[Wotist]

 Puck, on 23 June 2013 - 08:20 PM, said:

I decided to be daring and pick up a female urban fantasy author, even though I had sworn not to do so ever again. So I'm reading Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard now. It's your typical magical murder mystery.. set in the Aztec empire. I'm ~100 pages in and I've yet to roll my eyes and go 'Come on, did we really need that?', which bodes well for the remainder of the trilogy. The writing is smooth, what I should see coming I mostly don't because I'm engrossed in the story, and I'm rather charmed by the main character.

All in all, looking forward to reading on.

Aliette de Bodard is not a writing urban fantasy.

[Wotist]

 stone monkey, on 23 June 2013 - 10:07 PM, said:

Given that male sf & fantasy authors must outnumber the female ones by 100-1 (a rough estimate, I admit), that means that the crap sf&f books written by men will vastly outnumber those written by women.

Just glanced through Risingshadow.net's list of SF&F publications for July. About 100 books split fifty fifty between male and female authors.

[Defiance]

The Shining. About 1/3rd of the way through. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I've read some of King's longer works (The Dark Tower, It, The Stand). While I enjoyed each work immensely, I think King had some difficulty wrapping such epic stories up in a satisfying manner. Spoilers for those who haven't read, but:

Spoiler

While I absolutely loved the very ending of The Dark Tower, the way some things were handled really sucked. Mordred was a complete letdown, especially after killing Flagg so easily. Flagg was a far more interesting character, and for Mordred - who was really built up throughout the last two books - to result in nothing really happening was pretty stupid. Even worse, though, was the Crimson King. Ugh. I know Patrick's abilities were built up, but still it felt like lame deus ex machina.

It...this was such a powerful book, then the last 100 or so pages were "meh." The child orgy was incredibly what the fuck. I think I know what King was going for - sex resonates in adulthood - but regardless it felt really out of place. And the stuff with the Turtle seemed very unnecessary.

The Stand was alright. I wasn't wowed by the ending, and I was expecting a bit more for such a huge story, but it worked.

As a result, I'm excited to see how well King can wrap up a story that is (at least so far) much more contained.

[worry]

Yah King's finales are notoriously spotty and I agree with your examples (though primarily w/ The Dark Tower, which is right on the money; It was something of a headscratcher too, but I've grown to like that one more in retrospect -- "like" might be the wrong word though). But I will say that I think Carrie, Salem's Lot, and The Shining all have great endings. In fact I think it would be an interesting project to tier-rank King books solely by how satisfying the endings are.

[QuickTidal]

 Puck, on 23 June 2013 - 11:32 PM, said:

I have found, for me, that what themes a whole lot of female urban fantasy authors are trying to tell me does not interest me, and just in case you forgot, I'm biologically female, too, and no stranger to feminism issues, in many ways, included dealing with prejudices against girls in the area I study.

I think at least part of SM's point (he may correct me if I'm wrong) was "Why are you bothering with it then if you are going to slam the genre as a whole before you talk about the book you are reading to us?"

Maybe it was just a very strange way to couch your comments about the book you were reading? I read it the same way SM did is all.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 24 June 2013 - 02:28 AM

[amphibian]

 Puck, on 23 June 2013 - 11:32 PM, said:

I'm sorry for being a textbook example of those who cause grief for female authors, but I stand by what I said. Trying to argue about the why and how much this makes me a bad bad person is futile. I have found, for me, that what themes a whole lot of female urban fantasy authors are trying to tell me does not interest me, and just in case you forgot, I'm biologically female, too, and no stranger to feminism issues, in many ways, included dealing with prejudices against girls in the area I study.

As far as I'm aware, none of the authors you mentioned are writing in the particular sub-genre I have said good bye to female authors in, thus sorry, but I've no idea what you are trying to tell me. Or rather, I do, but I'm afraid you're missing the point.

Replace "female" with "black" or "Asian" or "African". How do you look at it then?

There is no real reason to potentially discriminate against an entire group of people on such a basis. Being a woman, black, Asian, African or a nominal member of a group doesn't prevent you from being prejudiced against that group.

Plus with authors, generally the ones who write purdy are the ones to chase after. I've greatly enjoyed books from authors of all walks of life and quite often a woman's written words has gotten to my brain in such a wonderful way that I nearly applaud the book after I'm finished. It's a shame you cut that potentiality from your life. Plus, we've probably all read a few books that had a man's name on the front that was actually written by a woman.

[Dag]

 Puck, on 23 June 2013 - 11:32 PM, said:

I'm biologically female, too, and no stranger to feminism issues, in many ways, included dealing with prejudices against girls in the area I study.

