Ow, my eye

[hatgirl]

So I was reading Juliet E McKenna's SFX article Everyone Can Promote Equality In Genre Writing, cheerfully nodding along with everything she said while comfortable in the knowledge that there wasn't much I could do to impact the situation one way or another, when I remembered that I choose the books for a weekly drop-in SF&F book club.

Eep.

I pulled

Comments

[peadarog]

Don't beat yourself up. Everybody does it -- that was the point of Juliet's article. 30% is (unfortunately) pretty good.

There are lots of good books by women in all genres, but they're not always prominent.

Here are some obvious SF suggestions for future months. I can find Kindle versions of all of them and am hoping that means they're on ePub also:
Grass by Sherri S. Tepper (SF Masterworks)
The Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula le Guin
Xenogenesis by Octavia Butler

Fantasy:
Is KJ Parker a man or a woman? Nobody knows for sure... So, leaving her/him aside, avoiding a repeat of Ursula and only picking mindblowing stuff available on ebooks that's not written by anybody I know personally...
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherine M. Valente
I'd love to say something by Tanith Lee, but ebooks don't seem to love her :(

[hatgirl]

Oh, I'm not exactly dressing myself in sackcloth and ashes, it's just that I was feeling so smug as I read that article... Hubris, hubris!

Thanks for the suggestions! I shall add those to my "potential" list...

[scorbet]

There are a few suggestions for female authored books in the suggestion thread.

This thread may be helpful in giving you more ideas. (Incidentally, the thread previous to this one is what you get when you leave out the female author part. About 10% women, apparently - 30% is high).

Though to be honest, female written, non-series/sequel/prequel non-fat and half-decent may be rather difficult to identify. I keep coming up with brilliant suggestions that fail mostly on the series part. Unfortunately, there are only so many times that you can prevent yourself from saying "well, that huge ginormous plot hole gets completely filled in in Book X" :-)

[scorbet]

Oops, forgot I had further suggestions of my own:

Omnitopia Dawn by Diane Duane
Among Others by Jo Walton
Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees
Carousel Tides by Sharon Lee
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
Bellwether by Connie Willis

Haven't checked for ebookness, though I think I own all of them on ebook bar the Mirrlees. But different publishing territories means different availabilities. Plus my computer sometimes thinks it is somewhere else, like the US, say.

(Think the hard bit here was the SFF(H) bit: kept coming up with brilliant mysteries and historical fiction [in other languages too]).

[omegar]

You may regret Peter F. Hamilton, but it means that we can have a good argument!

On the book thing. I find it incredibly hard to even find female authors in book stores, i think i just have a very strong bias towards "Male" books.

[hatgirl]

It's not the quality of the book, it's the 800 pages that's the issue! Not practical. Oh well, we live and learn...

[omegar]

Well yes. I was hoping you might start looking at shorter books.... The only reason I got through this one was because I had read it before and could skim bits and pieces...

[jamesb]

You are missing out dude, Lauren Beukes, Anne McCaffrey, Lois Mcmaster Bujoid, Cherrie Priest, Gail Carrigher...
the list of cracking good authors could go on and on

[mollydot]

Cyteen by CJ Cherryh was my best find from another bookclub I was in. It has a sequel, but you don't need to read it.

I forget what exactly you mean by cross-genre, but maybe Nalo Hopkinson? Margaret Atwood?

Temeraire can be read without the sequels.

[hatgirl]

The prequel/sequel ban isn't based on the readability of the book on its own, it's to stop the conversation dissolving into "OMG, Snape is my favourite character because of... oh wait, you haven't read that book yet. But OMG, when you read the last book you will realise why that thing he said in this book was so amazing." LOL

[mollydot]

Ah. I still recommend Cyteen then. Dunno about Temeraire, cos I haven't read any farther yet.