YES, thank you. Ash is one of my favorite series, so incredibly ambitious and challenging. And I'm astonished to learn that Kate Elliott (!!) hasn't read it. I mean, if I wanted to point to women writing truly epic SFF in the last twenty years, Elliott and Gentle are two of the first who come to mind.

This time people are saying that GRRM writing female characters in Game of Thrones was revolutionary…because there had never been female characters in epic fantasy before?

Also, the FUCK? What fresh hell is this? What do you call Darkover or Pern or Jennifer Roberson's Swords novels? Or the work of Joyce Ballou Gregorian, or Pamela Dean? I believe Melanie Rawn and P.C. Hodgell wrote women characters into epic fantasy. It's all bullshit.

We apparently HAVE lived and died in vain!