SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

I requested before for female authors- mainly because as many of you know, many male fantasy authors treat their women like crap.

Someone else posted about LoTS, and I liked the show- but I've been reading reviews about the books and they sound ridiculous. I was all set to read them until I read reviews about the amount of rape in the books- and while I realize that rape would be common in those times, it still is- putting all your female characters through it repeatedly isn't the type of garbage I want to read.

Anyways, if you've know of books with strong, female characters (they don't have to be fighting, but I do like that) please let me know!

What is LoTS?

have you read Sheri Tepper? she's usually described as a feminist author and is, i think, one of the finest writers around in any genre. she has written some series, including The True Game and a series beginning with Grass (i read Sideshow some years ago not realising it came later in the sequence, and am in the course of remedying the omission).

Let's see. Without being able to view other things in your profile I can only make wild guesses.

The Flora Segunda trilogy. Nominally YA, but also something adults can enjoy. Lots of women who fight. Third book due out in September of this year.

The Steerswoman (start of a series)

Moira J. Moore's Heroes series; starts with Resenting the Hero (Yes, the covers are terrible. Not her fault.)

Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot; start of a series

A College of Magics (1 direct sequel, also When The King Comes Home as a same setting, different time period prequel)

I may be able to come up with some more later when I have more time to review my shelves.

and how could i forget one of my all time favourite authors, Mary Gentle? Ash: A Secret History in particular is simply awesome (i believe there's another book of this name around at the mo, i keep seeing it on the updates page), and i'd also recommend Rats and Gargoyles and The Architecture of Desire.

Dawn wrote: "What is LoTS?"
Err sorry, Terry Goodkind's series. (Legend of the Seeker is the show)

Paul wrote: "have you read Sheri Tepper? she's usually described as a feminist author and is, i think, one of the finest writers around in any genre. she has written some series, including [book:..."

These look really good, thank you!

Deena wrote: "I requested before for female authors- mainly because as many of you know, many male fantasy authors treat their women like crap.

Someone else posted about LoTS, and I liked the show- but I've ..."

Patricia McKillip - no violence at all, gorgeous work - she writes almost no series, though.

These two authors do women well and do series, browse their stuff, see what suits:
Jennifer Roberson
C. J. Cherryh
Juliet Marillier

Two male authors who are exceptionally better at female characters:


Guy Gavriel Kay - mostly standalones, not all of his works have no rape; but most of them. check the books...or message me, I can let you know which to avoid.

Parke Godwin/in particular in collaboration with Marvin Kaye in their work
The Masters of Solitude/Wintermind
I recall being AMAZED at the depth of perception in this duology - the women were SO well done, and written by men. Unique for its time, don't be put off by the lousy old covers. I can't recall EXACTLY what was in this (if it had rape) but the impression left over 20 years or more later was - gorgeously done dynamics with the female characters. This work (like Steerswoman) is way too obscure for its merit.

Chris wrote: "I'd rather recommend Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged"

yeah, 'cos Rand has nothing to do with doctrine or ideology...

The liveship Traders is great, full of strong female characters. There is a rape in the series, Hobb does not actually desbribe the rape itself, you read about the character's thoughts afterwards, but you don't get to read the actuall rape scene. So it's not really that bad. The books have alot of realistic characters and are very exciting.

For (epic) fantasy i'd recommend:

The Black Jewels series by Anne Bishop. The society in the series is matriachal. First book: Daughter of the Blood. Her Tir Alain series and the Ephemera duology also contain strong female characters.

The Kushiel's Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey. The main character in he first three books is definitely a strong woman. First book Kushiel's Dart.

Elizabeth Haydon's Symphony of ages series hass a strong women as a main character. first book: Rhapsody: Child of Blood.

Another good and original series is the chronocles of Elantra series by Michelle Sagara West. first book: Cast in Shadow.

And the Raine Benares series by Lisa Shearin. First book:Magic Lost, Trouble Found

The Urban fantasy subgenre also has lots of series with strong female characters.

Not wanting to read stories with rape as an important event or character backstory is about on par with having decided that you don't particularly care to read any more Arthurian fantasy. Or that you're never going to read paranormal romance. (Except that the reasons are likely different, of course.) Sure, you may miss some good stories ... but if you don't feel that there's anything more you can learn or experience as a reader, then individuals are the ones best equipped to decide if they're okay with potentially missing good books. Also, sometimes one reads to get away from stupid real life crap, not to be reminded of it.

