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Seems the Fantasy Book Cafe website is running a poll on which books by women writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy are our favourites. Anyone wishing to cast a vote can go to here, and do so.
In no particular order:
Earthsea Trilogy (Ursula K LeGuin)
Coldfire Trilogy (C.S. Friedman)
Pern Series (Anne McCaffrey)
Deathgate Cycle (Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman)
Animorphs (K.A. Applegate)
Elvenbane series (Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey)
Obsidian Trilogy (Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory)
Symphony of Ages series (Elizabeth Hayden)
In Conquest Born (C.S. Friedman)
The Dragon Jousters (Mercedes Lackey)
Yeah I kinda cheated for two of 'em.
Ah, s@**, actually, I should've replaced Symphony of Ages with the Darkover novels (Marion Zimmer Bradley).
No love for Julian May or Anne McCaffrey?
I base my interest in a book on its name, the cover art, and the blurb on the back (not in that order). The gender of an author has never figured into my choice to pick a book up and read it.
The only time I am interested in the name of an author is to see if they wrote any more books.
My attitude to female authors is the same as female role players. The more people that are participating the richer and more diverse my options are and the more material is available.
So I am more than happy to encourage anybody to read and write and participate
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Not to start a flame war or anything, but is there any real reason to seperate books written by either gender from the other? I can see why this happens in chess, for example, as I understand (according to what one of the best players from my country told me) that proffesional male players are generaly speaking better than female players, but in sci fi and fantasy writing?
seriously, why does this poll exist? would you open a poll for "best fantasy book written by blonds"? gender seems unrelated to the subject matter.
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If you read the blog post it explains it pretty well.
There are less female SF&F authors (or at least less successful ones) than male authors. Let's make a list of good ones to recommend to people.
Women and men have different perspectives on life as well. The gender of an author is pretty easy to tell a lot of the time by what stories are told and the WAY they're told. There are major differences between literature written by men and women.
They both can be equally good, but for different reasons.
Not to start a flame war or anything, but is there any real reason to seperate books written by either gender from the other? I can see why this happens in chess, for example, as I understand (according to what one of the best players from my country told me) that proffesional male players are generaly speaking better than female players, but in sci fi and fantasy writing?
seriously, why does this poll exist? would you open a poll for "best fantasy book written by blonds"? gender seems unrelated to the subject matter.
I can think of one reason...when I looked to fill out the poll...I could not come up with ten names. There are probably ten females authors I have read and enjoyed...but I am going to have too look though my libary to refresh my memory.
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If you read the blog post it explains it pretty well.
There are less female SF&F authors (or at least less successful ones) than male authors. Let's make a list of good ones to recommend to people.
Women and men have different perspectives on life as well. The gender of an author is pretty easy to tell a lot of the time by what stories are told and the WAY they're told. There are major differences between literature written by men and women.
They both can be equally good, but for different reasons.
Ah, I see.
There are also less people of color (is that the correct term nowdays? Is it African Americans?) among SF&F authors. Also less Jews. Should we maybe make a poll for recommandable SF&F by any of those groups?
I wouldn't say stories written by either gender are distiguishable from those written by the other. Having read a fair share of books by men and by women, I can state that 90% of the time I wouldn't have been able to guess. As a matter of fact, that number is very mcuh accurate - in an anthology books called warriors there are stories by authors of both genders, and I only read the name of an author AFTER reading the story, and usualy I wasn't able to guess which author was of what gender.
If there is maybe one difference, it is that female authors include more female characters in their stories, a thing which really male authors should start doing more often as well.
Can't see this poll as anything but an example of subtle sexism.
EDIT: fixed link
There are, pretty commonly.
Walk into your local library in February (well, if you're in the US anyway) some time.
Black History Month is February (October in Europe I believe). Most libraries put works by black authors on prominent display for the entirety of the month.
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Ah. Well, that is about commemorating some of the crimes and unjustice suffered by blacks during the last... what, 700 years of history or so? Anyway, it's a gesture done with the purpose of attempting to correct past wrongdoings. I can also place a bet on more than picket change that most of the books written by black authors that is promoted during that month is about, well, black history.
But presenting SF&F written by female authors as anything else than the exact same kind of SF&F written by males is sexism in it's most basic and rudimentary form: distinguishing between genders in a descriminating, unjustified way.
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Ah. Well, that is about commemorating some of the crimes and unjustice suffered by blacks during the last... what, 700 years of history or so? Anyway, it's a gesture done with the purpose of attempting to correct past wrongdoings. I can also place a bet on more than pocket change that most of the books written by black authors that is promoted during that month are about, well, black history.
