I am a bitter Fantasy fan (now with recs)

[mothwing]

I have been reading Fantasy written by English and American authors ever since I was fourteen. It is my favourite genre, and most of my favourite books are Fantasy books. This genre was my cure for sadness, loneliness, and boredom ever since I discovered it. And even though I love that genre and spend quite an amount of time defending its literary

Comments

[holyschist]

I'd add some serious cavaeats to both MZB and Jim Butcher. I love their books, but Butcher's Harry Dresden has a serious chivalry complex which is mostly portrayed as something that gets him in trouble but can still be really irritating (TBH, I don't read the books for Harry himself, since I kind of want to smack him a lot--but they are great fun and have well-written female characters). MZB's books have some weird gender and sexuality issues, particularly in the Darkover novels. Lackey's books often have a serious case of Tragic Gay Men and Rape as Plot Motivator for both heroines and the aforementioned TGM; I frankly can't stand her writing anymore. I think her best books in the Valdemar series are probably By the Sword and the Tarma and Kethry novels. There are definitely triggery rape scenes in the later; I can't remember about the former. Mind, these are not recommendations--just which books if hers I think are the best if you feel you must give them a try

[holyschist]

Alaya Dawn Johnson: I haven't read any of her books all the way through yet (haven't been able to get them at the library or local bookstores), but she writes YA fantasy with characters of color. There are several chapters of Racing the Dark at her website, which are pretty awesome

[mothwing]

Thanks for the additional recommendations, I added them to the list. Especially the Stevermer books have my attention because there are few things more awesome than Victorian ladymages. <3

I was hoping that we'd get more recs from people doing the 50poc read - I failed at that this year.

[holyschist]

Yeah, the only non-thesis stuff I've been reading has been mostly rereading stuff I've read before (mostly Pratchett and moon). Post-thesis, I'm going to make a serious go at 50bookspoc, and I've been keeping track of stuff that looks interesting on the community. But there really hasn't been a lot of SFF reviewed yet, so I'm going to have to go looking for more of that to add to my to-read list.