Note to readers - as hard as it might be to believe from all the illustrations in this post, it's not about comics. (Although I do love each and everyone of these characters.)

First, all fans of Dr. Horrible should be aware that the DVD is available on the 19th as an amazon exclusive for a quite reasonable price.

After yesterday's post on wicked girls I love (which has left more than one song lyric bouncing around in my head) (but not Helen Reddy) I've been thinking about books where the girl wins. This is not to suggest that the girl never wins in literature but I just finished reading the very cool kid's NF title Ten Explorers Who Changed the World to my son and realized at the very end, that except for the afterword mention of several lesser explorers who each merit a paragraph rather a chapter, that this book included not one single female explorer. (Mary Kingsley is the only one to get that paragraph if you're wondering.) And since there are so many women explorers who could have made the cut (like the fabulous Dorothea Bate whose biography I loved for one) I just got a wee bit torqued when I realized that 1) None of them were there and 2) I hadn't freaking noticed until that moment.

Sometimes I so disappoint myself.

(I do still think this book is very good however and would recommend it for young readers interested in history and see it as an excellent learning tool. Just be sure to tell them what they're missing.)

And so now I can't help but think of how all too often we don't think of the girls (or the women) first. We still don't. And I'm not going to rage about all gender inequities and glass ceilings but I will say that there is a reason Buffy the Vampire Slayer was so damn popular and if you need me to tell you, well....please. How could anyone possibly not be able to figure that one out on their own?

There are several books I have enjoyed that feature strong female protagonists who are smart and tough and succeed against all sorts of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Tough chicks, I guess, but the point of the books is not just their toughness. They are all about navigating turbulent waters and defeating great enemies and making their personal stands. They are about winning, Buffy-style.

Cherie Priest is one of my favorite writers for many reasons, no the least of which is Eden Moore, the protagonist of her southern trilogy. Here on some thoughts on the first two books shortly after I read them and hey - I name dropped Buffy back then as well):

I loved the soldiers in Wings, and Eden's quirky friends and that Cherie managed to work another insane asylum into the plot. (Gotta love the south and its surplus of crazies.) I also liked that while Eden figures out the weirdness that is her life she gets to live with her aunt and uncle and slowly make her way - there's no get your act together and go out and save the world business. Eden has a gift - or a curse - and I love that it's not all sorted out overnight. I liked the messiness in this book - honestly it reminded me a bit of what happened with The Empire Strikes Back. This is the book where the characters start to sort themselves out. There are adventures, but a big part of the plot is Eden just reflecting on who she is which is pretty darn necessary considering what's going on in her life. Wings is the book where southern style Buffy accepts that she's the Slayer and gets to slaying - except there are no vampires and lots of sad dead Confederate soldiers and it's more talking than staking. But still, I thought it was great and loved it from beginning to end.

And here is what I thought of the third book, Not Flesh Nor Feathers:

The Tennessee River is overflowing its banks and along with a lot of muck and mire there are also quite a few members of the undead coming up on shore. These are angry zombies though - zombies directed to find something (or someone) and kill everyone that gets in their way. The only one that seems to have a clue about what they want is the local crazy ghost - The White Lady. The lady really is nuts, and apparently was crazy when she died, so her ability (and willingness) to help Eden out is rather limited. She's forced to figure out just what the zombies want and how to stop them on her own (okay, with a bit of help from her friends).

Oh - and there's also the matter of the KKK, a long ago covered up mass murder and a fire, a serious fire. What Eden can do to piece all this together before the zombies make a big buffet out of the folks who have gotten trapped on the wrong side of the river is a mystery until the thrilling, show stopping ending.

Eden takes it all on - murderous relatives, the undead, oughta be dead and formerly dead, not too mention ghosts both despondent and demented - and she comes out on top. She's battered and bruised but she chooses to live. She chooses; and then she does what she has to do to make that choice come true.

Love her.

