eating disorders in SFF?

[kate_nepveu]

Are there any science fiction or fantasy novels that contain eating disorders, besides Buckell's Sly Mongoose?

Comments

[justinelavaworm.livejournal.com]

In Pretties, the second book of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series, one of the methods they use to fight the changes to their brains is anorexia to the point where I think it morphs into anorexia nervosa.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

There's a Jane Yolen short story, possibly called "Names," in which the daughter of a concentration camp survivor develops anorexia and eventually starves herself to death. Though maybe that wasn't actually fantasy.

Mark Vorkosigan is a binge eater, and was also abused into a form of bulimia.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

IIRC, Mark Rogers' Zorachus(1986) had an evil high priest who binged.

Again IIRC, Nancy Springer's Apocalypse has Famine as an anorexic.

And C.S. Lewis's Pilgrim's Regress has Pride as an anorexic.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I think somethingorother by Charles De Lint has a character with an eating disorder. Can't remember which though...a lot of them blend together.

[ejmam.livejournal.com]

Robin Hobb has a series where the protagonist is magically affected to overeat and become really fat. Which makes everyone hate him, of course. I think it's the Soldier's Son trilogy.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

I assume you're not looking for a list of zombie novels...

More anorexia in Carole Nelson Douglas' Counterprobe, a diabetic in Piers Anthony's Killobyte, and magical obesity in Hobb's Forest Mage. Normally in this sort of discussion I'd name my favorite books that fit the criteria, but this time I could only think of books I hated (I love everything Hobb wrote [under that name] except for that trilogy, and CND's Probe was very good).

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

David J. Skal, Antibodies, sf/horror, major subplot with anorexia/body dysmorphic disorder, not recommended.

Sage Walker, Whiteout - character is so focused on online life he neglects food to the point of starvation.

I feel like there must be some YA/urban fantasy on this topic but cannot think of any examples.

[lbmango.livejournal.com]

Mark VorKosigan and Famine from Good Omens spring to mind.

I'm sure there must also be some "Black Ribbon Vampires" (as in Pratchett) who have food issues... although in Pratchett it's taken as more Temperance and alcoholism than eating disorder... I'm sure someone else deals with it as an eating disorder.

Did this come out of Boskone? or are you planning a panel on it next year (it would be a great topic I think)

[calimac.livejournal.com]

On a slightly related topic, Robert Silverberg's "The Iron Chancellor" is a satire of over-maniacal diet plans.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Do weird allegies count? I can think of a few characters who couldn't eat the usual stereoisomers. Maybe more than a few.

[takumashii.livejournal.com]

There's Meg Rosoff's not-quite-SF "How I Live Now," in which an anorexic girl goes to her cousins' house in England and gets caught up in terrorism and war -- um, I'm not doing a very good job describing it, but it's beautifully written and not at all problem-novely.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Francesca Lia Block, The Hanged Man. The main character is anorexic and IIRC bulimic. The book may be fantasy or may be magical-realist but either way is one of her best. I think she may also have had anorexia turn up in one of her outright fantasies but I can't remember off the top of my head.

It feels like Elizabeth Hand ought to have it somewhere.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Tangent: In Octavia Butler's short story "The Morning, the Evening, and the Night" (maybe those are in a different order), there is an inherited disease that can be controlled in part by diet.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Oh: Susan Palwick, Flying in Place. The narrator's dead sister died of pneumonia as a complicated by anorexia, and the narrator overeats in response to stress.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I'm not certain if it's quite sf or just horror (partly because I don't know where you draw the boundary and partly because I couldn't stand to finish it), but Richard Bachman's Thinner is very much about disordered eating.

[radiotelescope.livejournal.com]

It's been a long time, but one of the Meredith Ann Pierce "Darkangel" books had hungerspice, which was used to keep the protagonist prisoner while happily starving herself to death on non-food. Not a body image issue, but a means of control certainly. And creepy.

I bet the author had eating disorders in mind when she wrote it, although I didn't have an eye open for that sort of thing back when I read it.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

You might try talking to wild_irises. She'd done lots of body image stuff both connected and not with sf. She and Laurie Edison have a blog called Body Impolitic (http://www.laurietobyedison.com/discuss/) which deals with these issues in Real Life.

Or if you don't know her, would you like me to nudge wild_irises to come take a look at this post and comments?

MKK

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

"The Food Farm" by Kit Reed is an amazing SF story about food and body shape and pop idols and being a teenaged girl.

Yes, I could not get over the bulimia subtext in Sly Mongoose though I hated that the copyeditor chose to render it as "bulemia" throughout.