On Diana Wynne Jones, and her awesomeness.

I heard via Neil Gaiman's blog that Diana Wynne Jones one of my favorite children's/YA fantasy authors, had just gone in for a serious operation. She seems to be ok, but given that I've been trying to convert my fellow Clarionites to reading her oeuvre, I thought I'd give a rundown of my personal faves.

# 5: The Tough Guide to Fantasyland: The Essential Guide to Fantasy Travel: A humorous roundup of every fantasy cliche there is, and an invaluable guide for fantasy writers who want to learn how *not* to describe their characters. Here's a hint: Silver eyes? Totally been done.

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On whitewashing

Yoinked from matociquala: Justine Larbalestier on "whitewashing" in cover art.

I first noticed the whitewashing phenomenon as a kid reading R.A. Salvatore's Drizzt series. Drizzt is an immensely popular character, and is notably dark-skinned (it's a major plot point in every book). While it was ok for him to be depicted as dark-skinned on the original 90s cover of The Crystal Shard (Salvatore's first Forgotten Realms book), when he was a sidekick to be depicted crouching at the feet of the blond, white-skinned warrior hero, once Drizzt became a starring character, the cover art changed to depicting him as an old white guy. Really. The fans hated it, but it was the standard through the 90s. It's only when Wizards of the Coast started reissuing the books with art by Todd Lockwood that Drizzt was once more depected as having dark skin.

When I was teaching my fantasy class I would put up overheads of the changiing Drizzt covers, and the changing depictions of Ged in Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea books. The first time I taught the lesson was the same year that the godawful SF miniseries came out. When I put up the poster for the whitewashed miniseries there was a shocked silence. I didn't get any more "racism doesn't exist nowadays" comments for the rest of the semester.