Fantasy Book Club discussion

I've recently read Patrick Rothfuss' latest work and Brandersson's The Way of Kings. I'm currently reading the latest Eragon book and I'm considering not even finishing the book. The good and heroic characters feel entirely invincible. I'm so sick of the heroic main characters and their boring relationships.

I'm looking for a dark fantasy book series where the outcome of the series is not apparent after two chapters of reading. I want complex and realistic characters with realistic relations.

I would really appreciate some recommendations.

I would recommend Gardens of the Moon. Adult situations. Unpredictable. Definitely dark fantasy. Complex and realistic characters. I like the relationships between the characters but it's light on romance. (Can't tell if that would be a negative or positive)

I would also recommend Assassin's Apprentice even though it's not dark fantasy. And the hero might seem too traditional to you Hobb writes in a very realistic way. But I do have to warn if you don't like Rothfuss she might not be for you.

Try anything by Joe Abercrombie. Dark, gritty, violent. The Blade Itself is the first of a trilogy.

Thanks for the recommendations. I think I might be looking for a bit romance actually. :)

I've tried a book by Hobb but it didn't agree with me at all. I like the Malazan series but I got stuck on the fourth book. I might pick it up again. I've read The Blade Itself but I never got myself to read the entire series.

Have you tried Theft of Swords or Magic's Pawn or the entire Valdemar series?

I have not. Theft of Swords seems like a good book. Adding it to the to-read shelf.

William wrote:" I'm currently reading the latest Eragon book and I'm considering not even finishing the book. The good and heroic characters feel entirely invincible. I'm so sick of the heroic main characters and their boring relationships."

Since the author of this book was 15 years old at the time, hardly surprising, I guess, since probably difficult to draw experience on adult relationships!

I surely agree with Tracy and recommend Erikson's Malazan Empire. Just when you are convinced that a character is the main one of the whole series or of the specific book, he suddenly dies or something else happens to him that leaves you stunned! Although having too many characters in one book and as many other different characters in the second and so on makes it difficult to follow the story (especially if you stop reading for a period of time) almost all of them are equally important and realistic. True, not much romance, but for me is for the best.
I have also read the first book of The First Law, and it is a very good choice for someone who is looking for epic but not super heroes. I will go to the second, once I am finished with all the 10 Malazan books.

You can also try The Black Company. A cross between Malazan and The First Law.

If The First Law left you unsure you can try Best Served Cold a standalone in the same series. I liked it more than the trilogy.

Lettif wrote: "I surely agree with Tracy and recommend Erikson's Malazan Empire. Just when you are convinced that a character is the main one of the whole series or of the specific book, he suddenly dies or somet..."

I'm definitely going to finish this series.

Traci wrote: "You can also try The Black Company. A cross between Malazan and The First Law.

If The First Law left you unsure you can try Best Served Cold a standalone in the same s..."

I'm adding The Black Company to the to-read list. Thanks.

Weenie wrote: Since the author of this book was 15 years old at the time, hardly surprising, I guess, since probably difficult to draw experience on adult relationships! "

You're right of course. I mean I liked the books before when I was younger. But I guess I've just outgrown them somehow.

Traci wrote: "You can also try The Black Company. A cross between Malazan and The First Law.

If The First Law left you unsure you can try Best Served Cold a standalone in the same s..."

The First Law did not left me unsure. I really liked it, and I liked Abercrombie's style of writting. I intend to continue the series, but after I am through with the Malazans.

I'm assuming you've already heard of or have read but there's always A Game of Thrones.

I have seen the first season of the TV series, which I found astounding. I have the first book resting in my bookcase, and my friends who read it also recommended it. The sad thing is that this period my time is limited to have 2 or 3 books underway simultaneously. Besides, because I 'd like to wait till all the books are published and then begin it. Don't want to repeat the mistake I made with Erikson.

The obligatory why-does-nobody-know-about-it pimping: have you considered Ash: A Secret History?

[It's a huge book. It's also published in four volumes for American audiences, although structurally it's more a very long novel than a real series. And actually, it's longer than any single volume of ASOIAF or WOT, but not by THAT much, so it you're willing to read a series it's not really that long. Just intimidating in single-book form.]

It's got two timelines: the main story is set in the middle ages, while the framing story is an exchange between modern historians. However, the 'middle ages' presented are not quite OUR middle ages, and the differences become more and more obvious as you go on, while the framing story stops being just a framing story and becomes, in a way, part of the main story. It's not all-out elves-and-dragons, but it's more fantastical than a straightlaced historical fiction reader would like.