A friend and I were talking about rape in the fantasy genre a couple weeks ago in her private journal. My general thought is that even if the author is well-intentioned (i.e., not going down a s/he asked for it kind of road), it's too easy to handle poorly, or in a way that's just rehashing what other authors have done.

Take, oh, The Privilege of the Sword. It has a girl who learns to fight with a sword. It also has a different character [massive spoilers, only click if you're okay with that; also potentially triggering content] (view spoiler)[, a guy, with repeated child sexual abuse as backstory. And another girl who gets raped. The rapist is quite clearly presented as a jerk, but her family doesn't much care since she doesn't get pregnant, and that's pretty much that. Well, he does die in the end, but for mostly unrelated reasons. (hide spoiler)] Do I think that makes Ellen Kushner a bad person, or that the book is automatically bad? Heck, no. She's being faithful to and realistic about her setting, which is a nice place to visit once in a while. (And no, I probably wouldn't want to live there. Unless I got to be a wealthy male noble, or a successful merchant or something.) But it does mean it's unpleasant, and that it's not necessarily worth subjecting myself to the sadness and anger that storylines like that make me feel.

Sensible authors who want to have rape as a story element think and worry about it a lot, I suspect. (Laura Anne Gilman talked about this a bit in a recent journal entry.)

Nikki wrote: "Not wanting to read stories with rape as an important event or character backstory is about on par with having decided that you don't particularly care to read any more Arthurian fantasy. Or that ..."

Brava, Nikki.

Respectfully to all here, and the enthusiasm of the contributions - if a person requests titles that avoid a certain subject - nice to honor the implied fact they have personal reasons, not pressure them into changing their course for the sake of what others consider a good story. Might not be so good, to the individual making the request, and setting the boundary - we don't know where they are coming from.

Juliet Marillier has been mentioned, and I'd like to put a big gold star by her name.

A fairly new author, Amanda Downum, has a debut novel I would recommend for you as well: The Drowning City.

If you're up for venturing into graphic novels, I Kill Giants and Fruits Basket are two fantasies that fit the bill.

Chris wrote: "I'm going to stick my neck out here. I read all of TG's The Sword Of Truth series and to the best of my recollection none of the characters are raped (though slaughter and rape off scene happen pr...Now, my point here is that the value of these books is not in whether or not anyone got raped. "



I'm not entirely sure why you feel you are feel you are entitled to make commentary on my decision to not read fiction filled with rape.

Firstly- rape stories are triggering and you haven't the slightest idea what my history with rape is. Secondly, I said the "amount of rape." I have no desire to read tales reeking of machismo, white, male privilege- structured with gendered hierarchies and sexism. I highly doubt rape is crucial to the plot.

I can read enough real life non-fiction narratives and discourse, historical or otherwise, to do so. Not to mention the sheer amount of biases and racism that entrench many of the stories can often be disgusting. There are plenty of stories that deal with rape realistically- but in fantasy and science fiction, this not always the case.

Threads such as these broach the topic better than I would- http://www.joblo.com/forums/showthrea...

"Women in Goodkind's books are constantly abused. They meet gruesome deaths at nearly twice the rate of his male characters, and are more frequently degraded and tormented first. Sexually assertive women are always the first to go in Goodkind's world. Any female character who engages in sex outside the grounds of a heterosexual marriage is punished thereafter.

For example, "loose" women are forever throwing themselves at our hero, and most of the die shortly thereafter. Just off the top of my head I can think of three within the first four books, two who are flung off of cliffs and a third who the "hero" kills himself despite the fact that she's being mind-controlled (our "hero" also kills an eight year old girl by shattering her jaw. A seperate list might be "Shit-heel things that Terry Goodking heroes do").

Women who engage in sexual antics not related to our hero are also prone to gruesome fates. In "Stone of Tears", for example, we get a scene of a woman having sex with some sort of demon and being injured by its thorn-covered phallus, then minutes later another female character whose sexual habits Goodkind for some reason has informed us of at length is ripped in half by a spell. A pair of lesbian characters briefly appear, but one dies shortly after the nature of their relationship (which is nonexistant in print) is revealed, and the survivor shamelessly throws herself at the hero (albeit in jest) as a defense mechanism (the only other gay character in the books is a murdering pedophile who is eventually forced to eat his own genitals. This is actually something of a running theme in Goodkind's work, believe it or not).

