Am I the only one who distrusts female fantasy authors?

[TerraPrime]

No i don't even look to see if its a male author or female one. Like one of the most widely acclaimed series' out there is Vellum but i found that it started REALLY slowly and then when you got into POV of the gay character i just threw it away. On the other side one of my favorite series' at the moment is the engineer trilogy by KJ Parker who is a female.

So you don't like A Song of Ice and Fire, either? Briefly, Daenerys' chapters described her conjugal relationship with her late husband, and then with her chamber maid. The first ever Kat chapter (second chapter in AGoT?) describes a post-coital scene from her perspective. We've also seen sexual acts described form Cercei's perspective.

(I will not be surprised at all if you confess to your strong dislike for all of these characters.)

[Korr]

So you don't like A Song of Ice and Fire, either? Briefly, Daenerys' chapters described her conjugal relationship with her late husband, and then with her chamber maid. The first ever Kat chapter (second chapter in AGoT?) describes a post-coital scene from her perspective. We've also seen sexual acts described form Cercei's perspective.

(I will not be surprised at all if you confess to your strong dislike for all of these characters.)

Well, I think it's fair to profess a strong dislike for Kat and Cersei . . . Dany, though, is awesome.

I've been writing a novel from a female POV for the past year now, and I can't say it makes that big of a difference. It all depends on the author and the degree of tact/understanding/empathy they show in portraying a female POV. I don't think authors of either gender do anyone any favours by portraying all their females as luscious sex kittens or neurotic moaners. Nor are they flattered when built up as always being stronger, wiser, purer or otherwise better than everyone around them. Honest flaws, honest sexuality, and honest motivations are key in writing a believable woman.

I think the reason why Martin does so well with his females is because he has characters from across the whole range of archetypes, from Arya to Sansa to Kat to Dany to Cersei to Brienne. There's one of everything in there.

[Isis]

Chamber maid.

[Ran]

...a silly, revolting plot of the worst degree. Lots of "happy prostitutes" and featuring only Mary Sue looking people. A big YUCK right there.

I know some people like her for the politics and intrigue, but to me it just drowns in purple prose and revolting sex scenes. FYI, I am a feminist and not exactly a prude.

Aren't your judgments about the "revolting plot", "happy prostitutes", and "revolting sex scenes" because of your particular feminist views, rather than despite of it, to some degree?

I'll note Carey considers herself a feminist, and I've no reason to doubt it. Nothing in the Kushiel books strikes me as overtly anti-feminist, in any case, unless exploration of alternative sexual lifestyles is itself anti-feminist. By "revolting sex scenes", I vaguely recall that you didn't appreciate the fact that sadism and masochism played such a large part in the main POV's sexual life, which is a matter of personal taste rather than feminism or prudishness.

I certainly agree that if one isn't happy with sex scenes written from a female POV, the first Kushiel series isn't one to try, since the POV character is a woman who has a lot of sex.

[Zap]

The only female fantasy authors I've read are J. K. Rowling, Ursula Le Guin, Susanna Clarke and Lene Kaaberbol. I'm not a big fan of Rowling, in fact I find her work mediocre in comparison to that of Le Guin or Clarke. I loved Le Guin's Earthsea series and I very much enjoyed Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. As for Kaaberbol's works, I think her Shamer Quartet is excellent fantasy for young adults. I'm sure there are a lot of other good, maybe even great female fantasy authors out there. Just find them.

[TheKassi]

To the OP: I wouldn't feel bad. I am a gal and I like male writers more then female ones. The question is are you sexist or are you just getting a gut feeling based on bad experiences?

If you are not reading the books because they are written by women and you do not think a woman can possibly produce a story that is on par with what the average man can pen, then you are a sexist jerk and should probably seek therapy. If you have noticed a trend that most of the female authors you picked up put elements into their stories that you are not interested in, then you are just recognizing a pattern and thats not a bad thing.

