Women in SF&F Month: Mur Lafferty (Plus Giveaway!)
Apr
16
2013

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Today’s guest is SFF writer and podcast producer Mur Lafferty! She was recently nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, making this her second nomination for this particular award. Today she is talking about four women who wrote science fiction and fantasy and played a role in inspiring her to become a writer herself—and there’s also an opportunity to enter a giveaway for her next book, The Shambling Guide to New York City, at the end of this post!

Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty Marco and the Red Granny by Mur Lafferty

People keep mentioning that SFF is a boy’s field, or they look at the last few years of awards ballots and say, well, it used to be. [Note, I wrote this before the recent Clarke Award final ballot was revealed.] And while I can see the “boy’s club” happening from time to time, it was the women writers who got me into this whole deal in the first place.

People often ask writers who their inspirations are. It was embarrassing, frankly, when I realized that I usually list my inspirations as an adult: the three big authors are Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and Connie Willis. But while their stories make me want to be a better writer, I have to remember that there are many other authors who, when I was a child, made me realize that I could be a writer in the first place. They also made me want to fight dragons and get on space ships and be a hero.

Robin McKinley was my first big eye-opener. I was the kid who wondered why the stupid princesses danced around and sang songs and waited for their prince to come. I wanted a horse and a sword and a dragon to stick it in. (The sword, I mean. Not the horse. They’re too blunt.) And when I picked up The Hero and the Crown, it gave me everything I wanted. The young princess Aerin who prefers retraining her father’s war horse and learning swordplay to the more gentle pursuits, decides to take up dragon slaying. It has everything, adventure, romance, despair, dragons, horses, and more! It gave me a girl hero to look up to. Later I would read The Blue Sword and find it a bit weaker (not knowing that it was published first), but still loving it. Then I read Sunshine and can only tell you McKinley is getting better and better. Pegasus is on my TBR list.

From there, I went on to Anne McCaffrey. I fell in love with Pern and the dragons, Lessa, and all the other characters. I fell a little too in love with the characters, and her newer books initially annoyed me when the plots would take the story hundreds of years in the past, or to a completely different character during the Lessa’s time, but she never let me down. As a teen girl, I did get rather uncomfortable with her frequent depictions of first sexual encounters between lovers being rapey. I know it was probably written to be like bodice-ripper sex scenes, with the flavor of “oh John, no, don’t, not here, not before we’re married, no!…  ooohhhhJohn….” but it still made me uncomfortable. (Sexual aside: She carried this through many of her works, including the Freedom series and the non-genre novel The Lady. On another, related topic, I wondered about the homosexual implications of green dragon sex that was all but ignored. And yes, I know she has updated information about dragonrider sex partners and you can find her explanations online, but it felt like a retcon, with facts completely ignored in the original trilogy.) However, sexual issues aside, I loved Pern. The harpers, the dragonriders, the whole thing.

I found Ursula K. Le Guin not by Earthsea, but by the Left Hand of Darkness, and then the Lathe of Heaven. And this was the first time I felt the incredibly humbled feeling of, “I am holding something created by a mind so much greater than mine will ever be.” While the protagonists of these books were male, they still dealt with gender issues (of course in The Left Hand of Darkness and to a lesser extent Lathe of Heaven. The latter with more racial questions than gender.) and she wrote her women as people within the world, not simply love interests or mothers.

If memory serves, Madeline L’Engle was the biggest influence, though. She brought me the A Wrinkle in Time series, which frankly blew my mind. You had a girl who was nerdy and awkward (talk about being able to identify with a protagonist!) and a sort of single scientist mom who was just about to lose her shit. You had an adventure through time and space. You had battles against incredibly intelligent beings, and an unfortunate teleportation to a two dimensional world. I always remember that Meg’s heart made a sideways, knifelike movement in her chest. Then after reading A Wind in the Door, I was so entranced with her cellular world, I wrote her a letter, and she wrote back!!!11! Kiddies, this is back in the day when you had to bust your butt to figure out how to get in touch with a writer, and often the best way would be to send a letter to the publisher’s mailing address in the front of the book and hope they would forward it. It took months. My dad was cleaning in his house recently and he came across her letter and brought it to me. It was typed on the back of a sort of advertising pamphlet that gave information about her books, family trees, etc. It was the coolest thing I had ever received. I admit that I never quite understood A Swiftly Tilting Planet – I think time travel was too much for my young mind at the time, but I did enjoy Many Waters and the few Austins books I read.

(Right now I am distracted, wondering where I put Ms. L’Engle’s letter. I thought I hung it on my desk, but it’s not there. Grump.)