But presenting SF&F written by female authors as anything else than the exact same kind of SF&F written by males is sexism in it's most basic and rudimentary form: distinguishing between genders in a descriminating, unjustified way. In other words, unless there's an actual, proveable piece of evidance that while men tend to write books of kind X, women tend to write books of kind Y, the linked poll is sexist (to both males and females, by the way).
Enchanted Glass by the late Diane Wynne Jones. Unlike other SF Authors (Heinlein, for example)she was still on top form. A true loss to literature.
This may be related to the statistical study a few weeks ago showing that, despite women writing more than 50% of released fantasy novels (including YA and urban) and about 30% of SF, they are massively less likely than men to be reviewed. A similar poll a year ago caused me to revise my reviewing policy on my website (I now review 50/50 men and women) and I know a few others who've done the same.
This poll is another way of adjusting the mix back to what it should be (50/50) by raising the profile of female SFF authors. It's isn't suggesting that women should be covered more than men, just in parity, which is not what is happening at the moment.
My choices:
THE FOLDING KNIFE by KJ Parker
THE SWORD OF SHADOWS (series) by JV Jones
THE DISPOSSESSED and THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS by Ursula K. LeGuin
FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Shelly
BEGGARS IN SPAIN by Nancy Kress
THE CASTLE SERIES by Steph Swainston
THE MATTHEW SWIFT SERIES by Kate Griffin
I've just started Lois McMaster Bujold's VORKOSIGAN series and it seems to be pretty decent as well.
There are less female SF&F authors (or at least less successful ones) than male authors. Let's make a list of good ones to recommend to people.
There are (slightly) more female fantasy authors than men, but a lot less SF. However, the 'less successful' claim is suspect. The biggest-selling SFF series in the world right now is by a woman (JK Rowling). So are several of the next few down (Suzanne Collins and Stephanie Meyer). The joint-most-critically-lauded author in the history of the Hugo Awards is a woman (Lois McMaster Bujold).
It's true they are underrepresented in reviews and in profile, and certainly in the SF field, but the half-billion HARRY POTTER books that Joanne Rowling has shifted has indicated it's not such a barrier to sales :-)
...although the "JK" makes me wonder if it helps a female author to hide her name behind initials, or a pseudonym.
(To be sure, you must have been hiding under a rock for the last 15 years not to know the gender of the "Harry Potter" author, but still, I wonder if the series' initial sales would have been the same had those book covers read "Jo Rowling".)
Anyhoo, I'm not nearly well-read enough to vote in that poll, but I feel compelled to mention the Dragon Prince / Dragon Star series by Melanie Rawn. It's not often that I, with my short attention span, stick with a 3000+ -page saga for its duration, but that series kept my interest throughout.
"The Family Tree" by Sheri S. Tepper. Extremely deep, not campy. It's what you might call "serious stuff."
Dreadnought (Star Trek: The Original Series #29) by Diane Carey
and
Battlestations! (Star Trek: The Original Series #31)by Diane Carey
Her Star Wars novels are great, too.
There are less female SF&F authors (or at least less successful ones) than male authors. Let's make a list of good ones to recommend to people.There are (slightly) more female fantasy authors than men, but a lot less SF. However, the 'less successful' claim is suspect. The biggest-selling SFF series in the world right now is by a woman (JK Rowling). So are several of the next few down (Suzanne Collins and Stephanie Meyer). The joint-most-critically-lauded author in the history of the Hugo Awards is a woman (Lois McMaster Bujold).
It's true they are underrepresented in reviews and in profile, and certainly in the SF field, but the half-billion HARRY POTTER books that Joanne Rowling has shifted has indicated it's not such a barrier to sales :-)
Less in number + successfullNESS, not less success once they start selling. I truly cannot think of too many more successful female Fantasy/Sci-Fi authors than I already threw out. Either they're less common or they're less prominent, it has to be one or the other with the amount of books I chew through in a year.
And please, don't mention that...thing's name in my presence. It's a travesty that she's as successful as she is. I tried reading the first book back when it had juuuust started to become a thing and was appalled at how terribly written everything about it was.
But of course it targeted the easiest POSSIBLE audience to target and she raked in tons of money from selling her random fanfiction to the masses.
I have less hate for the series itself than I do for the person who wrote it, unlike most people I know.
"The Family Tree" by Sheri S. Tepper. Extremely deep, not campy. It's what you might call "serious stuff."
The only book I've read by her is "A Plague of Angels" it was pretty good, if a bit strange.
