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I've found the best female characters are probably in the Malazan books. Off the top of my head I can think of Laseen, Shurq Elalle, Yan Tovis, Tavore Paran, Uru Hela/Mayfly (my favorite heavies.), a bunch of the Tiste Andii, Blend and Picker, Adjunct Lorn etc. It's a bit of an investment to read though.
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Jul 9, 2013 12:38
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ed balls balls man posted:I've found the best female characters are probably in the Malazan books. Off the top of my head I can think of Laseen, Shurq Elalle, Yan Tovis, Tavore Paran, Uru Hela/Mayfly (my favorite heavies.), a bunch of the Tiste Andii, Blend and Picker, Adjunct Lorn etc. It's a bit of an investment to read though. Beaten, yup. Malazan is very pro women characters. The division of main/named characters approaches an equitable 50 percent even. Women do everything men do, nobody really even makes a stink about it, and there's about a dozen female characters that have long arcs of growth, change, and impact on the world, with a few being main lynchpins in the whole narrative arc. I don't casually recommend Malazan ever though, huge time commitment, I still think it's the high water mark though.
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Jul 9, 2013 12:42
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Janny Wurts also does good female characters, especially in the Empire trilogy where the main protagonist is female. Wars of Light and Shadow has a few good ones as well, though most of the central characters are male and the primary female protagonist, Elaira, is mainly defined as a love interest (though she's still a strong independent character). EDIT: Wars of Light and Shadow has a very particular writing style/prose though, which may not be for everyone. It's also up to ten books at this point, with two more to go. Vinterstum fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 15:14
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There are also Steven Brusts Dragaera novels (Vlad Taltos and the Khaavren Romances), which depict gender equality as an inherent part of Dragaeran society.
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Jul 9, 2013 15:37
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Dr Scoofles posted:Can somebody recommend me a fantasy series that has decent female characters in? They don't have to be the protagonist but it would be nice if they were. I'm not really interested in fantasy romance books, but romance as a part of a bigger story is cool. I have previously read the Mistborn series and really liked them, and I remember liking Trudi Canavan's Magicians Guild series although I read them ages ago so I forget a fair bit about them. It doesn't have to be magic stuff though, I'm open to anything. I like war, politics, quests, whatever! I've also never read any sci-fi before either so I'm totally up for giving that a try too. You can't go wrong with Kate Elliot.
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Jul 9, 2013 16:09
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General Battuta posted:On an unrelated note, barring perhaps the shared theme of SF/F being a cesspool, I don't know if anyone here pays attention to or cares about the tiny incestuous horrible world of SFFWA politics, but it's been pretty hilarious of late. Oh, geez, yeah. I didn't see you mention that Vox Day/Thomas Beale is an actual white supremacist who had this to say about NK Jemisin: Jemisin has it wrong; it is not that I, and others, do not view her as human, (although genetic science presently suggests that we are not equally homo sapiens sapiens), it is that we do not view her as being fully civilized for the obvious reason that she is not. She is lying about the laws in Texas and Florida too. The laws are not there to let whites “just shoot people like me, without consequence, as long as they feel threatened by my presence”, those self defence laws have been put in place to let whites defend themselves by shooting people, like her, who are savages in attacking white people. Jemisin’s disregard for the truth is no different than the average Chicago gangbanger’s disregard for the law… Unlike the white males she excoriates, there is no evidence that a society of NK Jemisins is capable of building an advanced civilization, or even successfully maintaining one without significant external support. Considering that it took my English and German ancestors more than one thousand years to become fully civilised after their first contact with an advanced civilisation, it is illogical to imagine, let alone insist, that Africans have somehow managed to do so in less than half the time with even less direct contact. These things take time. Being an educated, but ignorant savage, with no more understanding of what it took to build a new literature by “a bunch of beardy old middle-class middle-American guys” than an illiterate Igbotu tribesman has of how to build a jet engine, Jemisin clearly does not understand that her dishonest call for “reconciliation” and even more diversity with SF/F is tantamount to a call for its decline into irrelevance… Reconciliation is not possible between the realistic and the delusional. (spoiled because even tho this is SA, people might not want to read hatespeech)
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Jul 9, 2013 16:27
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fritz posted:stuff about a terrible person Yikes. Talk about a stellar case study of that geek social fallacy thing. So go ahead and shatter my faith in humanity a little more: have there been any attempts to boot him out of the SFFWA or is it the sort of organization where as long as you meet the basic requirements they don't care about anything else?
