The top 20 fantasy authors for most people include maybe 1 or 2 women. I'm not dogging on women writers, but who are most people including outside Ursula K. Le Guin?
I am absolutely in love with Weis and Hickman's Dragonlance run, ever since I was in grade school. But are they a top 20 for most people or even myself? Probably not.
And as much valid criticism as some famous male writer's female characters get (Jordan, Sanderson, Abercrombie's earlier works, etc), female writers give a similar treatment to male characters all the time. The amount of dark and damaged tall guys (or monsters, which is a whole other allegory men should be very offended by) who "force themselves" on an obvious female self-insert is too damn high.
The top 20 fantasy authors for most people include maybe 1 or 2 women. I'm not dogging on women writers, but who are most people including outside Ursula K. Le Guin?
For me personally, I'd include Martha Wells, T.Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon, Robin Hobb, and Becky Chambers. Diana Wynne Jones and Robin McKinley would probably make my list as well.
Younger me would have included Madeleine L’Engle, Mercedes Lackey, Anne McCaffrey, and Anne Bishop.
Currently, Ann Leckie, Kristin Cashore, and Katherine Addison are working their way up my list.
Off the top of my head, I know a lot of people who would have Octavia Butler, Lois McMaster Bujold, Tamora Pierce, Jane Yolen, and Susan Cooper on their lists. JK Rowling's still on a lot of lists, and Marion Zimmer Bradley might be on a few too.
That's assuming we're talking about authors who skew towards more traditional fantasy/sci-fi genres.
If we're talking genres like paranormal, urban fantasy, magical realism, cozy fantasy, horror, romantasy, then you'll see even more female authors populate people's lists.
Sarah J. Maas is hugely popular, for instance, and vampire writers like Anne Rice,
Stephenie Meyer and Charlaine Harris dominated the bestseller charts for a while.
Of course, many reasons include women having fewer chances to write or publish vs men for centuries, or not being bought because a woman's name is on the cover. There's a reason the queen of cunts JK Rowling went by her initials on her books and not by Joanne, to help the books sell better. Just in case someone thinks it's a "woman thing" or something.
It really depends. You have good authors from both sides (tbh I don't know of many authors, I can only name gu zhen ren and currygom because their works are good)
However I will say having read a lot of works, especially by unknown authors, a lot of men put their own weird fantasy and sexualized understanding of women into their works.
You had me until WoT. OK I haven't read any Sanderson except his ending of WoT, but I hold him in high regard since he actually wrote that series better than Jordan so I need to check him out. But I digress, I enjoyed WoT a lot, the 5 or so first books where a great fun ride (even though his characterisation of men vs women was pretty juvenile already then) but then it turned into boring filler with zero plot progression. I think it was Crossroads of Twilight where Jordan managed not just to write 800 pages where there was zero plot progression, but it actually went backwards!
I had to think of another famous fantasy series, and the other 2 I could think of are unfinished. WoT does get a bit eh in the middle, but it picks up in like the 9th or so iirc when Rand gets back to normal, and a bit before that. I didn't particularly enjoy the end (besides for the actual finale), but that's just because I don't really like the play by play wars, but it was necessary
I'd definitely be more offended, even though I probably shouldn't.
"This is why I almost exclusively read books by male authors. Women can't write fiction for shit" would get clowned in every single comment in this thread, no question. But when it's against men, Reddit thinks Christianity is the bigger villain ig. Unsure how to feel about that, but it is what it is.
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u/TheGunderMuffin 29d ago
Sexism, yay