I'm fascinated by Tamora Pierce's stuff in the same way as I am Eleanor Arnason's - there are some really fascinating good bits in there, but there's something about the background assumptions in the writing that just bug me.

And it's not the standard assumptions, like assuming women can't do whatever - it's something subtler lurking in the way the world is built and the plot runs, some greater assumption about the way the universe works.

She does similar stuff in the quartet sets about the four kids with craft magic that I mentioned earlier, and it bugs me there, too.