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Jul 9, 2013 16:49
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Holy gently caress  Srice posted:Yikes. Talk about a stellar case study of that geek social fallacy thing. There has been such discussion! A running thread in these leaked posts included an argument about whether to kick Beale out, the opposition mainly being on the grounds that nobody should ever be kicked out for their political beliefs. ed balls balls man posted:I've found the best female characters are probably in the Malazan books. Off the top of my head I can think of Laseen, Shurq Elalle, Yan Tovis, Tavore Paran, Uru Hela/Mayfly (my favorite heavies.), a bunch of the Tiste Andii, Blend and Picker, Adjunct Lorn etc. It's a bit of an investment to read though. Loving Life Partner posted:Beaten, yup. I appreciate Erikson a fair bit, and he is a really nice guy with great intentions, but while he's a generally competent and often inspired writer of women, he's nowhere near the best. A lot of the examples you cited would be cases I'd point at to explain how well-intentioned dude writers still stumble in one way or another. But there are definitely a lot of things Erikson gets right that most get really wrong. He told me a lot about his worldbuilding, which included a very ground-up rethinking of gender relations based on the efficacy of magic for reproductive health and control - more thought than most fantasy writers put into it! Tavore owns too. Malazan may have the best women characters out of the cadre of modern epic fantasy tomes written by dudes, at least.
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Jul 9, 2013 16:51
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That's actually something I wanted to ask, after I made my post I kind of thought about it and wondered how true what I was saying was, because while Malazan does have a lot of significant female characters, they don't really do a whole lot of things that'd identify them as female, their gender for the most part doesn't even matter. I guess I wonder what the feminist take on a piece of media like that is, is it good, bad, neutral?
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Jul 9, 2013 17:12
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I think that's a pretty cool goal to shoot for.
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Jul 9, 2013 17:15
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Groke posted:You might like Jo Walton's The King's Peace / The King's Name. It's been called Arthurian but I recall the author stating that she didn't really think it was, as she'd taken enough liberties to ensure a somewhat different kind of story with a different outcome. For instance the closest equivalent to a Lancelot role is occupied by a woman. Jo Walton's dragons book, Tooth and Claw, is a quasi-Victorian will-contention novel where all the characters are dragons. It's really cool. And Ash by Mary Gentle does the "women joining the army" thing with serious historical accuracy, and it's great. At least three major characters are women. It's very dark though. Srice posted:Yikes. Talk about a stellar case study of that geek social fallacy thing. Probably, although SFWA is being precise about what they're doing, which is "considering complaints". This is the best summary I've seen (scroll down to July 4). I read somewhere that part of the issue was that SFWA can't throw someone out without an unanimous vote (it's an organisation of 1800 people) but I hope I'm misremembering; that sounds bizarre. To restore your faith in humanity, I think it's impressive that so many people are treating such relatively small numbers of people, however vile, so seriously, and speaks well for sf fandom that almost all of it is coming together to condemn and so little to defend - and much of what defence there is, is behind closed doors. Or to put it differently, it's an overreaction, but in a good way that's healthy for the field. (E: Calling it "geek social fallacy", though, I think is inaccurate and diminishes the matter. And thanks for spoilering that, fritz.) General Battuta posted:You aren't wrong about any of that, but I just don't think there's much value to found in a purely subjective hugbox discussion. 'I liked it. Sorry to hear you didn't! Have you tried X? May I recommend Y?' makes for a much less interesting forums thread than real critical engagement. Which, I know, I should try to present an exemplar of; I've just finished Connie Willis' alternately frustrating and brilliant Blackout/All Clear and want to do a post about it. I'd just like to say that I agree with this and I, too, feel guilty about not posting something more substantial. I haven't even looked at an sf/f book since I wrote the OP. I heard that Blackout/All Clear was pretty crap; it would be interesting to see what you make of it. (E: Also for anyone on the fence about posting sf/f news like this, it is totally appropriate and I feel stupid for not thinking to post it myself over the weekend. And that was a really good rundown, thanks, General Battuta.) Safety Biscuits fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 18:31
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House Louse posted:Probably, although SFWA is being precise about what they're doing, which is "considering complaints". This is the best summary I've seen (scroll down to July 4). I read somewhere that part of the issue was that SFWA can't throw someone out without an unanimous vote (it's an organisation of 1800 people) but I hope I'm misremembering; that sounds bizarre. With the term "geek social fallacy" I was mostly referring to this old article http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Essays/five-geek-social-fallacies.html though I will admit it was mostly a guess on my part based on well, general nerd culture-isms. Anyways that's a great point. I'm glad that a lot of people are bringing this stuff out in the open, as giving that sort of thing proper attention can go a long way.
