Only female fantasy author I ever liked is Ursula K. Le Guin (Earthsea). Granted I have not read all too much. I remember female authors from the books my mother read, all this pseudo historic middle ages stuff. All a load of crap, so I am really not much inclined to go into that direction.
You should try anything by Mary Shelley, most famous for Frankenstein and an adaptation of Dracula. She is one of the best novelists of her time (1850's) and wrote both fantasy and sci-fi novels, sometimes wrapped up in to one book i.e Frankenstein.
mm. Yes, I should read something by Mary Shelley. I also just finished Dracula by Bram Stoker and quite liked it.
I have read the first Hunger Games book. It was weird though because I had watched the film first and there really was nothing new to read, the film was suprisingly faithful. Except maybe, there was a little more survival stuff in the actual Games. Weird experience. Light reading, but enjoyable.
Want to pull for Diana Wynne Jones, who is criminally underrated.
She doesn't write epic high fantasy but she is an amazing author and writes amazing stories. Primarily wrote for YA audience, but I don;t think that's necessarily a detriment against her (she has some adult targeted works as well). She is also very well steeped in the fantasy tradition, and a lot of her works parody traditional tropes in very clever and humorous ways. I would recommend you try reading Dark Lord of Derkholm (as a bonus, it has carnivorous sheep :3).
On March 29 2014 02:51 Falling wrote: Haha. Is that the origin of your name?
It wasn't, but imagine my pleasure when I came across the following passage:
"It was only when Shona, in sheer fury, turned the carnivorous sheep among them that they moved. They ran, some of them with charming little white sheep attached to their legs or backsides and the rest shouting about monsters."
Ah, I finally got why people thought the title was misleading. Was probably the 20:th time I read it.
To keep on topic, Trudi Canavan has a few good books, is female and has females as lead characters. All series are good but I myself preferred the Age of the Five series. (Notice I did not use a strong adjective about the books, worth reading/buying but not the best anybody will read.)
On March 29 2014 01:42 Falling wrote: mm. Yes, I should read something by Mary Shelley. I also just finished Dracula by Bram Stoker and quite liked it.
I have read the first Hunger Games book. It was weird though because I had watched the film first and there really was nothing new to read, the film was suprisingly faithful. Except maybe, there was a little more survival stuff in the actual Games. Weird experience. Light reading, but enjoyable.
I found the first person narrative a bit jarring at first but once i got used to it, it was great. I haven't actually read them but rather listened to audio books, as is my preference these days, and having a womans voice lent itself well to the first person style of the book. The films are indeed very faithful to the books, something i wish they had done with Harry Potter lol.
The Wayfarer Redemption has a lot of shit going on and can be hard to keep track of but it all falls into place in the 3rd book. I remember just being like wtf, how in the hell did she tie all this shit together. I read it a long time ago, This has inspired me to revisit it again once i finish my second read of Song of Ice and Fire.
“I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off. To my mind this is kind of frustrating, it’s madness. Ultimately, in the history of [the] world, penises entering vaginas have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure; axes entering skulls, well, not so much.” - George RR Martin
Part of the beauty of Martins characters is they actually make oyu hate them. And don't give up on the characters, he has a way of changing them completely and showing totally different sides of them.
It's not really fantasy, but I have a particular interest in female characters done well/interestingly in science fiction. Of all the books I've read, I think the Diamond Age stands out the most, it has two extremely interesting and well written female characters who are kind of in utter opposition from a cultural perspective, one is a fairly conservatively centered motherly type, the other basically fits no female (or male) stereotypes beyond protagonist ones. This is in part because of the premise of the book, but also I think just an excellently written story of the development of a woman amongst various cultures that still single out women but who just never gets 'put in her place' successfully and ends up being a severe badass (once again, not in the masochistic/masculine way).
If you're into interestingly written books centering around women in the SF/F space, Diamond Age is a real pearl.
On March 28 2014 04:59 Falling wrote: I would definitely read more of Robin Hobb, and I'll definitely put the Assassin Trilogy on my list, and I'll see about Left Hand of Darkness. Partially it's contingent on the regional library, but we'll see.
