AKICODW/LJ

[oyceter]

Gah, I just realized FOGcon is only a week or so away!

And since I have profited greatly from posts like this in the past, help me think about what to say at my panel!

Gray is the New Purple

Aging isn’t for the weak of heart. What sf/f works deal with the topic of aging, either positively or negatively? Who gets it right and who should do some homework?

Moderator: Madeleine Robins
Panelists: Phyllis Holliday, Oyceter, Erin Hoffman

I can think of Tehanu off the top of my head, and I remember someone asking for representations of older women in SF/F, not counting immortals, people who do not physically age, and etc., and the list was fairly scanty.

I love DWJ's Howl's Moving Castle, but I've always thought it was odd how Sophie suddenly begins to think like an old woman and how there is no disparity between her own self image and her changed physical image. Maybe this is particularly interesting because I feel we see more of the opposite situation in SF/F: old people in young bodies, thanks to magic/science/alien technology/plot point/etc.

I really like how A:TLA includes multiple kickass old men, but I really wish there were awesome old women as well. The only few we see tend to be on the creepy side, and there's definitely no equivalent of Uncle Iroh.

I wonder how much of A:TLA's old people kicking ass has to do with its martial arts heritage? I think several of the older women I've seen in wuxia movies tend to be the villains, but they have a much greater presence than what I've read in English-language SF/F. Possibly this has to do with the greater number of female martial artists and the whole cameo thing?

Thoughts? Ideas? Anyone?

Comments

[ursula]

I think of Air by Geoff Ryman, and the Familias series by Elizabeth Moon (the aging heroine does eventually choose "rejuv", but the economic stress of everyone choosing rejuv is a big plot element).

[oyceter]

Ooo, thanks!

[laurashapiro]

Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series briefly discusses what happens to aging steerswomen (and men), and also how the Outskirter culture deals with its elders.

[oyceter]

Thanks! Really need to reread, have forgotten what Outskirter culture does...

[jesuswasbatman]

I'm shocked I'm the first person to bring up Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg from Terry Pratchett's books. Also from my childhood embarassment reading I remember a tough grandma from Heinlein's "Space Family Stone".

[lnhammer]

The Rolling Stones does indeed include Grandma Stone taking names and kicking ass.

---L.

[oyceter]

*headdesk* I can't believe I forgot Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg!!

[laceblade]

Suzette Haden Elgin's Ozark trilogy reveres old ladies.
Each family has a resident "granny," whose job is to speechify when nobody else will. Grannies can work magic (I don't think anybody else can), and each family's granny is like, their most important social feature.

You're right about A:TLA, but I'm hoping old!Katara will hang around??

Grandma Ben in Jeff Smith's "Bone" is a BAMF.

The "Queen of Thorns" of the Tyrell family, of the Game of Thrones series is a BAMF. I can't remember if you've read any - she's looking out for her family in the middle of a viper's nest, and she's pretty great.

I keep trying to think of relevant manga, because badass oba-sans seems like a trope, but now I can't think of any, :/

[lnhammer]

The bad-ass obaa-san in Pearl Pink is alas only onstage for a couple chapters.

Blanking on other examples ...

[lnhammer]

Haldeman's Worlds series, in particular Worlds Enough and Time, does a good job of aging the protagonist (POC woman, btw) into middle age. At the time, it was the first SF I'd met that did so that did a decent job, but I read it before I was middle-aged myself and have no idea now how it would read.

Other Haldeman might be applicable, esp. Forever Free.

---L.

[oyceter]

I have never even heard of his stuff, thanks for the tip!

[jiawen]

China Mountain Zhang has a major character, Martine, who's an older middle-aged woman.

Looking over my fiction, I get no more examples that aren't, as you put it, "old people in young bodies". Well, except for Anna Madrigal, but I don't think Tales of the City counts as fiction.

[oyceter]

Oh yeah! That was my fav. part of CMZ too!

[minnaway]

Riddlemaster of Hed has a certain amount of aging, although mostly on the male side there.

Women: I'm not sure how much is explicit in the text in terms of aging, but I found it wonderful to watch Sarah Jane adventures and see a middle-aged woman as the heroine.

Peter Beagle's Innkeeper's Song and the side stories set in that universe: we see Lal at several different points in her life, and the effect that age will have/is having on her physically (she's a swordswoman/mercenary) is present at several points.

Nalo Hopkinson, The New Moon's Arms: protagonist is a woman going through menopause, and the hot flashes result in her finding lost objects. Also I think a few of the stories in the Skin Folk collection might apply: Riding the Red and Greedy Choke Puppy both have grandmother protagonists.

[oyceter]

I forgot about the Hopkinson!

Also, oooo, need to look up the rest, thanks!

[jesse_the_k]

UKLe Guin's short story, The Day Before the Revolution, makes me weep every time I reread it. The anarchist matriarch who has worked her whole long life builing the possibility of Anarres (as told in The Dispossessed) wakes up on an ordinary day, stretches, interacts with some of her revolutionary pals, and dies in her sleep.

Suzette Haden Elgin's "Native Tongue" series also features the post-menopausal women who run the women's houses, create the decoy women's languages, and plan for a better future over several generations.

[veejane]

"The Day Before the Revolution" was the one I was going to suggest as well.

[princessofgeeks]

Tehanu was the first thing I thought of too!

[oyceter]

^_^

[chomiji]

C.J. Cherryh has a number of older female characters, some good, some pretty evil. Ariane Emory I (Cyteen), Signy Mallory (Downbelow Station and Merchanter's Luck), and Pyanfar Chanur (non-human, but still definitely middle aged) all come to mind.

