Read Between The Wines #8: More Swords, Sorcery and Fantasy - from the girls.

in #books6 years ago (edited)


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Hello lovely Steemians

Its time for another episode of Read Between The Wines - Anything and everything book related and maybe a little bit of wine as well!


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If you've been following along on my booky journey your would have seen that my last post covered some pretty epic sereis in the Epic Fantasy genre.

BUT..

I really didn't give the girls a fair go in there so it's only write I pick my three favourite old-school series written by some of the wonderful women of fantasy - who do seem to be a lot less known the blokes!

Again this is focussed on some of the writers whose work really got me interested in this genre - not the teen vampire romance novels (not that there's anything wrong with that).

JK Rowling (Harry Potter in case you've been under a stone) and Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games) and Veronica Roth (Divergent) get cited as being pioneers of women in Fantasy writing...

But believe me the path was laid way before the first train left Platform 9 3/4 bound for Hogwarts.

But I'm actually going to steer away from some of the more traditional authors like Ursula K. Le Guin - Earth Sea; and Anne McCaffery - Dragon Riders of Pern.

Here were my favourite 3 that I love to have a re-read of every now and then.

  1. Jennifer Roberson - Chronicles of the Cheysuli


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There are three series of fantasy books that hold a special place for me as some of the original that I started to read. (Chronicles of Narnia by C'S Lewis and The Belgariad by David Eddings being the other two)

The Chronicles of the Cheysuli consist of eight books (published between 1984 and 1992) which cover seven generations and more than a century of history of a kingdom called Homana, during a time of great transition. the once-great Cheysuli are a race of magical shapechangers. The are persecuted and hunted, almost being wiped out as a race. During the series they rise to great power and the series follows several generations.

Even back in the 1980's teenage girls were falling for magical shapechanger beings :)

  1. Katharine Kerr - The Deverry Cycle


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So here is someone who just couldn't stop - because believe it or not this was meant to be a short story - and over the course of 23 years became 15 full novels made up of four series set in the same universe.

I really like this one -with its grounding in Celtic and druidic mythology. The series is written in a non-linear style: with the main narrative frequently interrupted by flashbacks to events that occurred decades, or even centuries ago. The flashbacks concern the prior incarnations of characters in the main narrative, and provide insight into the relationships of these characters during their current incarnations.

  1. Sara Douglass - The Wayfarer Redemption

Originally two trilogies - The Axis Trilogy and The Wayfarer Redemption these were eventually combined into a six novel series, which made sense as they followed on from one another.

A third trilogy - loosely related does follow - The Darkglass Mountain

Douglass was an Australian Author - probably the first Aussie I'd read in the Fantasy genre and at the time I was working part time so had a fair bit of time to devote to getting more involved even so far as writing those 26 chapters - joining an Australian Speculative Fiction Writers group at Uni of NSW (where I met many an author who went on to become best sellers - not me unfortunately - well not yet anyway) and ran what at the time was a pretty big blog site for aspiring fantasy writers. At the time I had the good fortune to interview Douglass for the website (and get a signed copy of her latest book at the time, to give away) This was back in 1997!

Anyway more on the books :)

There is a pretty comprehensive back story to the Wayfarer Redemption but the basic gist is Magic is evil and has been banned from the land and people have turned to "the Way of the Plough" - the magical races are Forbidden and yep - there is going to be a war of epic proportions. To be honest I'd be pretty upset having to use a plough if I could just wave my hand!

This is actually a pretty common premise in fantasy - but you can't help but love the characters in these books.

Unfortunately Sara Douglass passed way from cancer in 2011 aged 54 - way before her time.

Of course there are some many more great women that I have missed such as Robin Hobb, Kate Forsyth, Celia Dart-Thorton, Tanith Lee, Mercedes Lackey and Maggie Furey - but we'd be here all night.

But I hope this gives you a few diferent series to look at next time your ready to pick up a book


Til the Next Adventure, Steem on With Love and Light


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Good Post... good luck power the girl and hero

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