My name is not Mary Sue
I just finished reading The Jennifer Morgue by Charlie Stross. I like Stross, he’s inventive and tells engaging stories1, but I’m getting a bit tired of the “geekier-than-thou” stuff that pervades his work (that I’ve read so far). Ok, so we know his characters are über-geeks that uniform in black tees and gadgets and speak Assembler. Why does he have to tell us this so frequently? It’s as though he’s making his heroes be Mary Sues for his target demographic, which I’m obviously not a part of.
Of course, I was reminded of Mary Suedom by Stross himself, in the appendix to The Jennifer Morgue, where he discusses the relationship between Ian Fleming and James Bond… Is he tweaking the nose of his readers? Should I feel manipulated? Hmm… no, I don’t, not really. I felt a similar annoyance after reading Glasshouse, like I was being allowed to read the book though I was too unsophisticated to get everything.
So call this moderated praise for the author. Stross has the potential to be a strong enough storyteller to transcend the SF label, but he’s running the risk of boring us all who don’t want to read h4×0r that doesn’t support the action of the story. I’ll probably wait to read more of his work until it’s based around a different character type. I hope it happens soon.
- No really, once I get started, I have to read them all the way through.↩
