Women in Scifi: books and graphic novels

[alias_sqbr]

What science fiction books by/about women (preferably both) do you consider "required reading" (as much as that phrase makes sense)? eg The books that are so great or influential you think most scifi book geeks should at least give them a go.

Obviously this is hugely subjective! And nothing is really required, read what you like. I just thought it would be interesting to compare to the previous list.


So, my incredibly subjective and limited list. Graphic novels and manga are included, but games/movie/tv are not. Unfortunately I haven't been very successful at transcending the "white people from the US" bias of most reclists, the publishing industry etc. These are NOT all feminist, and some are very problematic/dated etc.

Stuff I really liked:
Octavia Butler: Wild Seed (and probably the rest of the Patternist series once I've read it), Parable of the talents, Xenogenesis
Lois McMaster Bujold: The Miles Vorkosigan Series
Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog
Ursula K Le Guin: The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed, a billion other books
Pat Cadigan: Fools
Phil and Kaja Foglio: Girl Genius
N K Jemisin: The Effluent Engine
Shaenon Garrity: Narbonic
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller: Liaden Series (most of what I've read of it, anyway)

Stuff I really like with great female characters and male writers:
Andrew Hussie: Homestuck (sooo many caveats)
Brian K. Vaughan: Runaways
Daniel Keyes Moran: The Armageddon Blues
Adam Rex: The True Meaning of Smekday

"Classics" I thought were just ok:
C J Cherryh: Cyteen, Downbelow Station, Foreigner, etc
Elizabeth Moon: The Speed of Dark
Kate Wilhelm: Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang
James Tiptree Junior: Up the Walls of the World
Anne McAffery: The Rowan, the Ship Who Sang, etc (though I adored them as a teen)

"Classics" I didn't like:
Suzette Haden Elgin: Native Tongue
Mary Doria Russell: The Sparrow
Sherri S Tepper: Beauty (...wait that's not scifi. But it put me off trying her other stuff)
Joan D. Vinge: The Snow Queen
Nancy Kress: Beggars in Spain
Vonda McIntyre: Dreamsnake

"Classics" I haven't read:
Andre Norton: ???
Mary Shelley: Frankenstein

On my "To Read" list:
Janet Kagan: Hellspark

I KNOW I am missing some really obvious books. So tell me :)

Comments

[pebblerocker]

Kindred was the first Octavia Butler I read and so far it's my favourite.

Elizabeth Moon's Speed of Dark I found very distressing; here's my post after reading it, in which I also mentioned some problems with her other books which overall I did enjoy despite parts that weren't so great.

C J Cherryh is an author I love. The Foreigner series has linguistics and communication between cultures as a major plot factor, and I love that it's never easy and always complicated for the characters to deal with.

McCaffrey: loved the dragon ones as a teen, cringe at the rapey romances. I like the concept of the Ship Who Sang books but have serious reservations about some of the handling of it.

Nancy Kress: I haven't read Beggars in Spain, I liked the Probability Moon books. Plenty of amazing futuristic technology, with its operation important to the story, not just spacey-sounding things tacked on for effect.

To add to the list: the Animorphs YA series! Excellent female characters, lots of ethical dilemmas, humour, facts on our Earth animals, various aliens, grey and grey morality with some members of the baddie aliens disagreeing with their methods. K A Applegate is a woman; the ghostwriters were women and men. I was an adult when I read them but found them hugely enjoyable.

[alias_sqbr]

I must get around to reading Kindred! It can be hard to find her stuff in Australia unfortunately.

You make a very good point about Speed of Dark. I think I...rewrote the ending in my mind, or something, because I couldn't believe she'd done what she seemed to have done. Your description about the army-ness of her other books reminded me why I never got into them.

I think I need to revisit Foreigner, I was quite young when I read it and my tastes have changed pretty dramatically.

Yeah with McCaffery the "think is ok" is basically an average of my love as a teen and my much much lower opinion now :)

The couple of Nancy Kress books I've read basically seemed to assume that most people are nasty and selfish, and her scifi worldbuilding grew from that. I found this unpleasant and unconvincing.

