#READERS SHARE: Books with muscle/athletic woman

[bruce321]

Pulse (A Chess Team Adventure) by Jeremy Robinson

The Chess Team is a team of special forces soldiers that only take the most challenging missions, which in the books have a supernatural twist to them. The only female team member is Queen, who is basically described as looking like a heavyweight bodybuilder that prefers to kill in hand to hand combat. She's prominently featured, which makes this book very worthwhile.

Instinct (A Chess Team Adventure) by Jeremy Robinson

In the sequel, Queen is featured and if anything is more of a bad ass. She spends half the book running around the jungle topless in a quest for vengeance. What's disappointing is that the only physical description the author gives us are of her abs and breasts. It's as if somebody told him to back off and make the character more marketable.

[bruce321]

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[Wheatsheaf]

I've always noticed that Michael Crichton has athletic and muscular women in his books, I think it might be a secret (not so secret?) fetish of his.  In Sphere he had an actual female bodybuilder as one of the characters; the rest were mostly fitness types, but he clearly has a thing for the more athletic female.  Conclusion; if a man as brilliant as he can conclude there are good enough qualities in the more muscular gals, enough to include them in most of his books as prominent characters, then clearly we are all onto something that will only become more normal as time passes. 

Sorry to bring back this old thread but this is a really good point. He as, at the very least, an athletic woman in pretty much all his books. Just found this interesting passage from an article he wrote for Playboy in 1989 (full article here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login )

"Even in the simplest aspects of sexual dimorphism — like the fact that men have more muscle mass for a given body weight — the sexes overlap. What man has never cast an uneasy glance at the woman pumping iron next to him in the gym? Trying to casually add up the weight she's lifting. And how many reps is she doing?
The fact is that there are aggressive women and passive men, physical women and verbal men, career-oriented women and home-oriented men.
It may be true that most men differ from most woman in some statistical way. But we don't have relationships with "most men" or "most women." We have relationships with individual men and women. And when we apply the group stereotype to an individual, we are guilty of prejudice."

[fredzeppelin]

This was mentioned earlier, but if your looking for some "comedy" built around the fbb scene, try Harry Crews novel, BODY. I think Harry, very much a non-bodybuilder, was married to a FBB in real life. The book was published circa 1992...

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Take Care!

Crews is from my hometown of Gainesville, FL. In fact I think he taught courses in the English Department at the University of Florida. Real nice,
approachable guy, by all accounts.

[whocares]

OK boys.....

Spiderworld - plenty of minor characters are muscular women, in fact, the protagonist travels to a city full of absurdly muscular and dimwitted humans kept as a heavy labour class living under the rule of controlled evolution. The muscular females actually play a central part of the plot too.

The Cradle - by Arthur C Clark and Gentry Lee - the apparent villian is a female bodybuilder; described as a very sweaty and sexualised one at that too.

Red mars, green mars, and blue mars - by Kim Stanley Robinson - references to ancient minoan culture, female athletes feature in numerous parts of the lengthy series.

The man in the high castle - by philip K Dick - one of the protagonists is a women who practices judo; described as tough looking and gained bodyweight from her martial arts exercices.

Foundation and earth (I think) by Isaac Asimov - (at least one of the latter foundation books) One of the explorers arriving on a human world is "arressted" by a very strong looking martial arts woman with authority. She forces him into a "rape" of sorts and her breasts are described along the lines of "just like the rest of her; large heavy and forcefull" or something like that.

Neuromancer, by william Gibson - Case's girlfriend is a seductive cyborg fighter called Molly

Dune series by Frank Herbert - the Bene Gesserit are a sort of amazon tribe/nation/significant force that plays a significant part in almost all the books.

The hot zone by richard preston - there is a female martial artist who took the lessons to make her moves more slow and composed but trained to the point "where she could kill a man". her body is not described as far as i can recall.

[From Scratch]

Thanks bruce and whocares for the suggestions. In Prelude to Foundation, Hari Seldon's girlfriend is much stronger than normal, for reasons that may be obvious to those familiar with Asimov's universe.

