SergioCQH Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Ursula is the only one I could stomach. Female writers tend to imbue their characters with either too much angst or too much machismo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bronn Stone Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Fitz gets shat upon by life and is rightfully miserable for it. But I'd not say that Dutiful or Burrich were particularly morose and I'd definitely call them heroes. On topic, I adore Hobb and think that Joan D. Vinge's Snow Queen was a spectacular book. The rest of her stuff has impressed me a lot less. I enjoyed A Cavern of Black Ice the first time through but on a reread I couldn't stick with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stego Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Honorable Mentions: Kelly Link Carol Emshwiller Angela Carter Robin Hobb Patricia McKillip JK Rowling Margaret Atwood Jo Walton Susanna Clarke Anne McCaffrey Diane Wynne Jones Jean Auel Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Jane Yolen Mary Stewart Lois McMaster Bujold Andre Norton Katherine Kurtz Maureen McHugh Shirley Jackson Jacqueline Carey Poppy Brite Susan Cooper Marion Z Bradley Mary Gentle Leigh Brackett Connie Willis Madelaine L'engle Vonda McIntyre Julian May Elizabeth Moon Tamora Pierce Sherri S. Tepper Best of all time: Ursula LeGuin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nevarfeather Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 On topic, I adore Hobb and think that Joan D. Vinge's Snow Queen was a spectacular book. The rest of her stuff has impressed me a lot less. I enjoyed A Cavern of Black Ice the first time through but on a reread I couldn't stick with it. Agree with the Snow Queen, loved the imagery of the world and the ideas behind summer and winter and a search for immortality. What a shame she hasn't lived up to the promise of that book. Robin Hobb is only passable and I prefer the Liveships anyday to Fitz, I just want to push that moaner over a cliff. Also secretly like Anne Bishop, absolute candyfloss for the brain, but sometimes thats good too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 JV Jones is a very good writer. Sword of Shadows is far superior, but The Book of Words and The Barbed Coil are still better than anything Hobb has done, IMO. Hobb is a good writer and has good characters, but her worlds are flat and uninteresting and her books horribly overwritten. Her plots simply do not support their ridiculous lengths. It was a shock when I realised that in all six of the Hobb books I read (Farseer and Liveship) she didn't have a single character who made me laugh. Contrast this to Jones, who in Words had Tavalisk, Bodger and Grift, all classic comic creations, standing alongside her flawed heroes and dubious villains. Neither author is tremendously original, but I'd rank Hobb as the less original of the two due to her overreliance on dragons. Elsewhere, KJ Parker is a good writer. I was a bit surprised to find out she was a she, given the loving descriptions of armour, swords, bows and siege weaponry in her books and the detailed information on how they are made and used. If you ever wanted to have a sequence where a sword is forged in a book, I'd suggest reading Colours in the Steel as well as consulting factual textbooks. Very interesting stuff. Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series is solid, with an excellent old-school, boo-hiss villain (Father Hugh). I wasn't in love with one of her main characters (Liath) and Sanglant's motivations seem very random at times, but she has a lot of good secondary characters and subplots. The problem with her series is that it's somewhat convoluted, so when I want back after a 3-year break since reading Book 4, I found the fifth book totally impenetrable, meaning I have to do a major from-scratch reread of all seven books next year. However, the opening instalments are pretty good, so it's no burden. Orson Scott Card recently raved about this series as well. I tried Storm Constatine and her book was rubbish. The couple of Marion Zimmer Bradley books I tried didn't go down too well either. Elaine Cunningham is crap. Le Guin is, to my eternal embarrassment, on my 'to read' list (nope, not even Earthsea). The only Diana Wynn Jones I've tried is The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which was utterly hilarious. I'll be looking up some of her books in the future. I tried one Janny Wurts book which was excellent, The Master of Whitestorm, but the first book of her 'Wars of Light and Shadow' mega-cycle was poor. The Empire Trilogy is excellent, but co-written with a geezer (Feist) so that may not count. Naomi Novik's Temeraire: His Majesty's Dragon was pretty good, but the sequels seem to have gone down poorly. Rowling you probably need no advice on, but I find them enjoyable light reading, nothing more. Susanna Clarke was a very enjoyable read as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stego Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Wert: Of coure Rowling is light reading. Hell, a good percentage of those on my list are childrens authors. I like Hobb more than you do. I should have added Jones, though. And Kate Elliott. Storm Constantine is better than you are giving her credit for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vethnar Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Am I really the only one who likes Mary Renault, Tove Jansson and Geraldine Harris? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Wert: Of coure Rowling is light reading. Hell, a good percentage of those on my list are childrens authors. I like Hobb more than you do. I should have added Jones, though. And Kate Elliott. Storm Constantine is better than you are giving her credit for. I only read one Constatine, so maybe her others books are better. Is there one you would recommend? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jussi Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Robin Hobb Patricia McKillip Ursula Le Guin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RaceBannon42 Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 LeGuin, although I havent read her in many years is probaly the tops. McAffrey has meant as much to the genre as anyone Hobb is ok, if i feel a bit over rated Bujold is better than Hobb, and very good, although she tends to be overrated too. I really yenjoy her stuff, But the second most honored novelist to REH? Kelly Link is brilliant. Really out there, but brilliant. Wurts, I've only read the Empire trilogy with Feist, but thats his best work, so I'm assuming she had a lor to do with that. Jv Jones, I like the Sword of Shadows.. very solid. Cunningham is one of the best D&D novelists IMO for what thats worth. There are certainly a lot of other quality females SF authors out there, but these are the ones I've read and like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kcf Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Some female SFF writers that I've enjoyed and haven't seen mentioned yet: Margo Lanagan - I've read Black Juice (short story collection). Considered YA by some, but I wouldn't classify it that way. Vera Nazarian - Dreams of the Compass Rose was rather nice - she writes very poetic prose. Elizabeth Kostova - The Historian is generally considered mainstream, but it is clearly a Fantasy/Horror book Kage Baker - Anvil of the World was a fun and interesting novel in three parts. I've reviewed all of these books on my blog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marcelo Rebelo Firqoralas Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Am I really the only one who likes Mary Renault, Tove Jansson and Geraldine Harris? Harris is indeed excellent, but for some bizarre reason not all that well known. Another candidate is Carol Emschwiller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Angalin Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Vethnar, I don't really think of Renault or Jansson as being fantasy... dunno why not. I second Stego's mentions of L'Engle and Connie Willis. I'd add Anne McCaffrey for her early Pern books, but the later ones - ugh! I picked up a copy of Storm Constantine's Sea Dragon Heir and I think I may soon prefer its room to its company; as ever, not enough bookshelf space. (It's never a question of too many books, always of not enough space. ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yrael Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 I really liked Louise Cooper, and Sarah Ash's prose is decent. But my favorite pony-tailed femme has got to be that Terry Goodkind chick. She's awesome. I love Louise Cooper's ideas, I think they're very original, but her character development and world building skills are extremely poor. At least they are in The Time Master trilogy, which is the only one of her works I've read. Damn, compared to GRRM's, Bakker's or Lynch's ..ah..,and JK Rowling's work, hers is just plain bad. Am I really the only one who likes Mary Renault, Tove Jansson and Geraldine Harris? I've only read two of Renault's books. Fire from Heaven I didn't like because it was painfully obvious she was in awe of Alexander...her portrayal of him was not believable or realistic. Last of the wine...well the language was so cryptic (I call it cryptic, but others might call it "poetic") that I hardly understood half of what was going on. Apart from that, she is a great writer, I was swept out by her ability to bring to life these ancient civilizations. Angalin is right, though. She is a Historical fiction writer, not a fantasy one. EDIT: Anyone like ANNE BISHOP? (author of the Black Jewels Trilogy). I say great ideas, poor writing and development. And what about CAROL BERG? I've only read Resurrection, but I liked it. I thought 'she' was a man!! Certainly not a soft fantasy writer! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