The main characters are definitely not asexual, although sometimes they wish they were. [The author's hobby-career is writing explicit erotica, and although sex isn't front-and-centre the whole time, she does a good job of "happening not to talk about sex all the time but she could if she wanted", rather than the common fantasy "sex doesn't really happen in this world, the whole universe fades to black"].

I wouldn't call the characters 'heroic', either. I mean, it's clear they're the good-guys, but that's a relative term. It's about a young girl and her band of bloody mercenaries - although they're mostly moral people, their main objective is staying alive. They are heroic at times, but it doesn't feel like they were heroic from birth, as it were.

I genuinely felt the characters to be in considerable peril at several points (and not just of death). And if you can predict the course of the novel from the first two chapters, you should go into professional clairvoyance.

Look how many people gave it 5 stars! In fact, almost everyone seems to have either loved it or hated it.


[Two other reasons why it's good:
1. It, unusually, combines quite a 'feminine' quality of emotions and desires and relationships and so forth, with a very 'masculine' topic of battles and wars and political intrigue;
2. It's brilliantly researched, and as a result highly immersive in the period. The author has degrees in history and war studies, and is/was a medieval battle re-enactor, and imio gives a really good feel of what it would have been like leading a 15th century mercenary company. After so many unconvincing fauxdieval fantasies, it's great to finally read a book written by an author who actually knows what she's talking about.]

---

Well, someone had to suggest it.

Have you read the Kushiel's Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey? It's definitely not asexual lol and it has much exciting intrigue.

I've never heard of Mary Gentle, Wastrel. But it sounds interesting. Medievel history-fantasy is right up my alley. It's not fantasy but any stretch but I wonder if you've read The Pillars of the Earth? Like I said, not fantasy but I usually find myself recommending it to fantasy readers anyway. Especially to fans of GRRM.

I struggled with Erikson's first Malazan book but am prepared to reread to give it another go. Maybe I was distracted at the time of reading!

I enjoyed the First Law books, also Best Served Cold.

Can highly recommend A Game of Thrones.

Ok, just wanna put my 2 cents into this. The most provoking fantasy i've past couple of years was The Steel Remains. Richard K.Morgan is a science fiction writer, this is his first attempt at fantasy.

It's the 1st part of a trilogy, the second just came out. Very gritty, very rich and quite shocking characters. He breaks many taboos of the genre, don't want to give any spoilers, just 2 say there's alot of sex going on in ways that some will find disturbing.

After finishing the crap i m reading write now, i am gonna start the second part.

PS: I started 2 hate Game of thrones, i am pro-Malazan although it's huuuuge.

Agree, The Steel Remains does go rather further than most fantasy books in terms of stepping over boundaries.

I thought it was good and whilst I do intend to read the rest of the trilogy, I think I prefer Morgan's sci-fi books.

Traci wrote: "I've never heard of Mary Gentle, Wastrel. But it sounds interesting. Medievel history-fantasy is right up my alley. It's not fantasy but any stretch but I wonder if you've read The Pillars of...

Haven't read it but have heard some good things about it and bad things about the TV version... . It's certainly something I intend to get around to reading... someday. On Martin incidentally: I'd certainly recommend him as I'd consider myself a fan. However I'd caution that the first book gets better and better as it goes along and that the second and third books get even better still. First time around I didn't get gripped by AGOT until the final third and re-reading it recently I positively disliked it until the end. So the moral is: assuming you can make the commitment read at least the whole of A Game of Thrones before deciding you don't like it. And if you reach the end and aren't sure whether to continue do - it gets better. It's just as good as most fantasy all along of course - it's just that it's not until later that it gets to the 'genuinely good' rather than 'good enough for pulp fantasy' level. In my opinion.]


[And yes, it seems very few have heard of Mary Gentle. I only picked up Ash because it went through a couple of months of having several people give it great reviews just when I happened to be looking for something new to read.]

I really appreciate you taking your time and recommending these books. I'm putting Ash: A Secret History and The Steel Remains on my to-read list!

I have read the first book of The Game of Throne series but I found it quite dull. Too much politics and not so much magic/action. I hated some of the characters and I spent a lot of time wishing they could die a brutal death (Sansa DIE DIE DIE). :) I loved the TV-series though.