I guess Elizabeth Lynn's Chronicles of Tornor is pretty obscure these days. The third book, The Northern Girl, included Arré Med, who was in early middle age, and her friend and fellow Council member Marti Hok, who was quite elderly.

[oyceter]

I was thinking of Ari I, but I can't remember if that counts as older person in a younger body or not? I know they have things that extend lifespan, but I don't quite remember how the work.

And ooo, I have had the Lynn on my shelf for years without starting them...

[fresne]

"Child of a Rainless Year" by Jane Lindskold pov is a middle aged woman. As is "Paladin of Souls" by Lois McMaster Bujold. Pauses. Hmm... middle aged being relative to technology level/time period.

[oyceter]

Awesome, thanks!

[kate_nepveu]

Yeah, I could not get into _Howl's_ at all as my disbelief refused to suspend for that.

Re: martial arts, certainly the first kick-ass middle-aged woman I thought of was from _Kung Fu Hustle_: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1228408/ .

One space opera series that has lots of older women and is centrally concerned about life-extension tech's effect on societies is Elizabeth Moon's Familias Regenant series, which I quite liked before I stopped being able to read Moon's books (alas). http://www.tor.com/blogs/2009/10/aunts-in-space-elizabeth-moons-serrano-series

I haven't read Saladin Ahmed's _Throne of the Crescent Moon_ yet, but apparently its main character is a 60-year-old man on the verge of retirement.

[oyceter]

Ooooo, thanks for the tips! (So need to pick up the Ahmed. And oh sigh, Moon...)

[metaphortunate]

Paladin of Souls! "Oh, middle-aged women don't wander around this world by themselves, except for religious reasons? By the most amazing coincidence I happen to have become a god's latest saint and I must go on a pilgrimage. Now. By myself. Who am I the saint of? I'm the saint of Fuck You, that's who. Now if you will excuse us."

[oyceter]

Hee! I sadly bounced off the book (and off Bujold in general), but yay to having middle-aged female protagonists!

[lacewood]

Martha Wells has a number of older women who play prominent roles of varying significance in her books (though as a warning there is character death).

Wheel of the Infinite: The main protagonist is an older woman of colour - her son is at least in his twenties so I'd assume she was in her late forties or fifties.

The Death of the Necromancer: Has an old woman who is a powerful witch and the grandmother of a major character.

The Element of Fire: One of the major characters earlier in the book is the Dowager Queen.

The Cloud Roads: Pearl, the Queen of the colony, is old, powerful and plays a significant role.

A number of YA books also have mothers/fathers of the teenage characters (so at least middle age or older) play major roles, if you're interested in those as well.

[oyceter]

Oh cool, and yes, I am definitely interested in YA as well!

Note to self: Grace Lin's When the Mountain Meets the Moon has the heroine's parents a bit as well.

[tithenai]

Oh but Gran-Gran is awesome in A:TLA! (Re-watching it from the beginning in anticipation of LoK, in which EEEEE OLD KATARA OMG OMG PLEASE LET HER BE A PRESENCE IN THE WHOLE SERIES!) But agreed she doesn't have the narrative centrality of Iroh.

Other than that I love Terri Windling's The Wood Wife.

[ambyr]

And Yugoda, a perfectly lovely character who really shouldn't have dropped off the face of the earth.

But I don't think Avatar's problem is exactly age-related, to be honest. The show in general has issues with gender balance. Military leaders are male, civilian leaders are male, shopkeepers are male, and if a random villager is going to speak up, three times out of four it's a dude.

[oracne]

This panel sounds like it will be GREAT.

Everybody already got all my book suggestions.

[oyceter]

I hope so!

[genarti]

Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population has a grandmother as its main character, and the only human onscreen for much of the book.

Peter Dickinson's The Ropemaker is delightful, and involves the main character traveling with her grandmother, a boy her own age, and his grandfather. Both grandparents are awesome, and also have the legitimate physical limitations of age.

I feel as if I know at least one more, but I can't think of it right now. Bah!

[oyceter]

Oooo, thanks, and please do comment if you remember more!

[thomasyan]

The protagonist in Janet Kagan's Mirabile is a middle-aged women, as I recall.

Do aliens count? Cherryh's Foreigner series features a powerful grandmother.

Before rejuv comes along and turns everyone immortal, there are a number of older women in Heinlein's later books, as I recall, including Hazel Stone and Maureen Johnson.

I think Roger Zelazny's short story "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai" has an older woman, good at martial arts, as the protagonist.

I feel like I should be able to list more not already mentioned by you and others, but I'm not sure if my memory is failing me, or there just are so few examples.

[oyceter]

Oooo thanks! I guess aliens count as long as there are effects of aging or something? One of the reasons I don't really count the older person in younger body is because I think a lot of the phobia about age is very centered on physicality.

Possible suggestions for older characters

[(Anonymous)]

Old Man's War by John Scalzi (I suggest this with reservations, because the main character transfers into a young body fairly early in the book)

Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. MacAvoy: the two protagonists are middle-aged.

Re: Possible suggestions for older characters

[oyceter]

Ooo thanks! Had forgotten about the MacAvoy...

[bibliofile]

Oh, and forgot to say have a brilliant time at Fogcon for the rest of us, too.

[nettlecoats]

Belatedly chiming in to mention snarky booze-hound Torogai from the Seirei no Moribito anime, who is quite elderly but has no problem kicking ass both literally and metaphorically. IMO if Uncle Iroh ever runs into her in some interstice of fictional universes he will have met his match.