I certainly don't begrudge her writing a female protagonist (which she also did back in The Tombs of Atuan during her earlier period), but the women = wise and good and longsuffering, men = cruel and stupid or resentfully powerless before the awesome generative power of the Womb-bearer really starts to rankle after a hundred pages or so.

Wait, I can blame LeGuin for Everybody Loves Raymond?

I think that one of the best romance authors at writing interesting and believable heroes is Nora Roberts. You can tell that she's had extensive real-life experience with men (she has four brothers and two sons, in addition to her husband), because she really does a good job at making them believable. My favorite of her trilogies is the Chesapeake Bay series, featuring three adopted brothers. The trilogies that focus on women more, while mostly fun to read, just aren't as fascinating to me. I did like Three Fates, mostly because of the Irish family that's at the core of the story, as well as the excellent opening sequence on board the Lusitania.

Matt, are you referring to just the stuff in the Earthsea universe, or all her work? I thought that Tehanu was rather weak -- or, I guess, rather too obvious in its retconny feminist intent -- but that the last novel was OK. The short stories seemed a bit scattershot, in their political intent, but tended to be good stories after all.

When you look at it, really, The Tombs of Atuan buys into a lot of the woman=connected to the earth, and actually kinda evil, nonsense, which I think she tried to revise in the later novels.

Tehanu was the standard bearer, I suppose, but other non-Earthsea books as well like Always Coming Home, which I didn't even finish. I haven't read the Tales of Earthsea collection yet for fear that Magical Crispy Dragon Girl might reappear.

Considering that the particular patch of earth those women were close to in The Tombs of Atuan was inhabited by primordial powers of darkness, I'm not sure I'd take the evilness as a commentary on the gender as a whole.

I think that one of the best romance authors at writing interesting and believable heroes is Nora Roberts.

Nora writes great guys. They always have guy habits, and talk like men I know.

Hee. I had a list of words you'll never see in a romance novel sex scene. (Current favourite: Grunties.) I think 'premature ejaculation' can be added to the list.

Heh.

the women = wise and good and longsuffering, men = cruel and stupid or resentfully powerless before the awesome generative power of the Womb-bearer

Did someone say Sheri S. Tepper?

Did someone say Sheri S. Tepper?

Eh. You say Sheri S. Tepper, I say Roseanne.

She doesn't have to put on the red light.

Er... sorry, my hearing's not so good.

Er... sorry, my hearing's not so good.

Well, then Roseanne is the perfect comedian for you.

This is a consistent topic of discussion around our house. Tepper and later LeGuin have already been mentioned as writing horribly agenda-driven genders.

Tolkein seems to take a lot of abuse for writing unrealistic female characters, but I actually think he made a conscious choice, knowing he wrote male POV better than female, to avoid female characters. (There are a lot of other factors here as well; Nordic myth structure, "realism" when applied to hobbit and Dunedan protagonists, etc)

I'm sure I'll think of more examples, both good and bad, but mostly for personal reading I use this gauge: Did my step-mother send me the book? If yes, it will have strong, beautiful, intelligent women abused horribly by mean evil disgusting men, but somehow triumphing.