Several serial rapists appear as villains in the story, and our heroine, a supposedly "strong" female lead, is almost raped so often than you can nearly make a drinking game out of it (Goodkind makes a point of informing us that her sisters were all raped and murdered just prior to the events of the first book). One villain habitually turns women over to his soldiers to be raped and then mind-controls them by cutting off their nipples. The fourth book spills quite a bit of ink on a generally useless and sleazy subplot about a Jack the Ripper-style serial killer offing prostitutes (with the implication that he sometimes classifies even non-working girls as prostitutes), and we get some rather lurid details of their assault and torture throughout the book.

Of the supposedly "strong" female characters in the book, most are similarly degraded. Our heroine, who as mentioned is under near-constant threat of sexual assault, is forever in need of rescue from threats to both her life and chastity. In fact at one point she is indeed forced (by circumstance instead of violence, but even so) to sleep with a man she does not like, during which she ingests blood while performing oral sex. She has magical powers that virtually never protect her in any adequate fashion. Her chronic insecurity borders on the pathetic, especially as pertains to her relationship with the hero. She begins as a powerful political figure, but her boyfriend deposes her and adds all of her territory to his empire while she's out of town (which was apparently his way of proposing), and she, for some reason, goes along with this, because after all, she is a woman, and what does she have that he can't take away at a whim, right? Her powers make her forcibly celibate, and in fact the only man in the world who can safely have sex with her is our hero, reducing her to his ultimate trophy and a symbol of his inherent virility and power.

And then there are the dominatrix characters. What to make of them I dare not speculate. They are certainly "strong", in the sense of being martially dangerous, possessing mystical powers (that are actually worth a damn), and being generally imposing and authoratative. However, they are constantly degraded by and subordinant to more powerful male characters. In the first book they appear as villains, slaves the the primary antagonist, who we later learn makes great sport of sexually humiliating them. Later they become slavish devotees of our hero, and they make it quite clear to him that they are his property and he can order them to service him sexually whenever he wishes (he never does, but even so). So even a strong woman in Goodkind's world cannot be stronger than a man.

[...]

Really, it's a matter of the big picture. If you've got constant sexual abuse in its many forms being rained down on your female characters, well, that's one thing. If you have all of your sexually assertive female characters dying gruesome deaths, that's one thing. If you have your "strong" female characters, including your lead heroine, constantly degraded, demeaned, undermined, marginalized, and reduced to "Damsel in distress" status at the drop of a hat, that's one thing. But when you have all of those elements, pushed to a degree that they become, as noted, redundant? That's a sign that you might have a problem. Particularly when so many of them are so clearly gratuitous. I mean, demon with spike-covered penis, did we really need that? Did that add anything to the story? And really, what's with the constant genital-mutiliation theme anyway? Again, on its own I might shrug it off, but in concert with everything else..."

Betelgeuze wrote: "The Kushiel's Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey. The main character in he first three books is definitely a strong woman. First book Kushiel's Dart."

A warning is in order here, though: Part of the mythology of the series is that a god marks his chosen by making her a masochist -- she literally feels sexual pleasure through physical (and emotional) pain. This means that through the first trilogy she engages in quite a bit of sado-masochistic sex. I find the treatment fascinating, because of the theme of "that which yields is not always weak" that is a through-line, but I would imagine that it's a potentially triggering reading selection.

And actually, sado-masochism is a fairly prominent theme in Anne Bishop's Black Jewels novels as well.

The most recent trilogy in Carey's world, which starts with Naamah's Kiss, doesn't have that element at all; however, I find its depiction of various Asian cultures somewhat problematic.

So I suspect I'd actually recommend Santa Olivia if you wanted to try Carey's work; the only caveat with that one is that it's actually science fiction. ;)

And for a recommendation that nobody else has left (yet) may I suggest Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion series? The first book is The Curse of Chalion, but this is one of those series where all the books stand alone, so if you wanted you could actually start with the second, Paladin of Souls, which has a wonderful female protagonist. (Though you will be spoiled for some of the events in CoC that way. . . but Bujold's books don't usually suffer from having been spoiled, because there's so much else going on.)

