Where are you in Fantasyland? March 2013

I'm in a thus far unnamed land in The Innkeeper's Song.

Still working on Feast of Souls by C. S. Friedman.

Still in Tortall and Other Lands.

Still in 19th Century America, around New York City, to see The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris.

Afterwards I returned to 21st Century Sweden in The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson.

Finally I'll return to late 19th Century or early 20th Century America during the reign of Theodore Rex also by Morris.

I'm still working my way through The Bonehunters.

In the Crescent Moon Kingdoms with Throne of the Crescent Moon.

I just finished Dead Letter Day by Eileen Rendahl

>6 AnnieMod:: Let me know what you think of Throne of the Crescent Moon, please. I almost picked it up at the bookshop, but I'm never sure about authors I haven't read / heard of before. Since I'm a completist, too, I might end up having to get a series I wasn't keen on. :0)

6> Hey Annie! Let me know how Throne of the Crescent Moon goes too! I've been wanting to try it. I've seen a lot of the publicity surrounding the book and have become over-exposed I think. I want a real person's opinion. :)

I am continuing my acquaintance with Jobber, Lirrel, Faul & co. in Sadar's Keep.

Finished Feast of Souls by C. S. Friedman and started Wings of Wrath, the second book in the trilogy.

I'm in London in The Queen is Dead.

I've found out who the Deceiver was, now I'm with nand' Bren and company trying to watch out for a Betrayer.

Deceiver was a much stronger book than Conspirator, which felt a little directionless and episodic- I'm hoping that trend keeps up. This sub-series of the Foreigner books feels more like a single novel in parts than previous sub-series have, and I'm still waiting for the gun placed on the mantelpiece five books ago in Explorer to fire- another consequence of each book in the series covering less and less of a time span as the series has moved on, maybe; the entire action of Conspirator and Deceiver together has taken less than a week.

It is making me want to start the series over from the beginning, though (well, maybe skipping the somewhat torturous 70-ish page prologue to the first book), but so far I've resisted.

>1 Morigue: The Innkeeper's Song has been on my request-from-the-library-sometime list for ages, I'm curious how you find it.

>11 seitherin: How are the Friedman books? The concept sounds interesting, but I was utterly put off by the opening of Black Sun Rising.

>12 Unreachableshelf: How are those books? A friend recommended them to me, but I'm not much of a steampunk or urban fantasy reader so I'm not sure how well I'd like them.

>13 sandstone78: Friedman is dark fantasy. I loved the Coldfire trilogy, the opening of which you didn't like (magic in that world has a high price). The Magister trilogy is pretty good too, not quite as dark and with a touch of romance. This world's magic also has a high price, but it is approached differently than in Coldfire.

>14 Narilka: Yeah, the concept of magic with a high price is an interesting one, but (spoiler) the cost being the deaths of women and children related to a male character turns me off. I suspect the author was trying to be dark and edgy with it, but dead women and children or the threat of same being used as backstory for male characters is pretty much the oldest trick in the book to me. :/

Does she at least try to subvert that in the trilogy, or does she play the tragic-dark-and-dangerous male character trope straight? I've only ever seen reviews saying how cool and edgy said male character is, which doesn't give me a lot of hope.

The Magister trilogy featuring women on all three covers gave me hope that there might be a sympathetic but morally ambiguous female lead, which would at least be an interesting change since women are so rarely allowed the "dark antihero" role (either being redeemed and reformed by love, dying tragically, or turning out to be eeeevil that must be destroyed.)

Friedman doesn't play the opening of the Coldfire trilogy the way you think, but like you, I gagged at the opening scene. It took me THREE tries before I could get past it....the main story isn't going the way you think.

>16 JannyWurts: Okay, that's good at least. I still don't know if I want to read the Coldfire trilogy, but it gives me hope for some of her other work and maybe for that one down the line if I enjoyed her other books. :)

Currently at a girls' boarding school in Sligo (Ireland) at the beginning of King of morning, Queen of day.

>14 Narilka: Well, the "dark and edgy" munchkin* spends much of Black Sun Rising circumstantially weakened and dependent on his companions, including a woman and a rather scholarly man, if that helps. Liked it but I see how opinions whether the character manages to avoid overwhelming the rest of the cast anyway may differ. Can't speak for later books in the trilogy as I haven't read them yet though I intend to.

* RPGaming sense, overpowering character when compared with the rest of the group.

In Oz Reimagined. So far, I rate it 4****.

>15 sandstone78: A sympathetic and morally ambiguous female lead is fairly accurate for the Magister trilogy.

>>13 sandstone78:, Sandstone78: C. S. Friedman is one of my favorite authors. It has been years since I read The Coldfire Trilogy, so I don't remember anything specific about it. Unfortunately, when I read for pleasure I don't retain what I read. But I remember really liking the books. I'm about 1/2 way thru The Magister Trilogy and I'm enjoying that as well. The first Friedman I read was In Conquest Born which is actually SF, but made me a fan of hers.

>13 sandstone78:

I'm forever explaining that this series isn't exactly steampunk because the description of the first book definitely doesn't make it clear that it's set in the 21st century with vampire Queen Victoria still alive, not in the actual Victorian era. It's modern with elements of Victorian life maintained by long-lived supernaturals who don't change fashion quickly, not Victorian with advanced technology injected.

As for whether or not you'd like it if you don't read much urban fantasy, I'd say it depends on why you don't. I like this series because of how capable Xandra is. If she goes charging in to kick butt and take names alone, she does it. She might sometimes need reminded that there's a better way to accomplish something, but she does not fall into traps and need rescued. I like her love interest the werewolf alpha, too, who is about the least alph-hole alpha I've ever seen. He's an actual leader, not a bully, and he knows that Xandra's the best judge of whether or not she can do something and if she wants help. There is a plot twist near the end of God Save the Queen that reveals Xandra to be a bit of a special snowflake, but I like the characters and the different twist on supernatural society so much that I'm alright with that.

I'm in Fionavar in The Summer Tree and in Deliverer's Hollow waiting for the Alagi in The Daylight War.

In South Africa with Zinzi December in Zoo City. Gritty & dystopian (like cyberpunk but without the tech focus). I guess it's urban fantasy, but not like any other I've read. Enjoying it so far (about half way through).

