I am a bitter Fantasy fan (now with recs)

[mothwing]

I have been reading Fantasy written by English and American authors ever since I was fourteen. It is my favourite genre, and most of my favourite books are Fantasy books. This genre was my cure for sadness, loneliness, and boredom ever since I discovered it. And even though I love that genre and spend quite an amount of time defending its literary

Comments

[emily_goddess]

I've been reading Kat Richardson's Greywalker series. It's pretty standard urban fantasy, but it passes the Bechdel test, and nobody is an overpowered Mary Sue (author self-insert, yes, but not a Mary Sue). It says a lot about the state of speculative fiction overall that our options are, mostly, weak women characters in a good story or good women characters in a weak story. I can think of some solid feminist sci-fi, actually, but not much fantasy.

[mothwing]

Added!

If you have SciFi recommendations, please do recommend away. It's not my thing, but I am sure that they will be of use to someone on here. :)

[emily_goddess]

Pretty much anything by Octavia Butler will be feminist with leads who are well-written, usually women of color. Ursula K. LeGuin and Sheri S. Tepper, while they don't always have women as their main characters, have both explicitly addressed gender as a social construct: Tepper depicts a pair of intersexed, mixed-gender, conjoined twins (Sideshow); LeGuin has a planet of humans who have neither sex nor gender until mating time (The Left Hand of Darkness).

[seeinglife]

I wish livejournal had an expand all button so I could print all the comments to this out! People here are oh so smart and they read a lot of stuff I bet I want to read, too. :3

[mothwing]

Seriously, that'd be awesome. Don't paid users get that option? Maybe one of the lucky ones who do have paid options can be persuaded.

[seeinglife]

[info]shineys_are_us sent me a screencap of the whole post expanded, so I bet so! Maybe shineys_are_us wouldn't mind PMing it to you, too?

[speaksoftlylove]

I'm late, but I want to say YES YES YES. I stopped reading fantasy because for the most part, I couldn't find anything that didn't make me feel like shit.

Although, if I may add to your list of recommendations, the Renshai series (two sets of trilogies) by Mickey Zucker Reichart were really good, if I remember correctly, and the female characters were awesome warriors. Also, Robin Hobb had a trilogy called the Liveship Traders (I think - Liveship something) that featured women, and it was great.

[mothwing]

Thanks for the recs, more recommendations are always good.

If you've got more, add away, you're not late at all.

[screamatmyself]

I loved Graceling! It was awesome! ♥ Thanks for this list, too. I think we should do lists like this once every so often. I get so sick of all the girls in my book obsessing over guys.

[mothwing]

I loved that book. Did you get a chance to read the prequel, Fire? I tried to, but somehow, I just couldn't get into it. The main character just isn't as interesting and wonderful as Katsa. <3

[screamatmyself]

lol, I didn't know there was a prequel.

[mothwing]

Well, it's only been released in October, and it's probably more of a companion piece to Graceling than a prequel.

[holyschist]

I'd add some serious cavaeats to both MZB and Jim Butcher. I love their books, but Butcher's Harry Dresden has a serious chivalry complex which is mostly portrayed as something that gets him in trouble but can still be really irritating (TBH, I don't read the books for Harry himself, since I kind of want to smack him a lot--but they are great fun and have well-written female characters). MZB's books have some weird gender and sexuality issues, particularly in the Darkover novels. Lackey's books often have a serious case of Tragic Gay Men and Rape as Plot Motivator for both heroines and the aforementioned TGM; I frankly can't stand her writing anymore. I think her best books in the Valdemar series are probably By the Sword and the Tarma and Kethry novels. There are definitely triggery rape scenes in the later; I can't remember about the former. Mind, these are not recommendations--just which books if hers I think are the best if you feel you must give them a try

[shenth]

I was just coming back to rec Sandman! However, it has some serious issues at times. The way Wanda is treated in A Game of You is just...ugh. Could be worse, but it's not great. I won't spoil it.

Overall, though, great series. Death and Delirium are two of my favorite characters ever.

[holyschist]

It's been a while since I read it, so I don't remember the specifics. Yeah, most of these books aren't perfect. :(

[mothwing]

Wow. You ought to be doing the list at the top, seriously. Thanks for the recommendations! Wise Child in particular sounds extremely worth reading.