Also, Robin McKinley is another wonderful writer who writes great female protagonists; avoid Deerskin, which is a retelling of a very dark fairy tale, but you might enjoy either of her Damar novels (The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown, though since these are based on her love of Kipling as a child there are some vaguely imperialist undertones) or any of her other fairy tale retellings.

Try Point of Hopes and Point of Dreams by Melissa Scott. Amazingly detailed world-building.

What about Chicks in Chainmail? A collection of short stories featuring strong women in positive roles.

In response to the OP - Woman on the Edge of Time has been removed from the list in my first post. I misunderstood your question at first, and it's SF and not fantasy. Also, now that I think about it, it's been a while since I read it and I can't guarantee there wasn't any rape in the non-utopian parts of the book. (Long story; the book is structurally kind of weird.)

Also, Janny, thanks for the Parke Godwin rec. I remember reading some stuff by him ages ago, when I was too young to think to look for more. (It was Arthurian, I believe.)

Leigh wrote: "What about Chicks in Chainmail? A collection of short stories featuring strong women in positive roles."

@ above, I don't "mind" it in a larger context- if it is actually relevant to the story, though I'm not fond of rape as a tool for character development. In general, I'm just wary of excessive misogyny in books. Misogyny without purpose, I suppose.

Sci-fi is fine, also- depending.

Phoenixfalls wrote: "Betelgeuze wrote: "The Kushiel's Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey. The main character in he first three books is definitely a strong woman. First book Kushiel's Dart."

A warning is in order here,..."

I agree that S&M are a theme in the first three books of the Kushiel's Legacy series. But where do you find it in the Black Jewels series? I've read the books many times, and although abuse is a theme, mainly of men and children, i can't think of a single instance of S&M.

I know that both series have some dark themes, although there is plenty of humour in the Black Jewels series, neither series is misogynic.

Deena wrote: "I requested before for female authors- mainly because as many of you know, many male fantasy authors treat their women like crap.

Anyways, if you've know of books with strong, female characters (they don't have to be fighting, but I do like that) please let me know!"

I don't think I treat my female characters like crap. I treat them like people who are female.

The Flame in the Bowl: Unbinding the Stone has a number of admittedly secondary female characters, all of whom have a strong presence and affect the MC.
A Warrior Made (Flame in the Bowl Book Two), the sequel, features all of tese ladies in much more central positions, and introduces another, who ends up a weapons-master for her new adopted city and clan.
Off the Map is about a woman who gets shanghaied onto the set of Interdimensional Survivor and teaches the homicidal elf the meaning of ferocity as she defends the monsters.
And wait'll you see Candace and Bing-Bang when St. Martin's Moon comes out!

Try Dossouye by Charles R. Saunders. Here's a review:
http://www.blackgate.com/fiction-revi...

Deena wrote: (quote of big long analysis of Sword of Truth)

Yes, but when you consider that Richard Rahl is one big freaking Mary Sue for Terry Goodkind, it all makes more sense. You see, Richard is PERFECT. Of course women flock to him. If you look at the men they split into two camps: the evil men who Richard defeats (who don't have one redeeming value among them), and the good men who all love Richard, respect him, and follow him around like puppy dogs. No really, there isn't one good male character who goes "well Richard isn't a bad guy, but he sure is an annoying prick." You would assume that SOMEONE would find Richard obnoxious considering he is never, ever wrong and never misses an opportunity to get preachy.

Just as a note, Tepper often deals with issues of rape, violence, and abuse from a feminist perspective. The Gate to Women's Country, Raising the Stones, and The Margarets all have short scenes of fairly graphic violence. Tepper is often criticized for grinding the feminist axe in her fiction, although personally I find her refreshing.

I'm currently into Martin Millar largely because he's one of the few people in fantasy, specifically urban fantasy, whose treatment of disability (mental and physical) doesn't drive me up the wall. The Good Fairies of New York has a tendency to run a bit "twee" but is a good read. Lonely Werewolf Girl is, IMO a bit better.