While I know I’ll never write something as brilliant as LeGuinn’s work, and epics such as the Pern series are something I can only aspire to, and McKinley’s ability to inject emotion into her reader, and the sensawunda that L’Engle gave her readers, there is no secret that these women all were huge influences on me, as when I read their books, I saw what was possible. They were the first authors to make me think, “THAT is what I want to do. Women obviously write all sorts of SFF, and that is going to be ME some day.”

So I guess as the pub date of The Shambling Guide to New York City nears, I would like to thank Robin McKinley, Madeline L’Engle, Ursula Le Guin, and Anne McCaffrey for giving the young Mur the books that entranced me, excited me, and yes, even made me uncomfortable because it made me think, “How would *I* have done this to make it better? Or does this discomfort have a place in the book? Can/should discomfort be a part of fiction?” (Of course, the answer is yes.) They made me think, gave me confidence, and showed me that the fallopian tubes are not something that hinder your ability to write the fantastic.

Mur Lafferty

Mur Lafferty is a writer, podcast producer, gamer, geek, and martial artist. Her books include Playing For Keeps, Nanovor: Hacked!, Marco and the Red Granny, and The Afterlife Series. Her podcasts are many, currently she’s the editor of Escape Pod magazine, the host of I Should Be Writing, and the host of the Angry Robot Books Podcast.

Personally, she loves to run, practice kung fu (Northern Shaolin five animals style), play World of Warcraft and Dragon Age, hang out with her fabulous geeky husband and their eight year old daughter. Her website is http://www.murverse.com/.

Courtesy of Orbit, I have one copy of The Shambling Guide to New York City to give away! (The giveaway is open to those with US and Canadian mailing addresses.)

About The Shambling Guide to New York City:

The Shambling Guide to New York City by Mur Lafferty
 

A travel writer takes a job with a shady publishing company in New York, only to find that she must write a guide to the city – for the undead!

Because of the disaster that was her last job, Zoe is searching for a fresh start as a travel book editor in the tourist-centric New York City. After stumbling across a seemingly perfect position though, Zoe is blocked at every turn because of the one thing she can’t take off her resume — human.

Not to be put off by anything — especially not her blood drinking boss or death goddess coworker — Zoe delves deep into the monster world. But her job turns deadly when the careful balance between human and monsters starts to crumble — with Zoe right in the middle.

Giveaway Rules: To be entered in the giveaway, fill out the form below OR send an email to kristen AT fantasybookcafe DOT com with the subject “Shambling Guide Giveaway.” One entry per person and a winner will be randomly selected. Only those with a mailing address in the US or Canada are eligible to win this giveaway. The giveaway will be open until the end of the day on Wednesday, April 24. The winner has 24 hours to respond once contacted via email, and if I don’t hear from them by then a new winner will be chosen (who will also have 24 hours to respond until someone gets back to me with a place to send the book).

Please note email addresses will only be used for the purpose of contacting the winner. Once the giveaway is over all the emails will be deleted.

(Now that the giveaway is over, the form has been removed.)

Women in SF&F Month: Patricia A. McKillip
Apr
15
2013

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Today I am thrilled to have a guest post written by fantasy and science fiction author Patricia A. McKillip! Her works have been published since the 1970s and glancing through her titles it appears she has approximately 30 individual titles published, including short story collections. Her work isn’t just astonishing for its quantity but also its quality and influence: she has won the World Fantasy Award and the Locus Award, her work has been a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and her work has both won and been a finalist for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award multiple times. I was (sadly) late to discover her work when I read and was stunned by a short story collection by her last year, but when I mentioned it on Twitter and Goodreads the volume and sheer glee of the response I got back told me how treasured an author she is in the SF&F community. Since then, I’ve picked up one of her oft-recommended books, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, and once again found a book I loved and wondered where this amazing author’s books have been all my life.

It’s with great pleasure that I present her guest post today, in which she discusses both the growing involvement of women writing fantasy and science fiction in the last few decades and the growing number of women as the heroes in these stories. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did!

Alphabet of Thorn by Patricia A. McKillip The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia A. McKillip Cygnet by Patricia A. McKillip

I grew into reading during the 1950’s and the 1960’s.   I was very lucky to have an older sister who also loved to read.  We shared books, comments, and literary allusions from an early age; we stole each other’s books, like The Once and Future King, when there was only one copy and we couldn’t wait for the other to get done with it. Gradually, sometime in our early teenage years, as we read Dumas, Stevenson, Kipling, etc., we both realized we had come up against what was then a commonplace of storytelling:  the men had all the adventures.  The women only appeared on the last page of the novel to receive a chaste kiss when the hero finally returned from the sea, from exotic lands, from foreign courts, fairytale kingdoms, and the Foreign Legion, to her.

