Am I the only one who distrusts female fantasy authors?

[Calibandar]

It has something to do with a summoner, who is a prince, whose father is slain, who...blah, blah, blah.

Might it have been the awful "The Summoner" by Gail Z. Martin?

[Zoë Sumra]

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.

Looking at the posts in this thread since yesterday, I think I may have started a bit of a storm of my own. Oops. I didn't realise quite how annoyed I sounded in that post: sorry.

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.

Overly emotional responses in all characters regardless of their status in the story is a sign of crap writing, just like using the same idiolect for all characters. It's like the token women in men's books who are actually men in skirts, or token PoCs who are nothing in particular - the "13th century knight agonizing over his emotions too much" (wonderful phrase) is a woman in plate written by someone who isn't paying attention to actual characterisation.

Depth, I suppose, is what I mean - accurate depth. The 13thC knight should definitely not drip emotion all over the place, but he should react, even a little, if a close family member dies.

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?

I write action because I like to read action. I love space dogfights and floating motorbike chases and shootouts and knife fights and spell-battles. But I write character as well because I like to read character. One of the participants in the floating motorbike chase has a blazing row with his estranged wife approximately 0.05 seconds after it ends. The winner of the knife fight goes away and quietly throws up afterwards because she's not yet used to killing people. And so it goes on. I'm searching for the best of both worlds, I suppose.

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.

You're doing better than me: I got through three and a half before giving up. Just remember the pay-off. If you write and if you get published and if you get a fan base kissing your feet, provided you included some genuinely interesting women, you'll get far fewer fangirls trying to slash your macho men.

Seriously: look at who does it well and how they do it. Catelyn Stark is a good starting point. And get a woman to beta read your women.

[Korr]

And get a woman to beta read your women.

Are you offering?

Actually, I'm serious. My current series has a female protagonist, and the entire first book is written from her POV. I could always do with more feedback.

Regards,

Ryan

[Ran]

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.

This is a rather significant exaggeration, though. The queen of Terre d'Ange, for one, is not shown as having any particular interest in that sort of sexuality. There are a number of other, notable characters -- the Admiral Russo, for example, and other great lords and ladies -- who are not shown to have any particular interests along these lines.

Pain and suffering is in the eye of the beholder, in any case. In Terre d'Ange, those who find something erotic in submission and pain have the right to feel that way, and those who find something erotic in domination and sadism also have the right to feel that way.

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?

"Love as thou wilt" is the only real creed. This encompasses acceptance of all kinds of sexual attraction and interaction, including BDSM. Everyone knows this in Terre d'Ange.

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...

That wasn't supposed to be "hot". It was a terrible sort of abuse. It's there to show the extremes of what being an anguisette is. All sorts of pain _will_ create a pleasurable response, physiologically speaking, regardless of how terrible or undesirable that pain is. Phedre has no control over this. There are other incidents in the course of the novels where she's put in horribly painful situations she has no wish to be in (like someone starting to flay her alive, say), and in some sense the unwanted pleasure makes it _more_ gruesome for her than just the pain, because against all sense and logic her body is essentially betraying her.

If you don't accept the validity of BDSM in RL, I think it'd be very natural to be unable to accept its validity in a secondary-world fantasy.

[Arthmail]

Might it have been the awful "The Summoner" by Gail Z. Martin?

Dammit Calibandar, i had seared that horror from my mind. Expunged her name and works from the history of literature, and you have...go...and...i think im going to retch.

Yes. That was the one. I was suckered in by cool artwork on the front, and a lack of other options at the time. I should have just bought O Magazine and moved on.

[Arthmail]

Looking at the posts in this thread since yesterday, I think I may have started a bit of a storm of my own. Oops. I didn't realise quite how annoyed I sounded in that post: sorry.

Overly emotional responses in all characters regardless of their status in the story is a sign of crap writing, just like using the same idiolect for all characters. It's like the token women in men's books who are actually men in skirts, or token PoCs who are nothing in particular - the "13th century knight agonizing over his emotions too much" (wonderful phrase) is a woman in plate written by someone who isn't paying attention to actual characterisation.

Depth, I suppose, is what I mean - accurate depth. The 13thC knight should definitely not drip emotion all over the place, but he should react, even a little, if a close family member dies.

I write action because I like to read action. I love space dogfights and floating motorbike chases and shootouts and knife fights and spell-battles. But I write character as well because I like to read character. One of the participants in the floating motorbike chase has a blazing row with his estranged wife approximately 0.05 seconds after it ends. The winner of the knife fight goes away and quietly throws up afterwards because she's not yet used to killing people. And so it goes on. I'm searching for the best of both worlds, I suppose.