Gaiman impressed me by using Nalo Hopkinson as an adviser and reader for Anansi Boys. Hopkinson is worth picking up and has been an advocate for better minority representation in genre fiction.

Brain Plague - An Elysium Cycle Novel is a favorite novel by a sadly inactive feminist science fiction author that just was put back in print.

Are you interested in urban fantasy?

"Women in Goodkind's books are constantly abused. They meet gruesome deaths at nearly twice the rate of his male characters, and are more frequently degraded and tormented first. Sexually assertive women are always the first to go in Goodkind's world. Any female character who engages in sex outside the grounds of a heterosexual marriage is punished thereafter."

I totally agree with all the things said above, i have read many of Goodkind's books and women are not treated well in them.

The Wheel of Time is a great epic series about the battle between good and evil. All the women are very strong, both the good and evil ones. If you don't mind series that are very long with alot of description, you should try it.

Deena wrote: "I requested before for female authors- mainly because as many of you know, many male fantasy authors treat their women like crap."

As the father of a wonderful little girl, I've been really concerned about this too. As an author, I keep asking myself "would I want my daughter to read this book?" and "what sort of message am I sending her about men and women, and what's acceptable in fiction or in real life?"

I just released a steampunk/historical fantasy set in Morocco featuring a heroine with realistic family/career problems who kicks butt as an intelligent engineer, rather than a stereotypical action hero.

Sorry if this sounds like self-promotion, but I'd actually really appreciate your feedback on the book. If you're interested, contact me and I'll send you a copy in whatever e-format your prefer.

Betelgeuze wrote: "I agree that S&M are a theme in the first three books of the Kushiel's Legacy series. But where do you find it in the Black Jewels series? I've read the books many times, and although abuse is a theme, mainly of men and children, i can't think of a single instance of S&M."

It's been a little while, and I only read the trilogy once, but my remembered understanding was that the males were biologically primed to respond sexually to physically and emotionally abusive women. . . and while I know (and admired) that the point of the novels was getting that messed up world to a place where that didn't happen anymore. . . it still seemed to me potentially triggering enough to deserve a warning.

I'd like to recommend my own fantasy series, the Parsina Saga, which has strong women characters who are treated with respect. (There are also a couple of bad women, but even they are treated no worse than they have earned.)

I read Wizard's First Rule and was too disgusted with the amount of brutality of all kinds to ever go on with the series. I've found fantasy series that are YA or start out YA are generally more thoughtful than the supposedly adult ones anyway, in addition to having less violence and cheap adrenaline.

Ursula K. Le Guin might be worth considering, if you haven't already. Sexual and other violence do show up fairly frequently, but never trivialized or passed over lightly, quite the opposite. Really a lot of her books are about people trying to maintain their integrity, and mostly doing a pretty good job, when terrible things are happening around them. If that still sounds like something you'd rather not read (or if you've read/heard about her already, I would think you might have) feel free to ignore the rest of what I say. I personally don't find her writing quite as feminist as it has a reputation for being, but she gives gender issues a lot of thought at least.

In the Earthsea books, her first fantasy series, she made a point from the beginning of changing the usual racial stereotypes that fantasy inherited from European history, but she still had a typical patriarchal society which the first book doesn't question at all. But starting with the fourth book (which she wrote about 20 years after the first three) she decided to show the other perspective, and I really like the way you get both the uncritical and the critical perspective on the same culture that way.

Then there's her Annals of the Western Shore series. Again, the racial dynamics are pretty unlike the usual stereotypical ones. The last book especially has sexual discrimination and violence as its major theme, see above.

Paul wrote: "and how could i forget one of my all time favourite authors, Mary Gentle? Ash: A Secret History in particular is simply awesome (i believe there's another book of this..."

There are four books in Mary Gentle's Ash series. A Secret History is only the first one.

Phoenixfalls wrote: "It's been a little while, and I only read the trilogy once, but my remembered understanding was that the males were biologically primed to respond sexually to physically and emotionally abusive women ..."

Abuse isn't the same as S&M. S&M is consensual abuse isn't

As for the black Jewels series. The males of the species are to some extend submissive. But they don't willingly submit to abusive women.The books are about how two women managed to corrupt an entire society into abusing their power. The three male lead characters are resiting the women and want the old matriarchal society back in which such abuse is punished.The women on the good site are definitely strong and honorable people.