I'm (finally) in the Middluns with the Graceling, Katsa.

I finished The Innkeeper's Song this morning. Now I'm debating between Saber and Shadow by S. M. Stirling or a couple of anthologies.

>13 sandstone78: I have mixed feelings about the book. I liked the plot and the characters but the story was told by at least 6 narrators. That is not a style I enjoy and it made it difficult for me to feel connected to any of the characters or the story. Also, it really had nothing to do with the thread it was recommended on, so that was a bit of a disappointment for me.

I was in the land of the Hundred in Spirit Gate by Kate Elliot. Decent fantasy, but I wasn't blown away or anything. I'll probably finish the trilogy since I already have the next two books.

27 - I had the exact same reaction to Spirit Gate. And since the other two books hadn't been released at that point I never did go back to the series. I probably should at some point. Let me know if it gets better!

I am currently reading Team Human by Sarah Rees Brennan and Justine Larbalestier. So far, it is intriguing with some excellent elementary exploration of racial issues.

Just wrapped up an interlude of reading a bunch of Kindle samples and sorting them into the "to buy" bin or not.

Now moving on to Dublin (I think... somewhere in Ireland, anyway) for The Book of Kells. It's technically a re-read, but the first time was at least 20 years ago, and I remember next to nothing.

>26 Morigue: Oh, if you go for the Stirling, let us know how it goes. I read that series years ago and have generally fond memories, but curious how it holds up.

Finished Wings of Wrath and started Legacy of Kings by C. S. Friedman.

Reading the Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles de Lint

I'm in the middle of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' Snakecharm, trying to finish it before it has to go back to the library this weekend. I'm continuing to really enjoy the explorations of the different shapeshifter cultures and the unbelievably pleasant absence of "because animal instinct" to explain their culture or actions. So refreshing!

>20 Narilka:,21 Thanks, sounds like it might be a series to check out. I do have a copy of In Conquest Born around too, so nice to hear good about that too.

>22 Unreachableshelf: The asshole alpha male syndrome is definitely one of the big things that put me off urban fantasy, and it sounds like this book avoids it and also allows other women than the protagonist to have a role in the story. The present-with-an-alternate-history is also a really neat concept. Unfortunately, after trying a few pages of this one at my local library at the beginning and throughout the book I think it's not for me- it seems to have that other thing that makes the genre a difficult read for me, a first-person protagonist who is angry all the time and a tendency to keep the tension ratcheted up to 11 through the whole book, with the protagonist in imminent danger of death or maiming almost constantly, necessitating violence almost constantly. I get emotionally exhausted just thinking about it. :)

>26 Morigue: Six narrators seems like a lot for a relatively slim book. Disappointing too that it didn't qualify for the thread, I'll temper expectations in that quarter appropriately. Maybe the recommender was thinking about the short story collection set in the same world, Giant Bones?

I've been listening to the novella The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window. It's about the spirit of a dead sorceress brought back to consciousness time and time again by magicians wanting to use her power.

Two new books I've picked up:

The Shining City, second in the Rhiannon's Ride series -- not great literature, but (for me, anyway) highly entertaining.

Cygnet, the second in my project to get to know Patricia McKillip better. She has one of the most exquisite prose styles I have ever read in the genre. I haven't gotten very far in, but I look forward to exploring it further.

One problem I have with some of her books: often, while we have several female characters, a number of them interesting and strong, the hero chooses to fall in love with the weakest, most featureless woman among them. That's my first impression of the love interest in The Sorceress and the Cygnet: who is this woman, and why is she worth the trouble? Thus far I've read Ombria in Shadow, Winter Rose, and Alphabet of Thorn -- and only in Alphabet of Thorn does the hero fall in love with someone who actually deserves him. (I assume this is NOT a problem in her most famous series, The Riddle-Master of Hed.)

I'm in upstate New York in Forbidden, where Elena, Clay, and potential werewolf-pack-recruit Morgan are looking into some possibly supernatural murders.

I'm in Smokehill reading Dragon Haven. Still fun and is a better read the second time around.

35> I lost track of the otherworld after Personal Demon. How has the series progressed? I thought it was going down in quality so I stopped reading but am perfectly willing to start again if the books have become more entertaining... :)

>36 anatwork.k:

For me it's more about the narrators. I've never been much of a fan of the werewolves (I know, I'm backwards from everybody else who reads the series), so I get their books from the library so I don't miss anything but I don't spend money on them. I loved Waking the Witch and Spell Bound - Savannah is an enjoyable narrator - but haven't read Thirteen yet because I buy in paperback.

Finished Legacy of Kings by C. S. Friedman. Enjoyed the trilogy but I don't think it is quite as good her Cold Fire books.

About to start The Line Between by Peter S. Beagle.

I'm in Goredd with Seraphina.

I just reread Tales of Neveryon for the first time in about 25 years. First of a wonderful, quirky quartet by Samuel R. Delany. It has the trappings, and sometimes the thrilling adventure, of sword & sorcery, but it is just as much his take on critical theory & sexual politics. For the philosophically minded only.

I'm in the city of Illizbuah with Megan & Shkai'ra in Saber and Shadow. A little more blood than I was expecting but I'm enjoying it nonetheless.

I've finished The Graveyard Book, set in London, and am now in Adrilankha with Vlad Taltos in Yendi.

I blew through the rest of Snakecharm and all of Falcondance, Wolfcry, and Wyvernhail over the weekend, and really enjoyed them, to my pleasant surprise. I read these as library checkouts, and intend to pick up a copy of the omnibus The Shapeshifters to keep on my comfort reads shelf. Recommended for anyone interested in stories with a wide assortment of female characters (and male characters!), all of the interesting story possibilities that are there when the plot isn't "kill the villain" or "win the war or die trying," interesting invented cultures, or even just YA stories that manage to center the younger protagonists without killing the adults or making them all ignorant and incompetent. Oh, or apostrophes, there are a lot of apostrophes.

(I read on her blog that she is under contract for a trilogy in the same setting, but 2000 years later, in the 1800s- I hadn't realized they were supposed to take place in the same secret-world-Earth setting of her Den of Shadows novels, and will be somewhat disappointed if the continuation focuses on vampires and the like to the exclusion of the interesting shapeshifter cultures she set up in this series...)

