I’ve been having a great time writing essays about Scorpica and the wider world of epic fantasy it fits into, and here’s one that’s near and dear to my heart. Have female characters always been part of epic fantasy? Yes, but not always in great numbers, and not always in great ways. For SFBook, I wrote about what happens when a great big epic includes only a handful of women. “Representation isn’t a box to be checked; it’s a conversation, a range of expression, an opportunity to broaden perspective and help an individual work of epic fantasy live up to the genre’s name.”