407 replies to this topic

[Sci-2]

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And you have reminded me why I won't read any Prattchet. Yes Terry she sells more books than you, get over it.
To touch on another thread. I think if the roles had been reversed here pe
ople would be calling for Rowlings head on a spike. After they rape her of course.

In defense of Grack21....did I just write that? haha....he's talking about a discussion from this thread.

[Solmyr]

litechick, on 17 April 2012 - 12:31 PM, said:

In closing,

Solmyr, on 17 April 2012 - 11:48 AM, said:

Not that I question your femininity or anything, but why do you think you are very feminine? Are you referring to physical appearance and features or behaviour?

Most awesomely bad question in the thread!  That was fucking hilarious.

Oh? Would you be so kind as to share the joke, for I don't get it. If I were to say: "I like playing with Barbie dolls, reading Cosmopolitan and urban fantasy novels with female protagonists, but otherwise I'm very masculine", how would you respond?

More importantly, do you feel that one's own perception of oneself is bound to be correct and should never be questioned?

[Mandy]

Nynaeve and Moghedien and Graendal interact to kill each other.  Does that count?

ETA: I don't *think* they're fighting over Lan, but I can't be certain.

sciborg2, on 17 April 2012 - 12:35 PM, said:

In defense of Grack21....did I just write that? haha....he's talking about a discussion from this thread.

Hmm... good to know.

Edited by Mandy, 17 April 2012 - 12:57 PM.

[Lummel]

Kalbear, on 17 April 2012 - 12:05 PM, said:

...Apparently similar to the above numbers fantasy skews towards female readership. Scifi skews more toward men, so taken as a whole it's a bit male centric, but fantasy - which is so misogynistic, male oriented and shitty - tends to be read (and moreso than scifi, written) by women.

When I asked whuh my wife responded that yea, it is objectifying and horrible - but that is what women have been told they should want. That a woman's goal has been set as being an object. And, she pointed out, it's not like other genres don't objectify - romance is massively slated on the object side and is overwhelmingly read by women...

False consciousness.  Very useful concept.

Grack21, on 17 April 2012 - 12:11 PM, said:

Edit: and now I go to class. No one post while Im gone.

We won't.

[Galactus]

Lyanna Stark, on 17 April 2012 - 12:34 PM, said:

Daniel Abraham manages at least to some degree in the Long Price Quartet. You know Robert Jordan sort of manages as well, in a way, if you want to be generous. His works have a LOT of other issues, but at least he has women who do interact based on other things than men. It makes me miss EHK talking about women and WOT. Erikson doesn't really have a lot of vested interest in interpersonal relationships and a lot of his characters are very...genderless, so I am not even sure if it's applicable, although I suppose Tavore and her advisor could be used, plus the head honcho of the Empire is female after all.

That's the most frustrating thing about Jordan, I think, *theoretically* he does a lot of things right. He's got a ton of female characters who in all sorts of positions who actually do interact with each other. That should be awesome.

But it isn't, because they've all got the same personality. Which is incredibly frustrating.

[Solmyr]

Galactus, on 17 April 2012 - 12:58 PM, said:

But it isn't, because they've all got the same personality. Which is incredibly frustrating.

'Xept for Min <3.

[Raidne]

polishgenius, on 17 April 2012 - 08:16 AM, said:

You thought Katniss was a Mary Sue? I mean, she comes off a bit that way in the first book...

Fair enough, never got past that point.

PaulineMRoss, on 17 April 2012 - 10:14 AM, said:

Y'all will be pleased to know that this discussion is providing amusement for Australian fantasy author Glenda Larke out there in blogland:

Hmmm...that makes me feel kind of bad for saying all that stuff about Kellhus.

loltergeist, on 17 April 2012 - 10:24 AM, said:

From the small remarks about how fantasy is not written for women, to the suggestion that the only fantasy book women would ever deign to read is twilight, or one of those vampire/werewolf porn books. Honestly? Give me a break. Not only is that completely inaccurate, it’s also pretty insulting.

