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In search of consolation from free-floating angst, I drifted about my shelves looking for a Barbara Hambly or Megan Lindholm book I hadn't read recently (no dice) and realized that what I craved were fictional depictions of people who love each other and have relationships that, while they may be absolutely loaded with conflict and trouble, are still basically healthy and functional and conclude happily.
That is, they may have personal issues that get in the way, be married to other people, or be too busy fighting flying tentacled bloodsuckers to have time to work things out, but they don't do or say horrible things to each other and they're not in some creepy co-dependent I-can't-live-without-you-so-don't-leave-me-even-though-I deserve-it thing.
Frienships are OK too-- they don't have to be romantic, as long as they're the passionate, die-for-each-other type. Like Sam and Frodo or the guys in SAIYUKI or Bel and Rowan (Stop snickering and saying "Those first two _are_ romantic," you know what I mean.)
Any genre is fine, including romance, mainstream fiction, and TV, but be aware that I've either read or deliberately avoided most well-known fantasy and sf novels.
That is, they may have personal issues that get in the way, be married to other people, or be too busy fighting flying tentacled bloodsuckers to have time to work things out, but they don't do or say horrible things to each other and they're not in some creepy co-dependent I-can't-live-without-you-so-don't-leave-me-even-though-I deserve-it thing.
Frienships are OK too-- they don't have to be romantic, as long as they're the passionate, die-for-each-other type. Like Sam and Frodo or the guys in SAIYUKI or Bel and Rowan (Stop snickering and saying "Those first two _are_ romantic," you know what I mean.)
Any genre is fine, including romance, mainstream fiction, and TV, but be aware that I've either read or deliberately avoided most well-known fantasy and sf novels.
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Gloria Whelan's Homeless Bird is about a girl in an arranged marriage in India; the marriage is not happy, but the story leads in to a lovely romance. Young adult/children's fiction. You'll have to tell me if the India depiction works, but Whelan seems to be very conscientious about her research.
I liked Rupert and Julia in Simon R. Green's Blue Moon Rising and the HAWK AND FISHER books (Swords of Haven and Guards of Haven omnibuses, I think) and Beyond the Blue Moon, but if you disliike Green, disregard this recommendation.
The science in the sf Alien Taste Wes Spencer is whack, but there are some wonderful loving relationships in there, including two lesbian moms for the protagonist. I felt like I was reading something that wanted to be TV, but given how little TV I've watched in the last 10 years (I had to be told that Smallville, of which I saw 2-3 episodes while in Korea because my mom recommended it, was about Superman...), this may not be reliable.
Marilyn Singer's The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smoothis a YA romance centered around a student production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I've disliked Singer's fantasies, but enjoyed this one, which is not at all fantasy.
(Trying to come up with stuff you may not have read...yai, not easy.)
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My sister has a similar reaction--she liked Blue Moon Rising (and I think also Blood and Honor) but can't stand the rest of Green. I can rattle off a list of Green's flaws. He's almost a guilty pleasure, except I like him better'n that. :-)
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Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold. Cordelia meets Aral. A wonderful space opera love story.
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. A good fantasy, with wonderful characters.
Jaran by Kate Elliott. A tough, intelligent woman finds herself travelling across the plains with lots of hot men who ride horses. Oh, and some science fiction stuff, too. (It's actually very good.)
The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King. A romance begins in this one, but since it's a mystery series it takes a couple of books for it to completely develop. Sherlock Holmes pastiche. Very, very good.
These should do it, and have the benefit of being complete novels yet have sequels if you get really hooked. (And if you get far enough into the Jaran series, I'm Branwen Emrys.)
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Mia
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---L.
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Television:
John Crichton & Ka D'Argo, Farscape. There's a great partnership/friendship that weathers missed signals, failed romances, interspecies miscommunications, conflicting desires, and anything else you could ever care to throw at a friendship--and remains utterly believable throughout.
Napoleon Solo & Illya Kuryakin, The Man from UNCLE. Still the quintessential television law enforcement partnership, forty years later--a couple of guys who drive to work together, steal each other's girlfriends, one-up one another in front of their boss, and despite their obvious rivalry betray an absolute and manifest trust in one another, in the strength of their friendship, and in their willingness to walk through fire for each other. Napoleon charms people, and Illya shoots them. It's a match made in heaven.
And while we're on TV spies, how about
John Steed & Emma Peel, The Avengers. Another partnership that's also a friendship, and not to be taken lightly--they banter, flirt, tease, compliment, complement, and never, ever, ever miss a beat.
and
Alexander Scott & Kelly Robinson, I Spy. Utterly at ease in one another's company, completely impatient with one another's egos, courteous to each other's hurts and protective to the point of mother-henning, without ever quite losing the edge of masculine charm. The kind of guy friends that many women look at and go, "Damn, why I don't I have friends like that?"
In written media, (still on friendships)I can think of
Cirocco & Gabrielle, John Varley's Titan trilogy. A couple of mean, tough old ladies who back each other up a hundred and fifty percent, mad or sane, dead or living.
Schmendrick the Magician, the Unicorn, and Molly Grue, Peter Beagle's The Last Unicorn. Sure, there's a lot of unrequited love floating around in that little family, but in the end, Mooly and Schmendrick's love for 'Amalthea' is the love that can set her free to be the thing that she needs to be. It doesn't rob her of magic; it reinforces her magic, where the others who love her would make her mundane to possess her.
And then there's romance.
Freelorn & Herewiss & Sunspark, Diane Duane's The Door Into Fire. The sort of love that encompasses two princes and a creature of elemental fire might seem a little difficult to maintain, but the relationship that Duane portrays is so accepting and funny and real that she makes me believe it works.
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i agree with you, though, about the free-floating angst, and if it weren't for the fact that i've found myself in romantic (or lack thereof) drama, i'd probably just pop the princess bride on my dvd player and watch it over -- and over -- again.
sigh. where's the love?
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I'm also fond of Ella and Char's relationship in Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (the book, not that horrible movie.)
Orient and Tick-Tick in Emma Bull's Finder, and Eddi and the phouka in her War For the Oaks.
The relationships between characters (not saying who, don't want to spoil) in James Stoddard's The High House and The False House, two lovely books.
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(And, do you really think _Finder_ is appropriate, considering the end of the first paragraph of this post?!)
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One more interesting relationship - Tiger and Del in Jennifer Roberson's Sword-Dancer books. I cannot absolutely swear to you that it ends well, as I haven't yet read all of them - and it's not exactly high literature, but thier relationship is definitly interesting to watch develop.
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---L.
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It's true the Lissar and Ossin have a pretty good relationship, but someone looking for a cheer-up book should also be warned that Lissar goes through some major trauma before that part of the book.
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---L.
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One prospect in this line might be the "Amelia Peabody" mystery series by Elizabeth Peters (16 books to date), which has not one but two strong couples in it -- and lots and lots of angst in the second pairing. First book is Crocodile on the Sandbank; the other good entry point is The Last Camel Died at Noon. For continuity purposes, absolutely do NOT start with any volume more recent than Seeing A Large Cat -- that one begins a four-book arc within the series that ends with a major revelation, which then figures into subsequent volumes.