Frostflower and Thorn/Frostflower and Windbourne by Phyllis Ann Karr
In a world where all warriors are women and sorcerers and sorceresses lose their powers if they have sex 9a trope that does later get turned on its head quite well), the warrior Thorn finds herself pregnant and desperate to get rid of "the grub" before it interferes with her work. Meanwhile, the sorceress Frostflower desperately craves a child, and has the ability to accelerate time on a body, allowing the length of an entire pregancy to pass in just a day. The answer seems simple enough, but while Thorn is escorting Frostflower and the newborn, Starwind, to to the sorceri retreat Frostflower lives at, the two catch the unfortunate attention of a farmer-priest, one of the ruling class, with their unusual situation, and later separate due to a disagreement, with disastrous results.
This is an interesting world. On the one hand, every fighter in this world is a woman, and the warriors are given the same rights and advantages over men and civilians as male warriors usually are over women and civilians, and it's indicated that sorceresses are more powerful than sorcerers. In addition, almost every perspective is from that of a female. (Actually it may be exclusively from various female perspectives. There's one male character from each book who may have been the focus for a bit.) On the other hand, the loss of sorcerous power is a much more obvious threat to women, and, in Frostflower and Thorn, at least, the people with the most social and legal power are men. In addition, rape-public rape-and torture are not only legal practices, but accepted ones. During one particularly harrowing section of the book, the protagonists are outraged not at the fact that certain terrible things are happening, but at who they're happening to, and they're accepted as the norm, and what's to be accepted in the situation. It's a kind of immersion in a world that's difficult to pull off.
The tone of Frostflower and Windbourne is a bit different. There's still acceptance, but more of a sense of it being wrong from the characters than in the world. In addition, while priests were shown to have far more power and authority than priestesses in Frostflower and Thorn, one of the main conflicts of Frostflower and Windbourne is a power struggle between a priest and priestess.
While I have a few problems-while Thorn doesn't quite code as male, she is portrayed as giving up her femininity to be a strong warrior, and while the friendship between the women is well done, but also mostly follows the standard pattern for male "badass and aggressive warrior x thoughtful mage/scholar/priest" friendships in fantasy, and then, of course, the very sexualized-violently sexualized-approach to the rules of magic-these are all things very specific to when it came out. (According to the copyright date, Frostflower and Thorn came out a month before I was born.) While they're dated now (oh, you nature/noun/action-word and combination names...) I suspect they were pretty revolutionary when it first came out, or even 10-15 years ago (though, had I read them then, Frostflower and Thorn likely would have blended in with all the "A fantasy heroine must be raped or have the threat of rape harped on!" books I was tripping over then.
This probably sounds fairly critical, but I don't feel critical about the books as a whole. While a few (sometimes major) approaches to gender are the unfortunate norm, in most ways the books do their best to completely overturn them, with some interesting results, and it's very well characterized. And in an odd way, I rather like that what fondness Thorn has for Starwind seems to come from the fact that Frostflower loves him, rather than having her "give up" the strictly non-maternal characterization she was given at the beginning.
Unfortunately, I can't seem to dig up info on any other novels by Karr. (Mind you, I have the weakest googlefu known to the internets...)
This is an interesting world. On the one hand, every fighter in this world is a woman, and the warriors are given the same rights and advantages over men and civilians as male warriors usually are over women and civilians, and it's indicated that sorceresses are more powerful than sorcerers. In addition, almost every perspective is from that of a female. (Actually it may be exclusively from various female perspectives. There's one male character from each book who may have been the focus for a bit.) On the other hand, the loss of sorcerous power is a much more obvious threat to women, and, in Frostflower and Thorn, at least, the people with the most social and legal power are men. In addition, rape-public rape-and torture are not only legal practices, but accepted ones. During one particularly harrowing section of the book, the protagonists are outraged not at the fact that certain terrible things are happening, but at who they're happening to, and they're accepted as the norm, and what's to be accepted in the situation. It's a kind of immersion in a world that's difficult to pull off.
The tone of Frostflower and Windbourne is a bit different. There's still acceptance, but more of a sense of it being wrong from the characters than in the world. In addition, while priests were shown to have far more power and authority than priestesses in Frostflower and Thorn, one of the main conflicts of Frostflower and Windbourne is a power struggle between a priest and priestess.
While I have a few problems-while Thorn doesn't quite code as male, she is portrayed as giving up her femininity to be a strong warrior, and while the friendship between the women is well done, but also mostly follows the standard pattern for male "badass and aggressive warrior x thoughtful mage/scholar/priest" friendships in fantasy, and then, of course, the very sexualized-violently sexualized-approach to the rules of magic-these are all things very specific to when it came out. (According to the copyright date, Frostflower and Thorn came out a month before I was born.) While they're dated now (oh, you nature/noun/action-word and combination names...) I suspect they were pretty revolutionary when it first came out, or even 10-15 years ago (though, had I read them then, Frostflower and Thorn likely would have blended in with all the "A fantasy heroine must be raped or have the threat of rape harped on!" books I was tripping over then.
This probably sounds fairly critical, but I don't feel critical about the books as a whole. While a few (sometimes major) approaches to gender are the unfortunate norm, in most ways the books do their best to completely overturn them, with some interesting results, and it's very well characterized. And in an odd way, I rather like that what fondness Thorn has for Starwind seems to come from the fact that Frostflower loves him, rather than having her "give up" the strictly non-maternal characterization she was given at the beginning.
Unfortunately, I can't seem to dig up info on any other novels by Karr. (Mind you, I have the weakest googlefu known to the internets...)