IMHO both The Steel Remains and The Cold Commands are very very very good. But they are certainly not for people who are easily offended by either sex or violence, so potential readers should keep that in mind.

I have also heard good things about Mary Gentle's work, but I haven't read it myself (yet).

Try the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher...'nuf said.

What do you mean by asexual characters?

For a fascinating twist on sexuality try the Wraeththu series by Storm Constantine

Lilyan wrote: "What do you mean by asexual characters?"

I assumed he meant girlymen....?

Traci wrote: "Lilyan wrote: "What do you mean by asexual characters?"

I assumed he meant girlymen....?"

I assumed it was characters that could be either/or. Some authors just don't do opposite sex characters well & others are trying to be too politically correct.

I often don't like female fantasy author's guys. They do stuff no real guy would do, especially when it's a barbarian guy. I remember starting to read one such book years ago. Macho, barbarian warrior walks into a room & noticed & spent time admiring the fuchsia dress before he noticed the half naked queen or something like that. It ruined the book for me, although I think my wife thought it was OK.

Lol. That would have made me pause too. And laugh.

Lilyan wrote: "What do you mean by asexual characters?"

I figured that meant main (male) characters who can't or don't make good relationships, due to being too aloof or too bent on Being A Hero.

First Law Trilogy and Steel Remains, most def.

I (like Jim) took it to mean a protagonist who seemed to be rather androgynous and (as he said) carefully or overly politically correct. A character drawn carefully so as not to fill what the writer (and possibly the audience he or she was attempting to appeal to) would see as a to traditional role.

I listed Harry Dresden. Harry goes on about not being able to stand seeing a woman endangered or mistreated. He'll then admit he knows that makes him a Neanderthal and politically incorrect, but it's just how he is. He knows he should be just as upset if a man is being endangered... but he isn't. He and the Karen Murphy character have made it a running joke. Yet in the reviews I see some readers who get extremely angry about harry being a "male Chauvinist". He's not, but some readers perceive him to be because of this character trait.

Some stereotypes, as politically incorrect as they are, happen to be true. The average man is more aggressive, bigger, & stronger than the average woman, as an example. Not every one is, by any means. Women can certainly be as tough & endure as much or more.

One of the things I HATE in heroic fiction is a regular gal that looks like a hot model & yet runs around swinging a sword like a boy. I've known women that were probably strong enough to do that, but none of them looked like a model. If the woman is built like a football player, I'm sure she could carry around 50 lbs of armor & swing a broadsword with the best of the men, but the only way a Victoria's Secret model is doing that is if she's magically enhanced in some way. That's fine by me, so long as there is some logic to it.

Jim wrote: "Some stereotypes, as politically incorrect as they are, happen to be true. The average man is more aggressive, bigger, & stronger than the average woman, as an example. Not every one is, by any m..."

This is true, but is almost entirely unimportant, because of statistical variation.

What I mean by that is that if you look at most physical sports, women are 10-15% worse than men, on average. That sounds like a lot, until you remember what the difference is between an elite man and an ordinary man. So in the marathon, for example, the men's record has just dipped below 2:04, while the women's record is a sluggish 2:15-something. Big difference. Until you realise that if Paula Radcliffe had been running in 1963, she'd have been only ten seconds outside the men's world record, and if she'd been running in 1953, she'd have been the fastest person in history over that distance. The difference between a man and a woman is smaller than the difference between the training methods of 1953 and those of 2003. And then we should bear in mind that the average marathon time for a man in the USA is over 4.5 hours. So yes, the elite woman is 9% slower than the elite man - but the elite woman is still 201% faster than the average marathon-running man. And the average marathoner is himself a lot fitter and faster than the average man. The point is: the average differences between men and women are DWARFED by the genetic differences between individuals, and by the effect of superior training/diet/experience/strategy/etc.

This is why although 'on average' men may be bigger, stronger and more aggressive than women, it's still not a fair stereotype, because in reality there will be a huge number of men weaker than a huge number of women - it's just that, overall, the strong men are stronger than the weak women by a little more than the strong women are stronger than the weak men, so on average one 'group' is stronger than the other. It makes very little difference on the ground level, where simple improvements in training or diet can rapidly elevate women above men. What's more, because the effects of training largely outweigh the effects of the gender difference, and because training is a cultural phenomenon, it's not hard to believe in a culture in which the strength difference between men and women is not recognised, or is even believed to be the other way around. Indeed, famously there is/was a culture in western africa in which the women did all the farm work while the men stayed indoors and tidied the house - because 'everybody knew' that women were physically stronger than men, and that the men had to be protected. It seems absurd - and yet, since their women were doing agricultural labour every day from a young age while their men sat around and avoided any heavy lifting, almost certainly their women WERE stronger than their men. Because in a world without professional male marathon runners, it looks as though women are 200% faster than men.