It might deserve a warning. The book does have some dark themes. But from what i read in the original post she didn't want the type of misogyny that some male writers seem to be writing in their stories without even realising. But i might be wrong. The misandry in the Black Jewels trilogy is definitely seen as a bad thing.

I agree with everything that's been said about Sheri S. Tepper. She's one of my favorite authors and The Gate to Women's Country and Gibbon's Decline and Fall are two of my favorite books. Many, if not most, of her books deal with misogyny, but her perspective is almost misandrist. As a man though, I actually enjoy her perspective, as it strips a lot of the misogynists males in her novels of their veneer of civilization.

Another author I enjoy is YA author, Maria Snyder. Her The Study Series Bundle does deal with a rape in the first book, but is mainly about a strong female protagonist. It also has an interesting perspective on a woman's role in a male-dominated society which I won't get into because it is more of a spoiler.

Phoenixfalls wrote: "Betelgeuze wrote: "The Kushiel's Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey. The main character in he first three books is definitely a strong woman. First book Kushiel's Dart."

A warning is in order here,..."

Regarding Bujold, I'd also recommend Ethan of Athos which directly addresses gender roles from an interesting standpoint; in a way it's like the viewpoint Twain used in Huck Finn regarding slavery. While it is ostensibly institutionalised mysogeny, it really argues strongly against mysogeny. Her Vorkosigan series also addresses gender roles, from a very balanced point of view. Finally, all of these books address rascism in a way that ridicules it very nicely.

Then there is the classic The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin.

The Vorkosigan series books (much as I enjoy reading them and they are hardly rape-sympathetic) don't qualify. Though it's very easy to forget that the rapes are there. (view spoiler)[Elena Visconti and the POWs in Shards of Honor, Mark in Mirror Dance, Cavilo in The Vor Game. (hide spoiler)] It's not absent from the Chalion series either, even if you exclude the times it was threatened but didn't happen. (view spoiler)[Off the top of my head it happened to Sara in The Curse of Chalion (before the book's time period), and arguably to some of the galley slaves.) (hide spoiler)] Otherwise I'd have recommended both series.

I'd suggest Kate Elliott's series. She does an excellent job with both females and males. I try to avoid both misogyny and misandry in current literature. OTOH, if one likes older SFF, I think it important to place a work in perspective of its time.

I would suggest Andre Norton. Her Witch World series almost always has strong female characters. While rape may happen - it is occasional and not dwelled upon. Some of her books that feature a strong female character that does not need a man to come rescue her (more often she rescues them) are:

Ciara's Song: A Chronicle of the Witch World - Good book but mostly for the sequel
The Duke's Ballad - Sequel to Ciara's Song
The Key of the Keplian - one of my favorites!
Songsmith

Nikki wrote: "The Vorkosigan series books (much as I enjoy reading them and they are hardly rape-sympathetic) don't qualify. Though it's very easy to forget that the rapes are there. [spoilers removed] It's n..."

Sorry about that. Given the topic description "Series that aren't full of misogyny and racism", I thought books that addressed the issue in a thoughtful way that condemns these practices would be of interest. I agree with the cases you mention, and there are also incidents in Falling Free and Shards of Honour. However, many of the books in the series have neither rape nor much racism, so I should have mentioned specific titles.

A life time favourite for me is A Wrinkle in Time. There is little or no racism, strong female characters, and a wonderful uplifting story. Meg in particular does fight, but not as a classic warrior. It has also been banned a fair number of times, which puts it in such good company as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Golden Compass, or To Kill a Mockingbird, which is no bad thing.

Another really good author to look at is Connie Willis. I have loved most of her short stories and novels. The two that stand out as my favourites are Doomsday Book and Passage. Both have strong and interesting women leads, and are superbly written. However, they aren't adventure stories.

