WisCon Brainstorming

[affreca]

I'm in the early stages of thinking about submitting a panel for WisCon. Like a lot of my panel ideas, the original idea is because I read a couple of books in a row with a similar character, and I want to compare/contrast them. Not sure I've got the chops enough to make it interesting.

I've read three books in a row with an older female vet as the protagonist. All drummed out of the service, and slightly bitter about it. This got me thinking about other books with female vets main characters, and I'm trying to think about what they say as a group.

List so far (Character - Author - Book)
Herris Serrano - Elizabeth Moon - Hunting Party, Sporting Chance, Winning Colors
Ariane Kadros - Laura Reeve - Peacekeeper
Lacey - Katherine Kerr - Polar City Blues
Bet Yeager - C. J. Cherryh - Rimrunners
Jani Kilian - Kristine Smith - Code of Conduct to Endgame
Jenny Casey - Elizabeth Bear - Hammered, Scardown and Worldwired
Cordelia Naismith - Lois McMaster Bujold - Barrayar

Cordelia is the only mother of the group, though Jenny ends up with stepchildren. Jenny and Jani (lot of parallels in those two series) start off both hiding from their military, dealing with physical damage of their service. Hmm...

One area of discussion would be that having a veteran allows you to have an older female character without a family. Several of these books are about making some sort of family of choice.

Input? Other characters I'm not thinking of (any from movies/TV)?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

China Beach tv show. Though she is a vet only in the last episode or the special movie (can't remember which) that shows the characters after the war.