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

[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!