And out on Friday

A little background as to why I wrote this book

Some years back I was driving with my sons, coming back from a rock-climbing trip in the mountains. Teen boys, AKA ‘adolescents’ that the present British government seems to want to vilify as abusive sexists and the lowest form of life, existing only to be a scapegoat.  The older kid suddenly up and says to me: “Dad I have thought about what I want my girlfriend to have.”

Oh-oh. Teen boy fantasy incoming, thinks dad. Now, the trip we’ve been on was a school outing, and as many of the kids were boarders, a chance to get away from school and, well socialize under somewhat less constrained conditions than those at school (which were strict). There was, besides the excitement of rock-climbing and rappelling – to which there were a large number of beginners trying it out – a fair amount of the usual girl/boy, boy/girl interaction. I prepared myself for a litany of blond/red/brown/black hair, ample frontage etc. “Like what?” I asked. Might as well know, and I was already casting my mind through the various girls who had been on the trip.

“Short fingernails”

“What?”

It turns out that girls who are more concerned with keeping their fingernails perfect than doing things my boy thought were fun (hard rock climbing is not good for the nails) are a bad choice. I never found out which of the young ladies had thus disappointed him, but I was inordinately pleased, (His mother and I climbed together, and I thought much the same). Yes, the girl he married climbs harder than he does, and never gave her nails a thought.

It’s fair to say that there were a fair number of girls at my sons’ school who enjoyed the rock-climbing and revelled in the outdoor adventure pursuits (it was that kind of school, that’s why our kids went there)…  maybe even 20%. The others were indeed concerned about their nails. It takes all sorts, and that’s fine by me. But the point I am asking you to note is the interests of that set of girls (besides the normal interests due to a whole lot of hormones) and a lot of boys… are quite different. Yes, there is crossover. But what a lot of boys regard as interesting isn’t always true the other way. And vice-versa, natch.

So: another little anecdote: My kids have a bunch of friends out at the farm. Younger boy with his first girl-friend (at least that I knew of). Now, my kids like some of the outdoor stuff mom and dad loved, but… they’re geeks. Both did math and physics at uni, both play boardgames ardently, both read a lot. This describes their ‘set’ of friends. The younger kid’s gf – nice girl, very pretty, vivacious… and the kids come in, just before dinner, flop in the lounge in front of the fire… and my kids – and the couple of regular friends all grab their books. This kid is looking like a lost soul. Sociable reading is not something her family does. In fact… reading really isn’t. Nice kid, but I am glad my son ended up with someone who reads a lot.

Fact: the kids of readers often end readers themselves. Opinion (mine) your reading son or daughter is better off with a partner who reads. It gives them a whole window into a bunch of other worlds and things they may never otherwise encounter or experience. If you have daughters, you want other people’s sons reading – and vice versa. It’s pure selfish motivation, no idealism – you want your kid to have the biggest market possible. You can argue that a society where reading is common is going to be a better place, and certainly a lot more comfortable to live in than one where no-one reads, or where all the entertainment and news is video. Reading means building something in your head, not the quite passive input of video.

OK: now to the meat. We’ve established that boys and girls – with some crossover, have quite different tastes in entertainment. Remember the whole crossover thing, I am a statistician, this is a numbers game. These are generalizations: Boys tend to like more action and adventure and are less interested in exploring relationships and feelings.  Boys also tend to like ‘solving’ problems. Yeah, the old joke, woman bitches about telling her problem to the guy. She wanted sympathy. He, the unfeeling brute, offered none, just a solution…

Here’s the thing: you want boys to read (and you should. You should want everyone to read.  It’s in your, and your kids, best interest.) You’ll need books that interest them, with heroes they will identify with and maybe even role model on. Go into any book-store, look at any publisher’s list – especially in SF/fantasy all you will find is Romantasy with girls-bosses. If there’s a male character, 10:1 he’s gay or from a suitable victim-class of minority – or (see Netflix ‘adolescence’ the latest punching of white boys) the villain. Great. Happy to have such books. Some people are more worried about their fingernails. But don’t expect your daughter to find a reading partner and give you grandies with them. If you want that, you’re going to have to fish with the right bait. I’ve been saying this for a long time: just like we need books on school reading lists that don’t make that the last book someone ever reads, we need books to draw in young men.

So: what are such books? Recently they’ve been quite rare.  There are a few, but if they’re from New York Trad publishing 10:1 they’ll get to be boring sermons of NYC ideological purity before too long. The Hardy Boys are long gone… at least sf/fantasy doesn’t date quite as easily as books set in a contemporary setting.  My boys reveled in Allen Dean Foster’s ICERIGGER, and the FLINX books. They liked TUNNEL IN THE SKY (Heinlein), THE HIGH CRUSADE, THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS (Poul Anderson) as examples. But Laumer, Leinster, De Camp… they found the bits of its of contemporary (when written) setting hard going. One of them read a fair bit of Andre Norton – more because he’d run out of books than ‘first choice’.

The books they really liked were fast paced, lots of action, with heroic (male) heroes, doing heroic things. I think the weird and dangerous settings helped too, but that might be me. So: I set out to write just that sort of book. I know I would have loved it. My sons would have loved it. My nephew and niece would have loved it… Actually, as an adult I would still love it. So, let’s see if it can find a market, now.