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Jul 9, 2013 19:01
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Loving Life Partner posted:That's actually something I wanted to ask, after I made my post I kind of thought about it and wondered how true what I was saying was, because while Malazan does have a lot of significant female characters, they don't really do a whole lot of things that'd identify them as female, their gender for the most part doesn't even matter. To the point where the (male) historian Duiker is grabbed by a female Marine and informed that if they both survive an upcoming battle she's going to bang his brains out. They do, and she does.
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Jul 9, 2013 19:04
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Loving Life Partner posted:That's actually something I wanted to ask, after I made my post I kind of thought about it and wondered how true what I was saying was, because while Malazan does have a lot of significant female characters, they don't really do a whole lot of things that'd identify them as female, their gender for the most part doesn't even matter. I guess I wonder what the feminist take on a piece of media like that is, is it good, bad, neutral? I don't think that's true for all women in his story. For some sure, but Shurq Ellale, Samar Dev, Felisin (surely the most controversal character), Spite and Envy, various Imass, Feather Witch, Sergeant Helian and many, many more are characters for whom being a women is an important part of their character, characters who wouldn't really function as men. I found Daniel Abraham's Long Price quartet had very interesting women in the story. They are not the protagonists though. Also Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven/River of Stars. Decius fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 19:32
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Decius posted:Also Guy Gavriel Kay's Under Heaven/River of Stars. Having read these two books very recently, I thought River of Stars was a bit of a step back on this count. Under Heaven featured a wide variety of sympathetically-portrayed women from lots of different walks of life, most of whom impacted the plot in interesting and important ways. River of Stars cut back on this considerably, focusing much more of its attention on a single Exceptional Woman, Lin Shan, a genius who was great at important Guy Stuff, not so great at unimportant Girl Stuff, and viewed with hostility by most other women she met. Also, the amount of interaction between women, which had been low to start with, dropped to rock-bottom (there was still some, but not very much at all). Some of this could theoretically be attributed to the country the story was set in, Kitai, becoming much more misogynistic between the books, with women being edged out of positions of influence and generally getting poked with the lovely end of the stick, but that's never stopped Kay before - in fact, given the patterns of his previous books, it should have resulted in more focus on women and their different ways of dealing with their situation. Instead, the story's efforts to address feminist themes through Shan only end up casting its own problems into starker relief. It's not terrible, mind you, but it's certainly not an improvement. On another subject, I've heard Daniel Abraham's name mentioned a lot, and was thinking of giving his work a go. Problem is, I have no idea what I'm in for or the quality thereof. Can the goon hivemind deliver its wisdom unto me?
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Jul 9, 2013 20:37
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Darth Walrus posted:On another subject, I've heard Daniel Abraham's name mentioned a lot, and was thinking of giving his work a go. Problem is, I have no idea what I'm in for or the quality thereof. Can the goon hivemind deliver its wisdom unto me? He tries interesting things and he's competent but, to my taste, his writing is bland as gently caress. Serious lack of anything that excites me in a book. Couldn't get into either of his fantasy trilogies or his UF books. The space opera Leviathan Wakes he writes with a co-author is reportedly fun, but eh, I'll give it a go some day. Eventually.
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Jul 9, 2013 21:22
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Loving Life Partner posted:That's actually something I wanted to ask, after I made my post I kind of thought about it and wondered how true what I was saying was, because while Malazan does have a lot of significant female characters, they don't really do a whole lot of things that'd identify them as female, their gender for the most part doesn't even matter. I guess I wonder what the feminist take on a piece of media like that is, is it good, bad, neutral? While his world contains women in roles that are usually reserved for men in either real life or other fantasy books, there is no overt exploration of what characters think of this, since their conception of gender roles is really different from ours. Gender matters very little in the Malazan world, and it's usually treated as a descriptor on par with height or hair color, except when he wants two characters to have a physical relationship of some kind. Even when this happens, the same kind of gender equality is displayed. The characterization of female characters is as strong as his characterization of male characters, which is to say that it's spotty at best, at least when first introduced. Interesting things do happen to the characters and they change in satisfying ways in response to what happens to them, but most of them start out being very interchangeable. Way too many of them can be summed up as either "snarky soldier with a dry sense of humor" or "stoic soldier with a heavy sense of duty" or "total badass doing totally badass things". I still find the books quite enjoyable, but most of his characters come off as archetypes with a couple superficial quirks, rather than true three-dimensional characters. The characters exist to drive the story forwards and explore the setting, rather than the story being centered on them.
