I couldn't get into the Earthsea books (only tried to read them as an adult) but I generally love LeGuin. Try The Dispossessed or The Left Hand of Darkness, zuisa. Or Those Who Walk Away From Omelas if a short story will do. Hey, you said you needed to read more SF, I'm helping!

I'm on a fantasy novella and short story kick right now and it is convincing me that I am definitely not a hardcore fantasy fan. What I like of the genre I like a whole lot, but what I don't like really irritates me.

I think it's very good for an internet poll.

It is a great list of the SF books most likely to be popular among people who'd visit the NPR website. I'm not saying I hate the books. Well, I do hate some of them, but I like a lot of them too. But I already know what books the internet likes. I don't know why it's interesting to keep rediscovering the same things about the same people over and over -- are people online normally so reticent about expressing what they are fans of that we need to draw them out?

I like having ways to discover new things. A curated list, where I know who is recommending things and whether we have similar tastes, is of some use to me when I am looking for new things. A vaguely defined "poll" of an unspecified number of anonymous people just tells me... that a website wants to drive up their traffic.

I don't love LeGuin. I would rank McCaffrey and MZB above her too, though I also don't love McCaffrey. My favorite female fantasy/SF writer (and possibly favorite fantasy writer full stop, though there's competition) is Sharon Shinn. Octavia E. Butler would compete, but she's pretty much all SF.

I would rank McCaffrey and MZB above her too,

No fucking way! McCaffrey is a massive hack.

In my opinion MZB and and McCaffrey are talented hacks. I don't regard most of their work as quality, although much of it is entertaining. I think of Le Guin as thoughtful and wordsmith, and I'd apply neither of those words to Anne and Marion. Not that I'm a connoisseur, or anything.

Octavia Butler is also high on my thoughtful and wordsmithy list. She wrote a fair amount of fantasy--Kindred, the Patternist series (right?), Fledgling...

I liked MZB's Fantasy Magazine. I think I prefer her as an editor over as a writer.

In my opinion MZB and and McCaffrey are talented hacks.

MZB and McCaffrey were good at pleasing readers with entertaining, wish-fulfillment-type of stories. Even MZB's overtly feminist work was very wish-fulfillment.

Which is not to say that The Dispossessed isn't wish-fulfillment, too, but it's a hell of a lot more thoughtful. And LeGuin's prose is much better. She's got more going on thematically than either MZB or McCaffrey, even in her earliest work.

Or, basically, what ita ! says.

Patricia McKillip is probably my favorite fantasy female writer. The Forgotten Beasts of Eld rocks hard.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld rocks hard.

It really does. After reading The Last Unicorn I was desperately searching for something else that would scratch that itch, and that's the only book that came close. Though, of course, it has its own distinct flavor and should not simply be compared to Beagle's masterpiece.

For MZB, I only like the Darkover novels. Some of her SF books are on my worst books ever list. McCaffrey is just not a very good writer, although she had a compelling premise in the Pern novels.

Please don't dismiss all of David's list. Fafryd and the Grey Mouser and The Dying Earth are not to be missed.

My two favorite living authors are Bujold and Connie Willis.

In some ways, LeGuin can be an awkward writer and she sometimes whacks the reader on the head with the message, but what she accomplished in The Lathe of Heaven and The Left Hand of Darkness is amazing. "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" says brilliantly what I believe most strongly about society.