naz Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 As much as I think that female writers should be judged against writers of any gender (it's not like athletes where there's an actual physical reason for having them compete separately), my vote goes to Ursula LeGuin, who's not just a better fantasy writer than many many male fantasy writers, she's also a better writer in general than many many other writers of any genders or any genre. Her abilities surpass gender and genre categorization. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agulla Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 I would like to add to this list: Elizabeth Hand: I really liked Waking the Moon, among her more recent works I recommend Bibliomancy and Mortal Love. Liz Williams: her Detective Chen novels are really enjoyable. The series of novels started with Darkland look promising. Justina Robson: Keeping it Real is an absolutely funny novel. Living Next Door to the God of Love is brilliant. CaitlÃn R. Kiernan: I've liked the few books I've read from her. Subterranen Press has just published Alabaster, a collection of tales about one of her most interesting characters, Dancy Flammarion, the monster slayer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bellis Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Ursula k Le Guin has contributed so much to the genre. She stands in a league of her own. But I do find it sad that curently almost all the best fantasy writers are male and in fact i've read very few females recently. Some of them, such as Robin Hobb, Jean Auel, and MZB, tend to overwrite. Of course Mists of Avalon has that all-important nostaligia factor, being a very life-changing tract when I was... 14. I find Margaret's Atwood ventures into SF kind of annoying - she sets up this male aspie=science, women=makeup thing that is pretty atrocious for a so-called feminist writer and made Oryx and Crake sort of unreadable mess, IMNSHO. NOt to mention offensive to me as a female scientist. Although Handmaid's Tale was fine, and I like much of her non-SF work. Yeah, the dearth of women writing hard SF or darker slipstream is unfortunate. Of course, the late Angela Carter was awesome, and KJ Bishop had a fairly impressive, if slightly overwritten, debut. JK Rowling is, to make an obvious point, very very successful at doing what she set out to do. I think she's a better writer than she's given credit for, though perhaps I should withhold judgement until she's done. I'll leave off with Susanna Clarke, who IMHO, is so excellent I keep forgetting to think of her as a "female author". :cool: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
delete this account pls Posted October 31, 2006 Share Posted October 31, 2006 Does Mary Gentle count? Robin Hobb, JV Jones (the second trilogy, hated the first one), and Kate Elliott are some of my other favourites, but Gentle is up there with GRRM and Bakker for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rimmer Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 Hobb for me. I just love the small scope of her series - each trilogy focuses around about 12 really good, fleshed out characters that grow throughout the series. Farseer had Fitz, Verity, Burrich, Chade, Nighteyes, Molly, Fool, Shrewd, Regal, Kettricken, Patience, and that's about it (plus Starling and Kettle at the end). Other people are barely even mentioned. ASOIAF is much more epic and ambitious obviously, but I feel that there are too many side-characters being introduced that I just don't care about, in AFFC especially. PS, Verity was the one who really got dragged through the muck, and is also her strongest character in my opinion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
williamjm Posted November 1, 2006 Share Posted November 1, 2006 Cunningham is one of the best D&D novelists IMO for what thats worth. I read a few of her books ("Elfshadow" and its sequels) and, while not exactly great books, they were enjoyable. I really liked Steph Swainston's two books ("Year of Our War" and "No Present Like Time"), as well as Susanna Clarke's book, they're probably the books I'd rank as the best by a female fantasy writer I've read. I really like Bujold's Science Fiction, only read one Fantasy by her "Curse of Chalion", thought it was good but nothing special. JV Jones' "Sword of Shadows" series has some very good bits and some quite mediocre bits. Julian May's book are technically Fantasy (despite the largely Science Fiction setting) and they were entertaining despite some significant flaws. I've not read a lot of the other authors mentioned here (Hobb, Le Guin, Rowling et al). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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