I tend to not like movies that come to America from Asia. Does that mean I hate Asian people? No of course not, I just do not have a taste for Kung Fu, and most of the movies you are going to find in movie theaters imported from Asia are going to to have heavy martial arts elements. Thusly when someone asks me if I wish to see the new Jackie Chan or Jet Lee, or Chow Young Fat movie I tend to say no. I do not do it because I do not trust Asian people to entertain me. I am often pleasantly surprised by imports, such as Kung Fu Hustle, and I also shake my head (or used to anyway) when people asked if I wanted to go see the new Van Damn or Norris movie.

If you think Hobb is a good writer then you should probably just relax, its not the fact that the author dimples instead of dangles that is driving you away from female fiction writers.

[Serious Callers Only]

There is probably a cultural thing or two here. I've always noticed that the structure of the plots most authoress follows a audience shaping orientation to romance. If most woman fantasy writers created a audience for romance / fantasy hybrids then there is a market for those books. Not a bad thing, and I've enjoyed many of those books. However there are definitive tendencies that piss me off some, in decreasing order.

- The aggressive, dangerous romantic interest, that acts like a moron : Patricia Briggs, Laurell K. Hamilton and others.

- Senseless acts of villain sexual depravity - rapes, harassment etc as a way to show villianess, and contrasting it to the hero - that might i say behaves exactly the same way, if you removed all the references to his other category evil.

- The token gay romance - aka Valdemar syndrome.

I feel likely that this is just my poor beta male personality just not coping with the images i can't identify and rejecting the world.

I must be feeling objectified!

[Zoë Sumra]

Necromancy ahoy. I have no qualms: I deal with necromancers a lot.

Literature about what you might call the male perspective is literature. Literature about the female perspective is women's literature. Not only do I hate this on principle (sorry, I can't help it), I think it has an effect on our mindset when we approach books. That's not to blame individuals, but it's there IMO.

This is one of the most depressing - no exaggeration - things I've read in a very long time.

If you asked me to list the basic characteristics of a good SFF book, I'd give the following:

• Technically well-written
  
• Set in a vividly realized world
  
• Containing an interesting plot
  
• Starring interesting characters - both protagonists and antagonists
  
• Preferably containing morally grey characters - both protagonists and antagonists
  
• Not restricting the latter two categories on grounds of gender or sexuality
  

... and suddenly it seems that the last bullet isn't acceptable in some narrowly defined genus of alpha-masculinity.

That it isn't acceptable to be a woman, to live in the glacier-clear knowledge that relationships and emotions and life are never simple. That it isn't acceptable to express this.

That it is regarded as "brave" of GRRM to have included among his main cast an adult woman (Catelyn Stark) who thinks like an adult woman.

That it isn't acceptable to be a woman writer.

That if you are a woman writer, you'd better stick to gushy romance, because you'll never sell action books to either men or women: the latter will not want it and the former will not accept it.

What hope for writing as a woman, except if writing by numbers?

***

This post is partially brought to you out of the abyss of authorial absofuckinglute frustration. But the fact that Lady Blackfish's post (ibid) hit a nerve right now... well, there is a nerve to hit. Taking things on the thoroughly personal/selfish level, I'm trying to finish an action-oriented space opera with a female protagonist and no romance in the main plot, and reading this whole thread adds another snow-layer of worry about the K2-esque hoops through which one needs to jump in order to become published: is no one going to take a chance on the damned thing because it doesn't "fit" (even if it were good enough, which right now it isn't)?

Taking things on the wider level to which I should properly have kept them:

- are men turned off by emotionally aware characters in books because of the cultural pressure for men to bottle their positive emotions?

- are the prominent romances in women's fantasy just a reflection of sociology?

- is the lack of "action" in women's SFF a reflection of the cultural pressure for women to bottle their negative emotions (anger, for instance)?

- should we, a) do anything about this, or , care?

There was a comment earlier in the thread, which I can't find now, from a male poster complaining that he never read female authors as there were no men in their books to whom he could relate. I would like to provide a counterargument in the politest possible terms: how many men's fantasy or SF books include more than one woman in a prominent role? How many of those women are drawn well enough for a real woman to relate to them? Yes, most fantasy is written by women nowadays - but books have a long shelf life (heh) and thus most of the currently available SFF books were written by men. Isn't it an incredible strain to read so many otherwise-good books while trying to find some positives in the few characters on the pages who share one's genitalia?

