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Fantasy Book & Author Discussion / Re: Women Write Fantasy (The Giant 'Women in Fantasy' Database)

« on: May 10, 2015, 07:59:35 AM »

I grew up in the 70's and 80's, and I don't remember there being a shortage of female fantasy authors at that time. One of the series that hooked me on the genre was The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. Read that in primary school. I credit Cooper (along with C.S. Lewis) with hooking me on fantasy, and I credit authors like Tanith Lee, Ursula Le Guin, Meghan Lindsholm, Anne McCaffrey, Patricia McKillip, Robin McKinley, Barbara Hambly, Lynn Flewelling, Carol Berg, Jane Yolen, Ellen Kushner, Juliet E. McKenna, Juliet Marillier, Sharon Shinn and a whole host of others for keeping me hooked. 

That list is off the top of my head, but there are many, many others, and I have read a ton of them. To those who think women can't write fantasy, I can only say this: maybe it's true that women and men write differently, but every reason you give for not liking female authored fantasy is a reason I would give for why I do like it. I don't want all fantasy to be "epic". I don't want all fantasy to be about men. I like the variety of styles and voices we see in the genre now.

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Fantasy Book & Author Discussion / Re: Lord of the Rings... Ealy Grimdark? ;-)

« on: April 23, 2015, 07:45:00 PM »

Lord of the Rings is grimdark to me. From the moment they left the Shire it was like being at a funeral. My heart hurt the whole time I was in middle earth. No hope. No hope at all. 

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Fantasy Book & Author Discussion / Re: Fantasy Book Releases in May 2015

« on: April 23, 2015, 07:24:33 PM »

I'm adding The Forgotten Beasts of Eld and A Court of Thorns and Roses to my wish list. I'm a huge fan of McKillip, but I've never read anything by Maas. The blurb sounded good though.  The Naomi Novik book is my favorite cover.

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[MAR 2015] Dreamer's Pool / Re: Dreamer's Pool Week 4: Finished

« on: March 25, 2015, 01:22:27 AM »

These last chapters moved right along. The ending wasn't a huge surprise, but I felt satisfied with it. This is going to sound silly, but I was really happy when the dog/Flidais jumped in the pool instead of having to be thrown in. I had actually stressed a little when I thought they were going to throw her off that cliff! Kind of funny  that Blackthorn keeps the dog in the end. Can't help but feel a bit sorry for the maid, really, since she was a victim in the beginning, too. She could have been nicer, but it wasn't her fault she was put into that situation to start with. Flidais is the one that wanted to bathe.

I also liked that Blackthorn admitted she liked having Grim around at the end. I look forward to learning more about his past in future books.

Anyway, this was a good read for me and I'll definitely read the next in the series. Glad that at least some of you felt the same. 

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Fantasy Book & Author Discussion / Re: Women Write Fantasy (The Giant 'Women in Fantasy' Database)

« on: March 22, 2015, 06:21:19 PM »

I find myself agreeing with you, Raptori and Doctor Chill. This is a complicated subject and it's hard to put all my thoughts into coherent sentences, especially when I have such mixed emotions about it anyway. I've been reading and writing fantasy since I was about 10, so it's hard for me to accept that women don't enjoy the genre. There are plenty of female sci-fi and fantasy authors on the bookshelves at my local bookstore and on the virtual shelves at Amazon, and I know they get read even if they don't show up on the "recommend" or "favorites" lists here. I think they show up on urban fantasy or YA lists though. Women are carving out their own niches in fantasy and sci-fi, and the readership appears to be growing, so I think they will only get more popular as time goes by.    But as a female writer and reader of fantasy, it does make me sad that more of my favorite female authors don't show up on popular lists. There are some fantastic female writers out there, I think readers are missing out.

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Fantasy Book & Author Discussion / Re: Women Write Fantasy (The Giant 'Women in Fantasy' Database)

« on: March 22, 2015, 04:47:18 PM »

I think there's a simple explanation. Women read both male and female authors, but a large majority of men only read books written by men. So of course male authors have a much larger audience, and it has nothing to do with one group being better writers or putting  more books out or any of the things we'd like it to be about, it's just that fewer men are willing to read books written by women.

Pretty sure that's not true though. At least according to this infographic, it's pretty equal for the most popular books - both genders on average stick to their own gender 90% of the time. There's no reason to assume that the breakdown for less popular books would be disparate - I'd expect it to even out for both genders.

Maybe I'm reading the charts wrong, but I'm not understanding how this disproves my theory. It says 80% of a a female author's audience will be women, while 50% of a male author's readers are women. Half of a male author's audience is women. Right?  If we stick to our own gender 90% of the time, that's probably because a lot of women read romance. But male authors still gain half their readership from women, even if women read more women than men. Not so of female authors.

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Fantasy Book & Author Discussion / Re: Highly Regarded Books that You Have Struggled Through

« on: March 22, 2015, 04:37:02 PM »

I've slogged through too many 'highly regarded' books by now that I don't see the point any more.  I'm just going to read things that work for me, no matter what others' say--unless I'm absolutely sure it's worth it, I'm not going to push through things I put down and don't want to pick up again (there's a difference between 'want to read' and 'want to have read'!).

Yes, this.  I'd like to spend the precious few hours I have available reading books that I can't put down, not books that other people couldn't put down.