Yeah, I agree about Mistborn. I've read the first two and I have the third sitting on my shelf. But I could read that court intrigue by day, fantasy-Jedi by night stuff all day. Once they broke out of the first book, I definitely missed the Ocean's 11 feel to the first book. Obviously, an author can't spin their wheels and rewrite the same story again and again (Brian Jacques in his later years), but there was a magic something missing in the second.
Hobb is my favorite fantasy writer after Pratchett. All of her series (including those made under a pseudo) a outstanding but I wouldn't have started with the book you took. The events there are taking place somewhat far into the main storyline.
Anyone else like the Nightrunner books by Lynn Flewelling? Although the main characters are male they are gay. It's a really good series though imo. Much better than most of the generic stuff out there. I personally loved the whole world and the cool story. The side-characters were a bit lackluster unfortunately but I rarely care about characters anyways. The badguys were really good though.
On March 29 2014 13:50 insectoceanx wrote: The Wayfarer Redemption has a lot of shit going on and can be hard to keep track of but it all falls into place in the 3rd book. I remember just being like wtf, how in the hell did she tie all this shit together. I read it a long time ago, This has inspired me to revisit it again once i finish my second read of Song of Ice and Fire.
“I can describe an axe entering a human skull in great explicit detail and no one will blink twice at it. I provide a similar description, just as detailed, of a penis entering a vagina, and I get letters about it and people swearing off. To my mind this is kind of frustrating, it’s madness. Ultimately, in the history of [the] world, penises entering vaginas have given a lot of people a lot of pleasure; axes entering skulls, well, not so much.” - George RR Martin
Part of the beauty of Martins characters is they actually make oyu hate them. And don't give up on the characters, he has a way of changing them completely and showing totally different sides of them.
re: Wayfarers. I honestly thought the plot was pretty straightforward. If anything, the world felt pretty empty except when they ran into pockets of people, hidden or otherwise.
I guess by that quote, you and GRRM suggest there is a sort of double standard. Maybe there is. But I don't actually like graphically written violence either, so it's more a case of soldiering on until the cumulative effect reached a tipping point. But I really, really don't care to read about rape detailed or not. Donaldson's was not graphic at all, but I stopped immediately. The fact that I lasted 2.5 books with Martin is a testament to his skill as a writer. I'm not writing angry letters to him... I just stopped. He has the right to write that stuff, but I don't have to enjoy or read it either.
I could see how he was going to recontextualize Jayme, but I don't care for it. When I say I ran out of vaguely sympathetic characters, I mean that. Trying to describe the feeling... it's like Martin boiled 30 years of selfishness and violence backstabbing and other evil acts down and condensed them down to a couple years (whatever is the time frame of the book,) but in the process he boiled off all virtue, compassion, and... joy out of those same 30 years. It's very bleak. Lord Stark was only vaguely sympathetic to begin with- he is on Team Justice or maybe Lawful Stupid. But he is not compassionate- from the last name and his opening scene, I don't think we're meant to think that. He's inflexible and is more akin to Stannis then you would otherwise think.
Compassion for another hardly exists in Martin's universe. I think the bleakest thing about GRRM's universe is that from the highest king to the lowliest peasant is just trying to maneuvre to get what's best for them. There is no virtue, no idealism (not counting Stark's inflexible, short-sighted contingency plan as 'idealism'), no compassion, no goodness. If the Nazis conquered GRRM's land, prince to pauper they would all sell out their neighbours and no-one would've hidden the Jews. Everyone's a Machiavellian. That sort of self-sacrifice doesn't exist in his universe, and that is very depressing to read just because self-interest and backstabbing are so all encompassing. I don't need knights in white shining armour, but I do need even just a sliver a moonlight- there isn't even that for me.
As a side note, I do think one's capacity to continue reading is somewhat contingent on how compelling a character you think Tyrion is. I never did. Plus Dany's plot was going no-where after 2.5 books, and I was meh on Jon's storyline.
I'm currently reading Song of Ice and Fire and I agree with you Falling. Somehow it remains compelling all the same... As selfish and unpleasant as all the people are, I still want to see what happens to Tyrion, Brienne etc. I guess you're right that that is testament to his skill as a writer.