I studied English Literature in the late 60’s and early 70’s, because I thought the best way to learn to write was to read the best writers I could find.  At least 95% of what I read to get my Master’s degree was written from a male point of view.  (This was before Women’s Studies and World Literature came into their own.) I read a great deal and learned a lot about writing from writers as diverse as William Faulkner, P.G. Wodehouse and J. R. R. Tolkien.  But when I sat down to write my first major fantasy, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, I didn’t question the point of view that came out of my pen.  It seemed very natural to me to wonder why in the world a woman couldn’t be a witch or a wizard, or why, if she did, she had to be virginal as well.  Or why, if she was powerful and not a virgin, she was probably the evil force the male hero had to overcome.  Such was my experience reading about women in fantasy, back then.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip

So I wrote from the point of view of a powerful female wizard, who, even after she married, was the hero of her own story, and whose decisions, for better and for worse, were her own.

That was published in 1974.  By the mid 80’s, both fantasy and science fiction written by women shared the amazingly expanded SF&F bookshelves in bookstores and libraries.  The sheer volume of women writing about women was, to me, a staggering and wonderful thing to be celebrated.

What happened  to cause such a change in the number of women writing and being published?

I have never studied the subject, but, thinking about the question, I came up with a few ideas.

In my own family, my sister and I were the first of our generation of cousins to go to college and get degrees.  My parents, both children of generations of farming families, grew up during the Depression; neither was encouraged to attend college, though my father went for a couple of semesters before he joined the Air Force and fought in World War II.   The post-war “Baby Boomer” generation was untroubled by either Depression or World War; we grew up in more stable and more prosperous times.    My father was stationed in the San Francisco Bay Area during my high school and college years.  Thanks to the wonderful California State College system back then, my tuition was $32 for my first semester, climbing to $80 a semester by the time I received my MA degree.  (That would have been, for a family with six children living on Air Force pay, just about the only way my parents could have afforded to send me and my siblings to college.)  I suspect that many of the young women whose parents lived through the depression and war were encouraged, during those more peaceful and prosperous times, to further their education.   We had the time that our mothers might not have had to read and learn to write.

Which brings me to what my generation was reading.   I was reading my way through my very Catholic, all-girls high school library in the early 60’s when I chanced across a strange book called The Hobbit.  It was like nothing else I’d ever encountered, and certain images—Bilbo and Gollum playing their riddle game deep in the underground cave—stayed with me for years.   By the time I got into college The Lord of the Rings had been published in the U.S. and much of my generation, it seemed, not only had read the books, but wanted to live in them.  For me, the experience was a grand awakening of an imagination that had been pretty much walled in by the medieval imagery of Catholicism, along with a scattering of obligatory, rather bloodless Western myths.  Tolkien riveted a generation of budding writers, revealing the power of both imagination and language.  He opened the doors of publishing to works of the imagination that were nothing like the novels I read for my English Lit degree.  I wanted that knowledge, that experience, that art that had created The Lord of the Rings.  I wanted to write my own “trilogy”.  And years later I realized that there were many young would-be writers, men and women, who responded with equal passion to that challenge of language and imagination.

In the late 60’s and early 70’s, there were many things to be passionate about, to march against, to strike for.  During those years, I heard the word “feminism” for the first time.  I had no idea what it meant.  I thought that you had to understand what it meant to be a woman before you could be a genuine feminist.  It was years before I realized that was the point of feminism:  women defining for themselves what it is to be a woman.  Mainstream novelists like Margaret Atwood and Erika Jong, writing about the question, opened more publishing doors for women.  Their success, I think, broke the ground for other genres as well.  Maybe they would never read science fiction or fantasy, or want to be known as genre writers.  But perhaps the fact that women mainstream writers were getting critical attention and earning money with their writing pushed the doors open a bit more for women writers of other kinds of fiction.  Again, I haven’t studied this question.  But I can’t have been the only young woman reading Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying while I wrote my Tolkien-inspired fantasy trilogy.  The attention and financial success of the novel must have encouraged every woman trying to write.  Feminism found its own way into genre, with female characters ruling their countries, becoming warriors and wizards, becoming, at last, the heroes of their own tales.

That’s why I am astonished to find that there are still questions about female writers.  Can they write science fiction as well as men?  Will male readers buy and read books written by women?  I thought by now we had answered those questions.  Obviously, if they still come up, we have not.

I don’t have answers; I only have a list:  C.J. Cherryh, Connie Willis, Lisa Goldstein, Nancy Kress, Suzy McKee Charnas, Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia Butler, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Delia Sherman, Angela Carter, Vonda McIntyre, Robin McKinley, Jane Yolen, Kathleen Goonan, Ysabeau Wilce, Janny Wurtz, Kij Johnson, Elizabeth Hand, Greer Gilman, N. K. Jemisin, Catherynne Valente, Ellen Kushner, R. A. MacAvoy, Nalo Hopkinson, Ellen Klages, Joan Vinge —these are among the many novelists who have appeared on my shelves since the lean years before the 70’s, when we were hard pressed to hear a woman’s voice on the pages.  I am happy to be in their company.

