SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

What are your favorite (and least favorite) relationships in books? What makes them shine (or fail)?

I don't necessarily mean romantic relationships, but that's certainly included. Lovers, friends, siblings, love/hate antagonists...what are you looking for when you see human connections in books, and who did it best/worst?

Allison- should we be using spoiler tags for this? I have one I’d like to add but it might be kind of spoilery...

I guess it won't hurt to use spoiler tag

Least favorite: Feyre and her sisters

I know Stephenie Meyer gets a lot of crap for her characters in Twilight. (And I pretty much agree with that)

But, with the two main characters in The Host I thought she did an amazing job of showing friendship. And a very unusual one at that.

Edit: Because, speaking of friendship, I adored Aziraphale and Crowley in Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. Basically, I really love unlikely friendships more than anything.

In The Just City by Jo Walton:

(view spoiler)[Apollo's relationship with Simmea is beautiful. It's described as "practicing agape". Which as best I can piece together, is a love transcendent of erotic/romantic love, where each person is passionate about helping the other be their best selves.

Their commitment to each other is very clear, and the fact that Apollo is a god and looks to this mortal woman for advice on how to be a better human (and ultimately a better god) was just really touching. (hide spoiler)]

I can't go much beyond this without big spoilers for book two, but at least this year, it's been one of my favorite book relationships.

Is there a way to say without spoilers why these things work/don't work for y'all?

When you mention twilight... I guess that paranormal romance in general has quite big risk to feel like going too far into absurdness for some readers.

While it's not mainly book thing, I felt it was far too absurd with Jaina (human) and Kalecgos (dragon) in World of Warcraft universe. I believe it was actually first hinted in a book, Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War My first reaction was like, "WTF?"

Tomas wrote: "When you mention twilight... I guess that paranormal romance in general has quite big risk to feel like going too far into absurdness for some readers.

While it's not mainly book thing, I felt it ..."

Not to me. I love paranormal romance - when its done well. Twilight and its copies...not so much (imo).

So, for me, it wasn't the PNR it was writing and plotline.

Tomas mentioning the Human/Dragon friendship just reminded me of another unlikely friendship I adore. It is a Human/Dragon friendship in the Temeraire series starting with His Majesty's Dragon.

To answer Allison's question, I'll try to say why I love these different friendships without being spoilery.

For Good Omens and The Host, I love them because the friends in question are on opposite sides. By all accounts they should hate each other without question. However, forced circumstances require them to spend a lot of time together. What they find is that they aren't really all that different. I really like relationships that show that the differences that pit people against each other are so insignificant to the things that can bring us together if we just took the time to see them.

With Good Omens and Temeraire there is a lot of humor in the relationship. Great dialogue really makes them shine. But also with both of them you can see how the pairs influence each other. They challenge what the other takes for granted and forces them to look at things from a different perspective.

This isn't SFF but one of my other favorite relationships is between Alfred and Uhtred in The Last Kingdom. They hate each other- but they also need each other.

Alfred can't conquer the Danes without Uhtred's help. Uhtred can't be restored to Bebbanburg without Alfred because he is basically penniless and landless and powerless without him. Their disagreements are based primarily on religion, but also Alfred doesn't like Uhtred's lack of respect for authority or religious figures.

For book 6 (I think) (view spoiler)[But when Alfred dies, Uhtred says: "I never liked him, but I have never stopped admiring him. He was my king and all that I now have I owe to him. The food that I eat, the hall where I live and the swords of my men, all started with Alfred, who hated me at times, loved me at times, and was generous with me." (hide spoiler)]

It worked as a love hate relationship because it was borne out of necessity. When Uhtred gets fed up and walks away, at some point he realizes he's much worse off. When Alfred gets angry with Uhtred's stubbornness and he sends him away, we see Alfred suffer too.

MrsJoseph wrote: "Not to me. I love paranormal romance - when its done well. Twilight and its copies...not so much (imo)."

What I meant by my post is that cross-species relationships are hard to do well, to make sense. PNR, which is where these happen the most, have the biggest chances for weird stuff to be there.
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As for unlikely friendshpis and such...
Night of Wolves (and the three sequels) show well how being on different sides can be helping nothing. Jerico and Darius serve different faiths, yet fight together to protect a village seen by their superiors as sheep to be herded to their clutches without really caring what is happening to them. It eventually changes things for both of them - which is as much as I can say without spoilers.

