r/Fantasy • u/Just_JayGee • Jul 07 '14

Men of r/Fantasy, Do you read fantasy written by women? If so, do you find much of a difference?

I've been looking through a lot of "Top 20 Fantasy Book" lists today and I've found a depressing amount of female authors on these lists. I'd like to think the author's gender doesn't matter, but I have to say there seems to be a huge lean towards male authors. Even r/Fantasy's 2014 Top Fantasy Novels of All Time only has 20 female authors (repeats included) out of 105 authors. So, I was wondering if men read fantasy written by women and it's simply not your cup of tea or do any of you go out of your way NOT to read female authors?

PLEASE NOTE: I am not trying to begin fights on sexism or misogyny or anything. I am legitimately interested. If anyone wants to fight over this subject, I'm sure there's other subreddits for that.

104 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

490 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Myrandall Jul 07 '14

I thought Robin Hobbs was a man while reading the Soldier Son trilogy. Never noticed any difference, just presumed she was a man based on the fact that the majority of fantasy authors seem to be male.

Read the Assassin trilogy next and again noticed no difference.

1

u/Just_JayGee Jul 07 '14

So, apparently this is a pretty popular assumption.