At ComiCon last year, some yoob actually walked away from me when I tried to hand him a copy of Spin Control. Free! Free copies of Spin Control. I didn’t even get one! He had been about to take it, but then I said, “You’ll like Moriarty’s stuff; she’s really good!” And his eyes went blank and he backed away, protesting that he didn’t read books by women. Kid in his twenties, too, with the flannel shirted emo thing going on. Whatever.

At the time, I argued with him.

It occurs to me that I was wrong to do so. Because I’m not going to change that guy’s mind.

And what’s more? I don’t need to.

That’s right. I don’t have to care what that guy thinks. No, not him. Nor a thousand more like him.

#

Dear Patriarchy:

nolove, Bear.

#

This is not shrill, aggressive, evangelical feminism. I am not here to prove anything to you. Those who went before me have done the hard work, the hardest work, and created the opportunity for me to have that market. And that market exists not because a vast feminist conspiracy has taken over publishing and they’re not printing what men like to read, but because a certain percentage of the women and the men who do read are more interested in reading books like mine.

Books with girl cooties.

And, you know. ’splosions.

You know how things come in waves? For example, if you see one reference to an obscure historical personage (Sir Phillip Kimberly, perhaps) suddenly, he’ll be everywhere. You’ll be noticing references every time you click on a web page and every time you open a book.

Well, something like that has happened to me recently, with regard to women writing science fiction and fantasy. Which is to say, I’ve been hearing some complaints that women are taking over fantasy and science fiction, getting our relationship and character germs all in it, and ruining it for honest blaster-lovin’ men. That our books are all soft and fuzzy and full of ponies with braided manes and pretty princesses and happy endings where true love triumphs over the wicked king and then there is a wedding.

Now, me, I love a good blastering as much as the next guy. But apparently, I’m in ur genre, spreadin’ my girl germs, and ruining it for the boys.

It seems I’ve become a poster child for female SF authors (an interviewer told me not too long ago that I was notorious for penning strong women) which amuses me to no end, because the odd thing is, I can walk around for days on end without remembering that I Am A Girl. I just don’t think about it, frankly. Except when I have to put on a bra before I walk to the corner store.

I don’t think of myself as a woman writer. I think of myself as a writer, full stop, or a speculative fiction writer, if it comes right down to it. If somebody asks what I do for a living, I tell them I’m a novelist. I don’t tell them I’m a woman novelist.

#

If you feel that the books you want to read are not being published in sufficient quantity, there’s a way to fight that.

You can buy them when they are published. Because trust me, son, if there’s a market for a product, the product will be provided. Somebody out there is writing novels about bikini-clad mightily-thewed swordswomen, I guarantee it. And due to the magic of the internet, if you can find him, you can give him money. If this enormous audience for a particular type of old-school SF and fantasy are out there, by god, those books will be published.

And in addition, I have to admit I have a hard time taking the pleas of hardship seriously in a world where Frank Miller is still selling comic books as fast as they can back up the truck, and where I can walk into the science fiction section of any given bookstore and find vast swaths of military SF and the sort of touchy-feely writing pioneered by authors such as Glen Cook. (There is nothing wrong with being able to find Glen Cook in your neighborhood bookstore. There is, indeed, a whole lot right with Glen Cook.) In fact, I understand that military SF is selling particularly well of late, and of course we can’t get Terry Goodkind off the best-seller lists, which would tend to indicate to me at least that Manly Topics are not in so much danger as they might be perceived to be.

*insert sound of crickets chirping*

I have a theory.

I think all the whining about girly books taking over is fear. I think it’s the fact that I, an entertainer who is dependent upon the will of the masses for her continued ability to pay rent and feed the cat, can stand up with a straight face and write down something like “Dear Patriarchy: I don’t care what you think.”

And mean it.

I think it’s a little bit scary to some people that there’s an audience–a big audience–for things outside their comfort zone. I think it’s terrifying to them to be reminded that, indeed, I don’t have to care what they think. And that I, and dozens of fantasy and science fiction writers like me (who, when they remember to check, may be men and women both, and a few who don’t care to be identified as either) don’t have to genuflect to their mightily thewed barbarians and slave girls to get in print. And stay in print.

Because nothing is more terrifying to an extant power structure than a frictionless surface. And the magic of it all is that they have no power over me. As long as I continue to find and link up to and entertain my audience, and it’s a big enough audience to make it financially sensible to keep me in print, the only things I answer to are the book reader, my editors, my own artistic integrity, and the bottom line.

I mean, sure, I may never win a Hugo.

But as long as I’m making my readers happy, I think I can live with that.