Tomas wrote: "What I meant by my post is that cross-species relationships are hard to do well, to make sense. PNR, which is where these happen the most, have the biggest chances for weird stuff to be there."

I once read a PNR that had Bee shifters. Why? Because someone told the author she couldn't do that - it wouldn't make any sense. So she did it, lol.

It wasn't an MC but it was hilarious.

Allison wrote: "Is there a way to say without spoilers why these things work/don't work for y'all?"

Well I was just thinking in some cases even saying who is in the relationship might fall into spoiler territory. (Like, if the book isn't Twilight or a romance novel where the relationships are immediately apparent.)

I'm ok with less specific then :)

There's a book that I love that has this couple that are awful people that together are so strong and so tender, I love them so much. I like that the author shows such vulnerability in otherwise closed off characters, and that we're allowed to love imperfect people because of how their whole world seems to take up the space between them when they embrace.

Ooh one of my favorite relationships of all time is the one between Roland and Jake in the Dark Tower series. It spans the entire series, and there would be a lot of spoilers if I mention the specifics that make it such a great one, but basically, they each fill gaps they didn't realize they were missing in their lives (Or, I guess that'd be more on Roland's side... Jake is pretty self-aware and knows that Roland is filling in a father-figure role for him), form a kind of father/son dynamic, and teach each other what love and sacrifice really is. So great.

Also, a close runner up to that one would be Eddie/Susannah's relationship from the same series. I just love how different they are from each other (she's a black woman with multiple-personality disorder, raised in the Civil Rights era, who happens to be missing both of her lower legs due to an accident, and he's a white, heroin addicted street kid with survivor's guilt after the death of his sister and manipulation of his mom and brother to control him, who was raised in the 70's/80s) but they come together and help each other be their full selves, and just love and accept each other for who they are, and love and trust each other completely.

Speaking of dragons...

My favorite relationship is between Jaxom (human) and Ruth (dragon) from The White Dragon. Ruth is utterly non-judgemental on top of being intelligent, psychic and kind. The fact he can also fly and teleport halfway across the planet are icing on the cake. Even if he were just a smart horse it would be an amazing relationship.


Runner-up: Hiccup (human) and Toothless (dragon) from How to Train Your Dragon.

If it's friendship or some kind of bond, it's okay. I realize that I forgot that in the case I mentioned before, I meant romantic relationship between a human and a dragon which fells like far too much.

Tomas wrote: "If it's friendship or some kind of bond, it's okay. I realize that I forgot that in the case I mentioned before, I meant romantic relationship between a human and a dragon which fells like far too ..."

Hate to tell you this, but I love a good dragon/human romance!

My favorite is Dragon Actually. :-D

As long as the bestiality is consensual....

Trike wrote: "As long as the bestiality is consensual...."

*snicker*


ETA: hubby hates when I try to explain shifter romances to him.

Yes, The Host is actually a very good book, and the relationship between the host and the parasite develops believably. It's fascinating to imagine the What If of that kind of a situation, what it might do to people/beings, and Meyer's exploration definitely engages the Sense of Wonder that I love in SF.

There are a lot of other interesting r'ships in that story, too. All explored by the writer authentically. Not a whole lot of cliches.

I'm a huge Hyperion fan, so there are a lot of relationships to love. But my favourites are in the Endymion books- Mahnmut and Orphu are moravecs (kind of like extremely intelligent robots, a bit), and they spend a fair amount of time debating Shakespeare/Proust.

Their relationship through the books are one of the better examples of real friendship that I've seen in SF. They're physically completely incompatible as romantic partners so thankfully that's off the table, and they choose to spend the thousands of years together talking about things that interest both of them and that try to help them understand the humans that made them. When push comes to shove they make sacrifices for each other (and also for others).

MrsJoseph wrote: "Hate to tell you this, but I love a good dragon/human romance! "
Well, whatever floats your boats...

There are lots of "cute" relationships that everyone loves that squick me TF out, too, Tomas. Like Sookie Stackhouse and whatshisbutt.

Or the relationship in The Others. Just thinking about them makes me so uncomfortable! But clearly that's not the overall opinion.

