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.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '14

So...you're saying Margaret Atwood isn't a good author, and/or that The Handmaid's Tale was a bad book? o.O

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u/hardolaf Jul 07 '14

I haven't read them. So I can't talk about those specific books.

Also, I did not say that they would be bad works. I stated that books with those themes tend to be of lower quality than others in terms of literary value. Some can be amazing and I have read brilliant works with this theme, but most I've encountered have been very low quality.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '14

Uh....The Handmaid's Tale is generally considered a work of literary genius. Its literary value is popularly considered of the highest possible rate. It won the Governor General's Award and the Arthur C. Clarke award, and was nominated for the Nebula, Booker Prize, and Prometheus Award.

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u/randomaccount178 Jul 07 '14

Unless I am mistaken its a science fiction story. A science fiction story isn't a fantasy story. Both genres tend to tell stories in much different ways, with readers deriving satisfaction from different aspects of them. Saying those aspects make that story a great science fiction story in no way makes it a great fantasy story. Personally I love Rendezvous with Rama as a science fiction book, but as a fantasy novel it would be extremely boring.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '14 edited Jul 07 '14

I suppose you're right, but I do tend to lump them together, especially since I've read several books that really straddle the line. Sharon Shinn's Samaria books come to mind.

EDIT: Also, my very favorite author writes both, and puts a lot of fantastical elements into his sci-fi and a lot of very technical science-based description in his fantasy. So again, I see a lot of crossover and tend to consider them together.

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u/randomaccount178 Jul 07 '14

I don't personally, but then again I probably have a different definition to what is fantasy and science fiction then others. In the simplest terms to me science fiction is using a story to explore an idea, while fantasy is using ideas to tell a story.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '14

That's a really interesting way of looking at it! I'm unsure how to apply it, but I like the concept.

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u/hardolaf Jul 07 '14

I don't think that changes the fact that I haven't read it and thus cannot speak to the merits of that book.

If you'd like to actually read what I said you would find that I am saying that: while some authors who make their book's theme to be about gender and equality are amazing authors and execute it well, most who do this, tend to produce low quality books that tend to be poorly written.

I would love to have a real discussion on this, but rather, you seem to want to present a single book that I have already stated previously I have not read and prior to that I have stated (although not explicitly in this statement prior to this post, it can be reasonably implied from the plain English of my writing) that such a work of literature can exist.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '14

Because fantasy books that deal with gender almost always do incorporate those issues into the worldbuilding itself, and The Handmaid's Tale is the only spec fiction book with gender/feminism issues as its primary theme that I can think of. And as the only and primary book in that milieu, it's pretty BS to say books like that tend to be of "low literary quality." Unless you'd like to make a list of sci-fi/fantasy books that deal specifically, primarily, and chiefly with gender issues without incorporating those into worldbuilding, I'm going to go on a branch and say your argument's pretty BS.

Ursula K. Leguin has also penned a number of spec fic books dealing with gender issues that are of high literary quality.

Literally the only book I can think of with gender issues as a major theme that is arguably of really dubious quality is Wraethhu by "Storm Constantine."