in this passage of the book.
Best Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen
Kaor, Nicholas!
I should have remembered this young woman and junior Navy officer from Vixen. Almost certainly, she was related to the Catherine Kittredge we see in WE CLAIM THESE STARS.
But this, and other other women in the Navy seemed to have been fairly few in numbers.
Sean
Fighting has -generally- been a male occupation, but there are quite numerous historical exceptions; both women who fought disguised as men, and cultures where women frequently engaged in fighting; several Central Asian cultures of the Bronze and Iron age, the West African kingdom of Dahomey, and others.
Women get pregnant and nurse infants, and men -on average- have more upper-body strength, but neither of these is an absolute bar. They're just predisposing ones.
Dear Mr. Stirling,
I discussed this more fully else where. The exceptions you listed are few enough that it was because they were exceptions that they stand out. I'll only add here that I've seen complaints from real world military or ex military that many women recruits, for no fault of their own, simply CAN'T satisfactorily carry our training exercises or drills unless standards are lowered.
Sean
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