Allison wrote: "There are lots of "cute" relationships that everyone loves that squick me TF out, too, Tomas. Like Sookie Stackhouse and whatshisbutt.

Or the relationship in The Others. Just thinking about them m..."

I love a good romance. And I love the impossible biological pairings. As long as its well written. And sometimes if its just a good enough storyline (but I'm a little picky about that).

I mean, when you grow up watching Star Wars, Star Trek, Conan, Beastmaster and the like and reading Fantasy, SF and Romance...it's kinda hard to get my butt on my shoulders with stuff like that.

There's one author who is a terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE writer. She's terrible. But she has the most interesting brain ever. She writes these insane romances from mostly the guys POV only. And this guy is batshit. He's always possessive, silly rich, crazy, has a crazy family and a virgin doormat girlfriend/wife. It's so incredibly abnormal and I am all over it. But it also gives me a headache.

I just don't like things that feel abusive, physically or emotionally. And I guess I have a pretty high bar/low tolerance for that. I recognize that's just my opinion but like me and Sookie would have a talk if we were friends. Which we wouldn't be, because I also dislike her as a person and am mad thinking there are people like her IRL, but IF I WERE her friend, I'd say Bob? Bill? was being a jerkface and she deserves better.

Allison wrote: "I just don't like things that feel abusive, physically or emotionally. And I guess I have a pretty high bar/low intolerance for that. I recognize that's just my opinion but like me and Sookie would..."

Agreed.

I have the ability to - with books that don't trigger me - sit back and judge while still having fun. Mostly.

Beste wrote: "Least favorite: Feyre and her sisters"

YES! I HATE NESTA! I really feel like the fandom does not give her enough hate! Tamlin is awful, yes, but Nesta? She is family and her betrayal of Feyre cuts so much deeper. But I guess Feyre loves her sister...

I do not believe this is a spoiler as this is something that is established in the first few pages of the book and isn't pivotal to the story.

I love paranormal romance and sci-fi romance. These typically have some kind of alien or shifter as the love interest and I LOVE IT! I find that these types of story usually depict the shifter or Alien as humanoid so it's less awkward. Most of these books have a captive/captor situation, so my tolerance for problematic stuff (strictly in the book world) is higher than usual. It has to be because I just love this genre so much. I have zero tolerance in real life. I find it easier than it used to be to separate my thoughts and feelings on real issues and situations from those that appear in books. Plus I get so wrapped up in what the MC wants, so if she/he is in love most of the time I ship it. Do I wish it could be better? Yes, but until then I tolerate it.

I also love the "found family" relationships. It is the reason why I loved Leviathan Wakes, Six of Crows and ACOTAR. I wish more books did a better job depicting female friendships and sisters.

Oh! Found family is so good! I really like how that's portrayed in The Sparrow. I like that we see the jealousies and irritations, but also the genuine affection and how they come to accommodate each other.

Meagan wrote: "Meagan | 21 comments
I love paranormal romance and sci-fi romance. These typically have some kind of alien or shifter as the love interest and I LOVE IT! I find that these types of story usually depict the shifter or Alien as humanoid so it's less awkward. Most of these books have a captive/captor situation, so my tolerance for problematic stuff (strictly in the book world) is higher than usual. It has to be because I just love this genre so much. I have zero tolerance in real life. I find it easier than it used to be to separate my thoughts and feelings on real issues and situations from those that appear in books. Plus I get so wrapped up in what the MC wants, so if she/he is in love most of the time I ship it. Do I wish it could be better? Yes, but until then I tolerate it. "

ALL OF THIS.

It's the good author who manages to get the reader to consent to anything that might be considered problematic. The bad ones just have rapey books.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is great for both found family AND inter-species romance.

Ruth wrote: "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is great for both found family AND inter-species romance."

True that. Ditto for the sequel.

Trike wrote: "Ruth wrote: "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is great for both found family AND inter-species romance."

True that. Ditto for the sequel."

Thirded

yeah, Becky Chambers does r'ships well, for sure

For some reason I can get along with vampires in Urban Fantasy, but can't stand werewolves. They always seem to be portrayed as slobbering, bestial dumb asses:)

Maybe you found a hole in the market?