Right now, I'm back in the Marid with Bren (who is coming across unusually arrogant to me in this Foreigner sequence, to the extent that I'm wondering whether Cherryh is setting him up for a fall), trying to figure out who the Betrayer is.

I've also been observing female leads in mythic space opera stories in The Other Half of the Sky with interest after receiving an ARC from the publisher through Netgalley. So far I'm only through two and a half stories (including the new science fiction story by one of my favorite authors, Melissa Scott, that put the anthology on my wishlist in the first place- even though it's not the focus of this story, I do like the spins Scott puts on computer programming throughout her work, they capture the spirit of programming in a way that rings true to my experience rather than relying slavishly on jargon as so many bad "hard science fiction" stories I've read do), but all have been interesting and engaging so far. The anthology also contains a story by Martha Wells set in her Raksura universe as well that may be of interest to some people in this group.

>33 isabelx: Hmm, sounds interesting.

>34 kceccato: I liked The Cygnet and the Firebird better than The Sorceress and the Cygnet, though it's been quite a while since I read either. I remember thinking that both Corleu and his love interest were kind of non-entities compared to the other characters, who I was much more interested in.

#43 You make Melissa Scott's tale in that anthology sounds quite intriguing. ^_^

#34, 43 I liked The Cygnet and the Firebird better than The Sorceress and the Cygnet too, though it's been so long since I read them I can't recall why clearly enough to word it. The duology was my first introduction to McKillip's work, though, and I'm veeeery slowly expanding what I've read of her work.

I haven't been reading too much myself this month, but the last (fantasy) book I read was One Imbolc Gloaming by Elora Bishop.

I just finished Saber and Shadow and I loved it. High action with two strong, fully competent women: a warrior/berserker and a thief. There is a bit of gore, but not unbearably so.

I was going to head to the next book in the series, but sandstone made The Shapeshifters sound so interesting that I think I'm going to veer that way first.

43, 44: I'm well into The Sorceress and the Cygnet now, and am enjoying it much more now that I've gotten to know my favorite character: Meguet. When Corleu is the focus of the story, while I still relish the gorgeous prose, I'm not as invested in the outcome. But now that Meguet has stepped up to become a co-protagonist, the focus of many chapters, I find the whole thing more rewarding.

Aside from the bland Tiel, this story has intriguing female characters in abundance: Lauro Ro, the Holder (flawed but still more sympathetic than many female authority figures are allowed to be), and all of her daughters, not just Nyx. And while Corleu might not be much of a hero, the Gatekeeper offers a stronger male presence. At least he's in love with a woman who's a deserving equal.

In addition to rereading Delany's Neveryon series, I've embarked on rereading John Crowley's Aegypt cycle. Part way through the first book, The Solitudes, it's as fine as I remember it. More in the realm of realism than fantasy (but with occasional magic realist touches), it's a great achievement in any genre.

Reading Unshapely Things by Mark del Franco

I am currently reading Carol Berg's Rai Kirah books. Although wonderfully written I was disappointed at the lack of any female character at all but one fairly capable one has just shown up so I am hopeful. I am a little worried that she will be the only one though. It's a very male centric book but very engrossing. Should I stick with it? Can anyone give me a rec?

37: the narrators are important to me too. I stopped reading after Personal Demon because I felt that Armstrong had done a bit of a cop out with Hope's background and ethnicity by either not wanting to do the research or to develop it even slightly. I think if youre giving your characters a different ethnicity it should be explored. I was really looking forward to it too. I love the werewolves as protagonists and I Paige and Lucas really grew on me too. A lot of people complained about Savannah so I was a little worried about that. But maybe I will give it a try.

49: How far into the series have you gotten? The first book is definitely the most male-centric, with such a heavy focus on the Seyonne & Aleksander relationship. In the latter two books, Seyonne's love interest plays a much larger role (and Aleksander moves more into the background) so things balance out a bit on the "main" character front.

Beyond that, there are a couple other women who are important enough presences that I'm remembering them clearly. I can't remember ANY male characters beyond Seyonne, Aleksander, and the main villain, so hopefully that's an indicator that the female characters had some worthwhile impact.

Carol Berg is definitely a writer who focuses a lot on man-pain, but I think she generally pulls through with love interests who hold their own, even if they don't get the same "screen-time" as the male leads.

I've left Seraphina in Goredd, and am looking forward to seeing where she goes in the future.

Now I'm about to enter the Chromerium with The black prism.

I'm on the seas of Bas-Lag, in the floating city of Armada, in The Scar.

I'm reading A Turn of Light by Julie Czerneda. It's a long book, over 800 pages, but I'm enjoying it.

I finished Betrayer last night. Somewhat disappointed with this volume after Deceiver- there was action, but very little actually moving the plot forward, and precious few of the character interactions that make the series so interesting to me. I'm also afraid that the split with Cajeiri's point of view could become a liability as the series goes on- he didn't really have much to do this book, other than learn information that was inevitably passed on to Bren in the next few pages.

Hoping the series picks up with Intruder, which I have checked out from the library, but for now I'm taking a break and heading back to the Old Kingdom with Lirael.

>49 anatwork.k:,50 I found Berg to be a good writer, but I stopped the series after Revelation. I felt like every turn of the plot took the worst possible direction for Seyonne, to the extent I began to find it as unbelievable as a story where everything went perfectly smoothly for the characters. It just became depressing to read, even if there would be a happy ending at the end of the last book.

Her standalone Song of the Beast felt much the same way to me, interesting but so emotionally exhausting to read. YMMV, though, I had the same problem with Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, which I stopped in the middle of the second book, Assassin's Quest, but it seems like most people really like it.

I've wanted to try some of her more recent work in the hopes of the same interesting worldbuilding but less egregious character torture. I have Son of Avonar and sequels on my shelf, which follows a solo female protagonist in the first book and broadens to an ensemble cast in the second book, but it seems like she slips back to focusing mostly on a male character in the third and fourth books, with the previous female protagonist no longer being even blurb-worthy.

I found an interview with her conducted right after she began that D'Arnath series where she says she finds female characters far more difficult to write than male characters, and finds that many female protagonists in fantasy are "too strong, too talented, too young, and incapable of making serious mistakes," so that could somewhat explain her focus on the male characters. I find this disappointing, though, especially when she seems to have little problem making her male characters extraordinarily strong and talented (albeit emotionally broken) in the books of hers I've read... The interview was nearly ten years ago now, perhaps her view on female characters has changed in the interim?