Aaru Tuesday recently wrote an excellent post - primarily about power and wish-fulfilment in books and computer games - that touched on gender and story-worlds, here. Read this for some of the sense of disenfranchisement involved in being a female consumer of SFF, thrillers and games. How and why this transfers into the female creators of SFF... can we go back to cultural expectations on women to be, well, what is defined as "feminine"? Who the heck created the definitions anyway?

[Arthmail]

Necromancy ahoy. I have no qualms: I deal with necromancers a lot.

This is one of the most depressing - no exaggeration - things I've read in a very long time.

If you asked me to list the basic characteristics of a good SFF book, I'd give the following:

• Technically well-written
  
• Set in a vividly realized world
  
• Containing an interesting plot
  
• Starring interesting characters - both protagonists and antagonists
  
• Preferably containing morally grey characters - both protagonists and antagonists
  
• Not restricting the latter two categories on grounds of gender or sexuality
  

... and suddenly it seems that the last bullet isn't acceptable in some narrowly defined genus of alpha-masculinity.

That it isn't acceptable to be a woman, to live in the glacier-clear knowledge that relationships and emotions and life are never simple. That it isn't acceptable to express this.

That it is regarded as "brave" of GRRM to have included among his main cast an adult woman (Catelyn Stark) who thinks like an adult woman.

That it isn't acceptable to be a woman writer.

That if you are a woman writer, you'd better stick to gushy romance, because you'll never sell action books to either men or women: the latter will not want it and the former will not accept it.

What hope for writing as a woman, except if writing by numbers?

***

This post is partially brought to you out of the abyss of authorial absofuckinglute frustration. But the fact that Lady Blackfish's post (ibid) hit a nerve right now... well, there is a nerve to hit. Taking things on the thoroughly personal/selfish level, I'm trying to finish an action-oriented space opera with a female protagonist and no romance in the main plot, and reading this whole thread adds another snow-layer of worry about the K2-esque hoops through which one needs to jump in order to become published: is no one going to take a chance on the damned thing because it doesn't "fit" (even if it were good enough, which right now it isn't)?

Taking things on the wider level to which I should properly have kept them:

- are men turned off by emotionally aware characters in books because of the cultural pressure for men to bottle their positive emotions?

- are the prominent romances in women's fantasy just a reflection of sociology?

- is the lack of "action" in women's SFF a reflection of the cultural pressure for women to bottle their negative emotions (anger, for instance)?

- should we, a) do anything about this, or , care?

Interesting article on GTA 4. I'm going to reread it when i have the chance and address it more thoroughly another time - hopefully. My attention span on these threads can be pretty sporadic. I think i'm noticing a trend in my posting, namely that i start a shit storm and then piss off. I am endeavoring to change this.

But lets address the bulk of your post.

- I do not think men are turned off by emotionally aware characters. At least, probably not for the most part. There is certainly a great deal less pressure for bs masculinity nowadays than there were was probably even 30 years ago, though this is only conjecture on my part. But i think for the most part, at least in regards to myself, i am less interested in exploring a characters deep emotional issues than in devling into the story itself. This occurs for a number of reasons - namely that the idea of some 13th century knight agonizing over his emotions too much seems absurd. Harsher times, harsher minds - at least thats my own reasoning. I have read Katherine Kerr and Melanie Rawn as well, several books a piece, and found the same problems with each of them. FAR too much emotion, and also, dare i say it, romance. Now i own two of the Deverry Novels, and read about...4 (?) of the Rawn Sunrunners Fire (or whatever the series was called) books. Kerr focused on endless lost loves, it seemed after awhile, with people pinning away for each other over several different lifetimes. In Rawns books, i eventually put them down a long time ago because i was tired of hearing about how brilliant and beautiful everyone's eyes are.

Now, this is not the entirity of female authors. But it is what i have read, and it has been too much for me. Were authors to be suggested to me, it honestly does not matter the gender. But i'm just not a needlessly emotional guy. And by needlessly, i mean i don't need it to be one of the largest focuses of the book.