Patricia A. McKillip

Patricia Anne McKillip is an American author of fantasy and science fiction novels, distinguished by lyrical, delicate prose and careful attention to detail and characterization. She is a past winner of the World Fantasy Award and Locus Award, and she lives in Oregon. Most of her recent novels have cover paintings by Kinuko Y. Craft. She is married to David Lunde, a poet.

According to Fantasy Book Review, Patricia McKillip grew up in Oregon, England, and Germany, and received a Bachelor of Arts (English) in 1971 and a Master of Arts in 1973 from San Jose State University.

McKillip’s stories usually take place in a setting similar to the Middle Ages. There are forests, castles, and lords or kings, minstrels, tinkers and wizards. Her writing usually puts her characters in situations involving mysterious powers that they don’t understand. Many of her characters aren’t even sure of their own ancestry. Music often plays an important role. Love between family members is also important in McKillip’s writing, although members of her families often disagree.

Women in SF&F Month: Angie from Angieville
Apr
14
2013

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Today’s guest is one of my favorite book bloggers, Angie from Angieville! Angie is a voracious reader who reads a lot of different books, including fantasy and science fiction, and she has the gift of making one want to read the books she is passionate about—though I’m sure her great taste is a factor in that as well! Her beautifully written, heartfelt guest post on one of the first female science fiction and fantasy authors she read illustrates this perfectly. It made me want to read every single book by this author she mentioned!

Angieville Header
 

On the day of the dead, when the year too dies,
Must the youngest open the oldest hills
Through the door of the birds, where the breeze
breaks.
There fire shall fly from the raven boy,
And the silver eyes that see the wind,
And the Light shall have the harp of gold.

By the pleasant lake the Sleepers lie,
On Cadfan’s Way where the kestrels call;
Though grim from the Grey King shadows fall,
Yet singing the golden harp shall guide
To break their sleep and bid them ride.

When light from the lost land shall return,
Six Sleepers shall ride, six Signs shall burn,
And where the midsummer tree grows tall
By Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.

Y maent yr mynyddoedd yn canu
ac y mae’r arglwyddes yn dod.

I first read these opening lines in elementary school, and I can still feel, with almost perfect clarity, the shivers they sent down my spine. They felt ancient, those lines. They felt real. And I wanted nothing more than to instantaneously lose myself in their history and weight, to walk through the door of the birds at the raven boy’s side and wake the Sleepers. At the time, I had no idea the depth and breadth of the world I was entering. I only knew with a surety that I belonged there. And so my relationship with Susan Cooper‘s books began. Through her wonderful Dark is Rising sequence I made my first real contact with Arthurian legend–a literary realm generally populated by men, I would come to find (with a few luminous and welcome exceptions including Cooper and the incomparable Mary Stewart). I will always be grateful my initial experience with Arthurian lore came in the form of Cooper’s capable storytelling. Because she was at the helm, the character of Jane got her fair say. In fact, Greenwitch, the third book in the series, is for all intents and purposes her story. And it holds a special place in my heart as much for that as it does because it features a quest for the grail.

The Dark is Rising The Grey King Silver on the Tree

This entire series set the standard in so many ways for me when it comes to fantasy worlds and the incorporation of myths and legends in a way that honors the original while striking out into unique territory. In it, Cooper plays with all the familiar elements of the once and future king’s story, even as she adapts and reshapes them to fit her vision of the legend and how it plays out in a more modern setting. Cooper’s Lost Land, in which the young protagonists find themselves stranded for the final battle, is (at its heart) completely Other. It may, here and there, bear the trappings of fantasy worlds as you have known them, but it is (at its very essence) an alien landscape. And so the last of the Old Ones Will Stanton, along with Jane, Simon, and Barney Drew, and the enigmatic Bran Davies, are forced to leave behind our world and navigate a treacherous land of mad kings, crystal swords, and skeletal horses with ribbons of blood blowing in the wind. Cooper’s endings are always somewhat bittersweet, as befits the serious and honest way in which she approaches her characters and her worlds. But I find myself longing to return to them because of those grey areas, because though her protagonists must face the borders and, at times, unforgivable shortcomings of their worlds, they do so with an understanding of their place, with an undimmed thirst for the next horizon, surrounded by the lyricism of their author’s words.

