Quote Originally Posted by grey View Post
I read the first three of Martin's books when I was down with my back six years ago. Not uplifting material to someone when they cannot walk! Every time I thought something was going right, that one character had a chance at a better life, it was crushed in the most horrible manner imaginable. As a result, I found the books depressing, even if interesting and well wrtten.
i haven't read more than a few chapters of the first book yet, but from your description it sounds a lot like Stephen R. Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the unbeliever... Also a rape in one of those books, but the main character, who was so filled with self loathing to begin with, continued to loath himself even more. There were other strong female characters in the books from what I remember.

And from the first few chapters of Martin's book - I'm not sure I see a resemblence to Tolkein.

For old sci-fi, I somewhat expect odd treatment of women - a lot of the older sci fi authors sexed up their stories so that they could sell them to playboy, because well... it paid. The Catteni or Freedom series by Anne McCaffrey grew out of a short story (The Thorns of Barevi) that she wrote as an attempt for the erotica market. It does have a "forced rape" that ends up being enjoyed in the original short story, I can't remember if she kept that in the book series that she eventually wrote.

Anyone read any James H. Schmitz books? He was a writer in the 40s/50's that tended to have strong female heroines in the era of space operas. For the time period & compared to most others they were well done.