If you know from your own experience how hurtful and frustrating such baseless prejudices can be, and if you are aware that this kind of attitude is fundamentally wrong, then why do you do the same injustice to other people? I am a female fantasy writer and it hurts me and offends me that someone would discard my work as "crap" based solely on the fact that there’s a woman’s name on the cover. If you read my book and then still think it's "crap", that’s probably because it doesn't fit your interests and tastes as a reader or maybe even because I’m indeed a crappy writer, but I’m quite certain that the fact that I’m a woman plays no role in this.

Anyway, reading at the moment: Currently on a "classics" trip; after “Njal’s Saga” and “Beowulf” just about to start with “The Mabinogion”.

[worry]

I finished Alera 5, and I must say, I may have enjoyed it more than the first four books combined. Definitely the first time I felt anyone was actually at risk, and a lot of the back story revelations were nice touches and occasionally even surprising.

[Morgoth]

 Puck, on 23 June 2013 - 08:20 PM, said:

I decided to be daring and pick up a female urban fantasy author, even though I had sworn not to do so ever again. So I'm reading Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard now. It's your typical magical murder mystery.. set in the Aztec empire. I'm ~100 pages in and I've yet to roll my eyes and go 'Come on, did we really need that?', which bodes well for the remainder of the trilogy. The writing is smooth, what I should see coming I mostly don't because I'm engrossed in the story, and I'm rather charmed by the main character.

All in all, looking forward to reading on.

Though I udnerstand how easy it is to build that particulare kind of prejudice, it's not something I think one should actively encourage, in oneself or others. I have struggled with the same problem, not really being interested in the thematic focus of most of what I've read of urban fantasy written by women, but I do try to look past that all the same when picking books.

More than anything I think the problem is marketing. I am guilty of judging books by their covers and the blurb, and urban fantasy by women seem marketed to the twilight crowd, no matter how far distanced the actual book is from that sub-genre.

[QuickTidal]

 worry, on 24 June 2013 - 07:34 AM, said:

I finished Alera 5, and I must say, I may have enjoyed it more than the first four books combined. Definitely the first time I felt anyone was actually at risk, and a lot of the back story revelations were nice touches and occasionally even surprising.

Alera 5 has one of my all time jaw dropper moments in the whole series.

Spoiler

They spend half the book talking about the dangerous area ruled by the Shuar, and then they get down to it and literally the entire bottom half of the continent is infested and overrun by Vord. That was a crazy scene.

[Ukjent]

Done with Time of Contempt, liked it, but the ending is not what I wanted, not by far.

[Abyss]

 Puck, on 23 June 2013 - 08:20 PM, said:

I decided to be daring and pick up a female urban fantasy author, ... Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard now.
It's your typical magical murder mystery.. set in the Aztec empire....

 Wotist, on 24 June 2013 - 12:17 AM, said:

Aliette de Bodard is not a writing urban fantasy.

Wotist nailed it. What you're reading isn't what you're slamming. Not by a long shot.

 worry, on 24 June 2013 - 01:09 AM, said:

Yah King's finales are notoriously spotty ...

THE STAND has a fairly satisfying ending. I know some people find it offputting but it worked for me.
MISERY's ending is near perfect.
THE DARK HALF is perhaps predictable, but it works nicely.
IT's ending.... works. It has problems (i won't even get into the kiddie pr0n element) but overall i thought it worked well enough.
I liked the ultimate end of TDT, but i have some real dislikes about how the antagonists plotlines were wrapped up.

On the short story side of things, i recommend the collection DIFFERENT SEASONS, which includes THE BODY (which became the film Stand By Me), the RUNNING MAN (no resemblance to the movie), and RAGE... all are more or less great right through with satisfying endings.



Very much enjoying Tidhar's THE BOOKMAN tho i now see why some have said it's not really 'steampunk'. Still, well written, moves along at a good pace and has a sense of wonder reminiscient of the upthread ref'd STARDUST.

However i found myself this weekend awake, unable to sleep, and holding Sakurazaka's ALL YOU NEED IS KILL. Proceeded to devour the book in one sittiing. Overall a really neat, short and satisfying sf trip... i like the 'mil sf version of Groundhog Day' descriptor i've seen on line, but it's more than that. It says more about video games, war, love, existence and even the frikkin evironment
in 200ish pages than some authors manage in four part series.

Great action scenes, believeable but fun tech ( i like how inherently flawed the soldiers' armor is and how they find ways around it), an enemy that isn't really original but an original take on a trope, and a couple of great supporting characters. I really enjoyed this book and I'm going to find more by this author.

Worth noting as far as i could tell, the translation from Japanese was flawlessly done.

