Lord of the RingsRead about another series on the list.
There's nothing overtly misogynist about J.R.R. Tolkien's seminal fantasy trilogy, but you have to admit the Fellowship is kind of a sausage party. You could drop all the female characters from the books and lose probably less than 50 pages. In fact, there are only three female characters of note: 1) Arwen, who is Aragorn's mostly off-page love interest, 2) Galadriel, who is the mightiest of all the Elves (according to Tolkien) but who really doesn't do anything other than giving each member of the Fellowship a pep talk and lembas bread, and 3) Eowyn, who actually does kick some Nazgul ass, although she has to disguise herself as a man to get the opportunity. There's a reason Peter Jackson increased the roles of all three female characters in the movies. And that reason? An overabundance of manliness!
The Lord of the Rings also made Conrad Mason's top ten list of magical objects in fiction, Linus Roache's six best books list, Derek Landy's top ten list of villains in children's books, Charlie Jane Anders and Michael Ann Dobbs' list of ten classic SF books that were originally considered failures, Lev Grossman's list of the six greatest fantasy books of all time, and appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best women dressed as men, ten of the best bows and arrows in literature, ten of the best beards in literature, ten of the best towers in literature, ten of the best volcanoes in literature, ten of the best chases in literature, and ten of the best monsters in literature. It is one of Salman Rushdie's five best fantasy novels for all ages. It is a book that made a difference to Pat Conroy.
--Marshal Zeringue
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