Dangerous Women review

I cut myself on a binder today. It hurts...

But anyway! I'm about halfway done reading an anthology of short stories by well known authors. It's called 'Dangerous Women', and each story is supposed to feature a dangerous woman, obviously. What I've come to notice though, is that according to half these authors, a dangerous woman is either a stripped, prostitute, or heavily leaning on a man for support. It really makes me wonder why people can be so bad at writing women.

I'll give a quick blurb about each story I've read so far:

1) Some Desperado by Joe Ambercrombie
I loved it! It was a great way to start off the book. The main character was a feisty and scrappy young woman who was at the perfect spot between too powerful and just powerful enough to hold her own.

2) My Heart is Either Broken by Megan Abbott
I hated this one. It reminded me of 'Play it As It Lays'. I wanted to punch the female character because all she did was mope around the house, watch TV, go to bars. There was no action, and most definitely no danger. The only time anything happened was in the last page or so.

3) Nora's Song by Cecelia Holland
Simply beautiful! This story followed the young daughter of Eleanor of Aquitane. The voice was perfect, sounding like a twelve year old girl, but also like a princess. The point of view never switched, which is hard to do when you have two real and very powerful characters like the King and Queen. The main character, although young and rather helpless, showed bravery and the ability to grow into something dangerous.

4) The Hands That Are Not There by Melinda Snodgrass
This one was okay, but it's the first one where the female is a stripper. What annoys me more about these 'strong' females are strippers is that all the writer has to do is say that they had 'enchanting grace and were lithe as a cat, with a glimmer in their eye that spoke of danger'. Or something along those lines. It's all about image rather than actions. It doesn't matter if they're dancing naked for the enjoyment of men, as long as they look confident.
On the other hand, this story was well written.

5) Bombshells by Jim Butcher
This story follows the series 'The Dresden Files', which is a supernatural suspense/mystery book/show. It's actually a rather complex short story, and reading the preceding books would definitely help, but most readers should still be able to understand what's going on either way. It was good, but not one of my favourites. It was witty, and used a very strong voice with a first person narrative, so that worked well. Something about it though turned me off slightly. Not sure what...

6) Raisa Stepanova by Carrie Vaughn
This was another great story! It's about a Russian female pilot in WWII who is trying to get her five kills to become an Ace. It shows a ton of emotion, not between boyfriend and girlfriend, but between brother and sister and between friend and friend. It's adorable, and actually quite heart wrenching. Definitely one of my favourites.

7) Wrestling Jesus by Joe R. Lansdale
This was another story where the female was more like a side character or a background character. Even worse, she was basically an object. The whole story revolves around to men who get together every five years to wrestle. Whoever wins gets the female. The only redeeming part is that the female apparently chooses to go to the winner, rather than being passed around.

8) Neighbors by Megan Lindholm
I'm not sure about this one. The main character is a sixty year old woman who is in the early stages of alzheimers. She puts up a fight and shows a lot of guts, along with some danger. I think I would have really enjoyed this story, but it's confusing. I suppose if you're writing from the point of view of an alzheimers patient it would be confusing though...

9) I Know How to Pick 'Em by Lawrence Block
*SPOILER ALERT*
I cannot talk about this one without explaining the whole thing. Because it was so bad I have to rant about it. First off, the woman dies! The story is in the point of view of a man in a bar. Bad choice when for a book about dangerous females. Then a woman comes in and shows interest. They go back to a hotel and bang. All the while, the writer gives this man way too much power. He is able to guess just about everything about her by her looks and mannerisms. Think Sherlock, but with a trucker in a bar. When he guesses that she wants him to kill her husband, he kills her. She shows no danger except in the fact that she's cheating on her husband and may want him dead (This isn't actually confirmed, because she doesn't have much of a voice, and he's putting words into her mouth. but she doesn't deny it too much...)
So far, my least favourite story.

10) Shadows For Silence in the Forests of Hell by Brandon Sanderson
This is so far my favourite story! (Makes up for the last one) Sanderson is my favourite author too, so I expected nothing less. There are two, maybe even three strong and very dangerous females in this story, but it's not over the top or overly feminine. Like the first story, the females in this one are more smart than powerful. They use what they have, and if that doesn't work out, they try something else. They fight 'till the end and don't fall back to using their looks and charms to get what they want.

11) A Queen in Exile by Sharon Kay Grossman
This one was okay, and had potential to be great. It's written a lot like a textbook, with the occasional break to play out a scene better. There are massive time skips that start with 'for many years' or 'a few years later'. In addition, this story is basically true. It follows a real queen and real events. it's hard to slip out of textbook mode when writing a historical piece with all real people, as you don't want to get something wrong or historically inaccurate, but something things need to be embellished a bit.

12) The Girl in the Mirror by Lev Grossman
If you're a fan of Harry Potter, you'll probably like this story. It's written like a young adult book, from the point of view of a young and very smart witch who goes to a very prestigious school. It's playful and fun, with very little seriousness. A nice light read.

13) Second Arabesque, Very Slowly by Nancy Kress
This one was very well done. It's in a post apocalyptic world, where women are treasured. At some point a virus went out that made 90% of the female population infertile. Because of this, girls are forced into sex as soon as they've had their first period. After my rant about sex and strippers earlier, you would think I would hate this. But the main character is infertile, and is only in this band of survivors because she's a nurse. This story was just really well written.

14) City Lazerus by Diana Rowland
Another story where the female character is a stripper. And once again, she's enchanting and beautiful and the main character cannot help but love her. Basically the same as the first one that did this. I wasn't impressed.

15) Virgins by Diana Gabaldon
I'm only about halfway through this one, and so far there has been one female, and mentions of one other. I have no idea where it's going, but I'm not too happy with it so far. The voices are great though. The two man characters are Scottish, ad Gabaldon put a lot of effort into the accents. Can be a little hard to read, but I'm more than happy to have a Scottish accent in my head.


Sorry for the length, I guess I had more to say than I thought. and there's still more! I have six more stories to read, ad I'll post another review on them when I'm done. Going over these ones now, I realize I actually like at least half of them, but it's the bad ones that really stuck out. It's as if some of the authors really wanted to be part of this book, but had no idea how to write a strong female character. So they used a strong male and made him weakened him with 'feminine whiles'. I would like to remind people that females are not all about their bodies and using them to get what they want. Most authors seem to understand this, luckily.