I decided to write about Mary Gentle as I love her name and then in doing more research I found a very interesting blog, the author positively loves Gentle and thinks she’s awesome, the article made me want to write about her for much better reasons.

Born in the UK in 1956 Gentle started writing fantasy but became known for her Orthe sequence. The protagonist comes to Orthe to try and open up the planet for exploitation, sort of like the early days of Avatar.

The book the blogger thinks is so awesome is Ash, it’s alternate history and the protagonist has been genetically engineered so she hears a computer in her head.

So, onto the blogger. She’s quite enthusiastic and almost makes me want to read the book. She’s meant to be talking about Black Opera but starts gushing about Ash and how it’s choc-a-bloc with excellent female characters, those who do stuff and kick butt and basically don’t need men around to get stuff done for them. In case you want to read this article you can find on Tor.

I couldn’t find Ash for you but here’s Black Opera and Grunts which seems to be a parody of fantasy novels with orc heroes and racist elves…although most of the elves I’ve read about are racist.