Anton Strout, my people and women.

While on my epic road trip around the West with my father, I had ample opportunity to read. One of the series I bought up was the Simon Canderous books, written by Anton Strout. This is also notable because I downloaded 3 of them, only buying one actual physical book, reading them via the Kobo app on my iPod. First I want to get the obligatory review out of the way.The first one is titled Dead To Me, subsequent novels are all titled some phrase with the word "Dead" in them. If you're looking for a good modern fantasy read, I suggest you pick them up, they're good. Good, not great, 6/10, I would watch the TV show. Strout's writing is interesting and easy to follow, the dialogue is witty and rewarding, the plot is pretty engaging and most of the characters are well rounded. In fact, I strongly suspect that I would have enjoyed them a whole bunch more if I hadn't read all four back to back, with very few interruptions in between them. I mainlined the whole series like a junkie and in the process got very aware of the failings of the series. While I recommend them, I do have four complaints I really want to flesh out here.

Paperwork. Seriously, all these fucking people do is bitch about paperwork. Every third paragraph complains about paperwork. If these fucking guys actually did their paperwork instead of just bitching about it there wouldn't be any paperwork to bitch about. I understand Strout's desire to highlight that Simon does not fit well into an office environment, I understand we're supposed to sympathize with his frustrations. No one likes overly clunky bureaucracy. No one likes boring, mundane tasks. But it stops being relateable quickly, and stops being funny even quicker. Around halfway through book two it seems like Strout realized "Oh shit, I've beaten this joke to death." He starts adding mention that reports need to be filled out in triplicate like he's trying to revive the joke. It isn't that funny. It doesn't need to be mentioned three times a page. If you want us to sympathize try outlining what he's writing, why he's writing, consequences for not doing so, just stop rehashing the same unfunny joke.

Funny once.

Budget Cuts. Pretty much same complaint as the paper work thing. It gets overused, it isn't that funny to begin with, and for how much paper it fills it never seems to matter to the story.

Does the fucking world revolve around this guy? I don't even know if this is a legitimate gripe. It just seems like Simon Canderous has a bad case of the Harry Potters. He doesn't so much investigate as everything conveniently happens within three feet of him. Once you notice it, it gets pretty bad. For how many plotlines are inching forward at any one time it seems like everything only happens when Simon is there. Yes, this is a consequence of the first person viewpoint. It still seems a little excessive that Simon never has a quiet night (Book 3 taco night? Come on) and that the world seems to be waiting for his presence in order to move along.

Jane and why she's a problem. I almost feel like this should be a whole other post. It is a pretty big issue. Also worth noting; My opinion on this has been pretty strongly influenced by my sister. Now...judging from the frequent references to various internet memes, call outs to other books and bio at the back of the book, Anton Strout is one of my people. We're nerds. Giant, massive, unashamed nerds. We read internet in-jokes. We have t-shirts with geeky puns. He seems like the kind of guy that I want to go and have a beer with. Still,  I feel that this really needs to be said to him and most of our peers.

Guys, the way we perceive women really has to change.

No, seriously. It is really unhealthy.

Every woman mentioned in the book who sticks around for more than 3 sentences is described in almost the same way. Almost always it is some variation of "athletic" "tight fitting clothes" "fantastic curves" or "sexy body." Literally every single major female character has a handful of token sentences describing her as hot. Now, I'm not requiring that there be a token ugly girl in order to redeem a novel, in fact that would probably just highlight the problem. The issue is that characters are not defined by their inert characteristics, instead every woman is basically defined right away as "hot" or "not." Defining the appearance of female characters in primarily sexual terms and adjudging them in that way immediately says that women are sexual beings first, people second. This is fucked, guys.

Look at Jane throughout the 4 books. There is an amazing number of mentions that she's hot. It seems to be all that Simon Canderous can say about his girlfriend. What's more, most chapter ending conversations with her end with some mention made to how hard she's going to bang Simon later. This gets brought up all the frickin' time. If you recap what gets said about her the most, your take away will be that she's really hot, she wears tight nerdy t-shirts and she's horny a lot. She's just a nerd's masturbation fantasy that has a pretty important and interesting character stapled onto the side. There's a difference between writing a good character who happens to be a hot girl and writing a hot girl who is sometimes a good character.

I really wish that this attitude that women are sex objects first people second was uncommon in "nerd culture," but sadly it really isn't. Books, movies, shows, video games. Name a woman lead or major character who wasn't created as a sex object. Seriously, the only one I can think of in recent memory is Gina Carano in Haywire. When you describe her role in the film or her character, or how she's presented you are more likely to emphasize that she's hard as fuck before you mention that she's hot.

No, seriously. She'll fuck you up.

Other than that...Lieutenant Mira in "Space Marine" (another tremendously underrated game) is the only one in video games I can think of. Alma in F.E.A.R. as weird as that sounds? Maybe...erm...Ashley in Mass Effect 1?

Anyways: This overt sexualization needs to end. Why? So that enjoying RPGs and video games and comics stops being so male dominated. So that "nerd culture" actually gets inclusive. As it stands now, the nerdy girls I know don't like interacting with a lot guys because they're incapable of reeling in their sex-drive the second they see an attractive woman. And fuck you guys, I want an inclusive culture.

In summation: Write better female characters. Stop regarding women as sex objects. We're not in freakin' Junior High anymore. Yes, there are many attractive women, some like what you like, get over it.