[QuickTidal]

 Abyss, on 24 June 2013 - 02:43 PM, said:

However i found myself this weekend awake, unable to sleep, and holding Sakurazaka's ALL YOU NEED IS KILL. Proceeded to devour the book in one sittiing. Overall a really neat, short and satisfying sf trip... i like the 'mil sf version of Groundhog Day' descriptor i've seen on line, but it's more than that. It says more about video games, war, love, existence and even the frikkin evironment
in 200ish pages than some authors manage in four part series.

Great action scenes, believeable but fun tech ( i like how inherently flawed the soldiers' armor is and how they find ways around it), an enemy that isn't really original but an original take on a trope, and a couple of great supporting characters. I really enjoyed this book and I'm going to find more by this author.

Worth noting as far as i could tell, the translation from Japanese was flawlessly done.

I only found it so-so, and that was mostly because the lead was just. such. a. whiny. foul-mouthed shithead.

LOL

Other than that it was a fun little romp, but it didn't leave me as impressed as some other Haika Soru translated books. My next up from them is BELKA, WHY DON'T YOU BARK...and I kind of can't wait to get into it.

What I'm reading:

Well, I've got Rollins latest Sigma on my desk now, prologue read...but after the Mrs. and I finished BBC's MERLIN, and we re-watched Antoine Fuqua's KING ARTHUR flick...I find myself desiring to re-read Jack Whyte's Camulod series so badly that I dreamt about it all night last night...so I may save Rollins for Cottage weekend in Aug, and re-read the first two Camulod books instead.

[T77]

It's been a while since my last post and i finished a few books.

The Fires of Heaven by Jordan. I continue to like this series, but not love it. I'm invested now and will finish it.

October's Baby by Glen Cook. The second book in the main sequence of his Dread Empire series. Great military fantasy. Very early cook, but just as good as The Black Company and Instrumentalities. Any Cook fan who hasn't read these should.

The Power that Preserves by Donaldson. I read the first two books a few years ago when I was just getting into reading fantasy. Now that I've gotten a lot more fantasy books under my belt I have a new appreciation for these books and I really enjoyed this one. Covenant is an interesting character faced with many tough decisions. And the land and world-building are really characters of their own. Looking forward to finishing this series. The last book of which is due out later this year.


The Fifth Head of Cerberus and"A Story," by John V. Marsch by Gene Wolfe. These are the first two novellas in Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus. I didn't want to comment until I've read them all, but at this point I was blown away by these novellas. Gene Wolfe is just an incredible writer and nobody writes like him and possibly no one will ever again. Will finish the last novella soon. I am more into fantasy than SciFi, wtih the exception of Wolfe. He is the finest SciFi author. His work is a blend of fantasy too and he's right up there of the best in fantasy too.

This post has been edited by T77: 24 June 2013 - 04:18 PM

[Morgoth]

Strange Itineraries by Tim Powers arrived on friday and was consumed in one sitting on sunday. I don't typically plow through a short story collection without taking breaks, but there's something about Tim Powers plotting that works so brilliantly with time travel and dreams.

Now on to Bank's latest and last book. I'm dreading it, just a little.

[Abyss]

 QuickTidal, on 24 June 2013 - 03:31 PM, said:

 Abyss, on 24 June 2013 - 02:43 PM, said:

However i found myself this weekend awake, unable to sleep, and holding Sakurazaka's ALL YOU NEED IS KILL. Proceeded to devour the book in one sittiing. Overall a really neat, short and satisfying sf trip...

I only found it so-so, and that was mostly because the lead was just. such. a. whiny. foul-mouthed shithead.

...

I thought his evolution from whiny shithead to hero was well handled.
He didn't even do the Bill Murray thing of getting laid and drunk and partying hard before starting to try and figure out what was happening.

[Kruppe's snacky cakes]

I also avoid urban fantasy written by women...and men...and possibly hermaphrodites. I don't usually peek under the skirts, so who knows?

128. Seeds Of Earth by Michael Cobley - I found the Ambassador Horst w/ holographic daughter storyline touching/interesting, but ultimately there were too many plot threads and this devolved into a jumbled mess for me.

129. Museum of Thieves by Lian Tanner - YA fantasy reminiscent of the Ember books, only not as good.

130. Planesrunner by Ian McDonald - YA SF about alternate worlds. The idea of a multiverse is an interesting plot device, but I have yet to see it particularly well done.

131. Voyage of the Shadowmoon by Sean McMullen - I read this one because book 4 in the series, The Time Engine, caught my eye (I'm a big fan of time travel fiction). Interesting cast of characters, but the story itself didn't make me inclined to continue the series.