Cherie has a brand new book that just came out this week called Fathom which is in some ways a big departure from her earlier books and in other ways quite similar. This time you have gods (good and bad), wacky people who worship gods even though they don't know beans about them, an undead pirate, a hapless pseudo hero and a couple of teenagers who get roped into the whole messed up destroy the world scenario because one of them is bat shit crazy (in a bloody murdering kind of way) and one of them picked the really really wrong weekend to visit the out of town relatives. (We're talking the ultimate case of bad timing.) Fathom is written from multiple POVs, some of which succeed much more than others. The strongest by far is the teenager Nia who spends an inordinate amount of time as a stone statue (no kidding) (and yes - time to reconsider how you view all the statuary in your weird neighbor's yard). The other teen, Bernice, is not the good guy here but she is equally compelling and can I just say that I was quite pleased to read a book where the mean girl lives up to the moniker and then some. The inclusion of both Nia and Bernice makes the book a good choice for teen readers; in fact I think that in a lot of ways this book could have been restructured just a tad (more POV from the girls) and it would have sold as a YA novel. (Which might have been a good idea as teen fantasies are pretty darn popular.) (But there are no to die for cute guys in Fathom so actually that might not have worked.)

So, bad water goddess wants to kill everyone, creepy but nice earth guy wants to save everyone, the girls become pawns in the whole thing and have sides chosen for them, the demented church people start something they have no control over, Hephaestus (or his Cuban cousin) is running a jewelry store in Ybor, Florida and hey - it's pretty hard to avoid water when the whole book is set in Florida. There's the pirate and also an insurance adjuster and a mother who washes her hands of her angry daughter and another who really should have checked out the relatives better before sending her little darling off into the wilderness of an island off the Gulf coast. It all gets wrapped up in a bow after a titanic struggle between good and evil (and our girl gets out of the stone). I think teens will like it a lot and there is plenty of introspection and mayhem to keep both genders interested. For me the plot was a bit rocky and there was one too many times where I had to just believe that this was the way it was. As I said the other day in my initial reaction, Fathom reads as a bit rushed but while not as tight as the Eden Moore books (or Cherie's two Subterranean Press novellas) it still offers something that teens rarely see - some bad ass moments from girls equally committed to winning. Nia and Bernice are the kind of characters you can't take your eyes off of and the parts of the book where they appear will keep you hooked through some ragged edges in between.

And then, from author Jenny Davidson, there is Sophie who lives in an alternate history Scotland and discovers not only a plot to overthrow the government (or at the very least create some terrorist mayhem) but equally disturbing an ongoing social experiment that results in the country's best and brightest young women becoming much less than they are capable of. (And I can't begin to stress the "much less" part of that equation.) Here's a bit of my review of The Explosionist from last July:

Sophie seems to lead a quiet life at her typical all-girls boarding school, which she leaves for weekend visits to her legal guardian, her great-Aunt Tabitha. Soon enough odd things start to happen -- a psychic at an evening presentation at her aunt’s home targets Sophie with a bizarre message, and her chemistry teacher’s behavior suggests that his explosive talents might be aiding a terrorist group that uses suicide bombings. Sophie soon finds her life turned upside down and she begins to question both the actions of those she cares about and Scotland’s political leaders.

Davidson has a tight grip on her history here and weaves multiple storylines into one as she leads Sophie down a path of self awareness that includes revelations about her deceased parents and politically powerful aunt. She is forced into a harrowing discovery about psychological experiments that is gut wrenching, and as the plot develops readers will find themselves questioning more than once just what it means to be loyal to your country. There is a political conspiracy, more than one murder, a social conspiracy and the threat of looming war.

It's not secret that I'm a fan of Jenny Davidson's blog but I really love her novel. Jackie recently pointed out the steampunk aspects to me but honestly, I didn't see them so much. (They are there but not the point as they seem to be in so many dedicated steampunk novels.) To me, The Explosionist is about a girl who wins by being smart. There's no superhuman strength here but just a lot of watching and listening and getting to the bottom of various stray clues. Sophie sees a puzzle that many of us would miss and she puts it all together. Then she gets quite brave and decides to chart her own course. Rumor has it Jenny is working on a sequel and I certainly can not wait for that.

Beyond Cherie Priest and Jenny Davidson there is of course still Buffy and no reason why you can't just go with the obvious and buy a collection of Buffy comics. There are four collections out now and the comics are really good and fans will enjoy them to no end. You don't have to like Buffy to buy her for someone else - remember the holidays are all about what the other person wants sometimes, not what they need. (I did put gloves on my list though - Buffy and gloves would be a good gift!)

More anon.........
[Post pics all the work of Alex Ross for DC except for Willow, who is really courtesy Dark Horse and very much a touch chick all on her own.]