Realm of the Elderlings is my favorite series of all time and its written by a woman, but every other book series ive read that ive liked has been written by a man. Not sure how to describe how most books I tried written by woman in the past felt other than the audience not feeling like me. Realm of the elderlings I never had this issue, I enjoyed following the female protoganists and the fool even if I dont identify with how they feel, so I think its not necessarily the main character being a male for half the series being why I like it.
I just typically dont like men written by woman like woman rightfully dont like woman written by most male authors, since it tends to be done poorlly. Looking for series/authors that do a good job of representing both genders and writing for them, not misrepresenting either or acting like its the only thing that defines them and all their actions.
Saga of the Borderlands (La Saga de los Confines) by Liliana Bodoc is my personal favorite, it’s story is settled in a continent similar to the pre Columbian American, i absolutly love it and highly recomend it!
Try Ursula K LeGuin! The earthsea series is 50% female protagonists, but the first book has a male protagonist. I really love the ones with the female protagonists tho. Her sci-fi is great too but has fewer female protagonists IIRC.
I’ve read The dispossessed and The left Hand of Darkness. They both had well written male protagonists in my opinion.
I really like Martha Wells, in particular the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy is mostly female protagonist led, but reasonable depictions of everyone and has really great world building
I cannot remember the genders of most of the characters in murderbot
I’ve only read the first part of the Hidden series by Tiffany Shearn, but I really liked it. I’m planning to pick up the rest of the series at the Ren fair she attends this year.
The Shepherd King series by Rachel Gillig
City of Brass series by S. A. Chakraborty
The Dark Gods series by Tara Sim
I’m currently reading Babel by RF Kuang, which definitely can’t be described as woman-centric (indeed, a major criticism is that its female characters are relatively shallow and few and far between). Good book though.
If you want an old classic to try, give Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees a go. Very unique and fairly influential cult classic from 1926.
Could you be more specific about which books did not resonate? I read pretty widely and don’t usually notice jarring differences. There are only a handful of men who I noticed really couldn’t write female characters, most modern authors can. In fantasy & sci-fi at least.
Maybe my issue is avoiding popular books and going for the niche ones, I typically seek out hard magic systems and progression fantasy where it definitely is lacking
Like the lesbian necromancers in space? I can see that. I love the Kushiel books but can tell they’re written by a woman.
In sort of alternate history fantasy where I think there is no jarring gender stuff:
I’ve been reading the Katherine Kerr Deverry books, they are old but I think you might like those. The YA ones starting with The Thief of Attolia, if you haven’t read those, is delightful, and doesn’t take much time. Robin Hobb, but you already found her, and definitely Naomi Novik as recommended by others. I like most all the Django Wexler books, he’s a dude but writes from both men’s and women’s perspectives seamlessly. Katherine Kerr, Robin Hobb, and Naomi Novik write from the perspective of non-human characters too, that might be something to look for when you are looking for a writer who can change perspectives.
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The Folk Of Air series by Holly Black.
Its not high fantasy but the Greenbone Saga is pretty damn good and written by a woman. As a dude I didn’t feel like it was targeted at women or men.
I read Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series around the same time I read ROTE and really enjoyed them both.
I was also going to give a shout out to Novik, absolutely adore the Temeraire series.
Wizard of Earth Sea series by Ursula K. Le Guin
GIDEON THE NINTH!!!
I just realized almost all the books I’ve read are written by men, except a couple of Ursula K. le guin books.
highly reccomend robin hobb if you havent read her books already, if you like game of thrones youll see some similarities, shes friends with george rr martin and the read each others work
Margaret Weis and Robin Hobb would like a word.
I was very concerned scrolling the comments that it looked like no one was going to mentioned Margaret Weis. She is an amazing author stand alone, and Dragon Lance was one of the first big Fantasy series I really cut my teeth on.
Robin Hobb is my favorite lol
Robin Hobb wrote the series OP is talking about….
Fair point.