You're doing better than me: I got through three and a half before giving up. Just remember the pay-off. If you write and if you get published and if you get a fan base kissing your feet, provided you included some genuinely interesting women, you'll get far fewer fangirls trying to slash your macho men.

Seriously: look at who does it well and how they do it. Catelyn Stark is a good starting point. And get a woman to beta read your women.

Well, i have to admit. I would never have considered an argument with an estranged wife as a way to end a race of any sort. Its novel, as long as it works...which of course goes for anything.

I think you don't need to worry about this stuff as much, and worry about getting published in general. That is the hard part already, no need to make yourself sick over something else.

[Crazydog7]

I don't distrust female fantasy authors in fact I don't read enough of them to form an opinion. I remember back when I was younger I read all of the Pern serise. In my highschool days I read a lot of Laurell K. Hamilton who had a great set of books many years ago, but the continuation over the years sucks.

[Nephtis]

Omg. Didn't James Tiptree Jr. settle this, like, THIRTY FREAKING YEARS AGO??!!

Female authors vary in quality & style as greatly as male ones. Here are some of the best and some of my favorite - also encompassing different styles & flavors. There's a whole big range here as I'm going for completeness. Pay attention to books with a * (asterisk) - these I recommend most highly, either for their quality or accessibility.

Catherine Asaro (sf)

*Kage Baker (sf)

*Elizabeth Bear (sf)

*Carol Berg (fantasy)

*Leigh Brackett (sf)

Marion Zimmer Bradley (fantasy)

*Lois McMaster Bujold (sf)

*Octavia E. Butler (sf)

Jacqueline Carey (fantasy)

C.J. Cherryh (sf)

B.A. Chepaitis (sf)

*Storm Constantine (fantasy)

Julie E. Czerneda (sf)

*L. Timmel Duchamp (political sf)

Kelley Eskridge (sf)

*Mary Gentle (fantasy)

*Valerie J. Freireich (sf)

*Celia S. Friedman (sf, dark fantasy)

Nicola Griffith (sf)

Barbara Hambly (fantasy)

Elizabeth Hand (sf, fantasy)

Robin Hobb (fantasy)

Nancy Kress (sf)

*Tanith Lee (fantasy)

*Ursula K. LeGuin

Jacqueline Lichtenberg (sf)

*Karen Lowachee (sf)

Lisa Mason (sf)

*Maureen F. McHugh (sf)

Elizabeth Moon (sf, fantasy)

*Sarah Monette (fantasy)

*Lyda Morehouse (sf)

*Chris Moriarty (hard sf)

Vera Nazarian (fantasy)

Severna Park (sf)

Laura Resnick (fantasy)

*Justina Robson (hard sf)

Jennifer Robertson (fantasy)

*Joan Slonczewski (sf)

*Karen Traviss (sf)

*Joan D. Vinge (sf)

*Connie Willis (sf)

Janny Wurts (fantasy, with Raymond Feist)

And here are examples of some female authors I didn't care for: (I tend to forget these names)

Anne McCaffrey

Sara Douglas

Ellen Kushner

Karen Miller

Janny Wurts (alone)

[Shryke]

BTW, in a strangely appropriate fashion, todays Penny Arcade was about our good friend Laurell K Hamilton.

[Crazydog7]

BTW, in a strangely appropriate fashion, todays Penny Arcade was about our good friend Laurell K Hamilton.

Yeah that about sums it up.

[Xray the Enforcer]

BTW, in a strangely appropriate fashion, todays Penny Arcade was about our good friend Laurell K Hamilton.

[Lyanna Stark]

That wasn't supposed to be "hot". It was a terrible sort of abuse. It's there to show the extremes of what being an anguisette is. All sorts of pain _will_ create a pleasurable response, physiologically speaking, regardless of how terrible or undesirable that pain is. Phedre has no control over this. There are other incidents in the course of the novels where she's put in horribly painful situations she has no wish to be in (like someone starting to flay her alive, say), and in some sense the unwanted pleasure makes it _more_ gruesome for her than just the pain, because against all sense and logic her body is essentially betraying her.

If you don't accept the validity of BDSM in RL, I think it'd be very natural to be unable to accept its validity in a secondary-world fantasy.

I have experienced BDSM myself in RL, although to me that part of my life with remain private.

My take on the scene were Phedre was tortured the first time was NOT that it was written as being a terrible sort of abuse at all. There didn't seem to be any sort of line that was broken. Yes, her scars were mentioned, but did she suffer any mental issues from it? Not what I could discern. If she had been crushed about it, or really really upset, or maybe refusing to go back to being a prostitute then maybe. But she seemed 100% unaffected.

