This is awesome, and a wonderful way to point out to point out the sexism of the industry. It makes me want to buy his books.
Science fiction and fantasy novels routinely portray scantily clad woman on their covers - a device that draws the heterosexual male eye but may turn away women readers. Lynsea Garrison finds one fantasy author aiming to zap gender stereotypes.
Reminds me of the excellent "Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor" tumblr :)
So... I'm calling bullshit. This is Tor. They are one of the biggest sci fi publishers in the industry. If you peruse the page, you will notice that "sexy girls" are hardly in evidence. I went clear back to September through their releases and the sexiest thing they've got looks kind of like a Max Factor ad gone bad: Taking things a little more broadly, here's Amazon's sci fi page. The worst it gets is Kim Harrison's Ever After: Here's Kim, by the way: Sure - you could have made this point back when Frank Franzetta was calling the shots. That was a long damn time ago - 40 years or more. Hajime Sorayama used to porn up Omni pretty badly too but Omni has been out of print for 20 years. Yeah, Heavy Metal is still ridiculous but c'mon - so's penthouse. Even comics, at least on the Indie side, are growing tamer. Of the five publishers I'm friends with the sexiest by far is Zenescope, who also have the highest female readership because they have the highest ratio of heroine-led comic series. Sexism is bad. Don't get me wrong. Bad cover art is bad, too. But there's a world of difference between striking a blow for truth and justice and picking on shit that was topical back when Nixon was president.
I disagree. That's why I posted. "A simple look into a book store's scifi/fantasy section" shows a lot less sexism than it ever has before. here's the last edition of Game of Thrones prior to the HBO series (which, you must admit, is rife with sex): Here's the edition before that: I linked to two publishers and a bookseller. For completeness, here's Barnes & Noble. Here's Tattered Cover. Here's Powell's.. You are making the same mistake as the author: you are projecting what you want to be true on to what is true. As I wrote this, Arcana sent out their PR for their Free Comic Book Day: There isn't even any cleavage on this page. Yeah, the Wicked Witch is showing a little leg, but c'mon. There's more skin and sex in the average playbill for the Vagina Monologues.