People keep telling me that Animorphs is great, but until now they've all been people who read them as a teen. If they hold up to a new adult reader maybe I should give them a go.

[tree]

jsyk, i borrowed 'kindred' from my local library. so if all else fails you could request an interstate library loan from north sydney. ;)

(okay i will stop commenting in this thread now.)

[alias_sqbr]

Comment away! That's what the comment section is for! :)

Not sure the library system does loans from the eastern states though. I guess I could give it a go!

[tree]

i'd be surprised if they did. i think only university libraries do that sort of thing.

in the unlikely event that you can't find a copy at all, i'd be happy to borrow it and post it to you. (although there'll be no library trips for me until my foot heals. heh, i initially typed 'heels'. clearly i need to go to bed.)

[pedanther]

In case you didn't already know, the WA State Library system has an online catalogue that I've found very useful for identifying targets for interlibrary loans.

Doesn't look like they have "Kindred", though; only "Fledgling" and "Parable of the Sower".

[alias_sqbr]

Yep, that's why I've read those two :)

[pebblerocker]

I was going to say I wasn't really a very adult adult, but it had to have been when I was in my early to mid twenties, not as long ago as I thought. (But my current re-read is the set of Trixie Belden mysteries I bought aged 12, so maybe I'm just not very adult at any age.) My younger brothers were devouring Animorphs and I read along with them; my mother liked the books too as a more qualified adult!

My copy of Kindred was ex-library in NZ. I think I got Wild Seed from the library too. I hope you do find her books somewhere near.

[bunny_m]

Female speculative fiction authors I recommend:
Emma Bull - Especially War For The Oaks, Finder and Territory

Elizabeth Bear - The Jenny Casey series (Hammered, Scardown and Worldwired), her short stories and Shadow Unit, if you are a fan of Criminal Minds.

Elizabeth Moon: Most especially the Deed of Paksenarrion series, but also her Familias Regnant and Vatta's War series

Sheri S. Tepper's earlier works, most especially The True Game works. Her later works seem to really suffer from 'ranting at the choir, IMO


I know there are more but I can't think of them atm...


-- Warning: Bear (and Bull, to a lesser extent,) is totally not afraid of breaking your heart in a story, but only ever in a way that is true to the characters and the narrative.

[alias_sqbr]

Hey, I asked for scifi, I know at least some of those are fantasy!

(I did adore Finder, though :))

[tree]

tepper's 'beauty' is a classic? huh. if you're inclined to give her another shot, i'd go for 'grass'.

marianne de pierres is an australian sci-fi author whose stuff i really like. this year i read her 'the sentients of orion' quartet and it blew me away.

i second 'kindred' by octavia butler.

kim westwood is another australian writer i like. she's written two novels: 'the courier's new bicycle' and 'the daughters of moab'.

i also really liked 'echo city' by tim lebbon. the main characters are female.

have you tried any tanith lee?

[alias_sqbr]

Oops, I got halfway through a train of thought with that. Beauty isn't really scifi, and I'm not sure it counts as a classic, but I hated it so much I haven't been willing to try any of her classic scifi books.

I read some of Marianne de Pierres short fiction and really didn't like it, but I do mean to try her longer works one day.

I have not tried any of those other authors! Tanith Lee is on my "to try" list but I'm never sure where to start.

[tree]

i read a lot of tepper in high school, but i can't remember if i've read beauty or not, to be honest. my favourites of hers from memory are 'grass' and 'gibbon's decline and fall'; however, i have since learned that gd&f contains racial 'othering' issues that flew past me the first time around.

the first MDP books i read were the parrish plessis novels. i liked them a lot but they also left me feeling kind of 'eh', if that even makes sense. 'sentients', though, i practically inhaled. i think i read the four novels in about a week and a half. i tend not to like short fiction, so i haven't read any of hers. if you would like more information i am very happy to babble at you some more but i won't right now. :)

tanith lee has written so many things it is possible she's not actually human. some of her stuff is more scifi and some more fantasy. i've only read a handful of things over the years and a lot of it i haven't even liked that much, but she's just one of those writers who i keep going back to because her ideas are so interesting. actually, i have a copy of one of her short stories that i scanned for hele ages ago. i could send it to you if you're interested.

