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I've mostly been reading books by guys lately. Haven't read many women authors lately -- the only ones I can think of being J. K. Rowling (book 7) and Nancy Farmer (The Sea of Trolls).
Some female authors I like = Ursula K. LeGuin, Lisa Mason, Susanna Clarke, Diana Gabaldon, Audrey Niffenegger.
A few I don't like = Connie Willis (too dry), Marion Zimmer Bradley (too angsty), Laurel Hamilton (too repetitive).
Any recommendations? Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I am currently reading a series by Carol Berg- Bridge of D'Arnath (first book Son of Avonar). I liked it enough to read the second one and would like to read the third.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I cannot recommend Octavia Butler enough.
Seriously, if you haven't read her stuff, you need to do so right now.
Seconded!
I also think you should sign up for GoodReads, so you could see what a bunch of us are reading and get recommendations that way. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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I’ve also read great stories by all of the following ladies:
Katherine MacLean Vonda N. McIntyre Nancy Kress Zena Henderson Elizabeth Moon Margaret Weis C J Cherryh Anne McCaffrey
Posts: 631 | Registered: Oct 1999
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I enjoy Connie Willis' short stories, but I didn't enjoy her novels To Say Nothing of the Dog and Doomsday Book nearly as much.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I'll admit it took me forever to get into To Say Nothing of the Dog. Our first person narrator was so timelagged he was very hard to follow. I only persisted because it was so highly recommended by people whose judgment I trust. But once I got going, I found it to be incredibly funny. And then, years later, I discovered that there really was such a book as Three Men in a Boat, and it reads just like To Say Nothing of the Dog, and I felt like I had missed half the joke.
Have you read any of her shorter novels? What did you think of them? Say, Bellwether or Lincoln's Dreams? I got all weepy and goosebumpy just now trying to tell my baby sister about Lincoln's Dreams.
(and here I am rambling on and on without adding anyone new to the list)
Posts: 364 | Registered: Dec 2005
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Has no one mentioned Robin Hobb yet? Her Farseer trilogy (starting with Assassin's Apprentice) is amongst my favourite fantasy books ever. She also writes as Megan Lindholm, though I've understood the Lindholm books are currently only in print in the U.K.
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: I enjoy Connie Willis' short stories, but I didn't enjoy her novels To Say Nothing of the Dog and Doomsday Book nearly as much.
My problem with Doomsday Book was how the future aspects of the book were set in somewhere like 2050 yet basically the whole future storyline relied on the problem of the main characters not being able to pass important information to one another because they can't get to a phone booth due to some pesky people spending ages talking to their relatives on the phone. OK, so the book was written in the early 90's but cell phones and the Internet did exist back then too, so just maybe Willis should have foreseen this not necessarily being a problem in the future...
Posts: 247 | Registered: Dec 2006
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Only things I've read by Barbara Hambly were those two Star Wars books, which I didn't enjoy at all, and haven't read since the first time I did.
On the flipside, I really enjoyed A.C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy.
Other than that, I haven't read much female written fantasy or sci-fi lately, though when I finish His Dark Materials, I'm going to start on The Dark is Rising, which is Susan Cooper. I'll let you know.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I also love Lois McMaster Bujold, Anne McCaffrey, Robin Hobb, Margaret Weis, Madeline L'Engle.
Goodreads. Huh. Hadn't heard of them before, and am just in the process of signing up. Who here is on it? ETA: And how do we find each other? I signed up as Laurie and I have a pic of myself wearing my elephant hat.
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Judith Tarr Esther Friesner Julian May Anne McCaffrey Lynn Abbey Pamela Dean Diane Duane Ursula K. LeGuin Robin McKinley Karen Ripley Mary Stewart
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by quidscribis: Goodreads. Huh. Hadn't heard of them before, and am just in the process of signing up. Who here is on it? ETA: And how do we find each other? I signed up as Laurie and I have a pic of myself wearing my elephant hat.
Indeed you do.
