Woman-Authored Scifi Recommendations
I spent about the last half of 2015 reading only woman-authored scifi. I’ve had a lot of people ask me for recommendations. I’ve been keeping my book lists on goodreads. But, I thought I’d put some here (I’ll update as I think of them). I don’t have time right now to put up reviews of them, but these are ones that I would recommend.
Standouts (go read these now)
- The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers goodreads
- Recovering Apollo 8 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch goodreads
- The Legend of ZERO series by Sara King goodreads
Others of Note
- Dark Orbit by Carolyn Ives Gilman goodreads
- The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood goodreads
- Memory by Linda Nagata goodreads
- The Phoenix Code by Catharine Asaro goodreads
- Crossfire series by Nancy Kress goodreads
- Forgotten Suns by Judith Tarr goodreads
Not Technically Sci-Fi but I enjoyed
Common Answers to Common Questions
- I read the first two books of the Imperial Radch series by Ann Leckie and had trouble getting into them. Might return later, but there are so many ones that I do get into out there.
- Wondering why there is no Ursula K. LeGuin (or your favorite author)? These are highlights of the books I’ve read over the latter part of 2015. And most of these were unknown to me before.
- Have I read Y? Where Y is a great woman author. No, I probably haven’t. Please feel free to tweet to me, so I can put her on my reading list, including a specific book if possible.
- Are the stories different? Maybe. There are some things I think I notice, but I’m unsure if it is just the typical “well, not all the female protaganists have big boobs”-level of obvious. So, I’m settling on the thought that it isn’t that the stories are different, just that the ones I listed above are good. Bear in mind that I have spent a lot of time reading self-published space opera, so there’s that.
What’s Next
This was a great way to expand the currently incredibly list of authors I know about. Right now, I’m finishing up The Void (Peter F. Hamilton, a dude, but I started it after the new year on a recommendation from someone). After this, I’m diving back into my constraint-based discovery of awesomeness by enhancing the constraint: woman- and POC-authored. I recently attended a presentation by Floyd Webb on Afrofuturism (including this timeline), and it solidified the realization that I’ve been missing out by settling for the usual, “Amazon recommends this white guy based on your reading of this other white guy” list of books. If you have great suggestions, please send them to me. First up, some Octavia Butler!
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