I did not read a lot of female authors to make a decent list, these I remember the most
Ursula Le Guin - The Dispossessed
C.J. Cherryh - Morgaine Saga
JV Jones - Watcher of the Dead
Janny Wurts - Mistress of the Empire
Elaine Cunningham - Evermeet
Leigh Brackett - Sinharat and Talisman
Susana Clarke - Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell
Robin Hobb - Fool's Fate
Mary Gentle - Ash
Julian May - Many Colored Land
Catherynne Valente - Deathless
Dreadnought (Star Trek: The Original Series #29) by Diane Carey
and
Battlestations! (Star Trek: The Original Series #31)by Diane Carey
Her Star Wars novels are great, too.
Vonda McIntyre had some great Star Trek books (including the novelizations of movies II, III, and IV), and AC Crispin wrote some memorable ones as well. My late Uncle once quipped "Only chicks write good Star Trek books." Never said he was PC. ;)
It certainly used to be true. Many of the few female F/SF authors back in the 70s or before wrote under male or ambiguous pseudonyms. It's not as common or as needed today. I don't think it was as important in children's fantasy....although the "JK" makes me wonder if it helps a female author to hide her name behind initials, or a pseudonym.
(To be sure, you must have been hiding under a rock for the last 15 years not to know the gender of the "Harry Potter" author, but still, I wonder if the series' initial sales would have been the same had those book covers read "Jo Rowling".)
James Tiptree, Jr.! Still has an award named after her, methinks.
Margaret Atwood - Oryx & Crake, The Handmaid's Tale, The Year of the Flood...
Waaaait... Tracy Hickman is a dude?!
But seriously, I don't think I've ever even thought about the gender of the author of the book I'm reading. Now I feel like I'm missing out on something.
CJ Cherryh--Foreigner series, Chanur series, Union-Alliance series, etc. etc.
Jacqueline Carey--Terre D'Ange series (Kushiel's Dart, etc.), the Sundering (Banewrecker and Godslayer), Santa Olivia, Saints Astray, Dark Currents.
Kate Novak (and her hubby Jeff Grubb)--Azure Bonds
Lathe of Heave - LeGuin
Dread Companion, Time Trader, Witch world - Andre Norton
Mary Stewart - her Arthurian stuff.
Death God's Citadel - Juanita Coulson (read that many times in my youth - a little dated now).
Covenents - Lorna freeman (not literary but fun)
Edit to add: CL Moore.
If we include urban fantasy there are a lot of them.
I would also include The Deeds of Paksarrion(sp) by Elizabeth Moon. I think it has one of truest paths of becoming a paladin from humble beginnings that I ever read.
I've heard very good things about Elizabeth Bear, especially her latest book RANGE OF GHOSTS (which I have, but not started yet).
The Wild Cards shared anthology series (edited by George R.R. Martin) features stories by Melinda Snodgrass, who is a very good scifi author.
Pat Cadigan, Laura Nixon, Caroline Spector, Gail Miller, Leanne Harper, Sage Walker and Carrie Vaughn are the other female WILD CARDS authors. Melinda Snodgrass - who was also a producer and leading writer on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION for Seasons 2-3 - is also the co-editor of the entire WILD CARDS line and the writer of the WILD CARDS movie script which is currently in development at Universal.
GRRM gets a lot of credit for WILD CARDS (justly so, as he did create the underlying setting and premise), but it's a hugely collaborative enterprise and he was keen to get a lot of female writers on board with it from day one (his wife Parris also created several of the prominent WILD CARDS characters).
I've heard very good things about Elizabeth Bear, especially her latest book RANGE OF GHOSTS (which I have, but not started yet).
The thing that turned me onto Elizabeth Bear was her post-apocalyptic story And the Deep Blue Sea, about a girl and her motorcycle, on Starship Sofa #19.
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I've heard very good things about Elizabeth Bear, especially her latest book RANGE OF GHOSTS (which I have, but not started yet).
The Wild Cards shared anthology series (edited by George R.R. Martin) features stories by Melinda Snodgrass, who is a very good scifi author.Pat Cadigan, Laura Nixon, Caroline Spector, Gail Miller, Leanne Harper, Sage Walker and Carrie Vaughn are the other female WILD CARDS authors. Melinda Snodgrass - who was also a producer and leading writer on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION for Seasons 2-3 - is also the co-editor of the entire WILD CARDS line and the writer of the WILD CARDS movie script which is currently in development at Universal.
GRRM gets a lot of credit for WILD CARDS (justly so, as he did create the underlying setting and premise), but it's a hugely collaborative enterprise and he was keen to get a lot of female writers on board with it from day one (his wife Parris also created several of the prominent WILD CARDS characters).
Given that Wild Cards is based on an actual super-hero roleplaying game that GRRM was playing with many of the other authors of Wild Cards, among whom I'm pretty sure Snodgrass and Vaughn and maybe some others were a part of, I think that the inclusion of many female writers is less a conscious descision and more the result of how Wild Cards came to be.