[You don't have to be all that strong to swing a sword, either, or to carry armour. You'd expect muscle from a female knight, but nobody 'built like a football player' (indeed, that bulk would become a disadvantage, I'd think). Instead, I'd imagine something more like a heptathlete - strong all over, not a lot of excess fat, but unless she took her top off so you could see her abs, you'd probably not notice in a crowd. And some of them would probably look pretty sexy in underwear, too. [Even more so: pole-vaulters. Once you take out the running, you get athletic women who still have hips and busts. But they're still damn strong compared to the average man]. Of course, if you pick another era, with lighter swords and without plate armour, the strength requirement becomes even less. A woman could easily be an early-modern rapier-fighter while looking perfectly ordinary. Sure, she probably wouldn't beat the top ten in the world, but she could still slaughter 99.999% of the world's population with ease.

I think we're beginning to over think this. All Jim said was it seemed unrealistic to him for someone who looks like a Victoria's Secret model to be a sword wielding dragon slayer.

Anyone here a gamer? I've played RPGs or roll plying games for years and this has become a running joke. In illustrations male warriors wear full plate armor, the female warrior will have a chainmail bikini. There was/is a magazine for gamers called Dragon and it used to have a comic strip on the last page (I don't know if it's still there I haven't read it in years). One of the comic strips had the female character from "out of frame" speaking about a battle. When she "steps into frame" she's saying "it's a good thing I had my armor". She is pictured in a chainmail bikini with a cluster of arrows in each breast with no wound etc. anywhere else....

The thread is subjective, about each commenter's thoughts or feelings. Some obviously aren't tired of said characters, some are.

Obviously chainmail bikinis are stupid [as armour, at least]. Which is why it's a joke, which only a handful of out-of-touch cover-artists aren't in on. But in the drive to abandon stupidity for 'realism', we have to be careful not to impose our cultural assumptions on the universe as 'the way things are'. My objection wasn't so much to his 'models can't use swords' point (although I think it's overstated - models can play tennis or volleyball, pole vault, swim, cycle, fence, horse-ride, and many other highly specialised, strenuous, physical things. A considerable degree of fitness can be compatible with beauty - even with traditional 'curvy' beauty - and I don't think sword-fighting would be an exception to this), and more his 'our stereotypes are true even though they're politically incorrect'. In fact, they're politically incorrect BECAUSE THEY'RE INCORRECT. Or rather, they may be 'correct' in a world-level statistical way, but they provide no guide at all in real life.
[I say this as a geeky, unathletic guy whose smaller sister used to play rugby at weekends. It doesn't take much of a difference in behaviour to result in dramatic differences in physical strength, even leaving aside the differences in genetics].

I'm beating my head on the wall here. No one is saying that certain stereotypes have to be abandoned just that they have become so ubiquitous they're tired of them... Feel free, enjoy. These are fantasy novels on the whole anyway, realism doesn't have to be a big problem. Sometimes realism within the book's own world...

My point. Relax. It's about whether you're tired of a certain character "trope" or not, that's all.

Wastrel wrote: "This is true, but is almost entirely unimportant, because of statistical variation...."

I couldn't disagree more for several reasons. First, have you ever heard the expression "stranger than fiction". The real world can be, but fiction asks us to suspend our belief in some ways & then has to counterbalance it in others. If it gets too outrageous, people just quit.

Second, your statistics & everything look pretty, but they don't tell the whole story & they're skewing it because of what activities you picked. I grew up on a farm & while women worked as hard as the men, there were different tasks that one sex tended to do over the other. The average woman doesn't have anything like the same amount of weight, muscle, or upper body strength that a man has. Mom's father was a small guy, weighed about 150 lbs. He was a pipefitter & used to carry 140 lb bags of asbestos around. Mom never could manage a 100 lb feed bag & she weighs 15 lbs more than that. So, she didn't toss hay bales if she could help it, but I defy anyone to use a weedeater or weed a garden any longer or faster than she can.