Look, nobody was talking about you personally. I have 0 female friends, other than from this Board, that read - and I can't think of a better way to put this - the fantasy that I read. I don't know how to describe it, but I don't identify Twilight, Discovery of Witches, Ann Rice, etc. with the kind of fantasy that I currently read. Nor do I identify Terry Goodkind, Salvatore, and all the other authors I don't know because I don't read their stuff that are always overflowing the fantasy shelves in the bookstore with cheap looking paperbacks in never-ending series. This is a personal preference, probably, but I don't like Erickson because it just reminds me of that stuff. I like Lynch, Abercrombie, Martin, Hobb, Kay, etc. The lesser quality stuff appeals to gender stereotypes to sell. So, a lot of 13 year old boys read Salvatore and a lot of 13 year old girls read Twilight.

So, here is where this gets interesting - when Kalbear says that his wife said that there are more women fantasy readers than men, what was being included as fantasy there? Was Ann Rice included in that? It's not like the majority of Bakker readers are women.

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I have been operating under the assumption that when a writer sits down to write, they don't intend to alienate HALF OF THE POPULATION, by writing a book that comes with an invisible "you can only read this if you have a penis" warning. Stupid me for thinking that books were written for people, vagina or not.

I really think the OP was just telling you that he wished he could meet more women that were into fantasy, not that you can't like fantasy because you're a woman. There's a difference.

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All the talk of women not being able to relate to the characters, therefore, disbanding the whole genre, is such an ignorant comment. Being able to identify to a character isn’t the sole selling point of a novel, in my opinion.  And with fantasy expecting the reader to suspend belief, it goes without saying that fully relating to characters is going to be difficult because of the genre, NOT your gender.

Disagree. I'm going to totally nerd out here and say that I love, love, love the Dumai's Wells scene in Lord of Chaos, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like the books more if the women characters were at all relatable. Min has been elevated to cool status just for not sucking.

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Maybe if you stopped being so ignorant you would see that a big percentage of women love to read fantasy novels.  In fact, I happen to know a lot of female readers who would state that fantasy is their favourite genre. So maybe you just know the wrong types of women, because trust me, female fantasy fans are out there, and by leaving sexist comments for the whole internet to read, you might just be alienating them without realising.

People keep saying this, but where is the data? Finally, I found a study in progress from Princeton (I think I know why this subject makes us all pissy - type in "books women read by genre" into your search engine and you get discussions about chick lit and romance novels). First, as we know, women read more fiction than men do, making numbers regarding the whole "more women read X than men" thing a little suspect, as we should then be talking about the percentage of female readers that read X vs. the percentage of male readers, or something more like that. 62% of women read fiction, but only 48% of men. Women seriously read twice as many books as men do.

http://www.princeton...06 - Tepper.pdf

NPR says women read more than men in all categories except for history and biography. But, you know, like we said, no kidding since the average woman reads twice as much as the average man. Men only account for 20% of the fiction market.

http://www.npr.org/t...toryId=14175229

Data on women reading fantasy is hard to find. Lightspeed Magazine's survey had about a 59/39% male/female. L.E. Modesitt, Jr., says in an interview that men account for slightly more fantasy sales and way more SF sales. He also had this to say:

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Women authors can and do portray strong women, and some of them sell very well.  Women authors can and do portray strong male characters, and some sell very well.  Male authors can and do portray strong male characters, and some of them sell extremely well.  Male authors who portray strong female characters usually lose a percentage of their readers.

Okay, an actual survey: http://www.marketing...ion-fans-14476/

Women read more mystery/thriller/crime than men, but only because they read more overall and everyone reads a lot in this genre. Romance is 37% women, 3% men.  Science fiction is 32% men, 20% women.

This survey counts Rowling as fantasy. Given that women read twice as many books as men and the Harry Potter series is among the best selling of all time, that probably accounts for that statistic right there.

Anyway, I would like to see data on the percentage of women who read epic fantasy and the percentage of men who read epic fantasy, as well as the percentage of epic fantasy readers who are female/male.

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I have The Name of the Wind to read. Pretty sure my vagina is furious at my reading choice, because fantasy is the chocolate equivalent of a yorkie bar apparently.

Apparently you're not that big of a fantasy reader - how have you not read that yet??? And I'd love to see if you, as a female, love a particular section of the second book that I literally just paged through, but no spoilers.

[Mandy]

Raidne, on 17 April 2012 - 01:02 PM, said:

Apparently you're not that big of a fantasy reader - how have you not read that yet??? And I'd love to see if you, as a female, love a particular section of the second book that I literally just paged through, but no spoilers.