Were you to publish a book, with honest, real characters, it would not matter at all. I think having emotionally aware, or scarred, characters makes for interesting reading. But the focus should not dwell on that too much. At least, thats what i prefer.

- As for the other questions, i'm running out of time, so i'll address the last. Is the lack of action a reflection of cultural pressure? And should anything be done about it? Both good questions, and not easily answered. I wish that i could give you a deeper insight into this, as it seems to be something that bothers you pretty deeply, but to my shame i must admit that i have read several female fantasy authors and been unhappy with the results. As a result of that, i have stayed away. But from what i remember of the three series that i have read...Kerr, Rawn, and to my shame, McCaffrey, i have not noticed any real action. But again, these are older novels. I cannot help but think that with works beging published today, that authors of any kind can write whatever they wish into their stories. I think there were cultural pressures at one point, even a few years ago, but i cannot help but think that with the darker tones that some SFF have gone to, that anything is possible nowadays.

But perhaps, the question should be turned back on you? Do you write action into your stories? Is that of interest to you? I personally will read much of any story, but i have to admit, i do like some flavor with a little bit of action. Are you including it in there because you want to, or you feel you should to attract more male readers?

As an aspiring author myself, i have to say, that my first book contains few female characters. I was unsure of my ability to accurately portray a female character. Perhaps reading 5 of Robert Jordans books scared me.

I will think about this tonight a little more if i have the chance, and try to respond a little better tomorrow.

All i can conclude with is: people will read authors of any gender, as long as the work is good. But there are certainly molds in place. I would say take heart - if you work is good enough, or if a work is good enough, i would like to think that gender has no meaning.

[Myshkin]

I don't have the patience to read this entire thread, so perhaps what I'm about to say has already been said. If so, I don't care.

I can only speak for myself, but I have the feeling that I'm not the only person that feels this way. The reason I don't read as many female sff authors as male is simply because a majority of female sff authors (in my experience) tend to focus on the romantic aspects of their novels. That's fine, and I'm sure many people enjoy these aspects, it's just not what I want to read. It doesn't matter if the author is male or female, I'm just not a big fan of romance taking center stage in my fantasy. This is not to say that all female sff authors focus on romance, and this is not to say that all female sff authors should focus on romance. This is just an observation on my limited experiences. Again, it does not matter what gender the author, to me it only matters the type and quality of content. I do not like Melanie Rawn for the same reasons I do not like Guy Gavriel Kay: both authors (IMO, of course) use cheap writer's tricks to elicit an emotional response, for no other reason than to elicit an emotional response. I do like J.V. Jones for the same reasons I like GRRM: both authors write dark stories centered around flawed characters.

[Eponine]

I'm a woman and I dislike almost all books that are "meant" for a female audience. I absolutely HATE books where a character's romantic feelings are the main focus of the book. And that includes when female protagonists are portrayed as having this incredible feminine intuition about how relationships and emotions are sooo much more complex when one is a woman.

Most of GRRM's sex scenes move the plot along, add depth to the story and add information about the characters, which is what any scene about anything should do in a good book. I don't find that to be true about Carey and Kushiel. It's just so much emotional diarrhea.

However, I think that the female writers who stay away from excessive (IMO) romance are just as good as similar male writers. I enjoy all the ones mentioned here as good (Le Guin, JV Jones, etc). What I really like to see is a woman who has strong passions outside of her relationships and emotions, especially if those aren't stereotypically female- she's really interested in electromagnetics or trying to sail around the world.

My favorite young adult female character was written by a man though- Lloyd Alexander's Vesper Holly.

[Lady Blackfish]

This is one of the most depressing - no exaggeration - things I've read in a very long time.

Eloisa, I just wanted to say I read your post and ... really want to respond to it. But I can't right now in total, so let me quick say:

Who the heck created the definitions anyway?

This is at the heart of just about every genre related "feminist" criticism I make. I hope to respond to the rest later.

[Apollo2113]

I don't really care about the gender of the author... although I've probably read more male than female authors, it's just because of their disproportionate representation in SFF.