(Man, there are a LOT of Lauries on there!) I just sent you a friend-me-please invite. About half the people on my friends list are Hatrackers/sakeriverites.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Yeah, I figured there would be a lot of Laurie's, and I didn't think to add quidscribis since it said name, not username... I could change it... I might... But meanwhile, I used the elephant hat as a distinguishing feature to sort me out from the rest of the riffraff. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Well, ya know... I figured adding (quidscribis) would make me easier to find, ya know? Except for you, since it would seem that you remember my surnames... Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Kage Baker is an author that I discovered a couple of weeks ago, and whose work I'm enjoying quite a bit. I've actually read some of her short fiction before, but I hadn't associated a name with her work.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I knew I'd forget some folks I like... Jean Auel's first book, yep, still a fave... Madeleine L'Engle... Octavia Butler, though she's intense enough that I haven't been able to pick up the second Parable book yet... Jacqueline Lichtenberg -- I read her first Sime/Gen book and liked it a lot, but found the other ones after that too overly complicated, has she written stuff that's not Sime/Gen?
Connie Willis: I did try reading both The Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog... they just didn't grab me -- the SF part wasn't interesting -- the people didn't act any differently because they now had access to this amazing time travel technology, they were all dry and stuffy and pompous, and in a not-very-interesting way. Whereas in Susanna Clark's book, a lot of the fun came from how the 19th-century figures reacted to magic -- approving of it, disapproving of it, ignoring it, etc.
(That said, I do remember reading a Connie Willis short story -- "Even the Queen" -- that I found much more interesting than the books I tried.)
Posts: 2911 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Laurie, I think you're the only Sri Lankan I've seen on there, too. At first I was lost in the sea of Lauries, too, but then when I zeroed in on your profile, it wasn't hard to figure out it was you. I wonder if there are many Tatianas. <goes to look>
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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You probably haven't heard of her if you don't read The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, but Mary Rickert (M. Rickert) is awesome. After I'd finished her "The Girl Who Ate Butterflies" I was thinking that it was the most beautiful fantasy story I'd ever read.
She has a collection of short stories out called Map of Dreams.
Posts: 781 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Great female SF writer - Kay Kenyon. Tropic of Creation is one of my all-time fave SF novels. She has recently started a new fantasy series, I believe.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Jane Lindskold Octavia Butler (It's not helpful for me to mention her... But I consider it obligatory) LeGuin (You've already mentioned her) Jane Lindskold Pamela Dean Elizabeth Moon Jane Lindskold Kate Elliot Jane Lindskold Anne McCaffery
And... Emma Bull (Jane Lindskold has recommended one of her books before.)
I've heard good things about Patricia McKillip, but I couldn't tell you about her firsthand. Diddo with Judith Tarr.
Posts: 438 | Registered: May 2006
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I don't want to derail this thread with a debate, but I want to offer a counter-recommendation to Christine's. Namely, don't read Mercedes Lackey.
Or if you do, then read it with a grain of salt. Or, a lot of grains of salt. A toxic amount of salt, even. Read it with so much salt that it would make a cop want to arrest you and send it off to a lab for testing.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: I don't want to derail this thread with a debate, but I want to offer a counter-recommendation to Christine's. Namely, don't read Mercedes Lackey.
Or if you do, then read it with a grain of salt. Or, a lot of grains of salt. A toxic amount of salt, even. Read it with so much salt that it would make a cop want to arrest you and send it off to a lab for testing.
Mercedes Lackey has two kinds of books: very good and very bad. The ones that I think are very good, I absolutely love. Most of her Valdemar books are good.
Her books set in the real world (both the past and the present of the real world) do not tend to be good.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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I have even more friends on goodreads now. Woohooo! And Fahim even signed up! Wooohooo!
Tatiana, there's two Sri Lankans on goodreads, now. And by Sri Lankans, I mean people who are residing in Sri Lanka, not those of Sri Lankan ancestry. Or something. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I loved Elaine Cunningham's Starlight & Shadows series, which I especially recommend if you're into Forgotten Realms novels.
Posts: 299 | Registered: Jan 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Misha McBride: C.S. Friedman
I really liked the Coldfire Trilogy Black Sun Rising, When True Night Falls, and Crown of Shadows but the next two books of hers I read I didn't like much, so I gave up.
C. J. Cherryh's Cyteen was great, and I hear there's a sequel coming out (which I think is needed).
I also love Lois McMaster Bujold - everything I've read by her so far has been wonderful.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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Yeah, I really, really liked the Coldfire series as well. Excellent books!
Kurtzs' Camber series was wonderful as well. I just saw she just came out with a new book, actually....
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
whomever wrote the who want to be a wizard series.
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