If I'm thinking of the right part, I literally DID NOT READ IT.  Terribad.  And i've re-read both books twice at least.  Gah.

ETA: Raids - I just busted laughing out loud at your sig. LMFAO

Edited by Mandy, 17 April 2012 - 01:09 PM.

[Raidne]

Mandy, on 17 April 2012 - 01:07 PM, said:

If I'm thinking of the right part, I literally DID NOT READ IT.  Terribad.  And i've re-read both books twice at least.  Gah.

Same. It was like watching the 60 second hacking challenge in Swordfish with my computer nerd dude friends, only with every guy on this Board. Yuck.

ETA:  I see your edit. She's gotta point there, though.

Edited by Raidne, 17 April 2012 - 01:13 PM.

[polishgenius]

Just one thing that I feel needs saying about loltergeist's post:

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because fantasy is the chocolate equivalent of a yorkie bar apparently.

I'm pretty sure a yorkie bar is the chocolate equivalent of a yorkie bar.

As for The Section of Wise Man's Fear: I'm pretty sure the bafflement, squickiness and occasional contempt for that particular sequence isn't confined to just the women reading it. Which is a shame, because it frames what I think is perhaps the best individual scene in the series so far.

Edited by polishgenius, 17 April 2012 - 01:15 PM.

[Nukelavee]

Maybe I'm getting old, or have been reading this stuff for waaaay too long, but...

From my point of view, this board seems to have such a shallow or limited, umm, knowledge of fantasy.

By that, I mean there are so many writers and books that just seem unknown to many of you.

I mean - Urban Fantasy.  So many writers have been doing it for so damn long, well before the "chick lit" flood ever hit.  Sure, many of those writers are women, but, those books I'm remembering just don't fall into the category you seem to be discussing.

Mike Resnick, Mick Farren, Will Shetterly, John M. Ford, Charles De Lint...Emma Bull, Terri Windling, Esther Freisner..

There's is also, I agree, the thing with Fantasy being combined with Epic Fantasy, which makes sense, but it overshadows the number of really good works that weren't epic in page count.

So, meh, I get kinda confuzzled in these topics.

Personally- I think it's part tradition, ie, fantasy is all for guys, and partly a lot of stuff written "for women" is kinda crap (basing that on women I know, who read fantasy, and call a lot of it crap), which further alienates female readers.

And then there are the writers who are determined to do something, I dunno, that's a "deep exploration of blahblahblah, subverting yaddayadda as a device to and so on..." that don't appeal to a large number of readers.

As a thread crossover, Alexis Gilliand's "Lord of the Trollbats" trilogy for an example.  I can't say it IS a great book women should love/be able to enjoy, but...

The guy has an amazingly clean readable style.  The plot is quick and interesting, the characters, while not hyper detailed, are distinct.  His magic, society, etc, all shows a lot of thought, and work well.

The female characters are believable as women, and not stuck in a stereotype.  I mean, we have the Witch Queen, who is determined to see her children on the throne, and is clearly a villain...except, hey, she isn't.  She's smart, able, ruthless, but actually cares for teh kingdom.

We have a "homely" farmgirl, an old maid technically, tried as a witch (so the local elite can divy up her farm)..who is rescued by Wizenbeak, a wizard.  Of course, as the story progresses, it becomes as much her story as anybody's.

It's not a deep book, but there is some good food for thought in it, some great action, humour, clever scenes....

But nobody here seems to have heard of it.

He does the same with Sci-Fi- End of the Empire does the same sort of thing, showing characters, including the women, rising to challenges, and gaining power because they are the best people for that role.

I guess where I'm going is, it seems writers are desperately trying to re-invent the wheel, and that's what the readers follow, unaware that there are some great books out there, that get overlooked or forgotten because they aren't current releases anymore.

[Ran]

Please tell me what part of the book you're referring to, because now I'm curious! Spoiler code is your friend!

Never mind! Missed "second book". Have not read it yet, don't need to know.

Edited by Ran, 17 April 2012 - 01:19 PM.

[Lyanna Stark]

Raidne, on 17 April 2012 - 01:02 PM, said:

Hmmm...that makes me feel kind of bad for saying all that stuff about Kellhus.