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Fantasy Book & Author Discussion / Re: Women Write Fantasy (The Giant 'Women in Fantasy' Database)

« on: March 22, 2015, 04:17:29 PM »

I think there's a simple explanation. Women read both male and female authors, but a large majority of men only read books written by men. So of course male authors have a much larger audience, and it has nothing to do with one group being better writers or putting  more books out or any of the things we'd like it to be about, it's just that fewer men are willing to read books written by women.

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Fantasy Book & Author Discussion / Re: Need some suggestions / recommendations

« on: March 20, 2015, 09:47:17 PM »

I highly recommend books by Steven Brust. Any of them, but especially his Vlad Taltos series. They can be read out of order without causing a lot of confusion, and much of his early work is fairly short, for fantasy.

One thing you might do to help decide which books you'll enjoy is read the sample pages on Amazon. Sometimes you'll get a feel right away if the book isn't to your taste.

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Fantasy Movies, Comic Books & Video Games / Re: What are you currently watching?

« on: March 20, 2015, 03:54:37 PM »

I just finished the first season of Sleepy Hollow. This is probably my favorite show on TV right now.

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[MAR 2015] Dreamer's Pool / Re: Dreamer's Pool Week 3: Chapters 20 - 29

« on: March 20, 2015, 12:52:58 AM »

I didn't think the punishment was serious enough either. Didn't understand how that could be a "perfect" solution. I'm convinced Flidais has been taken over by someone or something else, but don't have it all worked out yet. I notice I'm reading faster in these last chapters, eager to learn the truth.

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Fantasy Book & Author Discussion / Re: Delayed Reading: joys and disappointments

« on: March 20, 2015, 12:20:24 AM »

I've had Terry Brooks' Voyage of the Jerle Shannara, Isle Witch on my shelf for around 9 years. Haven't even read the first page. Had no idea who Terry Brooks was or how many books he'd written when I bought the book, and after I found out I just felt overwhelmed with the idea that I might get sucked into reading them all. I'd almost like to get rid of the book, actually, because having it on my shelf and knowing I'll never read it makes me feel like a failure. 

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[MAR 2015] Dreamer's Pool / Re: Dreamer's Pool Week : Chapters 1 - 9

« on: March 11, 2015, 02:47:26 PM »

Sorry to hear that. Is it all three POVs? I know I read a review where someone struggled a bit in the beginning with Grim's chapters.

Yep, all three.  I suppose it's mostly the first person past tense.  But sometimes it also feels like they are addressing a reader in their narration.  I don't actually notice any difference between Grim's chapters and Oran's or Blackthorn's.  He's a man of few words, but he's not a man of few thoughts.  He's as, maybe even more so, perceptive and analytical about what's going on around him as either Blackthorn or Oran.  I do feel like there is a pretty big discrepancy between the person we see him as in his thoughts and the persona he puts out when he's interacting with others.  He would have to be doing it deliberately, otherwise it's not really good writing right?  One of the problems I sometimes have with first person is when a character acts and speaks like themselves as that character, but actually thinks with the voice of the author as a narrator.  It's a big, huge pet peeve of mine.  I don't know if that's really the case with Grim, but the discrepancy feels weird to me even if he is doing it deliberately.

That's really interesting to me that you see it that way, because I've always been quite self aware, and one of my frustrations as a human being is that the words in my head aren't even close to the words that come out of my mouth. Basically, I think in poetic, three page paragraphs like I'm J.R.R. Tolkien, and speak in short, clipped sentences that no one can make sense of. Usually fragments.  It's one of my failings as a human being, that I can't put my thoughts into words. So Grim is totally believable to me, and he's the character I most relate to. But I think you've touched on why so many people probably don't like first person narrations. I had never thought of that before, but it's a good point.  It's really hard to get into a story if you can't stand the voice of the narrator.

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[MAR 2015] Dreamer's Pool / Re: Dreamer's Pool Week 2: Chapters 10 - 19

« on: March 11, 2015, 03:06:45 AM »

Once again I find myself nodding as I read Arry's post, but  I hadn't even considered that Flidais might have been soul flipped into the dog though. lol. She's definitely up to something, and it almost has to be because of the fey, right? Why else would the dog be so afraid of her? I wonder about the dog, too, because in Flidais's letters she said she found the dog originally, is how she acquired it, and she made jokes about it being fey.

I expect Blackthorn will be the one to figure out the problem with Flidais, but she hasn't even met the prince yet! I expected their lives to intertwine by now.

Another thing I'm wondering about is why Conmael saved Blackthorn to start with. What is his part in all this? So far he's not playing a very big part in the story.

Oran's chapters are still the slowest for me, mostly because he gets a bit long-winded when he talks about his duties and day to day activities.  He's such a nice person, but in this section he's a little too good to be true. But that's a minor complaint. I mean, it's still been an enjoyable read so far.

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Fantasy Book & Author Discussion / Re: The best female science fiction and fantasy writers you should read now

« on: March 09, 2015, 04:33:04 AM »

It's hard for me to name the "best", as there are so many amazing female writers out there. I'll second  N. K. Jemisin.  Read Hundred Thousand Kingdoms with the FF book club and was blown away by her writing.

I'm also a huge fan of Juliet Marillier. Her book Wolfskin reminds me a lot of some of the books that show up on so many favorites lists, and yet it seems very few of my fantasy reading friends have even heard of it or Marillier.