Seaward Seaward reissue

I finished the Dark is Rising books and immediately went on to seek out the rest of Cooper’s body of work. I was happy to find that she set her hand to everything from science fiction to historical fiction and handled it all with a golden touch. Seaward, her scifi/time traveling standalone, remains a perennial favorite of mine. It has been out of print for several years now, but I recently discovered that Simon & Schuster is re-releasing it this coming August with an eye-catching new cover. Prophecies play an important role in this magic-drenched novel as well.

A man with eyes like an owl, a girl with selkie hands, a creature in a high place.

Unlike the longer series format, Seaward is both short and sweet. Yet it still manages to adequately explore the questions of what happens when one has lost everything and how it is possible to go on in the face of the vastness of the universe. It is a book that deserves far more attention than it currently receives and I always recommend it to readers who stopped with the Dark is Rising books, or who enjoy chess, riddles, insect sidekicks, and dragons.

When Kristen invited me back for this year’s Women in SF&F Month, I felt the distinct urge to write about one of the first female SF&F authors I read, one who laid the groundwork for so much of my reading life. As with each of my most beloved authors, I can trace a lineage of sorts back through the years and through the books. I connect the lines and pages from the me that was to the person I am now. Cooper’s words and characters and stories form a bright thread in that picture, their influence real and so very valued.

Women in SF&F Month: Week in Review and Week Three Guests
Apr
14
2013

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The second week of Women in SF&F Month has come to an end, and what a great week it was thanks to all the wonderful contributors! Thanks also to my husband John, who provided quite a bit of help with setting up this past week’s posts since I was very sick all week. (He’s also put together the graphics for this event, like the one for adding to the giant list of books by women on the sidebar right now.)

Week In Review

Here are the posts from the last week in case you missed any of them:

There are also two giveaways going on right now—one for seven young adult speculative fiction books published by Strange Chemistry and one for Julie Czerneda’s new fantasy book, A Turn of Light! (Both giveaways are US/Canada only.)

Also, Renay from Lady Business is compiling a list and would like to know your top 10 favorite fantasy and science fiction books written by women. It is tough to come up with only 10 but fun! For more background on the list, you can read Renay’s guest post about gatekeeping and her experiences with discovering science fiction and fantasy.

Upcoming Guests: Week 3

I’m thrilled to announce this week’s contributors, and I can’t wait for you to read the wonderful posts they’ve written! Here’s this week’s schedule, starting with the first post a bit later today:

Women in SF&F Week 3 2013

April 14: Angie from Angieville
April 15: Patricia McKillip (Riddle-Master, The Forgotten Beasts of Eld)
April 16: Mur Lafferty (The Shambling Guide to New York City)
April 17: Jan DeLima (Celtic Moon)
April 18: Courtney Schafer (The Whitefire Crossing, The Tainted City)
April 19: Marie Brennan (A Natural History of Dragons, Onyx Court)
April 20: Elizabeth from DarkCargo and Antimatter ePress

Women in SF&F Month: Deborah Coates
Apr
13
2013

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Today’s guest is Deborah Coates, author of science fiction and fantasy short stories and two contemporary fantasy novels! The first of these two novels, Wide Open, is on my wish list because I’ve been seen many reviews praising both this and the sequel, Deep Down. After Wide Open was selected as a Bram Stoker Award finalist in the First Novel category, I became even more intrigued by this book and the author’s work in general. I was pleased she was able to participate this month, especially after reading the post below in which she discusses female characters— and things she will argue about on the Internets!

Wide Open by Deborah Coates Deep Down by Deborah Coates

Things I Will Argue About On The Internets

I’ve been going around and around for days about how to start this post and, in particular, how to talk about what I want to talk about.  There are no days left, I’ve got to write this, so here goes: what I want to talk about is women–how limitless the possibility for women characters and how easy it is to limit ourselves anyway both as readers and as writers.  Some of that is inherent in the genre.  Fantasy likes heroes.  It likes stories about big, world-changing events and about the sorts of people who participate in those events.  Fantasy–fantasy readers and fantasy writers–likes stories where characters act.

I don’t really have a problem with that.  I like them too.  I read and write fantasy partly because I want to write about characters doing things that ‘matter.’  In DEEP DOWN, Hallie even talks about it–if she stays in South Dakota, if she works on her father’s ranch or the night shift at the Stop and Go, will it make any difference to the world at all?  (my typing fingers are dying to go on a tangent about what ‘doing things that matter’ can and might mean, but I’m ignoring that because–yes, this is why I have trouble with topics I care about–there are just too many fascinating paths to wander down).  Anyway, back to the topic of choice–things I will argue about on the internets and women characters in fantasy.  In fantasy, we readers (some of us, not all of us, but definitely me at one time or another) tend to like certain characters, but then, we immediately start to limit the range of those characters, particularly when we’re talking about women.  One of my personal peeves is dismissing a female character as a ‘man with boobs.’