Don't ever feel bad about saying saying bad stuff about Kellhus, he's a doush remember?

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So, here is where this gets interesting - when Kalbear says that his wife said that there are more women fantasy readers than men, what was being included as fantasy there? Was Ann Rice included in that? It's not like the majority of Bakker readers are women.

Agreed. Checking some of the Urban Fantasy book review forums, it's definitely not GRRM, Bakker, Abercrombie or Erikson they're turning to. I guess it comes back to how to divide it? Where does SFF end and vampire/werewolf porn start?


EDIT: So apparently you guys should feel bad for me and Raidne having the wrong type of friends. OMG the emo ./wrist ./evanescence

Edited by Lyanna Stark, 17 April 2012 - 01:20 PM.

[Sci-2]

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Same. It was like watching the 60 second hacking challenge in Swordfish with my computer nerd dude friends, only with every guy on this Board. Yuck.

For the record I thought this was a stupid scene, and the scene with Halle Berry's breasts was just as stupid.

The sex scenes in Wise Man's Fear are so bad they didn't just make question the series but Rothfuss's talents as a writer. But then Wise Man's Fear is pretty terrible as a novel on many levels, it's made Doors of Stone a make or break thing I suspect.

eta:

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I'm pretty sure a yorkie bar is the chocolate equivalent of a yorkie bar. [img]../../../public/style_emoticons/default/leaving.gif[/img]

Yeah, loltergeist, I didn't get this either.

BTW I gave a shoutout to you on Gen-Chat in the funny/cool user name threads!

Edited by sciborg2, 17 April 2012 - 01:22 PM.

[Mandy]

polishgenius, on 17 April 2012 - 01:13 PM, said:

Just one thing that I feel needs saying about loltergeist's post:



I'm pretty sure a yorkie bar is the chocolate equivalent of a yorkie bar.

As for The Section of Wise Man's Fear: I'm pretty sure the bafflement, squickiness and occasional contempt for that particular sequence isn't confined to just the women reading it. Which is a shame, because it frames what I think is perhaps the best individual scene in the series so far.

I don't know how.

Spoiler

That book really could have done without the Felurian sex BS.  It was JUST HORRIBLE.

[polishgenius]

Mandy, on 17 April 2012 - 01:20 PM, said:

I don't know how.

Spoiler

That book really could have done without the Felurian sex BS.  It was JUST HORRIBLE.

I mean that

Spoiler

the absolute rubbishness of the Felurian scenes detracts from and, if people are skimming it, may cause people to brush over, the Cthaeth scene and the discussion in the pub about it, which I think when taken on their own are amazing and which fall in the middle of the bullshit.

Edited by polishgenius, 17 April 2012 - 01:23 PM.

[Sci-2]

polishgenius, on 17 April 2012 - 01:23 PM, said:

I mean that

Spoiler

the absolute rubbishness of the Felurian scenes detracts from and, if people are skimming it, may cause people to brush over, the Cthaeth scene and the discussion in the pub about it, which I think when taken on their own are amazing and which fall in the middle of the bullshit.

The ancient history of the world in that scene is also good stuff.

[Galactus]

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Where does SFF end and vampire/werewolf porn start?

Vampire/Werewolf pron is SFF.

Honestly, if it's got magic it's fantasy. If it's got unexplained or impossible tech and is set in the future it's SF. Whether it's werewolf-porn, horror, sword & sorcery or whatever doesen't matter.

Whether it's any good is a separate question, but I see no need to be exclusionary.

[kurokaze]

Lyanna Stark, on 17 April 2012 - 01:18 PM, said:

I guess it comes back to how to divide it? Where does SFF end and vampire/werewolf porn start?

The end of SFF need not be the same place as the start of vampire/werewolf porn. Genres tend to be inclusive. Except where they aren't. (which would be romance and the HEA requirement, which as mentioned upthread bizarrely disqualifies Twilight unless you consider the entire series as one book)

[litechick]

Solmyr, on 17 April 2012 - 12:44 PM, said:

Oh? Would you be so kind as to share the joke, for I don't get it.

Sorry Solmyr.  I meant it was funny when divorced from context.  Not to question your femininity but are you feminine?  Do you see it?