[alias_sqbr]

I'll have to look up Sentients.

If you think I'd like the story then sure that would be interesting, thanks!

[pedanther]

I hated it so much I haven't been willing to try any of her classic scifi books.

I think that's probably a good call; I've disliked most of Tepper's books for the same kinds of reasons that I disliked "Beauty" (which does have that scifi bit in it, though I agree the overall framework is fantasy).

"The Song of Mavin Manyshaped" is one of the treasured books of my childhood, but that might just be that it got me young enough that the problems went over my head; I haven't re-read it since I was a teenager, at the same time I got around to reading the rest of that series and not liking them as much.


Tanith Lee is on my "to try" list but I'm never sure where to start.

For the intersection of Tanith Lee, science fiction, and female protagonist, the one I keep hearing recommended is "The Silver Metal Lover".

(I haven't read it myself; I have an emotional investment in not reading it and continuing to believe I'd like it if I did, because I loved the first Tanith Lee novel I ever read and every one I've read since has been a disappointment.)

[alias_sqbr]

The obvious response to that is: what was the one Tanith Lee you liked? :)

[pedanther]

It's fantasy, so it doesn't count. :)

The Dragon Hoard, her first children's novel; it's a world-of-fairytales comic fantasy, about a prince who sets out to seek his fortune after being cursed by a witch who wasn't invited to his birthday party, and finds at first that there's a dearth of dragons to slay or great quests to go on. Then he gets involved in the Quest for the Dragon Hoard, which is a lot like the Quest for the Golden Fleece only much funnier.

[alias_sqbr]

I hadn't heard of that one, thanks!

[fred_mouse]

I too loved the first Tanith Lee I ever read, and haven't finished one of her stories since. It was "Sabella" which skates that line between fantasy and sf and horror. It is possibly one of my favourite reworkings of the vampire myth, but it has very skeevy sexual politics that are a direct result of the world building.

Sqbr - I can't handle answering the original question at the moment, but I will try and make a post on it at some point. I would need to mooch along my shelves, and tease out fantasy from horror from SF, and such like. But the first two names that came to mind were Madeleine L'Engle and Ursula le Guin, only one of whom I saw listed. And I adored "Dreamsnake", but it is very clearly fantasy in my head, and I recommend it to people as an example of how to do complicated fantasy without making it a trilogy, and making it all look effortless.

[yalovetz]

I'm not good at listing and you've mentioned several already that I would agree with wholeheartedly.

In addition to what's already been mentioned, I'd add:

Elizabeth Moon's Remnant Population, just because it's one of the only science fiction novels I can think of with an older woman as the protagonist.
Nicola Griffith's Ammonite.
Karen Traviss' City of Pearl.
Julie Czerneda's Species Imperative trilogy for the awesome female scientists and Web Shifters trilogy for the awesome aliens.

[kerravonsen]

Karen Traviss' City of Pearl.
I really liked the world-building and aliens in this one. I didn't like the later books in the series, though.

Julie Czerneda's Species Imperative trilogy for the awesome female scientists and Web Shifters trilogy for the awesome aliens.
I found her stuff too much of a doorstop, even though I agree that what I've read of her is good.

[alias_sqbr]

Thank you! Awesome female scientists are always good :)

[kerravonsen]

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller: Liaden Series (most of what I've read of it, anyway)
Oh yes. Not all of them have the same level of goodness; I was rather disappointed by Crystal Soldier/Crystal Dragon, because the world-building didn't make sense.
But a lot of their stuff hits my love-it buttons: psi powers, and space traders. Both together! Yay!

Daniel Keyes Moran: The Armageddon Blues
Yeah, the heroine was a really good character, wasn't she?