A final pair of books to look at might be Endymion and The Rise of Endymion from the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons. In fact there are strong female characters throughout the Cantos, but Aenea is definitely the focus of the last two books. I'd recommend reading all four, especially the first, Hyperion

Deena wrote: "I'm not entirely sure ..."

this is a fascinating (and lengthy!) post. i had no idea about this - for some reason i've always had the impression that goodkind was on the bland side, which is why i've avoided the series. although the darkness you've described doesn't really make the series sound particularly interesting either.

as far as my recommendation for a series that is not full of misogyny & racism & typical patriarchal structures - and i would include both the series that exhibit those traits as well as the more interesting series that show it but don't necessarily exult in it, or may even critique it (the suzy mckee charnas Holdfast Chronicle comes to mind):

His Dark Materials
Chronicles of Tornor - elizabeth lynn

i'm sad that i can't think of any more!

mark wrote: "His Dark Materials"

I should have thought of that right away! No shortage of strong female characters there, and that includes one of my favorite protagonists ever.

I'm going to recommend a male author. Brandon Sanderson writes some of the best female characters I've encountered. And, he seems to be staying far away from graphic sex, rape and abuse. I really love his Mistborn Trilogy. And Warbreaker puts the funniest twist on the princess in an arranged marriage scenario that I've ever read. Sanderson is extremely respectful of his characters.

i don't mind graphic sex, but repeated depictions of rape can get very tiring, depressing. if it gets too graphic, i tend to just skip ahead.

but the main thing i can't abide is child abuse. for some reason, the chord that is struck is so deep that i come to question the author's motives. if i even finish the novel. it is the one thing that if i know it is there, i will probably avoid it, in books and in movies.

mark wrote: "i don't mind graphic sex, but repeated depictions of rape can get very tiring, depressing. if it gets too graphic, i tend to just skip ahead.

but the main thing i can't abide is child abuse. for..."

That's a major turnoff for me too. I stopped watching the new Battlestar Galactica in the first episode when they had a little girl waiting as the ship blew up around her.

Deena wrote: "I requested before for female authors- mainly because as many of you know, many male fantasy authors treat their women like crap.
"

Dreamsnake is by a female with a wonderful female protagonist. I would put Vonda McIntyre up there as a writer with Sheri Tepper. I think you would enjoy any book of hers, but Dreamsnake is one of my all time favorites.

Is it bad that, after seeing this thread daily for the past week or so, I now want to read a racist/misogynistic series just to see how it is?

Interesting discussion, thanks for starting the thread.

Here are some suggestions I haven't seen mentioned:
The Mists of Avalon (if you like it, there are several sequels/prequels)
Queen of the Amazons
Prospero's Children (and rest of the series)
The Five Hundred Kingdoms series for a lighter, more humorous series
Paper Mage
Household Gods
the Deverry series (and all it's subseries)
Trudi Canavan's Black Magician series
Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series', especially the Vows & Honor trilogy and the follow-on book By the Sword (Kerowyn's Tale)
Daughter of the Empire, Servant of the Empire, and Mistress of the Empire
Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders series and Rain Wild Chronicles series.
Graceling and Fire
Lifelode
The Quarters series by Tanya Huff (and pretty much everything else she writes)
The Awakeners: Northshore & Southshore
The Fall of Atlantis
Black Trillium and the rest of the series
There are almost 20 volumes in the Sword and Sorceress I series, they sound right up your alley
The Tiger & Del series by Jennifer Roberson
The Tir Tanagiri series by Jo Walton (although the main character is assaulted in the first pages of the first book, that is what motivates her to become the warrior she does, so it is not gratuitous at all, it is not graphically described, either, iirc.)
The Secret Texts series by Holly Lisle
The Books of Great Alta: Comprising 'Sister Light, Sister Dark' and 'White Jenna' and The One-Armed Queen
The Dragon Quartet by Marjorie B. Kellogg
Tiger Burning Bright
Mad Kestrel
the Path and Crosspoint series' by Diana Pharaoh Francis
Mother Ocean, Daughter Sea
The Decoy Princess and Princess at Sea

Oh, and I haven't read yet, but have heard good things about:
The Steerswoman series

Ala wrote: "Is it bad that, after seeing this thread daily for the past week or so, I now want to read a racist/misogynistic series just to see how it is?"

Haha...... I'm glad I'm not the only one! :X

Ala wrote: "Is it bad that, after seeing this thread daily for the past week or so, I now want to read a racist/misogynistic series just to see how it is?"

Well, I think a 'classic' in that vein would be anything in the Gor series by John Norman, but from the analysis of Goodkind's work in post @15, sounds like any of his books would suffice as well.