Someone told me that phrase started as a criticism of men writing women characters badly: “I just stuck a couple of boobs on one of them and called it good.”  Which I think is right, I think that’s where it started.  But I have seen it used by women–“oh, that urban fantasy, it’s got all these characters that are really just men with boobs.”  When I’ve challenged those statements, the response has been, “well, I mean they’re badly written characters.”  Or, “well, they just have all these masculine characteristics.”

But of course real women are tough.  Of course real women are confident and assertive and blood-thirsty and physical and brave and aggressive and reckless and deadly with a rifle.  Not all of those things all at once and not all women.  But some women, somewhere, always.  Every time someone dismisses a character as a ‘man with boobs’ they’re saying those women don’t exist.  They’re saying women I know don’t exist.

Deborah Tannen once wrote (and I’m going to paraphrase and hope I don’t mess this up) that men can go to work in a suit and tie and they’re basically coded as ‘men.’  But the way women dress and act is a thousand times more complicated.  Women get categorized and labeled and we’re often never quite enough.  Dresses, suits, pants. Heels, flats, makeup.  Long hair, short hair, gray hair.  They all mean something, they all mark us.

I like heroic characters.  I like characters that can change the world.  I like women characters that are independent and strong-minded.  I like hyper-competent characters who are also women.  I like geeky, awkward characters.  Confident characters.  Aggressive characters.  Characters who wear dresses and high-heels.  Characters who wouldn’t be caught dead in same.  I believe well-written characters and badly-written characters both exist.  I don’t believe in ‘men with boobs.’  It’s just another way of saying–here are ways women aren’t allowed to be.  And I don’t believe in that at all.

The following are some books I’ve read in the last year or two whose characters (not necessarily ‘kick-ass’ but all tough in their own ways) I particularly enjoyed:

Paladin of Souls, Icefall, Mistress of the Art of Death

Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold.  The book starts slowly and Ista isn’t terribly sympathetic (to me) in the beginning, but she manages to break stereotypes all over the place before it’s done and not only does she turn out to be a fantastic character, but there are great women characters all over this book.

Icefall by Matthew Kirby.  Solveig is fantastic and brave and smart.  But then, Middle Grade has a lot of smart, strong girl characters.  Winterling by Sarah Prineas, Above World by Jenn Reese, to name a couple.

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin.  Neither fantasy or science fiction, but I loved this mystery series, which is about a woman doctor in England in the time of King Henry II.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson

Finally, I have to mention Lisbeth Salander from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsen.  She’s a character that doesn’t work for at least as many people as she does work for.  And the books are terribly, horribly flawed.  But someone (Elizabeth Bear is who I think I heard it from) once wisely said that books work because of the things they do well not in spite of the things they do badly.  These books work for me.  And Lisbeth works for me as a character because she does that thing I’ve been trying to talk about, but think I’ve mostly talked around: she broadens what women characters can be and do and succeed in making us care about.


DeborahCoates

Deborah Coates lives in Ames, Iowa and works at Iowa State University in information technology. She has a Rottweiler named Billie and a German Pinscher named Blue. When she’s not writing or working, she teaches obedience classes and participates with her dogs in tracking, obedience, and therapy dog visits. She has published short stories in Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Year’s Best Fantasy 6, and Best American Fantasy 2008. Her first novel, WIDE OPEN was published in 2012 and is a Bram Stoker nominee for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her second novel, DEEP DOWN was published in March, 2013. You can find her online at http://www.deborah-coates.com and http://www.twitter.com/debcoates

Women in SF&F Month: Rachel Neumeier
Apr
12
2013

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Today’s guest is fantasy author Rachel Neumeier! She’s written both adult fantasy (The Griffin Mage trilogy, House of Shadows) and young adult fantasy (The Floating Islands, The City in the Lake). Though her books had been on my radar for a little while before then, I discovered her work for myself last year when I read—and was completely enchanted by—House of Shadows. Beautifully written and character-driven, it is exactly the type of book I love and left me eager to discover the rest of her books, which I’ve heard are also wonderful. I’ve also come to really enjoy reading her blog, especially her book recommendations and lists—and that’s why I’m glad she’s sharing her top 5 female SFF authors (plus a few more) with us today!

House of Shadows The Floating Islands The City in the Lake

The Five Very Best Female SFF Authors of All Time . . .

…Is obviously going to be a thoroughly subjective call, right?   It would actually be interesting to get everyone to come up with their own list and then compare, but I hope no one would pretend that they’re actually creating an objective list, because I don’t think that’s possible.