50: I just finished Transformation. It was very well written and I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to. There was a real sense of doom. I also think that the first half of Transformation was stronger in its descriptiveness, characterization and pacing. The plot kind of took over after that... However, you weren't kidding about the man-pain! And about the female characters not getting enough screen time. It was still miles better than books written by say Robert Jordan or Terry Goodkind.

I wonder where the dose of misogyny in epic fantasy comes from. This is one trope that didn't start with Tolkien. Think of the significance of Galadriel and Eowyn (and a bunch of other heroic women figures in the LOTR mythology -- admittedly they were mostly Elvish...but they were there! And had adventures!).

Anyway, I am looking forward to books 2 and 3 despite the manpain. :-) It has been a long time since decentish epic fantasy has happened.

And its snowing!

54: I read your comment after posting! I tried reading the first of the Son of Avonar books a long time ago but at the time I couldn't get into it. She is kind of emotionally exhausting to read -- the sense of doom and foreboding is similar to the one evoked by Robin Hobb in the Assassin trilogy. I think it is part of the general trend toward grittier and darker epic fantasy. Think George R.R. Martin. Its a shame -- I quite enjoyed David Eddings despite his many writerly flaws.

I find it interesting that she thinks writing male characters is easier. Perhaps she finds it difficult to convey the complexities of a realistic female pov... Her "they're too everything" criticism is a rail against the mary sue -- some of them do turn out that way but on the whole there are so few positive female characters in traditional epic fantasy that there isn't a large enough pool of candidates to even draw a generalisation from!

She has another series that I found interesting - the Collegia Magica books. Anybody read these?

I have read all of Carol Berg's work and the one thing she does is work her characters through to an ending that both satisfies, and is not predictable. I agree, she puts her characters into a lot of difficult situations and that her characters get the wringer - but the endings finish that out in ways I thought some other popular writers fail to accomplish.

The Rai Kirah will end NOT the way you think it will - she does some daring stuff with it and while I thought everything going wrong for Seyonne in vol II was laid on thick, she does take this somewhere - whether you like it or not - it's not formula work, one whit. Her examination of an issue from all sides is one of her great strengths.

If you are looking for relief in the Avonar series, you may not find it - though the female lead is strong, the story leans a lot more on romance - there are other VERY imaginative bits to this series - though one of the plot devices (from Rai Kirah) is repeated.

I also read the Lighthouse duology of hers - and I feel it is her very most brilliant work, to date. You have to treat it as ONE story in two volumes - the story opens out and becomes a thing of beauty in the second half and it is one of my favorite fantasies, ever.

The Collegia Magica is also good, but each volume was much shorter - to the point where it almost suffered - the richness and depth was a touch less in these books/parts felt just a touch rushed. I still loved the story, thought she delivered the finish extremely well.

She's won me over as one of my favorite writers, producing today, for the full spectrum view of her plots and the way she always delivers an ending. Of all her series, I felt that Avonar wasn't quite as tightly laced, but I still had no trouble enjoying it.

>55 anatwork.k: Yes, my thought when I read that part of the interview was agreed about the youth bit, but I'd love to read about all of these female characters who are strong, talented, and don't make mistakes that end up necessitating rescue by love interest :) I've seen similar attitudes before, and every time I wonder whether it's not so much not wanting to write a mary sue as it is not wanting to have one's work dismissed as being mary suish, because female author, female character, obviously a shameless self-insert, right? Like, they both deviate from the male default in the same way, so they're totally alike, and this female author is writing about a female character who's awesome because she wishes she were awesome, haha, that's so dumb because everyone knows women can't be awesome! (Side note, this article about mary sues is worth reading.)

>56 JannyWurts: I agree with you on the strengths of Berg's work with regard to the empathy for multiple sides of an issue and the willingness to take big risks, certainly.

It's a little disappointing to hear that the D'Arnath books are heavy on the romance (the quote about Seri's Awesome Sorcerer Husband in the interview had made me frown already even though he was mentioned as having died before the story began), but the Lighthouse duology was also already on my list and you make it sound very promising- I have the first book, but it sounds like I should have the second on hand before proceeding there. I've read she has another duology coming out in the same setting as the Lighthouse books too, following different characters- from her website, it appears that the first book, Dust and Light, is due out sometime next year.

>54 sandstone78: I do agree about the emotionally exhausting element. I love both Berg and Hobb dearly, but they can definitely be emotionally draining. The characters just don't get a lot of breathing room for something go right very often.

I wonder if some female authors still find it more difficult to write women simply because they're aware that the problem exists and thus feel much more pressure to "get it right"? Her comments about avoiding cliches and finding "the right balance" ping for me as that sort of issue. As if male characters can just "be", whereas female characters have to be molded in some way to be "right".

I'm in the Middle Earth and planning to destroy the Ring on the 25th :)

I've just left Sevenwaters. I finished up Son of the Shadows and have now decided to learn about The Aphorisms of Kherishdar.

Began two new books this past week: Andre Norton's Forerunner and Holly Lisle's The Diplomacy of Wolves. This is a year for trying out new authors, and Lisle is one I haven't read yet. So far I'm optimistic.

I also finished Forsyth's The Shining City. My try-out with Forsyth has worked well and I mean to read more of her work; I would love to read Bitter Greens, but alas, it's so far out of print that Amazon is charging huge amounts for used copies. (Maybe I'll get lucky at one of my bookstores.) The "Rhiannon's Ride" series is pure popcorn, but I find it enormously engaging despite the often distracting Scots dialect. I have to give Forsyth credit for being willing to make some of the heroes of her first series downright unsympathetic in the second. (I understand Iseult is quite the heroine to root for in the first, but I want someone to take a sock at her in the second.) But I did have one major issue with this book: Rhiannon, the intriguing female Other who drew me into the first book, has almost nothing to do in the second book. She's at the center of things, justifying the use of her name in the series, but she's mostly the catalyst for the actions of others rather than taking any action of her own. (She's locked up for almost the entire book.) And Blackthorn, the wonderful winged mare, is barely there at all.

Oh, well. On to The Heart of Stars, where hopefully Rhiannon will come back into her own again.

