I don’t have the time to read a biography of an author before I read a novel by them. If I did, I would have almost no time to read fiction at all. You haven’t actually researched all the authors whose fiction you read. You’ve heard about the moral actions and the politics of two of them, Bradley and Card, and you’ve decided on that basis you will boycott their works. Whose fiction do you read, and what research did you do about them?
You’re asking us to boycott the works of Bradley, who died fifteen years ago, because she enabled a child molester who died twenty-one years ago. What do you even know about her estate? I would presume that her children inherited her estate. You’re complaining about the fact that some part of any money spent on Bradley’s books might go to Elizabeth Waters, who might be an enabler for Bradley’s enabling of Breen. How long can this chain go? Do you refuse to buy a book because money might go to an enabler of an enabler of an enabler of a child molester? Your method of choosing what books to buy is hopelessly convoluted and almost random.
Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series is about Nita Callahan’s discovery that wizardry exists, but that it is almost like highly advanced science. Very, very well written stories.
Elizabeth Kerner has a traditional fantasy trilogy that starts with **Song in the Silence **with a pretty plucky heroine setting out to discover dragons.
Marie Brennan has an “alternate universe” sort of Victorianish series (two books out at the moment, more planned) that starts with A Natural History of Dragons with a pretty plucky heroine setting out to discover dragons.
Despite my descriptions, the two books are VERY different, with the first going the traditional fantasy route of dragons being sentient species, and the second treating dragons as a particularly interesting animal species. I loved them both - I’m a sucker for dragons.
His Dark Materials is rather dark and quite shocking. It isn’t just the anti-religious message, the storyline includes several quite disturbing incidents. And the heroine in the book isn’t a normal child heroine like you see in the movie, or in other fantasy novels. She’s uncouth, wild, and the embodiment of inappropriate behavior for girls 9-12.
Coming in late, but the Emperor’s Edge by Lindsay Buroker is sort of a steampunk/fantasy book with a fun female lead. It’s a eight book series, but pretty entertaining.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned L.E. Modesitt’s Soprano Sorceress series yet, about an opera singer who winds up in a fantasy world who discovers she can sing magic, or Charles Stross’s Merchant Princes book, where a tech reporter discovers she is the heir to this family of dimension hopping merchants/smugglers.