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Jul 9, 2013 21:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Oh, what the hell, can we say Wheel of Time for female characters in? I feel like that's too much book to recommend to a new reader to the genre. 
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Jul 9, 2013 22:18
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Megazver posted:He tries interesting things and he's competent but, to my taste, his writing is bland as gently caress. Serious lack of anything that excites me in a book. Couldn't get into either of his fantasy trilogies or his UF books. The space opera Leviathan Wakes he writes with a co-author is reportedly fun, but eh, I'll give it a go some day. Eventually. My views are similar to yours. I read a significant portion of the first Long Prince Quartet book, and I don't remember anything actually happening. The plot moved slowly and like you said, the writing was incredibly bland. I did enjoy the way "magic" manifests as the andat. I eventually put the book aside but I've yet to pick it back up. The Ol Spicy Keychain fucked around with this message at 22:24 on Jul 9, 2013 |
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Jul 9, 2013 22:20
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Darth Walrus posted:On another subject, I've heard Daniel Abraham's name mentioned a lot, and was thinking of giving his work a go. Problem is, I have no idea what I'm in for or the quality thereof. Can the goon hivemind deliver its wisdom unto me?
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Jul 9, 2013 22:51
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e:fb
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Jul 9, 2013 22:56
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General Battuta posted:You aren't wrong about any of that, but I just don't think there's much value to found in a purely subjective hugbox discussion. 'I liked it. Sorry to hear you didn't! Have you tried X? May I recommend Y?' makes for a much less interesting forums thread than real critical engagement. Which, I know, I should try to present an exemplar of; I've just finished Connie Willis' alternately frustrating and brilliant Blackout/All Clear and want to do a post about it. I liked the history part of The Doomsday Book but the "modern future" part of the story verged on absurd. Do they not have answering machines or voicemail in the future? From what I recall the entire modern day storyline was people trying to track down other people and missing phone calls. I mean, yeah, the book was written in 1993 but answering machines were pretty ubiquitous at that point. But the middle ages stuff? Solid.
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Jul 10, 2013 02:15
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Connie Willis' entire method of dramatic tension hinges on constant misunderstandings, miscommunications, interruptions, well-intending but obstructive bystanders, missed connections and other unfavorable coincidences. Blackout/All Clear does this for hundreds and hundreds of pages and becomes nearly unbearable in its elliptical introspective passivity...and then somehow manages to make a fair stab at justifying and using all that in the end. I don't think it's quite the book Doomsday Book is but after seeming frustrating for so long it's really remarkable what it manages...if the end works for you. There's no future story at all, either, so no major technology problems.
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Jul 10, 2013 02:21
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coyo7e posted:Neil Gaiman. Try Stardust and Neverwhere. Speaking of, am I being petulant for being annoyed that he finally puts out his first non-children's book in 8 years and its only 200 pages?
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Jul 10, 2013 02:45
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Christ, I have bought the three Gaiman works that everyone recommends and they are still sitting on my bookshelf untouched. I really should get around to starting them some time. Which would you guys pick for a first read: American Gods, Stardust or Neverwhere?
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Jul 10, 2013 05:01
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I haven't read stardust so I can't comment there. Between the other two, i think neverwhere is better on reflection but american gods is paced really well and you will fly through it, so I would start there.
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Jul 10, 2013 05:10
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Geek U.S.A. posted:Christ, I have bought the three Gaiman works that everyone recommends and they are still sitting on my bookshelf untouched. I really should get around to starting them some time. Neverwhere's probably the best. Read it then immediately read Kraken by China Mieville to compare/contrast (Mieville's better still).
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Jul 10, 2013 05:21
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I am about a third through Le Guin's The Dispossessed and utterly loving it, but at this point in this book, it feels like a good amount of its universe's conceits aren't being explained. I understand it was one of the last Hainish books, but since they're narratively independent, I jumped into the one that sounded the best to me. Is she going to explain its premises (most importantly, is there some kind of panspermia thing going on?), or should I just go ahead and read about the series on the Internet? Cool, that's about what I'd gathered. I didn't want to get too caught up in the sci-fi conceits, since that's not what the story is about, but it was nagging at me. vvvvvvv Flip Yr Wig fucked around with this message at 00:30 on Jul 11, 2013 |
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Jul 10, 2013 06:06
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In the context of the book, you're just not supposed to worry too much about it, I think. But yeah, all the human worlds (including Earth) were colonized by the Hainish a long long time ago, and then their interstellar capabilities collapsed and they're only now recontacting and rebuilding. I'm not spoilering this because I don't think it's ever treated as a big deal. I think it's pretty cool that she did the no FTL setting long before it came into vogue.
