distressing trends in fiction

I know, I know. This is the Sententious Vaunter. I should be penning you a panegyric, not a philippic. But sometimes I discover things which make me want to scream, and the only place I can scream eloquently enough is here on this blog. So strap yourselves in. It's ranting time. 

I'm drawing attention to this subject because (a) it bugs me and (b) to my knowledge, the phenomenon has only recently been named. Finally, we have a label for all those teen romance books that involve vampires, werewolves, zombies and aliens.

I first saw the label at Barnes & Noble. Two whole sections of bookshelf had been given over to the genre, whose individual components were earmarked by the Goth-looking teenagers on the covers, the sinister titles, the dark colors, and their universal, superficial resemblance to the Twilight series. The placard over this section indicated that these works were "Teen Paranormal Romance."

What? What the hell is teen paranormal romance? I thought.

Then I realized. The resemblance to Twilight wasn't superficial. People—grown men and women, not just teenage girls—had gotten so infatuated with the type of story which Twilight offered that the series had sparked an entire genre: teen girls (and, in some cases, teen guys) falling in love with eldritch monsters.

Oh jeez, I thought. That's ridiculous. Thanks a heap, Stephanie Meyer. You really started something.

As you can probably tell, I don't approve of Twilight or anything remotely resembling it. Specifically, I take issue with the manner in which Twilight has degraded and diluted the definition of masculinity. Instead of being rough, hardy, muscular, forthright and boisterous, like real men ought to be, Meyer's ideal man is a skulking, pale, sensitive, soft-spoken freak of a pretty boy. I don't consider that manly at all. And yet scores of swooning teenage girls have gone wild for Edward Cullen; Indiana Jones, Conan the Barbarian and James Bond are chauvinistic fossils by comparison.

This is not the kind of world I want to live in.

The problem is simple. The very fact that this disturbing trend has been labeled means that it's entrenched. Teen paranormal romance is here to stay, at least for a while. It's the big thing in fiction right now. The Twilight movies are slaughtering the box office and paranormal romance of every variety is infecting the shelves of booksellers nationwide. There's no way to dislodge the phenomenon. It makes me cringe to think of what might come next.

As always, I shall be the lone voice of sanity in these insane, chaotic times (boy, ain't that ironic). While teen girls (and, I suspect, a generous sample of middle-aged women) ooh and aah over the pencil-necked vampire boys, I shall continue to write stories which feature musclebound guys, ball-crushing badasses, and suave, straight-talking champions. I shall let the purity of the masculine ideal speak for itself in my fiction. Bold adventurers, quick-thinking rogues and rock-hard heroes will never go out of style, and though some distressing trends in fiction have arisen of late (and will do so again), I shall remain a bastion of artistic integrity and truth.

There shall be a good deal of romance in my books, and no street-smart, gorgeous heroine of mine is going to fall for any pale, bloodsucking pretty boy.

So help me Crom.

(Funny story: Conan's facial expression here exactly resembles mine whenever somebody mentions Twilight.)

I also think steampunk is way overrated, but that's a story for another day. I need to go fix myself a drink. Annyeong!