"Men write better fantasy than women" please discuss.

For what it's worth, I looked up the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Nebula award winners in the novel category for the last ten years. (Too much trouble for me to go through and record all the various short fiction awards -- and besides I assume we are talking about books here, since hardly anyone discusses short fiction on these boards anyway.)

Hugo Award
Half have gone to women.

World Fantasy Award
Six out of ten years women won this award, although McKillip tied with Graham Joyce. However, counting McKillip, the last four years have seen a woman taking home the award.

Nebula Award
Six out of the last ten years a woman won this award.

The Hugo award is voted on by members of the WorldCon, which typically boasts between 4000-7000 members.

The World Fantasy award is a juried award, although members of the convention vote in two of the nominees.

The Nebula is awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (1200+ members).

Make of these figures what you will, but it only causes me to wonder, even more than I did before, where the perception comes from that the SF/Fantasy genre is a male preserve, or that men write better SF or Fantasy than women.

(Oh, and the name that appears most often as a winner in the novel category for these major awards over the last ten years: Lois McMaster Bujold.)
 
For what it's worth, the series that originally captured my interest in fantasy was the "Death Gate Cycle" written by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. As such, that series still holds a special place in my heart. Weis might not receive the acclaim that other authors (male or female) attain, but she can sure spin a marvelous tale.
 
Many years ago i purposely sought sff books written by women. There were considerably less than now, and i liked the slightly different style they had. I noticed that technical, hard-core sci-fi is usually written by men. There are relatively few women writing in this genre. There are also fewer women in the hard sciences, so there may be a correlation there. Women writers are predominately fantasy writers.
 
Tau Zero said:
Many years ago i purposely sought sff books written by women. There were considerably less than now, and i liked the slightly different style they had. I noticed that technical, hard-core sci-fi is usually written by men. There are relatively few women writing in this genre. There are also fewer women in the hard sciences, so there may be a correlation there. Women writers are predominately fantasy writers.
Click to expand...

It could just be that hard science is boring?

LOL sorry.
 
Leocrow,

I think you might get some ladies out there taking umbrage at your basic premise that women can't write about sexuality.

Any way I don't think there is much overt sexuality in Fantasy - I think it's more about romance - but heh that's just the kind of guy I am!

Sieben
 
Brys,

Good points well made.

A number of people have now mentioned Tanith Lee, I remember reading her 15 - 20 years ago and another author Barbara Hambley whatever happened to them?
 
Yes. Her name is Alice (Mary) Norton. She took up the nom-de-plume because she started writing sf at a time when it was indeed male-dominated, and there were only a handful (if that) of women writing and being published in the field.
 
Teresa Edgerton,

Very interesting stats and from what you and others have said the perceived male domination in our sphere is more to do with the general readership and the fact that forums such as this are male driven.

To my eternal shame I have not heard of any of these female award winners. It makes me wonder why? Is it me and my preferences or does the industry not promote new female talent appropriately?

Sieben
 
Tanith Lee and Barbara Hambly are both being published on a regular basis. Neither one confines her writing to the SF/Fantasy genre, and quite a lot of what Lee writes doesn't get published in the US, but they are both of them very prolific indeed.
 
William Kooiker,

I remember reading the original Death Gate series (they dragged it out to long over subsequent books) and being so impressed that I wrote a letter to the authors via their publisher congratulating them on their fantastic achievement.

A month later a nice letter came back thanking me for my correspondence but pointing out that Tracy Hickman was actually a man....

Sieben
 
Sieben, another writer you may not be aware of in this respect is C. L. (for Catherine Louise) Moore, who wrote a lot of sf and fantasy from the 1930s onward, both alone and in collaboration with her husband, Henry Kuttner. In fact, together they were among the most literate of the writers in the field at that time, with a lyrical, at times even musical, style that often bore resemblance to what would later be called "magic realism".

In her case, however, the deliberately ambiguous use of her initials was to keep her bosses from knowing she was moonlighting writing, since she began to publish during the Great Depression, and had they known she had that as income, there was a fear she might lose her regular employment, with so many men out of work ... a very real fear for women of the period.
 
Sieben said:
J.D.

I am truly not worthy j.d.

Sieben
Click to expand...
Ummm, maybe my wits are asleep, but... come again? (or are you referring to my own use of initials rather than name? No, I am definitely male, so it doesn't apply here...)

In answer to your question... throughout all genres. Remember, the Bronte sisters had to originally publish under male pseudonyms as well... You should try finding a book by Joanna Russ, titled How to Suppress Women's Writing, which is all about how that has been a trend in publishing from the beginning. Though on such a touchy topic, it is written with warmth and good humor, and is a very entertaining as well as informative book, by someone who is a darned good sf writer herself....
 
Sieben said:
William Kooiker,

I remember reading the original Death Gate series (they dragged it out to long over subsequent books) and being so impressed that I wrote a letter to the authors via their publisher congratulating them on their fantastic achievement.

A month later a nice letter came back thanking me for my correspondence but pointing out that Tracy Hickman was actually a man....

Sieben
Click to expand...
That's a funny story.

I knew Hickman was a man, but Weis played a big role in that series, as well as all books penned by that duo.
 
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