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Jul 10, 2013 12:01
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andrew smash posted:I haven't read stardust so I can't comment there. Between the other two, i think neverwhere is better on reflection but american gods is paced really well and you will fly through it, so I would start there. The problem with American Gods is that if you've read any other Gaiman, you'll know exactly what's going to happen all the way through. It steals too much from other works.
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Jul 10, 2013 12:59
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Jedit posted:The problem with American Gods is that if you've read any other Gaiman, you'll know exactly what's going to happen all the way through. It steals too much from other works. That's a problem that Gaiman is starting to have consistently. His newest novel is extremely similar to Coraline, he's written too many short stories about Grendel, etc. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Jul 10, 2013 |
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Jul 10, 2013 13:22
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Finally getting around to Assassin's Apprentice after trying out some self-published S/F stuff, does the rest of Farseer series hold up this well? I'm really enjoying it so far.
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Jul 10, 2013 14:24
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Jedit posted:The problem with American Gods is that if you've read any other Gaiman, you'll know exactly what's going to happen all the way through. It steals too much from other works. Another reason to read it first then.
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Jul 10, 2013 16:28
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andrew smash posted:Another reason to read it first then. I just don't think it's that good a book. It's too derivative and predictable and come on don't name your African-American protagonist Shadow. Gaiman didn't do much of anything in American Gods that either he or someone else hasn't done better elsewhere (I almost think of Anansi Boys as the American Gods do-over). I think American Gods was something Gaiman had to write in order to come to terms with living in America but I don't think it's a first-rank work. The place to start with Gaiman is either by diving headfirst into the full run of Sandman, the edition of Stardust with the Charles Vess illustrations, or Neverwhere (any format). He's got other good stuff of course -- Graveyard Book, Coraline, etc. -- but those are his most original, powerful works.
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Jul 10, 2013 16:37
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Geek U.S.A. posted:Christ, I have bought the three Gaiman works that everyone recommends and they are still sitting on my bookshelf untouched. I really should get around to starting them some time. Hieronymous Alloy posted:I just don't think it's that good a book. It's too derivative and predictable and come on don't name your African-American protagonist Shadow. coyo7e fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Jul 10, 2013 |
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Jul 10, 2013 18:54
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I could never really get into Gaiman, which I'm almost nervous to admit to, since he seems pretty well loved here on SA. I read American Gods and Neverwhere (the latter was really interesting because I read it while living in London) and I thought both were decent, but nothing that really sucked me in. Are the rest of his books similar style, or are they different enough that I should give one a try?
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Jul 10, 2013 19:04
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He's pretty consistently going to do the same stuff however, a lot of his books are not like those two at all - often they have a children's story quality to them, as people were mentioning above. You should just re-read the last few posts about Gaiman though, because they all say that he does tend to stay on the same tracks regardless of the project.
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Jul 10, 2013 19:07
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coyo7e posted:He's pretty consistently going to do the same stuff however, a lot of his books are not like those two at all - often they have a children's story quality to them, as people were mentioning above. I lost a lot of respect for Gaiman's creativity when I found that the Silver Age Sandman and Prez Rickard appear in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #2. The title for Neverwhere was also lifted from a Roger McKenzie series that was stillborn due to DC's collapse in the late 70s. It didn't matter too much in the long run because The Sandman was always about retelling stories, but Gaiman didn't look too far to find them.
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Jul 10, 2013 20:22
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Jedit posted:I lost a lot of respect for Gaiman's creativity when I found that the Silver Age Sandman and Prez Rickard appear in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #2. The title for Neverwhere was also lifted from a Roger McKenzie series that was stillborn due to DC's collapse in the late 70s. It didn't matter too much in the long run because The Sandman was always about retelling stories, but Gaiman didn't look too far to find them. This... doesn't really make any sense?
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Jul 10, 2013 20:32
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Megazver posted:This... doesn't really make any sense? In what way?
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Jul 10, 2013 20:44
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