[Norfolknchance]

Stieg Larsson's The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (the 3rd of his Millemium series) features a bodybuilding policewoman, Monica Figuerola.  From memory in the book she kicks ass a couple of times and there are a couple of good descriptive passages.

In the Swedish film version she's played by Mirja Turestedt - who doesn't look big let alone like a bodybuilder.  I wonder who'll play her in the hHollywood version - assuming they get that far?

[Boyo]

Stieg Larsson's The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest... In the Swedish film version she's played by Mirja Turestedt - who doesn't look big let alone like a bodybuilder.  I wonder who'll play her in the hHollywood version - assuming they get that far?

Oh, the films will get that far, no question, and our hopes of an FBB (or at least a "tough girl") getting the part of Figuerola stand a good chance because David Fincher is down to direct it and Fincher is a stickler for respecting source material. I mean he made sure "The Social Nework" was airtight in accuracy, as was his take on the book "Zodiac", as well as his take on the book "Fight Club".

There is a thread about the actress for Kick Ass 2; you're far more likely to see a muscle girl in the third film of this trilogy. Don't know who'll play her though.

[p2edion2]

After I read Hannibal, I always wonder who  could play Margot Verger's role.  Because the description, I always thought in Marja Lehtonen... But if Hollywood changed the end of the movie (compared with the book), it's not strange thet they didn't want a FBB on it either.  Too bad for us.

[bigbob111]

they probably had to drop margot because it would create too many complications for a 2 hour movie. Also most audiences would not anticipate a novelty like a female bodybuilder in the first place compared to eating each others brains for example; that sort of thing happens all the time these days.

[p2edion2]

they probably had to drop margot because it would create too many complications for a 2 hour movie. Also most audiences would not anticipate a novelty like a female bodybuilder in the first place compared to eating each others brains for example; that sort of thing happens all the time these days.

Sure... but in the movie part of Margot's action (and actually the most important part) was credited to Cordell, which was a secondary role anyway.  I mean, in the book the participation of Cordell is minimal compared with Margot Verger, but in the movie they eliminated Margot and gave all the credit to Cordell (I insist, very small role).  So, it's sad, because it was the big posibility for a FBB in a high budget movie.

[yc2201]

IIRC Pool of Radiance had two extremely strong women, one was a warrior, the other was a mage who had her strength massively enhanced by a ring of wishes.

[Boyo]

After I read Hannibal, I always wonder who  could play Margot Verger's role.  Because the description, I always thought in Marja Lehtonen... But if Hollywood changed the end of the movie (compared with the book), it's not strange thet they didn't want a FBB on it either.  Too bad for us.

I think the main reason they cut Margot Verger is not because of some collective Hollywood rejection of female bodybuilders, but because there was no one to play her. As nice as it sounds, you can't just put Marja Lehtonen in a major movie with Sir Anthony Hopkins and Juliette Lewis, based on a Thomas Harris book. In a major role. And you can't reasonably expect any actress to get to the level of muscularity Harris describes for Margot. Margot is described as an absolutely gigantic female bodybuilder, riddled with steroids.

[Madvillain]

It's very popular and well-known but Geroge R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series has a woman called Brienne who's stronger than most men, although she's constantly being described for how ugly she is. Tons of imagery about how big and muscular she is though. I don't watch the Game of Thrones TV series but I know she's in that as well.

[fredzeppelin]

Songs of Fire and Ice is literary crack cocaine. I think I read book 3 (the best in the series by far) in a span of a week
because I just couldn't put it down.
Brienne is not really character I found particularly exciting. Yes she is freakishly big and strong, and can best most men
in swordplay, but she is also ugly, and her physique has SOME muscular devlopment (eg. broad shoulders) but it is by no
means a bodybuilder physique.
But you shouldnt be reading that series for the muscular women. You should be reading because it, in a word, ROCKS. I'm
mid-way through book five now, and the pace hasnt slowed down a bit. My only concern is what the heck am I going to read after
this!

[Madvillain]

i agree with all that, especially about the series itself. i'm in the middle of the third book myself, and the series just keeps getting better and better. he takes so long to put each book out (which i guess is a good thing actually) but i'm wondering if i'm the only one with the concern that he's getting up there and years and isn't exactly in the best shape.