Training & swords... I'll agree that women can be trained to fight every bit as well as men, but I completely disagree about not having to be all that strong to swing a sword, especially if you're going to carry it & all your equipment around all day. The Army spent millions trying to reduce the weight of their firearms by a couple of lbs because of fatigue back before they had any women. There's a big difference between lugging just a couple of pounds.

An epee might make both equal, but with a something like a Scottish Claymore (my grandfather had one) that weighs 5 or 6 lbs? No way. You try just holding it outstretched for a minute & see how your arm feels. Then think about why they have weight classes in boxing & wrestling.

Every activity or sport you picked to compare is more like weeding the garden - not an easy task - than tossing hay bales. I notice you never mentioned weight lifting, for instance. A quick glance at the heaviest weight records between men & women off Wikipedia shows:

Snatch Men 214 kg Women 140.0 kg
Clean and jerk Men 263.5 kg Women 186.0 kg
That's a BIG difference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_...

I don't think record lifts really tell the story either, but you're the one who decided this was one way to validate the equality between the sexes. Still, I think you'll agree that the gal that holds the women's title doesn't look anything like a super model. Here's her picture:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_ixdTyJ_2PFA...

In fact, she actually looks a lot like the guy that holds the record:
http://chidlovski.net/liftup/images/i...

See? If they have similar strength, one isn't going to be a big rough barbarian & the other a slender beauty.

I also recommend The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan. It not only has a lot of action, but it also contains more explicit sex then is usually found in fantasy. I also liked that the main characters are more anti heroes than heroes.

Another author who writes complex and more morally ambiguous characters is C.S. Friedman. I highly recommend her Cold Fire trilogy.

Tanith Lee's Flat Earth series which is currently being reprinted is one of the most orginal and wonderful dark fantasy series ever written. Definitly not asexual and it has no stereotypical heroes.

Other authors who are both good character writers and world builders are Janny Wurts and Jacqueline Carey

Jim wrote: "Wastrel wrote: "This is true, but is almost entirely unimportant, because of statistical variation...."

I couldn't disagree more for several reasons.First, have you ever heard the expression "stranger than fiction". The real world can be, but fiction asks us to suspend our belief in some ways & then has to counterbalance it in others. If it gets too outrageous, people just quit.
Who cares? We all know what makes people quit a book: the book NOT being Twilight or The Da Vince Code or Harry Potter. Every step away from being exactly like those books is a "flaw", in the sense that fewer people will read the book. So - what's wrong with books being flawed in this way? I'd rather write a good book than a popular one - and even more strongly, I'd rather read a good book rather than a popular one. So sure, suggesting that women can do more than cook might lose an author some readers, but I don't accept that that's a problem. In fact, if you're going to lose readers, you may as well lose the bigots first. If you're going to write fantasy on the basis that the lowest denominator of american society has to be completely unchallenged, you're really pretty limited in what you can say - so, if a realistic approach to female physicality makes these people drop the book right away, so much the better. It'll save time listening to them moaning whenever something interesting happens.



As regards weight-lifting: OK, so that's an exception. Women aren't any good at weight-lifting. And you probably can't be a traditionally beautiful weight-lifter. Or shot-putter, hammer-thrower or discus-thrower, and probably not a javelin-thrower, as these sports, like weight-lifting, encourage pure strength, and hence massive muscles. However, note how fine the margins are, and note that these extreme body shapes are only required to be one of the best in the world. Heptathletes show how close you can get to the top WITHOUT needing the specialised body-shape. This woman would have been the world record holder in shot-put in 1953. And shot-put is probably the sport that is the purest test of explosive strength.

A lot of athletic body-shapes are for convenience. Shot-putters aren't svelte because they don't need to be, because they're only tested on explosive strength. A heptathlete, on the other hand, is tested on other things as well - and there comes a point where the muscle that would get you another 30cm in the shotput will lose you too many seconds in the sprint. And of course it goes the other way in endurance racing, like marathons or grand tour cycling, where every pound brings a penalty and you have to shed every tiny bit of it that isn't necessary.

So sure, if you model fighting as weight-lifting - that is, as a pure test of overwhelming explosive strength, with no need for stamina or speed or agility, you'll conclude that women will be rubbish, and that the only women who are any good don't look much like traditional ideals of beauty say they should. If, on the other hand, you think that stamina and speed and agility are far more important than brute strength (the one thing men can far exceed women in), then female fighters will easily be able to outclass male fighters who have less training or natural ability, and female fighters will look more like a heptathlete or a modern pentathlete - that is, they won't be massively curvy, and they'll be very fit, but they needn't look like a man or a bodybuilder, and some of them will look pretty fetching in skimpy clothing.