In fact, I’m going to try to apply some reasonable criteria for “greatness”,  but I’m certainly not going to pretend this list is “fair” or “true” or anything like that.  This isn’t meant to be a History of Women in SF post.  There are plenty of women who have clearly been important to the genre but whose work I mostly haven’t read.  James Tiptree Jr, for example.  She was before my time, or at least before I started reading genre fiction.  I’ve read her Up the Walls of the World and that’s it, so there you go.  And, by whatever chance, I simply haven’t read many books by, say, Connie Willis.  So many books, so little time, right?

With all the limitations inherent to this kind of exercise, though, I’ve put together a list of five female SF and F writers who I honestly believe are objectively important to the field.  They certainly influenced me.  Plus I’m going to add five more “honorable mentions”, a list which was actually much harder to narrow down.  Plus, I want to include five more female SFF writers who I’m just positive will make greatest-ever lists if they keep writing, but who simply don’t have enough books out yet at this point.

To make my top five list, here’s what an author had to offer, besides books that suit my personal taste:  She had to have written a lot of books, and all or nearly all of them have to be really good books – ranging from good to superb, let’s say.  Sheer quality of writing matters a lot to me, but so does the quality of the story; these writers consistently offer both.  And I am impressed by a wide range of books written – does this author strike basically the same note over and over, or does she show a wide-ranging talent?   Plus, if I loved this author as a kid, I still need to love her books now as an adult.

And given these criteria – quantity, quality, and range – five authors instantly leap out:

Neumeier Top 5

1.  CJ Cherryh.  If I had to pick one woman as most important female SFF writer ever, it would be Cherryh, hands down.  If I was picking the single most impressive SFF writer without regard for gender, she’d still make the top five.  As far as appealing to my personal taste in writing, Cherryh decisively beats out Asimov, Clarke, and even Heinlein.

Hardly anybody has been more prolific:  Cherryh has written something upwards of fifty books; everything from beautiful, dreamy fantasy (The Tree of Swords and Jewels) to space opera (the Chanur series) to epic science fiction (Cyteen).  Almost all of her SF has a strong sociological component that very much appeals to me.

If you haven’t read her before and aren’t sure where to start, I’d suggest the Chanur series for SF and Fortress in the Eye of Time for fantasy.  If you don’t like those, I’m not sure Cherryh is going to work for you.  But for me, she’s absolutely the top genre writer of all time.

2.  Patricia McKillip.  I am convinced that McKillip is the very best fantasy author writing today.  I wouldn’t say she has the broadest range ever.  Rather,  I would say she ranges from high fantasy straight up to writing so beautiful it’s like poetry disguised as prose.  Like poetry, sometimes her stories leaves you asking, “What?  What was that?  What just happened?”  But, again like poetry, her work is so beautiful you don’t even mind.

McKillip has written a couple of SF novels as well as her more accustomed fantasy.  She has written something like twenty books, all of them lovely.  If I were picking my top ten fantasy novels of all time, half of them would be hers.  For me, The Book of Atrix Wolfe and The Changeling Sea fight it out for top place in a body of work that is just exquisite.

3.  Diana Wynne Jones.  A few years ago, when I decided to pick up all the DWJ novels I hadn’t ever read, I was amazed to find how many there were.  I mean, I already had a lot of her books – but it turned out there were as many more again that I hadn’t ever read.  What a pleasure to pick up this amazing backlist!  She must have written something like thirty books.  Some – like Charmed Life – are MG stories that still have tremendous charm for adults.  Others, such as Hexwood, really push the boundaries of normal fantasy.  My favorite of them all is Dogsbody, though the Chrestomanci series never gets old.

4.  Lois McMaster Bujold.   I’m sure everyone’s already a huge fan of the Vorkosigan books, right?  No one has ever written better space opera – right?  And her fantasy is very good, too, though I know not all of her fantasy novels have had such wide appeal.  If you generally read fantasy and are thinking of giving SF a try, I’d suggest you start with Brothers in Arms.  Or if you love the Vorkosigan series but are not familiar with Bujold’s fantasy, I’d recommend The Curse of Chalion, which is outstanding.  Bujold has nineteen books out so far, and every one of them is good – many are amazingly good.

5.  Octavia Butler.  Butler unfortunately only wrote fourteen novels before her untimely death.  Fourteen is so few.  And yet I couldn’t leave her off my top five list, because of the sheer power of her writing.  When Butler died young, it was a huge loss for the literary world.

I still haven’t read Kindred.  I’ve put it off for years, because after I read it I will never again have the chance to read a Butler story for the first time.   If you haven’t ever read anything by Butler, then I don’t know.  Patternmaster was her first; she was still learning how at that point.  Even though it’s not her best, I’d almost suggest setting aside a few months, starting with that one, and reading all of her work in the order it was published.

Honorable Mentions:  These are five female SFF writers who have written a lot of great books and who I really wanted to include; you know how it is when you’re narrowing down a list, right?