I have extremely fond memories of Dinana Wynne Jones, who will probably remain one of my all time favorite authors. Melinda Snodgrass is pretty damn good as well.

[Nymeria87]

Honestly, if people ask "Is the author is male or female?" before asking "Is this a good story?" then that's sad.

I guess I agree with most people here that gender doesn't really matter as long as authors can write an intriguing and believable story. For almost a year I've been writing a novel from the first person POV of a male character and I certainly didn't decide to do it out of any gender-political motives

Literature about what you might call the male perspective is literature. Literature about the female perspective is women's literature. Not only do I hate this on principle (sorry, I can't help it), I think it has an effect on our mindset when we approach books. That's not to blame individuals, but it's there IMO.

You find me wholeheartedly agreeing

[Korr]

I agree that women don't get a fair shake in genre fiction, especially in what kind of female-authored genre fiction is published. Now, the following will probably be disjointed and fail entirely to get my point across.

The general sense I get from reading articles and synopses about female-authored genre fic is that most of it falls into the romance category, which is more the fault of publishers than women. Thing is, I hate romance fiction, and I refuse to read it in any genre by any author. Anything that gets bad buzz to that effect (Kushiel's Dart, for example) is not something I'll buy. It'd make no difference to me if it was a male or female author, I'm just not interested in books where the main plot is about who hooks up with whom -- romance and sex are character and subplot material, not something that'll carry a whole book.

Even when romance isn't the main plot, though, there seems to be a lot of unpleasantness in female-authored fic. I've not read many books by women, but most of them have been bad experiences. I haven't been put off women as authors on principle -- however, speaking entirely anecdotally, most of the crazy stuff I've seen which made me uncomfortable reading it was written by women. Anne McCaffrey is definitely unhinged. I couldn't stomach Marion Zimmer Bradley either. It's been the same for most other female authors I've tried (I'm sure I've mentioned the rape with barbs before). The overall impression is that genre books by women tend to include stuff that I really don't want to read. The only woman whose books I can remember actually enjoying was LeGuin.

What I think would be nice is to get more non-crazy, non-romance books published by women authors, which seems to be the same thing Eloisa is getting at. I'll happily read those.

Regards,

Ryan

[Xray the Enforcer]

Every time this thread gets necromancied, it makes me want to kick a puppy in honor of Confirmation Bias. (especially considering that the most often-heard complaint against female writers of "too much romance" is a bit rich, seeing that this is a GRRM message board. Have y'all not read any of his other works?)

[Lyanna Stark]

Why on EARTH are you people judging all female authors after reading McCaffrey, "Kushiel's Dart" and Melanie Rawn?

That's like judging fantasy as a genre by reading Terry Goodkind and Robert Jordan.

Please.

Check out "The Bone Doll's Twin" by Lynn Flewellyn and "The Left Hand of Darkness" by LeGuin. Also, JV Jones and Robin Hobb are female. As are JK Rowling and Diana Wynne Jones. I also enjoyed "The Gates of Twilight" by Paula Volsky.

Re Ran: Regarding Kushiel's dart.

The reason why I found a lot of the S&M in the book highly objectionable was because it was used in conjunction and often as and indicator, or an epithet for those in power. The "real world" political powerhouses were also all sadists, enjoying not a bit of S&M play, but pure full front loaded inflicting of pain and suffering. So the people in charge of a benevolent country full of horny hippies are all nice and stuff, except in private where they get horny by torturing people in their basement?

Maybe it's just me being "uptight" about alternative lifestyles, but I do not, and will never, find it entertaining or "hot" when people lose consciousness after being burned by red hot pokers, regardless if the author tries to present it as such. To me, it's only revolting.

Plus it doesn't make it any better that the people inflicting the pain are so drop dead gorgeous and beautiful everyone around them just lose their minds from lust.

[Calibandar]

Nymeria

Honestly, if people ask "Is the author is male or female?" before asking "Is this a good story?" then that's sad.

Well it would not be the order in which I would ask it, but the question of the writer's gender would certainly be of interest to me.

