I think it has to do with the idea fantasy stories are more person oriented, drama oriented, etc... Whereas sci-fi or even science fantasy stories are more environment, or technology oriented. One genre deals with the personal whereas the other deals with the impersonal. Of course this isn't a hard and fast rule. You can have fantasy stories where the magic (as a stand in for technology) or the environment plays a more important role than personal conflict/drama. Just as you can have a sci-fi story where the personal conflicts of the characters is more important than the setting.
Or, as such, fantasy's easy to justify magical elements and giving the characters powers based on emotions and shit. You can just invent more races, invent more bullshit. Etc. Don't wanna use real world because history is icky? Use fantasy and make shit up.
I don't often see women oriented overly emotional/gooning sci-fi and I'm glad.
Could also just be most female writers can't be bothered to expand their horizons and read outside their genre. Hence why we seem to get retreads of the same story every other book in YA. With the bow, and the love interest. So on and so on.
that too. I think the ones that do/did that turned into ones that were well-rounded, but the ones that didn't wind up running the SFWA or whatever.
But also reading stuff from the past means you're succumbing to the patriarchy or sth. I recall seeing that one of the recentish Hugo or some other big industry award shill was a sci-fi YA novel that was just "Enders Game but written by a lesbian, for lesbians" because they wanted to own Card for being anti-woke. Another big winner of some fantasy award in recent years was a negress that wrote YA Black Power Fantasy with Sex and Cussing.
It's disheartening to see this shit get pushed and it's always modern women pulling this shit.
Because scifi and tech are things - which males always orient towards. Fantasy is about "magic" which means it can run on people and feelings which women orient towards.
I mean just go to tiktok or some other hell site and see how much you can find of women talking about "manifesting" things.
You gonna start triggering my autism....
Sci-Fi has worlds that, ultimately, run on stuff we can conceive as potentially possible if we stretch things. Fantasy's more on being steeped in analogy and a blend of our folklore/myth/mysticisms.
What women don't like are the more historical based fantasies, or shit like the s&s genres. Chicks never seem to dig proper historical fiction unless it involves some weird sex shit. Same with s&s (do you really see modern women championing C. L. Moore and Leigh Brackett, who essentially did write sword and sorcery or sword and planet stories? )
Let's look at all the big acclaimed classic fantasies that pop to my mind. Lord of The Rings. A grand journey with the heroes having to face trials and tribulations. Conan the Barbarian tales are stories of a wandering adventurer's life that depict a competent and courageous warrior against a savage world. Elric of Melnibone depicts a very sickly man struggle with a very steeply uphill battle against the world. Lord of Light shows the journey of a reincarnated (?) hero-ish figure. Etc.
Male fantasy is about the journey and the trials. Female fantasy is about muh emotions and showing off how the mary sue is a badass woman. I think every female fantasy/sci fi writer in the west that I hear about in this generation (let's say millennials and under) has a habit of wanting to be famous and have something to justify an ego. Due to my experiences with english literature academia, it's what I've often heard this demographic of female writers display in their subject matter and mannerisms. They then start immediately "deconstruction" traditionally male-appealing works/genres and going on about how their "feminist reconstruction" is a work of art. Which leads to funny scenarios where they do this and then get upset when it doesn't sell or gets criticized.
I wouldn't have an issue with all this if they would stop being so aggressive about their cope and would stop shitting up social media and MSM with constant whinging in such a manipulatively entitled manner as if history was just going to turn them into popular girlbosses. I don't give a FUCK about Gail Simone or J. K. Rowling. I'm a dude. I grew up reading stories about normal men doing normally manly things. If I want to get in touch with my emotions and figure those out, I'll read The Old Man and the Sea again. I don't understand the need for constant emotional exploration and the rationalization that a lot of women and beta males have of "my emotions are someone's else's fault and not my responsibility."
Rant over.
Anyways kiwis, given the rampant infestation in just about every popular genre in mainstream publishing, what would be a list of kino YA books you'd recommend to parents and educators? Aside from the usual Narnia books, Hobbit, and whatnot. I was thinking the Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew books and Heinlein/Asimov juveniles along with le Guin's Earthsea would be a well rounded addition. Maybe add in Bullfinch's mythology books.
