Line #33 Literature/ChicksInChainmail


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15	[[quoteright:200:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/chicks_in_chainmail_7432.jpg]]
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17	''Chicks in Chainmail'' is a [[GenreAnthology fantasy anthology series]] created and edited by Creator/EstherFriesner, and published by Creator/BaenBooks, that centers around women warriors, usually with humorous tales and with a ChainmailBikini-clad woman on the cover that gets skimpier with each volume. So far, the following books have been published in the series:
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19	* ''Chicks in Chainmail'' ([=CiC=])
20	* ''Mathemagics'' - an expanded tale of Riva Konneva, who also has a short story in each anthology
21	* ''Did You Say Chicks?'' ([=DYSC=])
22	* ''Chicks 'n Chained Males'' ([=CnCM=])
23	* ''The Chick Is in the Mail'' (Mail)
24	* ''Turn the Other Chick'' ([=TTOC=])
25	* ''Chicks and Balances'' ([=CaB=])
26	* ''Chicks Ahoy'' (Ahoy; omnibus volume of the three first volumes)
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28	Regular contributors with a page here on Website/TVTropes have been Creator/EstherFriesner, Creator/LawrenceWattEvans, Creator/EricFlint, Creator/JimCHines, Creator/ElizabethMoon, Creator/WenSpencer, Creator/HarryTurtledove, and Creator/KDWentworth.
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30	The series was created as a humorous counterpart to the long-running ''Sword and Sorceress'' anthology series edited by Creator/MarionZimmerBradley.
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33	!!Chick the chick tropes
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35	* ActionGirl: The objective of the whole series is to showcase just about every subtype of the ActionGirl that can be applied to fantasy, and quite often lampshade it, subvert it, or otherwise play it for laughs.
36	* AmazonBrigade: In a book series revolving around female protagonists, it's a given than some stories would have one of these as heroes or villains. Some examples are Moon's ''Ladies' Aid & Armor Society" and Ball's "Bronze Bra Guild".
37	* BreakingTheFourthWall: In "The Thief and the Roller Derby Queen: An essay on the importance of formal education" in ''Mail'' by Creator/EricFlint, the story comments on the probable cover of the anthology and the reading habits of its buyers.
38	* ChainmailBikini: Most of the cover art of the series has women wearing this, and many of the stories spread throughout will have the protagonists wearing this or some other type of Fanservice outfit. The ChainmailBikini on the cover gets skimpier with each volume.
39	* ComicFantasy: All of the stories throughout the series are supposed to be funny in one way or another, from having a GreekChorus or LemonyNarrator to the fact that all stories in one book have dudes in distress, to one of the main characters in one of them essentially being Tyra Banks if she was Red Sonja, to one story being set in a universe where being a math geek makes you a powerful sorcerer, and so on.
40	* {{Deconstruction}}: A number of the stories deconstruct the genre comically. Example: [=CnCM=] has all of the DistressedDude characters forced to be in the same situations as your typical fantasy DamselInDistress, and most find it highly embarrassing.
41	* DistressedDude: The RunningGag on ''Chicks 'n Chained Males'' is that every male main character that appears on the story will inevitably be in this situation.
42	* FanserviceCover: Discussed in the forward to the first book of the ''Chicks In Chainmail'' anthology, describing women on the covers of certain fantasy books looking '[[BuxomBeautyStandard As if they had been hit from the back by a brace of torpedoes.]]'. The Series itself has an ever-skimpier chainmail bikini on the covers.
43	* FeministFantasy: Deliberately so, even with the ChainmailBikini trappings. The series is playing with the often-too-serious feminist heroines in silly ways because, as Freisner basically says in her foreword to the first volume, being able to laugh at genre conventions is important.
44	* FormulaicMagic: In "Career Day" in [=CiC=], the protagonist comes from a world where magic is done with mathematical formulas. She brings her daughter's class there on a field trip to observe her in her career as a barbarian swordswoman. When her opponent in a duel cheats by hiring a wizard to help him, the other chaperon on the trip, her daughter's math teacher counteracts the magic with his knowledge of calculus. ItMakesSenseInContext. The stories got a full novel as a sequel, called ''Mathemagics'', with this entire premise for the magical system.
45	* HurricaneOfPuns: The book series' titles alone are loaded with "chick" gags, and the stories inside are even crazier.
46	* JamesBondage: A OnceAnEpisode RunningGag throughout [=CnCM=]'s stories is every male main character being in this situation at some point.
47	* PunBasedTitle: ''Chicks 'n Chained Males'', ''The Chick Is in the Mail'', ''Turn the Other Chick'', ''Chicks and Balances''.
48	* WorldOfActionGirls: Both the theme of the series (every hero is an ActionGirl) and in many stories, where the societies are dominated by women warriors.

Context Literature / ChicksInChainmail