55, 56, 57: That "Mary Sue" label has done a surprising lot of damage, affecting the kinds of female characters we see in a decidedly negative way. No one seems to have any problem making MALE characters extraordinarily talented and empowered and yet flawed enough to be complex and interesting -- except maybe some mediocre YA writers who are busy trying to create cookie-cutter Hot Hunks in the Edward Cullen mold. Yet if a female character is too competent, too good at what she does, the crowd can't scream "Mary Sue!" fast enough. And so we get a lot of female authors who write primarily, sometimes exclusively, from the perspective of male characters. Carol Berg is one clear example of this; Sarah Monette, Naomi Novik, Lynn Flewelling (at least in her Nightrunner series), C. S. Friedman (at least in the Coldfire Trilogy), Fiona McIntosh, and K.J. Parker offer other examples. I may get annoyed with them for insisting on centering their stories around male characters, but I can sympathize a little and understand why they might be more comfortable writing about men when the pressure to avoid the "Mary Sue" label is so strong.

If ever a character is bland, lacking in personality, and adored by everyone for no particular reason, I may find other names for her -- "vacant" or even "vacuum" -- but on principle I won't use the name "Mary Sue."

But I agree with sandstone: just where ARE all these female characters who are too perfect, too competent, too powerful? I only know a very few who might fit that description, and I wouldn't use the adverb "too" when describing them.

#61, you are so right about the knee jerk hurry to slap a mary sue label on competent characters - not only women, either, I've seen it used to slam characters that stand upon their ethics, flawed or not. Your perception is a gift, and I definitely prefer the fact you use direct language to say what you mean, rather than apply a bandwagon label.

Some people in real life, also, are truly competent in several arenas - rare perhaps, but real. It's a narrow concept to denigrate the possibility of that in the exploration of story through fiction. It's interesting, if not illuminating, to look at the biographies of such figures in history and look at the way they were perceived.

There's a profound difference between flat out competence and the heroic stance of a strong character, and a saccharine cutout - sometimes lost in the trend toward idealizing the anti-hero/nothing wrong with acceptance of the full spectrum, IMO.

Nice you commented on this.

Berg's characters have flaws/may of them question the status quo with intelligence and strength, and come to grief for it - not so different than say Newton, Gallileo or other historical figures in our world history. I truly appreciate this aspect of her work. She treats nothing whatsoever one dimensionally.

I've finished my re-read of Lirael and Abhorsen, with overall enjoyment but still some mixed feelings.

I really enjoyed the parts of Lirael actually about Lirael, to the extent that I wondered why I liked these books less than Sabriel, but then her co-protagonist (not love interest, at least) Prince Sameth showed up, Lirael ended in media res and Abhorsen felt padded with events that weren't ever fully explored (specifically the foreshadowing of old things awakening after the incident in the well), Sabriel's victory in the first book was written off as no big deal, and some of the revelations seemed to contradict things in the first book (okay, necromancy is free magic, bells are the tools of necromancers and the Abhorsen mix Free Magic and Charter Magic while other necromancers are only Free Magic... but the bells and their relationship to the Charter), making me wish for either more or less explanation in that area, and same with the way everything comes down to the Very Special Bloodlines.

I really disliked the way Sameth's character arc played out- the way the author arranged things so he couldn't talk to Sabriel and Touchstone about his problems (it felt really artificial to me, and I don't think him having such a conversation would have hurt the theme at all), the way his mistakes were dismissed so easily (the bit with the constables especially), and then we hardly get his POV at all in Abhorsen, making me feel less like he overcame his problems than the author forgot to write them in, and the way neither the "how" of his heritage nor his reactions to it (other than "oh, now I don't have to worry that my earlier behavior will have any consequences, phew") were explored, making the whole thing feel rather like a plot device.

It turned out to be a fortuitous time for a re-read- I read that Nix delivered the next Old Kingdom novel, Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen, to his publisher earlier this month. I remember reading about this upcoming book way back when I first read Abhorsen, but it seems he went on to write the Keys to the Kingdom series and A Confusion of Princes first. Haven't seen anything on a release date in any region yet, but despite my quibbles with Lirael and Abhorsen I'm looking forward to it.

For now, I've gone on to the latest (until next month) Foreigner book, Intruder, and have also finally checked out Green Rider from the library, which I've been meaning to give a try for ages. I'm also still working my way through The Other Half of the Sky, having just started a piece by Vandana Singh with lovely prose.

>61 kceccato:,62 Vacuum is a good term, I like it- even extensible perhaps to "black hole," for the way that reality and the opinions of other characters who should really know better distort around characters in particularly egregious cases.

Personally, I like a good polymath, and I like people who are among the best at what they do. Extreme competence only bothers me when nobody else in the universe is allowed to approach the character's level- competence without community just feels hollow, and I get tired of protagonists who are up on a pedestal and having no friends or colleagues to talk shop with, so to speak. The problem is exacerbated by how often protagonists come into their skill instinctively (Sameth, again) or by being trained a mentor who's out of favor with the establishment who then gets killed off.

I enjoy the Liaden books, but really, did Shan have to be a Master Trader, Master Pilot, Captain, Healer, Empath, member of the most powerful Clan on the planet, and have a lifemate with a special spoiler backstory on top of all that, with the narrative explicitly pointing out that most people can't even achieve Master Trader and Captain both? :) Not to mention the general disparity in competence between male and female protagonists in that series (at least the five books I've read) where the women are in dire straits and the men are well-established and prominent in society.

I am making my first foray into the Liaden universe with Fledgling / continuing my adventures with Vlad Taltos in Taltos sorry, I think that should be Teckla.

I'm being assailed by goddesses right and left in Tempe. Hounded is a hoot so far.

I'm in the Warren at the Slick Tunnel with Egil and Nix in The Hammer and the Blade. Some light-hearted fun.

I'm in London below in Neverwhere.

63- I've always, even as a 12 year old, felt Sam's narrative to be waaay less compelling. I'm excited to hear that Nix is writing a 4th, though! Despite their flaws, I think these books are still among my favorites.

I'm settling into negotiations in Tanaja now in Intruder.

