Women in fantasy… traditionally their roll is the damsel in distress, luckily a companion or a crush for the main character, but gladly things are changing.

Last year I discovered some amazing books changing for good and hope forever, how we are seen. So let’s start reading. But before we start talking about last year’s books there is, probably, the best fantasy book ever, The wheel of time by Robert Jordan, ended by Brandon Sanderson, it’s a whole universe where men and women share power in villages, the circle of women and the counsel of men, but at country level women rules the world, the Seanchan empire, might her Empress live forever, Andor or Tar Valon where witches make monarchs kneel. Politics apart, the main characters and secondary ones are 50% males and females. You can like one character over another, my favorite is Elayne Trackand. There was a thread going on on reddit about this, about gender equality in books… I don’t think writers have to take care about gender equality this way when you start writing you know characters come alive and most of the time the writer has little or none control about what are they going to do next, at least how they are going to act next, but also I would love to see more female characters,main characters. Like:

The Cahill sisters, the Cahill chronicles by Jessica Stpotwoods, here we have three sisters Tess the oracle, Maura and Kate, witches living in an extremely patriarchal society set in the late 19th century, the book depicted both patriarchal and gynarchist societies and their risks. The Brothers forbidding women to read, to speak their mind, to marry. And the Sisters, willing to come back to a matriarchal society no matter what erasing minds, killing innocents… Society in the end revolts against Brothers when they learn women can be, must be an useful part of their social structure and when some sisters lead by Kate manage to bring a new kind of government based in… Equality.

Auri, from the slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss, it’s not that she is the main character, she is the only character of the book, she’s sweet, lovely, sensitive to the limit but also she is intelligent, decided, brave, and the book is just the most beautiful thing ever written, it will make you cry just for being so sweet and delicate, a jewel.

Vim, from mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson (remember his name he’s the one) well, she’s a more traditional fantasy character and she is all that male characters in a fantasy book are. With the help of some renegades and with magic she will fight the emperor and later the mist, in the way she learns to be a woman in all the aspects of the word, she learns to be a leader, she learns to let all go.

Shallan, Words of radiance by, guess who, Brandon Sanderson, she’s a soul caster, she has a dark secret, by soul casting she killed… A soul caster is something a woman can’t be, so here we found some empowering message, you can be whatever you want, we can! Also she is a very good student with quite an skill for drawing and make draws real.

Ylsriss, the Riven Wyrde saga by Graham Austin-King , she loses everything even her world, alone in the fae realm her strong spirit makes her revel against the faes and… Waiting for book three, I love her unbreakable strength,her wit. She is the unbeatable fighter for freedom and for once her companion is the damsel in distress.

And two fast references, The girl with all the gifts by Mike Carey, here we have not one but the two main characters are strong and very different women, Justineau, the teacher, her love for her children will change the world as they know it, and Melanie a ten years old IQ genius… well she’s not exactly a girl but a zombie, a hunger and the love of her teacher makes her become more human than humans.

And finally Chela, the broken empire by Mark Lawrence she’s a necromancer, and she is as bad as she can be the perfect anti-hero, we also need wicked, evil characters.

The tide is changing, it’s true that still most of the main characters are usually men, I won’t and can’t quote them all but with those awesome characters maybe writers stop being afraid depicting strong female characters. You know having a woman as a main character… But I have what Patrick Rothfus said when he was thinking about publishing The Slow Regard of Silent things, talking with his friend Vi: “I told her I liked it too, but that didn’t change the fact that people expect certain things from a story. If people read this story looking for those things, they wouldn’t get them, they’d be dissatisfied. Disappointed.

And Vi said something I hope she’ll forgive me for paraphrasing here without asking her first. She said, “Fuck those people. Those people get all the other stories in the world. Everyone writes stories for them. This story is for people like me. We deserve stories too.”

It was a story for me too. It’s one of those books that changes something inside you for better. And that’s why in my 2014 little list of books is the…

1. The slow regard of silent things.

2. Words of radiance.

3. The girl with all the gifts

4. Ready player one. (not sure if this is a 2014 book, but I don’t care it’s amazing)

5. Prince of fools and the broken empire trilogy.

6. Fae, the wild hunt, and Fae the realm of twilight.

7. The broken eye.

8. The Queen of Tearling.

9. First fifteen lives of Harry August.

10. Legion: skin deep.