@sozobe,
I had to laugh at that one--i enjoy McCaffrey's fiction, including the dragon riders of Pern series. I would never have equated them with a girl and her horse literature.
@Setanta,
But it's not a bad analogy. I guess the White Dragon would be "boy and his dog". I loved the Pern series when I was a teenager, but I reread it as an adult and it didn't hold up as well. I've frequently recommended the Harper Hall series in the same universe to parents looking "girl lit" fantasy.
@engineer,
Oh no, it's a great analogy--that's why i laughed. I only stumbled onto McCaffrey as an adult (in the last few years, in fact), so i only read the dragon riders stories then. But fiction has a special place in my intellectual life. I am fully capable of, and in every case intend to suspend disbelief in order to enjoy a good story. And i think McCaffrey is a wonderful story teller. She is also free of the preachiness which plagues so many SF and fantasy writers--Heinlein being the most disgusting example.
Any way, i liked it, adult or not.
I've read and enjoyed all the books I've suggested might be "girl's fantasy," but it's not a term I would use. I suppose there may be writers out there that have targeted young girls as their audience (The Hunger Games series?), but I wouldn't recognize it as a sub-genre.
Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibone series is Sword & Sorcery, but of a different sort than Howard's Conan. Elric is anything but macho, and for a lot of "boys" probably has too many episodes of melancholy and angst.
Where Romance meets Fantasy is in the Vampire books engineer described.
Laurel Hamilton can tell a good tale and her earliest books were pretty good, though formulaic (a whole lot of blood and guts), but as her Anita Blake series progressed the sex factor grew exponentially. Vampires, obviously, have an erotic aspect, but she eventually took it too far for my taste. Not offended, just bored with the same old scene of Anita being pleasured into rapture by any number of supernatural beings
@Finn dAbuzz,
I agree. I haven't read her last four or five because they feel more like soft core porn than a spicy fantasy read.
@engineer,
Quote:If you are looking for something like chick-lit (although accessible to everyone), there is a whole sub-genre that has popped up with strong female leads and generally told from a female point of view - the vampire novel. ...
Thank you, but I wasn't, really.
I was wondering if there were "demarcation" zones (along male/female political & other lines) in fantasy fiction. And it appears that there is!
I'm enjoying reading your conversation a great deal.
I do hope you all leave no stone unturned!