Generally my approach to finding new books is searching on Amazon, reading blogs that have monthly overviews of new releases and reading a few Fantasy forums to see what people enjoy whose taste is at least in the same region as mine, and even then you still get massive diversions and disappointments.

I've been disappointed by female writers to many times to continue to give them a try, unless the synopsis of the book really appeals to me and I have perhaps read a sample chapter. I refuse to read anything that has mostly or solely female lead characters. If the female author writes about a male lead character I may be interested, but you can be sure I will try for a sample of sorts to check for overt emoness. In the last year I've burned my hands three times nevertheless ( Traci Slatton's "Immortal" earlier this year featured a male lead, but he could have been a girl).

So this week I tried a new book, just to give another female author a try. It's a bit of a hyped debut called "Promise of the Wolves" by Dorothy Hearst. It read like a feminist manifesto for animals. I had read some reviews that siad it was somewhat young adult, and that girls and women were more likely to enjoy it than boys or men. Well, I read for myself anyway and they were right. A pack of wolves, of which one was by far the strongest and the fiercest, the she-wolf. Then came the Alpha pair, male and female, and of the two the female was strongly in charge. Then we met "The Greatwolves" , lords of all the Wolves, consisting of a pair. Needless to say, the wise one of the two was the female. It couldn't be just that of course, no when the male wolf still objects and maintains his position, his mate overrules him. We then learn that she is bigger than he is ( ( amusing, given wolf biology), and she calls him out to fight, and of course the male cowers before her and submits utterly to her will. The young she-pup's brothers are all killed of course, because as we are told, only she deserved to live. As the story progresses we see heavy focus on female's emotions and about them usually being right, and the male partners, while stubborn, in the end do submit to the right ways of their female masters ( or partners as the author calls them).

After a while I gagged and nearly threw the book out of the room, and knew that for the foreseeable future, I was done with reading female authors again. No amount of argumentation from women can convince me anymore that female writers appeal just as much to men as male SFF writers. In my opinion, that is far from true. People may want to be politically correct and say that all is equally suitable and equally good, but the fact is that it is not, and for me most of the stuff female Fantasy writers churn out is truly dreadful. Which is not to say that many males don't produce poor SFF books either, it's just that I find the percentage to be much higher with women.

As for female writers taking up an ever bigger part of the market, that is largely due to the market consisting more and more of women than of men as well, even if this is not so clearly a majority in SFF as it is with for instance mainstream literature. And facts are facts, the enormous boom of supernatural romance novels is because there is a huge amount of female readership that wants to read about women in the lead roles, in the same way that a lot of men like reading about men.

I think anyone who actually looks at the monthly releases in the genre from sites like fantasybookcritic.com or locusmag.com can see that there is no such thing as a lack of female authors getting chances and having to jump through more hoops than men.

[Lord of Oop North]

Every time this thread gets necromancied, it makes me want to kick a puppy in honor of Confirmation Bias. (especially considering that the most often-heard complaint against female writers of "too much romance" is a bit rich, seeing that this is a GRRM message board. Have y'all not read any of his other works?)

Too true.

Personally, I don't even think about the gender of a writer when I pick up a book. Why the hell would I? I also seem to be clueless when it comes to the names of authors. I thought Gene Wolfe was a woman for ages. The realization that Kim Stanley Robinson was male came after a fair chunk of time, as well. China Mieville? Yup, I thought he was a woman. I figured China was a Female Wrestler, therefore China was a girl's name. It took me a dozen C.J. Cherryh books until I finally realized 'he' was a female! My gods! The horror!

[Arthmail]

Meh, i mostly agree with Calibander despite myself. Its not that i won't pick up a female author, but i do tend to gravitate towards what has been recommended to me. I recently picked up one with...ach, i forget her name. It has something to do with a summoner, who is a prince, whose father is slain, who...blah, blah, blah.

But honestly, i rarely pick up books anymore that i have not found a positive review for. Movies i'll give a chance, but i've been burned too many times with books. That Swan War book, by that Russel fellow, was pretty close to dreadful. I just don't have the patience for that anymore.