this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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My personal favorites are the Assassin series, starting with Assassin Apprentice by Robin Hobb.
Some of the best most heartfelt characters I have read in any modern fantasy, with a brilliantly unique type of magic and adventure. There is some political intrigue, especially within the first trilogy, but it isn't overly burdened by it.
The whole series has continued to be a heavily character driven emotional roller coaster that I would love to be able to forget just so I could read them again for the first time.
My wife got me to read the first trilogy, they're pretty good. There's also some weird writing at times that made me think it was very much "men writing women". And a weird scene at the end of book 3 where >!Fitz (nephew) and Verity (uncle) do a Freaky Friday body swap so Verity could fuck his wife while in his nephew's body and impregnate her.!< I didn't read the other books lol.
To be fair, I've read all of Wheel of Time and loved the series, and while it's not as bad as Discworld, it's still pretty weird and misogynistic at times.
You are the first person I ever know to say Discworld is bad. It's usually love, ignorance or indifference with Pratchett's work, may I ask why the hate?
It's definitely good and entertaining, but I found it almost distracting how he described women. I've been told it was actually intentional, like he was making fun of other fantasy tropes, but it sorta turned me off to it. I only read Color of Magic.
There is a massive variety of female characters in Pratchett's work and they are so different I'm not even sure what you mean by that. Sure, some are bimboes or twats but I can also recall cunning, resourceful, and smart ones, and in particular the older characters such as the witches really stand out. Male characters are subject to the same amount of variety so I'm surprised at your take on gender. He does have a very stylised approach though, cartoonish in many ways and fair enough if that's not your thing.
I appreciate you being a perfectly reasonable person and understanding that people have different tastes in books lol. Cheers
Colour of Magic is the first Discworld, and one of Pratchett's first novels. He grew into his voice a lot more over the course of the next fifty-something novels.
Most of the strongest, most unique women I've read have been of Pratchett's creation. And not just heroes that happen to be described as female, but fully fleshed out women ranging from feminists who wish to support their husband to trans females pretending to be males dressing as women in order to fight the patriarchy.
If you're willing to give the Discworld another go, and I urge you to, there's a couple of reading order guides online. 'Guards, Guards!' is generally recommended as a good starting point, but I'd also suggest Wyrd Sisters, Mort, Going Postal, or if you really want to dive into the gender thing, Equal Rites or Monstrous Regiment.
Robin Hobb is a woman, though
I'm aware, that's why it's surprising.