Very good blog. Good points!

Actually the wonder women fantasy characters are the ones I find the most annoying. They are just unbearably cool and macho and magical and hard-hitting, and I can just hear the author thinking "ok, that'll shut the girls up and keep them happy". Fine when I was 13 and reading Anne McCaffrey, not so fine now. These days I'm happier with the books that don't make a huge deal out of which gender the character is, just write well and bring me in.

I tend a bit more to science fiction type fantasy, but without considering gender, some of my better fantasy reads in recent years have been Robin Hobbs' books, though they're running on a bit now, and The Painted Man.

And His Dark Materials by Pullman. It's why our brave young cat is called Lyra.