This being my fourth Foreigner read this year very close together, I'm finding myself bemused that despite all of the thought and detail Cherryh has put into atevi culture and politics, things that are a big part of human culture are either absent (eg religion- there was a mention in passing of the Edi and Gan peoples having possibly religious monuments, and there's a curse "gods unfortunate," but what gods, and how would man'chi and its "hardwired instinct" of upward loyalty to an aiji tie into religious worship?) or replicated exactly like humans without examination.

Gender, for example, is hard to figure- the atevi obviously have a concept of it based on seem to have a present-day-human-like binary gender going on (which is odd enough given how arrangements of two things are supposed to be like nails on a chalkboard to atevi), evidenced in things like -daja as a specifically feminine address, but there are implications of a gender-neutral society with Jago being part of Bren's elite bodyguard, half of Cajeiri's bodyguard being female, and Ilisidi wielding the vast amount of political power she does and having had a chance to be aiji, but the gender-equality theory is undermined by every plot-moving Lord-level character other than Ilisidi in the aishidi'tat and the Marid being male- Bren of course, Tabini, Geigi, Murini, Machigi, even Cajeiri. (Not to mention the human side of things, where we have let's see, Bren and Toby's emotionally manipulative mother, Barb who's played as shallow but with a heart of gold at best and emotionally manipulative and weak at her far more frequent worst, corrupt Deana, incompetent and mostly offscreen Yolanda, Sabin the senior ship captain with problems out of her depth... compare to cool president Shawn, cool brother Toby, cool friend Jase on the male side... gosh, that's actually a pretty bad track record for female characters, isn't it, between all the unsympathetic human women and the general lack of top-tier atevi women other than Jago and Ilisidi?)

We did get a glimpse of the matrilineal Edi and Gan peoples in the Conpirator sequence, where the leaders bear the title "Grandmother," and that was unusual and different than Ragi culture, implying that Ragi are patriarchal, but that's not outright explained to my knowledge. Twelve books into the series, with half of the books (Destroyer and sequence, Conspirator and sequence) focusing specifically on atevi society and politics among the different atevi clans and ethnicities and regions, it surprises me that the picture isn't clearer in this area.

In other reads, Vandana Singh's "Sailing the Antarsa" in The Other Half of the Sky has joined Elizabeth A. Lynn's Wizard's Domain and Eleanor Arnason's Hwarhath stories on my list of favorite short fiction, and I'm moving on to a Joan Slonczewski story. The collection has been a little mixed for me overall so far, though; the stories by both Alexander Jablokov and Nisi Shawl left me feeling like I was missing the importance of key things due to not having read the other works in their respective settings, and gosh the naming of animal/plant life in the Shawl story did not work for me (eg "prettybirds" for flying creatures native to the planet and a plant named "lookoutforthelilies"), but overall it was thought-provoking and a little uncomfortable in the way that good science fiction stories exploring serious issues should be. Sue Lange's story, though, I'm sorry to say did not work for me at all- a death among the crew at the beginning of the story had the main character, the captain of the team, wonder half-seriously if another crew member was an AI due to that person's seeming lack of reaction to events, but the protagonist's own lack of reaction and self-centeredness had me wondering if she was a sociopath or at least an AI herself, and the explication of events (why yes, that character is the stereotype they appear to be, and yes that seemingly-unsympathetic character is good after all, and yes, future Chicago is corrupt) didn't work for me either despite the somewhat neat alien.

>67 curioussquared: I couldn't muster up much sympathy for Nicholas Sayre either. I'm all for skeptics, but he went far beyond that to willful ignorance to me (surely at some point he saw Sameth work charter magic, since Sameth mentions having done so at the college, and surely he would have been able to find out other setting features like time running differently in the Old Kingdom given a little bit of research), and the constant "isn't being rich and privileged with powerful connections awesome?" in his letters and such irritated me to no end- I kept expecting the narrative to undermine that somehow, perhaps through the Ancelstierre plotline with Sabriel and Touchstone (which is another thing I would have liked to have seen either more or less of, actually- it was going along well, but again it seemed a bit rushed in Abhorsen, and the proportion of it that's offscreen makes me see it as only a plot device for keeping Sabriel and Touchstone out of Lirael and Sam's side of the plot).

If only I were given to fanfiction, it kept occurring to me that Lirael/Abhorsen would have been so much more interesting and tied together so much better if Sameth were to be switched out for a Southerling character with the same talents (thus relegating Sameth and his Abhorsen subplot firmly to a role as a secondary character in Lirael's story). The whole masses of disenfranchised refugees from the mundane world as unknowing victims/plot devices manipulated by evil so our aristocratic special bloodline characters could angst over when things happened to them sits less well with me the more I think about it... privileged and willfully ignorant Nicholas' ultimate fate compared to the fates of the genuinely naive Southerlings we saw just kind of rubbed that in for me.

I still do have a softspot for the books, despite my grousing- they were definitely formative in my reading taste in the genre (as were Shade's Children, which I saw in B&N the other day dressed up in a fancy new generic YA dystopia cover, and the Seventh Tower series), and they still do have so many really cool things (the bells! the realm of Death! the Paperwings! a 1910s-level-technology parallel world!). Older news sources have Nix writing a "sequel of sorts" to Abhorsen as well as Clariel, which I would be interested to read, but I can't find if that meant a full-length book or if it was the novella (I'll elide its slightly spoilery title) contained in Across the Wall.

I'm currently reading The Killing Moon by N.K. Jemisin.

I'm back in the Nightside, reading Just Another Judgment Day.

68 - I think that sequel was the little thing in Across the Wall, yeah. You've definitely identified a lot of the problems I had with the books and never really put into words! I enjoyed Shade's Children too, but never really got into the Seventh Tower series (or his Keys to the Kingdom, for that matter). No matter what, though, I think the Library of the Clayr is always going to be one of my favorite places in fiction.

I'm in the middle of Sarah Diemer's collection of dark fantasy stories in Love Devours. There are a couple of stories that I've really enjoyed - The Witch Sea and Our Lady of Wolves - but the others, thus far, are just okay.

Loved The Scar.

I have also dusted the quite enjoyable Les ombres de Wielstadt by Pierre Pevel ("Shadows over Wielstadt"), alternate-history fantasy in a city in the Holy Roman Empire that retained its autonomy and an unusually varied population (including "mythical" but here real creatures like satyrs or faeries) on a backdrop of religious warfare & purges, because it boasts a tutelary dragon who incinerates any armies approaching the city (including armies raised by factions within the city itself).

