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Looking for books about men and women living well with each other - Input Junkie

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January 20th, 2015
11:22 am

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Looking for books about men and women living well with each other
I just read The Just City by Jo Walton*, and it's a spectacular book.... but there's rather a lot about rape (of women by men), and about women getting stuck with most of the childcare, and I find that I'm tired of reading about misogyny.

In some moods, and moreso in the past, I've wanted to read about societies where women are oppressed, and about women getting revenge, with a special fondness for C. J. Cherryh's "The Haunted Tower"-- that's the one about the far future mayor of London's mistress and the ghosts in the tower of London, but the last time I read it, it had worn out. It's not that I want those stories to go away or that other people shouldn't read them.

I expect there's fiction about societies where it's the default for men and women to treat each other well, but my mental filing system isn't turning them up. Any suggestions?

*I just realized I'd been recommending a non-existent book called The Good City. I hope google will make up for my lapse.

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From:heron61
Date:January 21st, 2015 05:09 am (UTC)
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Megan Lindholm's Ki & Vandien series (starts with Harpy's Flight), Rosemary Kirstein's Steerswoman series, most novels by Andre Norton written between 1963 (when she started having female protagonists) and the mid 1970s (when the quality of her work began declining), Diane Duane's Tales of the Five (starts with The Door Into Fire) are the ones that most immediately come to mind.
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From:elenbarathi
Date:January 21st, 2015 05:41 am (UTC)
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The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Leguin. (Also The Left Hand of Darkness, in a manner.)

Pilgrimage and The People: No Different Flesh by Zenna Henderson

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress and Glory Road by Robert Heinlein

Woman On The Edge Of Time by Marge Piercy, in parts.

The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk, in parts.

The Kin of Ata Are Waiting For You by Dorothy Bryant.



Edited at 2015-01-21 05:44 am (UTC)
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From:heron61
Date:January 21st, 2015 05:51 am (UTC)
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I entirely agree with your suggestion of the Leguin & Henderson novels, and I haven't read the last 3 on your list, but I'm far more dubious about the inclusion of those two Heinlein novels - I remember The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress better than Glory Road, and in it I remember the typical Heinlein dirty-old-man pseudo-feminism. A few months ago, I ran into this review of The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, and it matches perfectly with my memories of that novel.
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From:apostle_of_eris
Date:January 21st, 2015 04:41 pm (UTC)
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Because, believe it or not, there are some actual good things about the book that should be mentioned, for fairness and well-roundedness’s sake.

Well gag me with noblesse oblige.
From:don_fitch
Date:January 21st, 2015 04:06 pm (UTC)
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F. M. Busby's works, especially the Rissa Kerguelan/Bran Tregary series. (Probably now all Out Of Print.) A very '70s Attitude, and kinda Dated (the climax was in the year 2000) but there's the proper Idealism (which seems to me to be admirable, but then I'm a Progressive who was born in 1928). The women are strong (maybe sometimes _too_ Strong), but generally get along fine with the men. who might also sometimes be _too_ Strong. I've re-read most of his works several times. and wish the human inter-relationships in the world had become more like those in the one he depicts -- though in some ways they've become similar.

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From:heron61
Date:January 22nd, 2015 01:12 am (UTC)
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Coming up with novels written by men is more challenging, but many of Alastair Reynolds' novels qualify, especially his most recent two Blue Rememebered Earth and On the Steel Breeze.
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From:kgbooklog
Date:January 22nd, 2015 03:17 am (UTC)
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Lawrence Watt-Evans' Ethshar series? His characters tend to be remarkably nice and reasonable.
From:anna_wing
Date:January 22nd, 2015 07:28 am (UTC)
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Here from fjm. I recommend Andrea K Host. A truly excellent and original writer, currently self-published, but better than almost everyone I've read in a long time (and I have been reading SF and fantasy since the 1970s).
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From:heron61
Date:January 27th, 2015 10:35 pm (UTC)
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I just finished The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, which is also available on Amazon, and I both enjoyed it and it definitely fits these criteria.
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