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.

Le Guin has explicitly said that she worte the later Earthsea books as a riposte to the (unconsciously) massively sexist original trilogy.

I know, but they still irk.

ION, I just finished The Geographer's Library. Not bad for a first novel. The author shifts voice quite well. As a mystery, it had a couple problems, and just as a novel it had a couple problems, but overall I can recommend it.

I do think it's a bit sad that when someone mentions Menelik and/or Axum, I know we're going to be talking about the Ark of the Covenant.

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.

I get a similar vibe off of much of Neal Stephenson's work.

I find Le Guin's riposte revisionism at times irksome, at times invisible.

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.

Oh, I would. Just the whole "Oh, you're powerful women? Well the power you worship is EVIL! Neener!" aspect of the story -- it wasn't the most conscious application of gener-parsimony. Jim rightly points out that Le Guin just kinda didn't get that, when she first wrote it 35 years ago.

I've also read crit to the effect that, while it's nice that all the characters in the first book are black, the drift of the second and third novels is toward white protagonists, and whether that's a form of unconscious whitewashing. (I think that is consciously worked-at in the short story collection and last novel as well, just in less prominent fashion.)