Given that Wild Cards is based on an actual super-hero roleplaying game that GRRM was playing with many of the other authors of Wild Cards, among whom I'm pretty sure Snodgrass and Vaughn and maybe some others were a part of, I think that the inclusion of many female writers is less a conscious descision and more the result of how Wild Cards came to be.
Snodgrass was, and I think Gail Miller as well (and Parris). The rest came in later on. Vaughn is a recent addition to the team (though she had a new story added to the new edition of the first WILD CARDS book), one of the new generation of WILD CARDS writers alongside the likes of Paul Cornell and David Anthony Durham.
I haven't read them yet, so I can't attest to their awesomeness or speak to their being among my faves, but this weekend, while running around Boston doing commie shiznit, I was able to pop into a used bookstore and scored the complete Atlan Saga by Jane Gaskell, which has been on my "track down and find" list for a couple of years now.
They've all got hawt, semi-naked chicks on the cover...
Robin Hobb - I'd take the Assassins series as being the best personally.
How none of you have listed her is a bit amazing imo!
Robin Hobb writes amazing first novels. ASSASSIN'S APPRENTICE and SHIP OF MAGIC are both very fine books. By about halfway through Book 2 of each series I was starting to lose interest, and only completed both trilogies through sheer willpower. She has good prose and characters, but she can't seem to help but to put in tons and tons of totally irrelevant filler. Book 3 of the FARSEER TRILOGY is more than twice the size of Book 1, which is unnecessary and silly. Both series would have made excellent single (very large) novels or duologies, but they were too overlong to be really good.
Apparently she keeps doing this (her current series was supposed to be one novel but has somehow ended up as four), so I haven't felt compelled to read her later works.
Assassins (Farseer Trilogy) were outstanding.
Liveship Traders was also an excellent series, I still liked all three.
Tawny Man trilogy were ok, but they would have made two really tight books instead of three.
Soldier Son was a bit... well it wasn't really MY thing.
Rain Wilds series has been ok, but once again... dragging. I note she called it 'chronicles' which means who knows how many! :p
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Gail Carriger's "Soulless" series is hilarious! :-D
Man. This list is enlighteningly yet confoundingly wierd. I've never given any thought to what gender the author of the book i'm reading is, but I've never read anything on this whole list. Even if the ratio of male to female authors is skewed, I'd still sort of expect that my ratio would be closer to whats actually on the shelf, but it isn't. I look through the books I own and I can't find a single female author on my entire shelf except astrology books, where the opposite is true.
I thought the harry potter movies were interesting but its true I never picked up a single one of her books... I wonder what it is about these books that makes me put them back on the shelf instead of taking them home.
Thinking about it, the last non astrology book by a female author I've even tried to read was the Deverry stuff by Katherine Kerr on the recommendation of a gaming buddy of mine, but I flat out couldn't stomach it after like 4 chapters. Too much gaelic... Gaelic sounds awesome when its Lisa Kelly or Westenra or Chloe Agnew singing it but for some reason when you put it on a page and try to make it 'genre flavor' it sounds so contrived. At least I can say for certain that I haven't found a male author do it convincingly either...
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Robin Hobb writes amazing first novels. ASSASSIN'S APPRENTICE and SHIP OF MAGIC are both very fine books. By about halfway through Book 2 of each series I was starting to lose interest, and only completed both trilogies through sheer willpower. She has good prose and characters, but she can't seem to help but to put in tons and tons of totally irrelevant filler. Book 3 of the FARSEER TRILOGY is more than twice the size of Book 1, which is unnecessary and silly. Both series would have made excellent single (very large) novels or duologies, but they were too overlong to be really good.
Apparently she keeps doing this (her current series was supposed to be one novel but has somehow ended up as four), so I haven't felt compelled to read her later works.
I think that the Farseer trilogy is by far the best, though "Ship of Magic" was amazing as well. I actualy like all the books in Farseer, though the ending of the second one was so bitter that I had to force myself to start the third, but once it got going, it became good.
The "Shaman's Crossing" trilogy was not good. The main character was too passive and annoying. I get the Hobb is telling us stories of unlikely heroes and weak character (weak as in, they are not heroes but just regular people who's lives are filled with extrodinary events, forcing them to rise to the challange), but in "Shaman's crossing" she took this theme a step too far - there was absloutley nothing to like about the main character, not even one merit or noteworthy quelity.
The "Shaman's Crossing" trilogy was not good. The main character was too passive and annoying...there was absloutley nothing to like about the main character, not even one merit or noteworthy quelity.
I completely agree with everything you just said.