Beginning Mother London by Michael Moorcock.

Just started (175+ pages of The Name of the wind)
Started of as high fantasy, but I do like it strangely enough. I am curious to see where it wanders!

More than half way through Ever After .

Now I have read kim harrison from the start. Just can't get into this one.
Jim butcher and Glen Cook did a better "jumping of the shark" to my mind.

Just finished Hounded which was great fun. Adore Oberon. :)

I'm about halfway through Nekropolis by Tim Waggoner.

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett, he is so witty!

>76 sandyg210: Love that series. Tim Waggoner lives in my city. I had him do a program for a series at my library last year and am working on having him back in the fall.

I'm in The Six Duchies in The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince.

I'm reading Orphans of Chaos by John C. Wright...

I'm still in the middle of Intruder, Green Rider, and The Other Half of the Sky, but I've taken a detour to accompany a (so far) anonymous female journalist as she searches for Sita, The Missing Queen, and tries to uncover the truth behind the official version of events of the Ramayana as told by Valmiki, in an Ayodhya with cars, television, and computers (though no cell phones), ten years after those events happened. It's very interesting so far, and though I have only basic familiarity with the story of the Ramayana from a class I took back in college, I haven't had trouble following along at all.

>71 curioussquared: The Seventh Tower books were actually my introduction to Nix- I have no idea whether or not they would still hold up for me, though. I may have to track down Across the Wall to see how things turn out, despite my lack of enthusiasm for its leading character :) Agreed about the Library, though, totally!

Finally read Hunger Games, which I enjoyed for the most part. Not very original, but she knows how to hit all the right notes & themes, and keeps the action going fairly plausibly, and the protagonist is well done. I can see why it's been so popular, and unsurprisingly it's made-for-TV.

Certainly I'll look for the next book now.

{Sorry, fantasians - just realized I put this on the wrong forum}

80: The Missing Queen sounds really cool! I just checked out the amazon page for Sita's Ramayana and I want a copy yesterday. I am totally going to have my mom bring me one this summer. I must have been about 5 when they were showing the Ramayana on TV (there were like 2 channels in India at the time; *everybody* watched it -- kind of like if they'd adapted the bible for TV and the whole of the US watched it) and I remember being so completely enraged at the ending given what happens to Sita, particularly at Rama. It was a very 'child's view' but I sometimes think I developed a feminist gene in the cradle. ;-)
SPOILERS: My considered opinion was that Rama should've bloody well joined Sita in the forest and given up his blasted throne. Or leveraged his political popularity to have the irritatingly judgmental populace accept his perhaps tainted wife of 15 (?) years!

In other news, I am still slogging through Restoration. It is, once again, killing any desire I have to ever read epic fantasy ever again. The story is very good but I cannot get over the overwhelming guyness of it. And the violence. Actually there was so much torture and violence in Revelation that it kind of lost its impact for me...at one point I was going in my head "are you actually human in this realm...can you actually feel this?"

Janny, I thought your overview (in post 56--sorry!) of Berg's books was wonderful. Thank you for that -- I shall definitely be putting the Lighthouse Duology on my to read list. I do appreciate the fact that she has examined every possible facet of the conflict in the Rai-Kirah books. However, given the alarming dearth of female characters and her rather flawed writing of the few who make it in to them I feel a little tentative about picking up anything of hers again.

I think I shall next turn towards Kate Elliott. Any suggestions as to where to start?

82: I just finished Jaran. I liked it a lot. Not a fast read, though.

Once I saw the movie for Beautiful Creatures, I went back to the reread series, and am currently in book 3, Beautiful Chaos.

I have some more series I need to begin next, but I'm not sure which one yet!

82: You're right about the "guyness" of Rai Kirah. That's a good adjective for it I think. That may be one of the reasons I'm stuck in the middle of that particular series - sometimes I just have to put it down for a while, and then it becomes very hard to pick back up, when I know I'll be right back in all the torture (physical and mental) that permeates everything.
**But definitely go for the Lighthouse Duology - it's very good! The first book can be fairly slow (and leave you with quite a few questions), but the second book really pulls everything together. There are small scenes you'll have forgotten from the first that will be explained - with surprises - once you get to the second.

84: Are there no women in that series at all, or is there just one important one? If the former, I will avoid it point blank. If the latter, I could hold my nose and deal with Highlander Syndrome if the writing were good enough. 49: says one was introduced, but did the character live up to her initial promise, or did she end up being background noise?

It still rather depresses me that some female authors -- even very good ones -- seem almost afraid to create female characters and give them anything worthwhile to do, and if they ever DO let a female take center stage, it's only for the sake of a romance. More female authors are writing science fiction and fantasy than ever before, yet when it comes to the roles that characters are assigned, very little seems to have changed over the past couple of decades.

85: I read it a few years ago, so I can't remember exactly, but I don't believe there were many female characters. Valen (the main character) spends the first book in a monastery, where there wouldn't be women anyway. Maybe in book 2? Someone who has read it more recently than me should answer, but I believe there are more female characters in the second book. I should really reread this series...

85: There are literally no female characters of any importance in Rai-Kirah. Individual women show up and quickly become background noise (as you aptly put it) and for the most part their characterizations are very unsympathetic. The best one showed up as a minor character for about 1/3 of the book in Transformation and that was it. There was another one who got a few more pages in the second book but her portrayal was not too sympathetic again at least until the ending. So far in the third book there hasn't been a single interaction of any note whatsoever with a female character. It is unbelievable that Seyonne who can read the truth of a man through his eyes cannot have a meaningful conversation with a woman and can't even tell whether that woman is a good person or not.

Since this post has become slightly ranty let us also discuss race. I appreciated the fact that Berg tried to give the denizens of her empire different skin tones howeve I would have appreciated it far more if the rulers of the empire, descended from desert nomads had not been the whitest of the white. Hello logic and melanin production! Also Seyonnes people seemed essentially Welsh with perhaps bronze (why?!) skin and downturned eyes.

