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What'cha Reading?

Droewyn

Smol Monster
(She/her, they/them)
Soooo, how about that latest October Daye book? I'm thinking it's time for a series-reread, particularly given new revelations. I need to go back and look for the hints that I know were there the whole time.
 

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
Not quite what happens. He merely learns how to be a god of sex from the fairy queen taking him as a concubine in a secret sex pocket dimension for like a year, then he stays with a town of european flavored ninjas where he gets to use his sex skills for good sex while they train him as a ninja and he gets to scoff at how they don't believe sex leads to pregnancy.
I'm halfway through the first book and our main character just
jumped off a roof and nearly died to prove how dedicated he was to a teacher who had fairly recently spent time in an asylum.
Kvothe grows up fast, it would seem.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
I never read the first two because I was waiting for the series to be finished, but as I heard more and more about them I think less and less that I'm missing out
 

Droewyn

Smol Monster
(She/her, they/them)
I never read the first two because I was waiting for the series to be finished, but as I heard more and more about them I think less and less that I'm missing out

Yeah. There are so many women and minority authors I could be reading instead.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
After yama mentioned it in the Simpsons thread, I was curious about The Butterfly Revolution. It is about boys who take over a summer camp, by imprisoning all the adults, and how that escalates. Good stuff, and reminded me in some ways of Lord of the Flies, though the execution and development of the story are quiet different. Well worth a read, anyway, and a shame that it isn't remembered like Goldings book.
 

Dracula

Plastic Vampire
(He/His)
Axiom's End by Lindsay Ellis. In a way this is a book I've wanted to read for a long time: a first-contact alien story with empathy and Transformers references. Full disclosure: in 2018-2019, I wrote a novel (it's not published, it's in the post-beta, gotta-write-the-final-draft stage, and I have barely touched it in 2020). My novel is a first-contact alien story with empathy and Transformers references. In some ways it's terrifying to read a new and successful story that's similar enough to something you hope to publish some day, but in other ways it's actually validating to see that such a story can really work.

Anyway the book is good. Ellis deserves her success.
 

Droewyn

Smol Monster
(She/her, they/them)
Are women underrepresented in the genre? I feel like most fantasy books I read are by women.

If that's true I think it's a relatively recent development.

Yes to Nodal, and WOW NO to Paul.

The actual number of female to male authors in the fantasy genre is pretty close to 50/50, that's true. But look at the authors who are critically acclaimed, get more marketing, get paid more, get more reviews/attention, even. Hell, just look at history of Hugo Award and Astounding (nee John C. Campbell) Award winners.

Here's a really good thread discussing the subject.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
I'm not entirely sure my message came across to you the way I intended it, but I'm also not entirely sure what your reaction to it actually means. Could you elaborate?
 
Yes to Nodal, and WOW NO to Paul.

The actual number of female to male authors in the fantasy genre is pretty close to 50/50, that's true. But look at the authors who are critically acclaimed, get more marketing, get paid more, get more reviews/attention, even. Hell, just look at history of Hugo Award and Astounding (nee John C. Campbell) Award winners.

Here's a really good thread discussing the subject.
I can't help but note that was from 5 years ago: I genuinely just went down the list of all the books in my reader app, and accounting for series' the number of women authors to men is 5:1, which is a number that seems preposterous even when I already thought I mostly read women. I will say something I noticed though, is of the women authors about 3/5 of them go by initials. I wonder if the perspective that there are no women authors writing fantasy leads to them going by initials leads to the perception. Granted, I don't follow the Hugo or awards or whatever, but I only hear about books based on word of mouth and reviews/attention.
 

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
Women have won 8 of the last 10 Hugos and 8 of the last 10 Nebulas for best novel. Historically there's a gender imbalance but I think women authors are doing okay.
 

Paul le Fou

24/7 lofi hip hop man to study/relax to
(He)
Women have won 8 of the last 10 Hugos and 8 of the last 10 Nebulas for best novel. Historically there's a gender imbalance but I think women authors are doing okay.
This is basically what I was getting at. A majority of the stuff that was historically the most spotlighted was by men, and if that's not true of present works it's a shift that feels like it happened more recently. There have always been women writing and reading fantasy, but they often struggled to find widespread recognition even compared to more popular but less good stuff by men. Lately, a lot of really popular and important fantasy work has been by women, which may signal a shift in the more popular/recognized stuff.

But I also suspect it's a case of perceptions, which Nodal's post gets at. You get the stuff like, if women speak 20%ish of lines in a meeting, people (or just men?) feel like the gender balance was even, and if they speak 33% of the lines people feel like they spoke too much/a majority of the time. (Forgetting the exact numbers.) So we might be still under or just approaching parity, but it just feels like that because we're so tuned to men being the "norm."
 
The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. I think I gave this an attempt two years ago, but I don't think I got very far. Maybe got distracted by something else
 

shivam

commander damage
(he/hiim)
Tad's books take like 150 pages to really get going, but once they do, the train doesn't stop. I love that series a whole lot.
 

Behemoth

Dostoevsky is immortal!
(he/him/his)
Finished Harrow the Ninth. I can't think of the last time I read a sequel that I liked so much more than the prior book, and which retroactively made me like the prior book more. Anyway, I was a big fan, in case you couldn't tell.
 

Cyrael

...we're shy.
(he/him)
Wheel of Time: The Path of Daggers is a long book that is probably the lowest point of the entire series for me. But you gotta get through it to get back to the good stuff.
 
DNFed Tad. I just couldn't enjoy it. Switching over to a Star Trek novel, Federation by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens (which I'm really liking so far)
 

shivam

commander damage
(he/hiim)
reading Star Daughter by Shveta Thakrar right now. it's a young adult romance/adventure set half in New Jersey and half in the Hindu heavens. The book is about a Gujarati-American girl who is the daughter of a star, and deeply integrates the indian-american experience as well as Hindu folklore and mythology. really really cool.
 
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. With how much I enjoyed Lathe last month, I'm hoping to like this just as much, if not more
 

zonetrope

(he/him)
Remain in Love by Chris Frantz isn't wall-to-wall juicy David Byrne details like the headlines suggest, but there's certainly enough of it for me to reconsider making him my avatar. When you're part of a team, compliment and credit your damn teammates for their hard work.
 

Rosewood

The metal babble flees!
(she/her)
Finished Alif the Unseen today. A fun thriller-like plot, some cool characters and vaguely Spirited Away-like scenes, and a message that I'd like to have 100% agreed with, but didn't quite.

Next is the second Murderbot novella and possibly The Last Wish, the first Witcher book published in the U.S.
 

clarice

bebadosamba
I like The Left Hand of Darkness. I don't think it is an interesting book about gender, but it is interesting to see how trust is born between the main characters despite the miscommunication, misfortune and so many things dividing them (like gender!). Trust seems to have a metaphysical quality in Le Guin writing. And i also love Estraven.

If my reading of the book is way off, i'd love to hear a reply!
 
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