And Phedre was still attracted to the people who abused her, which makes no sense. If it was such a terrible crime then Phedre should have suffered some sort of mental trauma and not just been "Oh well, this will heal and I'll just carry on, shall I?"

[Krafus]

Discussions such as this one, with many thoughtful and detailed answers, remind me why I've remained with this board since 2001.

With that said, I'm afraid I can contribute little to the current discussion, other than to repeat something that's been mentioned earlier; people naturally want more of what they enjoyed, and stay away from what they didn't like. If they've read several female fantasy authors and came away from the experience dissatisfied, they might not be willing to give yet another woman author a chance for a good while.

My own exposition to female fantasy authors has been limited to Elizabeth Moon, Melanie Rawn, Robin Hobb and Elizabeth Haydon. Moon and Hobb were adequate if not spectacular, but Rawn's characters in the Dragon Prince trilogy were too pretty-perfect, and Haydon's main protagonist Rhapsody is the single biggest Mary Sue I've ever encountered. All in all, the enjoyment I've derived from their combined series doesn't come anywhere near the fun I had individually with GRRM, R. Scott Bakker, Scott Lynch, Steven Erikson and Guy Gavriel Kay.

Admittedly I've also had the displeasure of reading the first four Goodkind books, whose faults are much greater than Haydon's and Rawn's put together, but my point is that the best fantasy female authors I've read are qualitatively dwarfed by the best male ones. Now, I know there are other fantasy female authors who are likely quite good, and likely someday I'll try reading some of their books. But with this track record, could another person be blamed for deciding to stick with male authors, especially a person with limited time and/or money to devote to reading?

[JoannaL]

As a Reply to Lyanna Stark and her opinion of J. Carey because of the sex scenes:

I have read the whole Kushiel series and although I agree that Carey is the definitely not the best author ever, (and although I also do not like most of the SM sex scenes)

1) I think it is wrong to judge her from a feminist point of view

2) And I also think it is wrong to put sex scenes written by a female author as a proof for a reason to distrust female fantasy authors

to 1) Terre D'Ange is a country with very strange moral and ethical views (it is the country of the FALLEN angels so in a way it is hell), its very decadent and all and has strange sexual habits. But from a feminist point of view it is one of the more interesting worlds in modern fantasy because it is definitely NOT male dominated. As Ran pointed out Carey sees herself as a feminist and IMO she also writes as one (though in a very subtle fashion and it takes more than 100 pages to find out). There are no swordwomen who can fight better as any man and such... (which a also seldom the case in RL but often the case in bad fantasy fiction) but real power is shared equally (and is not dependent on who has the better weapons)

to 2) I think bad sex scenes are rather a reason to distrust male but female authors. There a dozen of really bad sex scenes written by male authors, is this a reason to distrust male writing?

One example is the on this board so much beloved S. Bakker. The Prince of Nothing triology is in this regard all the time much much worse than anything Carey is writing. The rapist is generaly a three-dimensional fleshed out character who we should relate to while the raped woman is normally just a dumb animal. This is how I would define a bad sex scene.

[Happy Ent]

The rapist is generaly a three-dimensional fleshed out character who we should relate to while the raped woman is normally just a dumb animal. This is how I would define a bad sex scene.

Rapists in PoN (in order of appearance, from memory):

SPOILER: PoN

Singer in prologue. Not fleshed out. Not sympathetic.

Anonymous Columnaries. Not fleshed out.

Random barbarians. Not fleshed out.

Cnaiür: Fleshed out. Should we relate to him? Dunno.

Serwë. Fleshed out. Should relate to.

Aurax and Aurang - don't remember. Not fleshed out. Shouldn't relate to.

Sundry skin spies. Defined as not three dimensional. Shouldn't relate to.

Sundry Sranc. See above.

So I give you 1 point. Rapist Serwë is fleshed out and sympathetic. Half a point for Cnaiür, if you like him.

Rape victims:

Anasurimbor in the prologue. Not a woman.

Random barbarian captives. Not women.

Handful of Gaunum wives and slaves. Check: women, not fleshed out. Dumb animals?

Serwë. Woman. Fleshed out. Dumb animal? I don't know. Your decision on whether she counts costs you a point in the tally above.

Esmi. Woman. Smartest one on the planet, so not dumb animal. Also, among best fleshed out character in fantasy fiction. No points.

Anonymous women in lands captured by holy war: not shown, doesn't count as sex scene.

Acka. Not a woman.

Wife-of-man-who-doesn't-know-the-Dunyain: Not fleshed out. Dumb animal? Dunno. Half a point.

The ground. Female according to some narratives. Three dimensional (a sphere), but dumb. Half a point.