I agree that it is a shame that even female authors who are doing a good job with books in SFF choose not to write female characters. I am going to choose not to read them now. I think I've had enough. No Sarah Monette or Carol Berg. No Jim Butcher and I hated Kevin Hearne anyway. No more Rob Thurman. I'm even contemplating giving up Naomi Novik even though I love Tameraire but that is also because of the fact that its turned into a rather boring travelogue rather than the excessively cool war in book one. Name me other authors I can avoid please! :)

Sorry for the mini rant. Clearly I've been needing to get some opinions off my chest. As always many of these things needn't bug you.

#84 - there are female characters in the Lighthouse duology in the second half - and important ones, if I recall....I'd suggest not shun this work, it's totally wonderful; but each to their own taste. Berg's recent trilogy (The Collegia Magica) has strong female characters/two volumes center around the POV of one of them.

SOME women writers have difficulty writing female characters - this is something I can understand - you write to your strengths, and if something doesn't flow, the sure way to make a story stiffen up is to force it where the muse does not want to go. So much can go into why a character works; time will smooth out the backwash of controversy, re, what is gender balanced or not. A good story is a good story/and after that, each reader must decide what works for THEM in the same manner - so if the lack of a female character doesn't please, no sense forcing the issue. I prefer to examine the readership balance - if an author's works are read by both sexes, generally they are not tending to write for one to the exclusion of another.

>82 anatwork.k:-88 I do strongly believe that the muse has a part in things, especially those with a single first-person POV character like the Rai-Kirah books. However, beyond single POV characters, getting into POV ensemble casts, non-POV major characters, non-POV recurring minor characters, and background spear-carriers, moreso the less screentime and plot importance characters have, I would argue that diverse representation is an issue of craft rather than inspiration.

When one has a cast of male characters who have no female family, friends, colleagues, superiors, or inferiors, no meaningful relationships with women at all except maybe a love interest, then unless an explanation is provided in the text to explain such a divergence from the world we live in (such as 86 mentions, the events taking place in a segregated pocket of society like an exclusively male religious order), that is to me a failure of worldbuilding, and when it happens over and over again in the genre that women are absent or only present in romance plots or subplots, I think it becomes a troublesome pattern that readers need to discuss and question and authors need to take care not to repeat unquestioned in their own work.

>82 anatwork.k: I finished The Missing Queen on Sunday and really enjoyed it, I do want to check out Sita's Ramayana as well now. I was satisfied with the way Arni handled the ending, and would love to discuss the book with you if you read it. The Missing Queen seems scarce in the US, though, especially- Amazon says the book ships in 1-2 months and B&N says it doesn't come out until June; Kobo and Amazon both have it available as an e-book, but B&N does not.

The only Kate Elliott I've read is her Highroad trilogy published under the name Alis A. Rasmussen, which takes place in the same world as the Jaran books but much later (if memory serves). From what I remember, they were interesting enough and relatively fast reads, but they didn't leave much of an impression on me evidently because I can't remember a lot of what happens in them except for the fate of a minor character that annoyed me. (SPOILER, if memory serves, and it may well not, the character, a woman, was in a committed relationship with another woman in the first book, but in the second or third book it turned out said relationship was Dysfunctional All Along, they split up, one left and the other was suddenly characterized as interested in both men and women, instead of exclusively women as had been implied before, and happily paired off with a male minor character.)

I would like to read the Jaran series, but I know the series is not complete and has no completion scheduled- those who have read it, do things mostly wrap up, or does the series just kind of stop?

The first Jaran book is complete in itself. I've heard that the later books are not nearly as good, though I can't say whether they wrap up or not.

>82 anatwork.k:: I really enjoyed Cold magic, the first in Elliot's latest trilogy, although some have classed it as YA in dismissive tones. I didn't sense that; it didn't have a "written down" feel to it at all in my opinion, and although the characters are young (late teens) that is pretty normal in fantasy.

Strange, following on from my #74, I finished the name of the wind and have just started the wise man's fear

There is almost no intro. No overlap. We are just expected to continue reading on from book 1.

That's OK with me, since I put down one book and immediatly started book 2.

But I still find it a bit...

89, 90: Jaran can indeed be read as a stand-alone; I just read it that way, having no copies of the sequels to hand. If the story is not complete, I can leave it with what I have and not worry about acquiring the sequels.

It's tempting to say this book suffers from Highlander Syndrome, as there are no other female characters with nearly the page time that Tess gets. But she does get to interact with other women, and despite the division in gender roles in that culture, some of those women are impressive. The book does pass the Bechdel Test. And I like it that she has some close relationships with the men around her that do not involve sex. The Tess/Yuri bond is one of my favorite parts of the story. It's high time that male/female FRIENDSHIPS claimed a central place in science fiction and fantasy stories.

Tess spends most of the book surrounded by men. Lots of female characters in the genre have this experience, as the lone woman in a "Man's World." It might be interesting to see this reversed, and find a strong, smart man surrounded by women, and instead of being threatened or oppressed by them (as in "Y: The Last Man" or "In Her Name" or countless other Evil-Matriarchy stories in which a lone, heroic man is trapped in a world of Women Who Are Not to Be Trusted), he actually forges bonds of friendship with them. The only book remotely like this, that I can think of, is Hambly's The Ladies of Mandrigyn. Barbara Hambly was one of my happiest discoveries last year and I'm eager to read more of her work.

The absence of women as important characters is a deal-breaker for me these days. It wasn't always so; The Hobbit was, for me (as for so many others), a gateway into the fantasy genre. But since then, as a reader, I've gotten tired of finding that the most important and interesting characters, the ones I most want to identify and engage with, are male. So I look specifically for authors, male and female, who write women well and give them significant things to do. I don't think I'll be reading the Rai-Kirah series. But I won't be writing Carol Berg off entirely; the Collegia Magica series is in my TBR pile. None of this is meant to question Berg's abilities as a writer; of course she, like all writers, should play to her strengths. But readers, too, have needs. If we choose one book or series over another, it isn't because the one we don't choose isn't as well-written or thought-provoking. It's because the one we do choose better meets our needs at the time.

>90 Sakerfalcon:,92 Thanks for the standalone confirmation, I'll definitely give Jaran a try. The male/female friendships sound promising too, I completely agree that the genre needs more friendships in all gender combinations.

I've just left Dena Nehele, of Shalador's Lady and am thinking of going on to Among Others.

(I've also finished Thieftaker.)

ETA: >82 anatwork.k:: I read Kate Elliot's King's Dragon in January, and was really impressed with it.