[By the way - pole-vaulting is like weeding a garden? Excuse me? It's a highly-explosive activity! Pole-vaulters aren't musclebound not because it's a low-energy endurance event, but because running speed, low weight, and above all agility are all important as well as pure strength.]

Weight-lifters are not the norm of human physique, they are the exception. A weight-lifter would make a pretty bad fighter.

Here are some ACTUAL female sword-fighters (and male, obviously)- the USA team for the world Kendo championships. Look at some of those girls. Now sure, their swords are lighter than the real thing - 1lb rather than 2lbs - but equally, I'm sure you'll agree that they have a hell of a long way to go in terms of musculature before they reach the level you describe as "built like a football player" (assuming you mean American football, at least). And these are world-elite level swordfighters.

Anyway, I've probably taxed the patience of the community too much in recent days. Feel free to continue having unrealistic ideas of what women are capable of.

EDITED: to reduce the implication that your prejudices are sexist. My apologies, sometimes my temper, combined with the lack of instant feedback on the internet, leads to me overstating things.

Wastrel wrote: "Who cares? We all know what makes people quit a book: the book NOT being Twilight..."

As an artist making money, I care somewhat about selling what I create, otherwise it just clutters up the place. I would think an author would have some of the same considerations. Not all authors are artists, either. Many are craftsmen or a combination of the two. They make a living at it. Not being able to feed yourself & kids tends to give a person a different perspective. Being a starving artist might sound romantic, but the reality is that an unread author is one of the more useless things in the world.

Wastrel wrote: "...So sure, if you model fighting as weight-lifting - that is, as a pure test of overwhelming explosive strength, with no need for stamina or speed or agility, you'll conclude that women will be rubbish,..."

The point I made was that I didn't like a super model type girl wielding a sword like Conan unless she was specially enhanced through magic or something. I've never used a broadsword, but it's my understanding that when knights used to pound at each other with maces & broadswords or Scottish Highlanders went running about swinging their claymores, it often was a contest of explosive strength & endurance.

I like Robert E. Howard's swordswomen. They're often fairly good looking, but they're built big & tough. They also use lighter swords & rely on speed & agility rather than brute force, where it is obvious they can't compete.

Weeding a garden is very hard work that requires a lot of endurance & strong hands. There's constant bending & a need for a lot of strength when you need to pull up a big root. Don't put it down as easy unless you've spent a couple of hours doing it. Mom still out works me doing it, but when it came to swinging a grass whip (what we used before weedeaters) I was passing her by the time I hit my teens - more upper body strength.

If you think I believe women are only good for cooking or raising children, you're wrong. Mom used to have a herd of sheep with 50 ewes & came in 1st or 2d several years in the speed shearing contest at the Howard County Sheep & Wool Festival. My mother is one of the toughest people I know. Both my wife & daughter aren't any slouches either. They're all horse women & used to bullying recalcitrant animals that outweigh them by nearly half a ton. They also do a lot of fairly heavy labor, but guess who does the heaviest lifting? Me.
;-)

This has got to be my favorite discussion ever!

Jim, I love how you describe your mother, wife and daughter! I have always considered myself a "tomboy" and horse woman and am not afraid of doing heavy labor when necessary!

And Betelgeuze, I'm fascinated that you mention Janny Wurts and Jacqueline Carey in the same breath! I adore Carey and have read everything she's written, but after struggling through the first book of Wurts' series completely gave up. From looking at reviews on both those authors, people either love them or hate them. Fascinating!

I've just downloaded The Steel Remains and Black Sun Rising to my iPad to read when I've finished The Alloy of Law since I'm fascinated to read some real sex in a Fantasy book! One of my guilty pleasures is reading erotic romance so I am intrigued to see how a fantasy writer deals with it.

And the chain mail bikini comments have completely entertained me today!!

Jeanne wrote: "This has got to be my favorite discussion ever!

Jim, I love how you describe your mother, wife and daughter! I have always considered myself a "tomboy" and horse woman and am not afraid of doing ..."