Anne McAffery: The Rowan, the Ship Who Sang, etc (though I adored them as a teen)
Me too. I'm still rather fond of "The Ship Who Searched" (one of the co-written Ship-Who series, the best of them) She burnt out, I think. Her later books were not as good.

Mary Doria Russell: The Sparrow
Good but so harrowing I've never wanted to read it again. It's like "Schindler's List" in that way.

Joan D. Vinge: The Snow Queen
I adored this. The characters, the concepts, the themes, the worldbuilding, the way the fairy tale wove into the story without it being a retelling.

Vonda McIntyre: Dreamsnake
I read this as a teenager, and I think I liked it more then, than when I tried to re-read it later.

Andre Norton: ???
Very much teen/YA novels; I don't think they hold up to adult scrutiny; the character arcs are too simplistic. Fantastic world-building, though. She burnt out, alas; avoid anything written after 1980. That still leaves plenty to read. Some of my favourites:
- Moon of Three Rings
- The Jargoon Pard
- The Crystal Gryphon
- Breed to Come
- The Ice Crown

Tanith Lee is on my "to try" list but I'm never sure where to start.
Her SF and Fantasy are so different they're like they're by different people. Her fantasy tends to the dark and creepy, IMHO.
Some favourites:
- Biting the Sun (omnibus of _Don't Bite the Sun_ and _Drinking Sapphire Wine_) - far-future SF
- The Silver Metal Lover - far-future SF
- Kill The Dead - Fantasy
- Companions on the Road - Fantasy

[pedanther]

Her SF and Fantasy are so different they're like they're by different people. Her fantasy tends to the dark and creepy, IMHO.

Huh. Maybe I should take my courage into my hands and try some of her SF, then. I mentioned above that I'd been disappointed by most of her books I'd read, but they were all from the fantasy side.

[kerravonsen]

Yes, do give her another go. I tend to like her SF more than her fantasy anyway.

[kerravonsen]

Perusing my bookcases, a few more recs:

- "Dangerous Notes" by Gillian Bradshaw
(near-future, medicine, music)
- "Enchantress from the Stars" and "The Far Side of Evil" by Silvia Engdahl
(alien anthropologists sworn to kill themselves rather than reveal they are alien, psi powers)
- "Children of the Star" by Silvia Engdahl
(omnibus of a trilogy; a who-watches-the-watchers kind of story)
- "The Alien Dark" by Diana G. Gallagher
(good world-building of aliens with a different mindset)
- "The People Collection" by Zenna Henderson (though I think it's out of print)
(psi-powered alien refugees crashed on earth in the early 1900s, blended in)
- "Divine Endurance" by Gwyneth Jones
(be careful what you wish for, you may get it)
- "Andra" by Louise Lawrence
(far-future, underground cities, questions of freedom)
- the Sime~Gen series by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah
(far-future, humanity has split into two subspecies, Sime and Gen. Sime feed on the Gen, the Gen dies... except when they don't)
- "Aurora" by Sally Odgers
(what would it really be like if a human-like alien was brought up on Earth?)
- "Translations in Celadon" by Sally Odgers
(parallel realities, imagination, the relationship between two girls)
- "Trinity Street" by Sally Odgers
(time travel, paradoxes!)
- "Brain Plague" by Joan Slonczewski
(intelligent microbes. Yes, really.)
- the Firebird trilogy by Kathy Tyers
(politics, culture-clash, psi powers, love)
- "The Outcasts of Heaven Belt" by Joan Vinge
(devastated by a past war, the inhabitants of the "Heaven" system struggle for survival)
- "Psion" and "Catspaw" by Joan Vinge
(street rat, psi powers)

[alias_sqbr]

Wow, thank you for so many recs! Your bookshelf sounds much more full than mine :)

[kerravonsen]

Friends come and go, books accumulate. 8-P

[fred_mouse]

Kerravonsen notes that the Zenna Henderson a out of print - we have at least two books of hers, and I think that they are both from that series, so if you are interested, you a welcome to borrow.

[sqbr]

Thank you, I'll bear that in mind!