Emperor Conphas. Not a woman. Not dumb. Animal. Quarter point.

I don't know... maybe 1 point in total.

Who am I forgetting?

Edited by Xray for spoilers.

[Maia]

Admittedly I've also had the displeasure of reading the first four Goodkind books, whose faults are much greater than Haydon's and Rawn's put together, but my point is that the best fantasy female authors I've read are qualitatively dwarfed by the best male ones.

May I point out that from the 4 female authors you mentioned only one could be counted among the "best"? I mean, Haydon is awful (but it isn't like there aren't scads of male authors who are equally bad), Moon has some decent stuff and Rawn has some glimmerings of decent stuff in her unfinished trilogy (personally I hated her "Dragon Prince" series and couldn't get beyond book 1).

Nor do I think that it is entirely fair to claim that only women include romance and lengthy agonizing in their books. Or rape of an important character. Bakker, for instance has a lot of all this stuff, but nobody reproaches him for it, whereas some people felt that much milder descriptions of sexual abuse in Friedman's "Feast of Souls" seemed "man-hating". It appears that a female author can't win because she is going to be examined with a much more jaundiced eye.

Also, male authors who stick extreme patriarchy and sexism into the books where the very fundamentals of the world have been radically changed from reality are lauded for "realism" - although this development doesn't make sense anymore in the new circumstances. But any attempt to explore different gender roles in worlds with different rules is labeled "unbelievable" or a "fairy tale".

Finally, I remember that Bujold said these many years ago that a female author in SF was laboring under disadvantage from the start, but a female author writing about a _heroine_ was really a kiss a of death. And this thread shows that it is still true, sadly. Frankly, I feel that this intolerance may be what is pushing female SF/fantasy authors to include much more romance in their books than I'd like. Since they are going to lose many SF/F readers due to their gender alone, they are just poaching for an audience from another genre ghetto. Not a development I welcome, by any means, but it does make sense from commercial point of view.

To be fair, I have to admit that it seems common for very talented female authors to under-perform. They seem to have everything for a truly brilliant work, a magnum opus, but then tend to shy away into disappointing (IMHO) directions.

[diabloblanco18]

Who am I forgetting?

You could make a case for Xerius, when he was a boy. No points there, though.

[Gigei]

It lives!

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.

God, yes! I think I mentioned before how GGK uses such cheap literary devices/gimmicks instead of letting the story and the characters speak for themselves.

I recall that really annoying gimmick where she wrote several scenes that fail to mention certain important information that normal writers would include, like for example, who/what the heck she is writing about. *rolls eyes* Not to mention the thing where she consistently referred to something without saying that it was like "what had been done to her father", "before it had happened", "what Amalik had done", on and on until I wanted to scream!!!

She drives me nuts, totally, totally crazy because GGk does in fact seem talented...if only she would use her talent instead of cheap gimmicks.

Edit: Uh I somehow lost the rest of my reply.

I do know what some people are talking about. I am a woman myself and I hate it when the romance takes over the fantasy/sf elements of the book.

I especially hate it when there is a gratuitous rape scene inserted when the author writes herself into a corner and can't resolve the romantic problems. Oh, heroine too independent and feisty? Romantic love interest too arrogant and domineering? Let's put in a rape scene so the heroine can be emotionally weak and vulnerable while her love interest gets a chance to show his caring side.

*pukes*

I'm looking at you, Patricia Briggs.

I am never, ever in my entire life buying a Patricia Briggs book from now on after I read

SPOILER: the ending of

Iron Kissed

.

I especially hate when the rape victim has sex with her bf immediately after the rape and all is well. Gee, wouldn't you know it, all they needed for a happily-ever-after magic fix-it-all was a brutal rape.

Hooray.

*weeps for the future of women writers over a copy of Brigg's book*

[Krafus]

May I point out that from the 4 female authors you mentioned only one could be counted among the "best"? I mean, Haydon is awful (but it isn't like there aren't scads of male authors who are equally bad), Moon has some decent stuff and Rawn has some glimmerings of decent stuff in her unfinished trilogy (personally I hated her "Dragon Prince" series and couldn't get beyond book 1).

Well, novel appreciation is an individual thing. One person's best series might be trash for another (for instance, I know there are posters on another board who actively dislike GRRM). And yes, I know there are many male authors as bad as or even worse than Haydon, which is why I mentioned Terry Goodkind. But my point was that, speaking for myself only, the best fantasy female authors I've read don't come close to matching the best male ones.

[beniowa]

Gigei, you mean him don't you? GGK is a man.

I do know what you mean though and to be honest it's never bothered me since he's such a good writer. But that's just me.