The male perspective

Male authors and our male leading characters are ten a penny in many genres. Men are certainly well represented in fantasy, but maybe not so much in urban fantasy, which has tended to be dominated by female authors writing strong female characters.

Great male authors whose genres include urban fantasy are Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman and Jim Butcher, and a new star dawning in a big way is Kevin Hearne, whose Hounded is simply the best fun I've had reading a book in years.

And then there's me. :)

Hey, please don't think I'm trying to place myself in company with those great names. They're famous mountaineers on top of the world, while I'm training on rock faces and hoping for greatness one day.

But I am a bloke and I do write male characters along with my female ones. Stella at Book Lovers Inc talked about this when she reviewed my new Carina Press release Quarter Square this week:

What made me pick up Quarter Square - the fact that its author was a man - didn't let me down. The difference in logic, perception and handling of events was refreshing and authentic. It was wonderful climbing inside the mind of a man and seeing and understanding why he does what he does. It was interesting to see Joe's reasoning behind his hurt of discovering his wife having an affair with his best friend and that it was mostly the sense of betrayal which infuriated him: that he doesn't begrudge his best friend for falling in love with his wife but for lying to him and making him lose his best friend. Reading a story through a man's perspective is fun and liberating: a man narrator is blunter, doesn't overanalyze things (even though he spends a fair time on exploring his emotions it definitely does not come off as mushy), and remains more realistic.

Full review here.

I'll be available to discuss The Male Perspective in an open Q&A session all day this Friday at Romance Divas. It's part of RD's wonderful week-long Not Going To Conference Conference, which is completely free and fantastic fun. Please come along (it's easy to register) and say hello.

And if you'd like to meet my urban fantasy hero Joe Walker in person, Quarter Square is available from Carina Press now.