Women in Sci-Fi and Fantasy/Game of Thrones

[lph]

Anyone else enjoy Neil Gaiman? I'm a big fan, started with the Sandman graphic novels, but I like his regular novels a lot more. Especially the short stories. And "American Gods" - funnily enough didn't like it at the first reading, slogged through one more time and now it's really grown on me.

Speaking of books I picked up Victoria Hislops "The Island", because we're going to Crete next week. It's set there, and the cover was full of praise and prizes. Gawd, what an awful book. Kept reading for a while out of a vague feeling of curiosity, but the writing is just so puffed-up and and ...trite. Reminds me of Adrian Moles "lo, the majestic vales of Scotland". You're told exactly what every character feels at every point.

My apologies to anyone who may love it...

eta:
found the following review, which was priceless:

"You must pay the rent!" the evil villain roared, twirling his diabolical mustache. He was her landlord, and he was an impatient man.

"But I can't pay the rent!" swooned the beautiful, hapless heroine. She was his tenant. Her breathtaking beauty was matched only by her saintliness. (...)

If this is your idea of a well-written story then you may very well like this book, which read more or less this way for 474 pages."