Quote:
Originally Posted by BearMountainBooks
I am really disappointed in that list and the "almost" lists. There are at least two or three other female writers that should have made some of those lists. Perhaps the person making the list just hadn't read enough female writers.
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Oh, there are dozens of lists out there.
Each different, based on different criteria; none is gospel.
My point about LeGuin isn't that she isn't good but rather that she is far from the top, no matter the criteria. She has her fans but so does pretty much any author who writes a good story or two. Doesn't put her on a pedestal and above criticism when she says something thoroughly... misguided, to be kind (or cluelessly stupid, to be less than polite).
Frankly, she is too much a creature of her milieu--the 60's--and she is unlikely to touch future generations as deeply as her own. Too much of her stories are based on advocacy of causes that won't need advocacy and will seem more like curiosities to most readers.
She had her heydey and she'll have at least a footnote in the history books. But enduring greatness? Nope. Don't see it.
I do agree that the lists (and LeGuin's fans) seem to undervalued a lot of female SF&F authors with better chances at enduring fame. Cherryh, Wilhelm, Triptree, Joan Vinge and Butler all come to mind fairly easily.