132. The True Game by Sheri S. Tepper - This was almost good, at times, and I wanted to like it, because I'm always on the lookout for good RPG-style fantasy. But I just found this to be odd and confusing.

133. Wolverine and Jubilee: Curse Of The Mutants graphic novel by Kathryn Immonen - I'm picking up various X-Men comics as I find them in the bargain books. I have to say Jubilee is probably one of the more interesting characters.

[Puck]

 Dag, on 24 June 2013 - 06:02 AM, said:

 Puck, on 23 June 2013 - 11:32 PM, said:

I'm biologically female, too, and no stranger to feminism issues, in many ways, included dealing with prejudices against girls in the area I study.

If you know from your own experience how hurtful and frustrating such baseless prejudices can be, and if you are aware that this kind of attitude is fundamentally wrong, then why do you do the same injustice to other people? I am a female fantasy writer and it hurts me and offends me that someone would discard my work as "crap" based solely on the fact that there’s a woman’s name on the cover. If you read my book and then still think it's "crap", that’s probably because it doesn't fit your interests and tastes as a reader or maybe even because I’m indeed a crappy writer, but I’m quite certain that the fact that I’m a woman plays no role in this.

1. I never said they're "crap".

2. I have confined my aversion to certain types of authors to a particular sub-genre of the general SF&F area, a rather small one, btw, dominated by authors like Lilith Saintcrow, Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Christina Henry, Laurell K. Hamilton, Kelley Armstrong.. the list is basically endless, and some of those are New York Times bestseller authors, thus I have serious doubts that any person disinclination I may have towards their work will not hurt them in any way. We can also probably agree that their works have a lot in common, are set in similar settings and the protagonists have common characteristics. We can also probably agree that genres have the benefits of knowing what to expect when you turn to them. I like urban fantasy but I happen to not like this particular part of it, hence I avoid it. Just because this happens to be dominated by female authors and I thus happen to avoid female authors in this genre is on about the same level as knowing you don't like vampires and avoiding authors you know will be writing about vampires. I have, of course, opened a wasp nest by trying to poke fun at myself, but seem that went past the radar as soon as the words 'female authors' and 'avoid' were combined in one sentence.

3. There is such as thing as overdoing it with feminism. For various reasons that don't belong here, I've been on the receiving end of that as well, and I'm honestly so fed up with it that I try to avoid fiction that propagantes it. I may be rubbing some people wrong by standing by that opinion, but I assure you, Dag, that aside from you everyone who's pounced on me for my statement in this thread has at some point said things on this board that have been discriminating against groups I am part of. But that was acceptable, yes? Because none of the issues were broad enough to raise as many flags as my statement did, which probably makes them irrelevant, because.. well, I should stop here.

4. Aside from the above mentioned, and in case it is not clear yet: I do read female authors. Just not in this particular area of SF&F.


That said, I am enjoying Servant of the Underworld a lot.

 Morgoth, on 24 June 2013 - 09:17 AM, said:

Though I udnerstand how easy it is to build that particulare kind of prejudice, it's not something I think one should actively encourage, in oneself or others. I have struggled with the same problem, not really being interested in the thematic focus of most of what I've read of urban fantasy written by women, but I do try to look past that all the same when picking books.

More than anything I think the problem is marketing. I am guilty of judging books by their covers and the blurb, and urban fantasy by women seem marketed to the twilight crowd, no matter how far distanced the actual book is from that sub-genre.

I agree, actually, and again, in case it was not clear enough (which it wasn't, as I can see by the responses), I was poking fun at myself.

That said, the particular breed of female authors I am avoiding tends to propagate things I am fighting against. The decision was made after trying to be open minded and reading a bunch of stuff in that particular field, and the more I read the more angry I became with what these books seemed to be doing. Personally, I think it is a valid decision to say that I will not spend money and time on things in fiction with which I am fed up in real life.

This post has been edited by Puck: 24 June 2013 - 10:36 PM

[worry]

Oh that reminds me I forgot to mention I'm reading The Armageddon Rag by GRRM, one of his earlier stabs at Stephen King-style horror. Really enjoyed his other horror work I've read (namely Fevre Dream and Nightflyers) but unlike those this one seems aimed at being overtly King-like; I'm just starting, but there's already a writer protagonist, a backdrop of classic rock references, and Maine even seems to be the major setting.

After that, Briar King, I will certainly go right into Alera 6, with actual anticipation rather than just for completion's sake.

[Serenity]

Finished Cook's The Silver Spike - enjoyed it muchly, although the ending felt very abrupt. Now about halfway through Ellroy's The Black Dahlia.