The Alphahole Conundrum

My books! Spotted in the wild at George R.R. Martin's Beastly Books.

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "Sex on the Beach & Sand in the Wrong Places: What's your favorite bit of pop-culture fiction doesn't work well in reality?"

For the record, I'm going to put out there that you CAN totally have sex on the beach without getting sand in the wrong places. It's not even that difficult. Are these other people rolling around in the sand with sticky parts first?? I can't even.

Anyway...

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about fiction vs. reality. It's pretty clear to me - as I think it is for almost everyone - that stories aren't the same as real life. We want different things from our stories than we do in life. The fact that people even ask about it, like the perennial question about whether readers understand that romance in books isn't the same as in real life, is a head scratcher to me.

Um, yes. We DO understand that fictional romance is different. That's why it's called FICTION.

Every time someone complains about how there should be more awkward, terrible sex in romances I want to ask if they didn't get enough of that in their own lives. Really, that's what you want to read about for entertainment? Okay...

Anyway, one disconnect between fiction and reality is the domineering romance hero. He's broody. He's quick to anger and deliciously sexy when he loses his shit. He's protective, obsessed with the heroine to the point of suffocation. He's powerful, ruthless, and an irresistible force of nature.

We love this guy!

We would never in a million years want one in real life.

The term "alphahole" is often applied to this kind of hero, though I don't much care for it. I think most Romance readers use it for this kind of hero who goes too far into asshole jerk territory. And, pedantic types who seem unable to distinguish fiction from reality, will go on about all the behavioral red flags madly flapping here.

True enough. Like I said, we don't want this guy in real life. It's about the fantasy.

What is it about the fantasy that works here? I dunno. Could be an atavistic thing where that silverback gorilla still wows us and makes us feel safe and fertile. The herd buck is majestic and thrilling, no doubt. Also, I think power is interesting to us, no matter what form it takes.

Really, it's no conundrum at all.

Spare Me the Antihero

Houston, we have a release date. On June 10, the third book in my SFR series Chronicles of the Empire comes out. The first NEW novel in this series in nine long years. Seriously overdue.

It's never a good day when a radioactive hunk of starship nearly drops on your head.

The Claugh Empire attacked Edie's planet fifteen years ago, murdered her parents, and left the teen for dead. So when a wrecked Claugh starship interrupts a salvage mission, she's torn between revenge and rescuing survivors—especially the stirring captain with an uncanny ability to rekindle her dead emotions. Something about him inflames the urge to come to terms with her past. But the mercenary in Edie doubts trusting a former enemy will bring her redemption or put old prejudices to bed. When a new common enemy, hell-bent on wiping out humanoids, threatens to bury them all, the captain tries to convince her a mutual coalition might breach their political impasse—all for the greater good.

I think I have the tropes SO covered with this book. Enemies to lovers. A heroine who flirts momentarily with being an antihero which is funny, because when we talk about tropes I don't want to see, the antihero is right at the top. I wish I could breakdown why I hate antiheroes so much. Maybe it having to read A Clockwork Orange in high school. I wanted every single character in that book dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. And not by their own hands. I wanted them robbed of the agency they robbed others of. Apparently I am karma, and I have zero patience. Either way. It feels to me like antiheroes are either unwilling to learn and grow or are too stupid to do so. Therefore, in a just universe (and hey, in fiction, you GET to have a just universe dammit! That's why it's fiction!) they'd all die because death is the result of failing to adapt, right? I suppose this all makes sense since we currently have a cadre of antiheroes running our government like it's a clown car and I have certain intense feelings about that. (Please let me live long enough to vote in November!)

So yeah. Antiheroes. Won't read 'em. If I want to keep company with willfully ignorant jerks I'll turn on the news, thanks.