Thanks. She was a great power of example & still maintains a horse farm at 71 years old. My daughter's boyfriend envies the tool box I gave my daughter & built up with gifts when she was a teen, as well as her remodeling skills. I raised all my kids to do whatever needed doing, that means the girl was practicing her welding skills over the holidays (she's becoming an Ag teacher) & the boys can cook the dinner. They can all change out a faucet, grease the tractor, or sew on a button. I was raised to believe in equality, but some of us just do some things better than others whether because of our build, innate skill, or practice. I put off learning to pluck chickens as long as I could...
;-)

I don't mind reading about chain mail bikini clad babes kicking ass! It's any girl's dream to be that babe (ok, it's one of my dreams....) It's fantasy...

In reality, the women would probably be all muscled up and built like Fatima Whitbread (currently out-menning the men in the Aussie Jungle) - bit too scary!

It can also be simple talent and inclination. We're all better at some things than others...

Mike (the Paladin) wrote: "I think we're beginning to over think this. All Jim said was it seemed unrealistic to him for someone who looks like a Victoria's Secret model to be a sword wielding dragon slayer..."

Definitely the RPG VG world is filled with such boobular women (who must have chronic back pain), while the men, while armored appropriately etc, don't bulge at all. It's sexist, it is ;-) I think this is all to market to the teen boys. There are exceptions of course.

I took the OP's question about the PG-13 rating of much fantasy and lack of essential behaviors like taking a leak or dump. While I do not like a lot of romance in novels I read, I think the characters should act like real people act.

Kernos wrote: "...lack of essential behaviors like taking a leak or dump..."

You raise a really good point. People do a lot of boring stuff I don't normally want to read about, so a little of that goes a long way, but sometimes it can add a kick of realism that really sets a book apart. A Game of Thrones did that with a young girl posing as a boy. It was a real problem for her since all the boys just turned & whipped it out. Martin didn't make a huge deal of it & never described scene (thank goodness), but mentioned it a couple of times. Other books I've read have ignored that which makes the masquerade weaker, IMO.

To be fair I think the ultra feminine characters appeal to the female fans of RPGs and fantasy too. Atleast speaking for myself. If given a chose between an attractive slim female character or a buff amazon girl I'll probably chose the first.

Now the boobular (I like that word lol) action....that's mostly for the boys I think.

As a person who isn't comfortable without knowing where the bathroom is in a new place, I've always wondered about the bathroom thing.

Jim wrote: ". A Game of Thrones did that with a young girl posing as a boy. It was a real problem for her since all the boys just turned & whipped it out..."

I totally agree, Jim! Martin's inclusion of the bathroom issues of a young girl posing as a boy really did make the story richer.

This reminds me of a Richard Pryor comedy routine where he talked about being out in the woods with his girlfriend and pantomimed her going to the bathroom. What made it so hilarious was he had it so perfect, all the way down to pulling the panties aside when in full squat so as not to pee on them. It was that detail that made it real as well as really hilarious!

The only urination scene I can distinctly remember from a sci-fi or fantasy book is from Dhalgren, in which the hero's girlfriend pisses while standing up. He's surprised that women can do this, and she has to explain the methodology via a demonstration.

It's a strange book.

Traci wrote: "To be fair I think the ultra feminine characters appeal to the female fans of RPGs and fantasy too...."

TV tends to overdo this & I hate it, too. We were watching 'Unforgettable' & the heroine had boots with very tall, narrow heels - 4" or 5". She saved the day by running, jumping on to a parked car's hood, off again on to the street, then pulling an idiot to safety as she shot the bad guys. The scene was terribly choppy, of course. It included a quick shot of her feet on the hood of the car, too. Nary a dent nor did anything break.

I don't hold TV to the same standards as I do the books I read or I would have quit watching it years ago. (One of my kids has.) Still, they push my suspension of belief just too far too often & it ruins it, even with my low standards.

That's my recommendation. Antihero, dark, not your typical fantasy and for his world, quite believable.

Traci wrote: "To be fair I think the ultra feminine characters appeal to the female fans of RPGs and fantasy too. Atleast speaking for myself. If given a chose between an attractive slim female character or a bu..."

As a girl who loves my fantasy and Sci Fi movies and books, I hate the ultra feminine characters or the super slim ones. In fact on all the urban fantasy books, I am so sick of seeing these unrealistic female main characters. Give me something with reality in the fantasy. I agree Martin has donea wonderful job in Game of Thrones series. I also like J. V. Jones Cavern of Black Ice series. That girl and the main male character have been through the ringer and then some.