Neumeier Honorable Mention

1.  Barbara Hambly.  You may know that Hambly has written more than twenty fantasy novels – many of which I really love – but maybe you don’t know that she has also written more than a dozen really excellent historical mysteries?  Her Benjamin January series, set in 1830s New Orleans and starting with A Free Man of Color, is my favorite mystery series ever.  As Barbara ‘Hamilton’, she is also writing a series featuring Abigail Adams as the protagonist.  Plus, she began her historical vampire series, starting with Those Who Hunt the Night, well before the current vampire craze got underway.  If you’re tired of sparkly vampire paranormals, you owe it to yourself to try Hambly’s series, which is superb.

2.  Elizabeth Moon.  Moon has written a lot of fantasy and also a lot of SF, close to 30 books in all so far.  I haven’t loved all of her books, but she has definitely hit the ball right out of the park more than once.   I don’t think you can beat her original Paksenarrion trilogy for heroic fantasy, and she’s written some excellent space opera as well – Hunting Party is my favorite on the SF side.  Moon also wrote  The Speed of Dark, which is in a class all by itself and deservedly won the Nebula the year it came out.

3.  Sharon Shinn.  Shinn has written quite a lot of adult and YA fantasy and some that I might personally call science fantasy (I expect definitions vary a lot with that term) – more than twenty books so far, I think.  Shinn’s novels often have a strong romance component, which is always very well done.  Shinn’s Jenna Starborn is a brilliant SF retelling of Jane Eyre, but my favorite of hers remains her first novel, the exquisite The Shape-Changer’s Wife.

4. Juliet Marillier.   I have loved many but not all of her books.  I always love her writing, though.  She has just the lush, lyrical style I love most for high fantasy and fairy tale retellings.

5.  Martha Wells.  She’s written more than a dozen fantasy novels, and though I’ve only read seven of them so far, I’ve loved them all!  I’m reading her whole backlist right now, and enjoying every minute of it.  If you love top-notch worldbuilding, engaging and believable characters, and smooth prose (particularly vivid, panoramic description), you should definitely pick up Wells’ Raksura trilogy – or the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy.  Or probably any of her others, but I haven’t read them all yet!

Narrowing the list down for those honorable mentions was really tough.  Really tough.  But you know what’s easy?  Naming five women who are such amazing  writers that if they keep writing, it’s just a matter of time before they top all the lists.  These are the people where you read a novel of theirs and it’s like this huge revelation.  Whoa.  That’s how it’s done.

Writers who don’t have a huge body of work out there, but are totally amazing:

Neumeier New 5

1.  Elizabeth Wein.  Try The Sunbird first and you’ll need her whole backlist.  Her historical novel, Code Name Verity, is possibly the single title on my packed TBR shelves that I look forward to the most.

2.  NK Jemisin.  She only has five books out so far, but it’s no surprise her debut fantasy was shortlisted for the Hugo and Nebula last year – and it’ll be a real shock to me if The Killing Moon doesn’t wind up nominated for everything this year.

3.  Megan Whelan Turner.   As far as I know, she’s just got one YA series ongoing – the Attolia series.  But it’s a brilliant series so far, with one of the most engaging YA protagonists ever.

4.  Maggie Stiefvater.  She’s got seven books out, so her numbers are starting to get up there.  I’ve only read two of hers so far, but if she continues to write books as outstanding as The Scorpio Races and The Raven Boys, then she’s going to be landing right on the top of my personal must-buy list.

5.  Judith Riley.  Tired of the standard Medieval European setting for fantasy stories?  Well, try A Vision of Light and you’ll fall in love with this kind of setting all over again, because Riley does it better than anyone else in genre fiction.  And the protagonist of this series, Margaret of Ashbury, has one of the most distinctive and engaging voices of any fantasy protagonist.  I think Riley has about half a dozen novels out so far; the three I’ve read have been just outstanding.

Okay – who am I missing?  Who’s the greatest SFF author who has emerged in the last decade?  Who’s the most amazing “Golden Age” writer we should all back up to read?  Most of all, who is YOUR personal favorite female genre author?


Rachel Neumeier

Rachel Neumeier started writing in graduate school as a break from research, but years ago allowed her hobbies take over her life. Along with writing both adult and young adult fantasy, she now gardens, cooks Indian food, breeds and shows Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, and occasionally finds time to read.

Her most recent young adult novel, The Floating Islands, was a Junior Library Guild selection and was selected by Kirkus as a best book of 2011. Her most recent adult title, House of Shadows, has also received excellent reviews. Black Dog, her first foray into young adult paranormal, will arrive on shelves everywhere in the spring of 2014. Visit her website at www.rachelneumeier.com or follow her updates on Twitter (@RachelNeumeier).