Author Topic: Female science fiction authors  (Read 8960 times)

wintermute

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on: August 01, 2014, 12:39:43 PM
I was thinking about putting this in the "what are you reading?" thread, but decided not to so I could subscribe to responses more easily. If the mods decide this really belongs there, I wouldn't disagree.

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At the beginning of last year, I started tracking what I was reading, in both a spreadsheet (easy to share) and a database (more searchable) About three months ago, I added author genders to the database, purely out of curiosity, and was shocked to discover that only about 11% of the books I'd read had been by women. I've been working on correcting that and as of right now it's close to 25%, but I still need to do more to bring that up.

So my question is: What good science fiction is there out there by female authors that I'm missing?

Thanks.

You can see what I've read in the last 20 months here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/viutbjbxlkvys1t/books.xls

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lowky

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Reply #1 on: August 01, 2014, 01:39:19 PM
are you familiar with goodreads.com, which will track what you have read, what you want to read as well as what you are currently reading?  it is a social media site about books.  you can ask for recommendations etc.  You can join groups, take part in reading challenges, take part in virtual book clubs, discuss favorite authors, books etc. 

I don't see any Andre Norton on your list of authors.  She wrote both scifi and fantasy.  Same with Ursula K Le Guin. 


wintermute

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Reply #2 on: August 01, 2014, 01:44:12 PM
I don't see any Andre Norton on your list of authors.  She wrote both scifi and fantasy.  Same with Ursula K Le Guin. 
I read some Andre Norton as a kid (The Witch World comes to mind), and I wasn't impressed. I tried an audiobook of The Time Traders just recently from Librivox, and the audio quality and the narration quality were bad enough that I gave up after a couple of sentences. I've tracked down a version narrated by someone else, though, and I'm going to start listening just as soon as my podcast backlog empties out (which normally happens about Monday or Tuesday).

I'll look into leGuinn, too; vaguely familiar, but I'm not sure I've ever read any of the stuff.

Thanks.

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Fenrix

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Reply #3 on: August 01, 2014, 02:36:34 PM
You're missing James Tiptree Jr. Since you're here discussing this on a short fiction board, I would recommend Her Smoke Rose Up Forever as a collection of some of her most powerful short stories.

I'm reading Kathleen Ann Goonan's Crescent City Rhapsody right now. I'm enjoying it, but not loving it. I can't quite put my finger on it. There's some brilliant ideas in it. Structurally, it reminds me a lot of Schismatrix Plus. I think some of the distancing techniques are keeping me from being fully invested. Her novel In War Times won a Campbell award, so that might be a better place to start.

I read Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress earlier this year. I approached it know it was a response to Atlas Shrugged, so some of the lecture mode infodump sections didn't bother me as much as they could have. It both fails and succeeds as a response. It succeeds by creating a compelling and believable world populated with interesting characters. It fails by making the John Galt surrogate the least developed character in the book (and this turns it into a straw man, weakening the argument).

I'd put both Goonan and Kress down as worthwhile reads, and Tiptree as a must. 
« Last Edit: August 01, 2014, 02:39:09 PM by Fenrix »

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Devoted135

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Reply #4 on: August 01, 2014, 03:41:30 PM
I'm sure you're aware of Ann Leckie's new book? I haven't read it yet, but it's on the list as it were. :) Also, she won't be a completely new author to you but I really enjoyed N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and can't wait to read the rest of that trilogy.



DKT

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Reply #5 on: August 01, 2014, 04:25:03 PM
Are you talking just SF, or F too?

If it's just SF, yeah, highly recommend Ann's book (in case you hadn't heard me say that a million times!) and also have very good things about Kameron Hurley's SF trilogy, which starts off with God's War. (Very dark, very violent, etc.) Lauren Beukes writes...something that straddles the line, I'd say (Zoo City felt more like F than SF to me, but I suck at hard genre boundaries). I don't always love her books, but I do love her writing (if that makes sense). Elizabeth Bear has written a bunch of SF - I've read the Jenny Casey trilogy, kind of a cyberpunk space opera affair that's pretty good.


wintermute

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Reply #6 on: August 01, 2014, 05:55:58 PM
Fenrix:
I'll keep an eye out for James Tiptree, but she doesn't seem to have any books currently in Kindle format, which makes it less likely I'll get around to her.

I've had Probability Moon on my wish list for a couple of years, and somehow never even thought about it when this came up. That's definitely worth noting.

Devoted135:
I've read Ancillary Justice and have Ancillary Sword on pre-order.

DKT:
Primarily SF, for 2 reasons. 1) I read a lot more SF than F, and B) It seems a lot easier to find women writing F than SF, and if I can do a tiny amount to discourage publishers from turning down female-written SF on the grounds that there's no market for it*, then I'm in.

I'll keep an eye out for Kameron Hurley and Elizabeth Bear.

Thanks everyone, and keep them coming ;)


*I have no evidence that this is happening, but I suspect it might be.

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Fenrix

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Reply #7 on: August 01, 2014, 06:52:33 PM

Fenrix:
I'll keep an eye out for James Tiptree, but she doesn't seem to have any books currently in Kindle format, which makes it less likely I'll get around to her.


To whet your appetite, Lightspeed did Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death for Women Destroy Science Fiction: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/love-is-the-plan-the-plan-is-death/

I'm pretty sure the estate has all of that collection digitally. That would be worth working into a conversation with them to see what the plans are for an e-book. It would help my book club out as well, since Smoke on the master reading list.

As an aside, WDSF would also probably be worth adding to your list.

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DKT

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Reply #8 on: August 01, 2014, 06:58:43 PM
Lois McMaster Bujold and C.J. Cherryh come to mind also :)


wintermute

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Reply #9 on: August 01, 2014, 07:33:00 PM
Lois McMaster Bujold and C.J. Cherryh come to mind also :)

I read Cherryh's 40,000 in Gehenna in my teens and loved it. And I've been meaning to read more of her stuff, but when I look at her bibliography I get intimidated and can't figure out where to start. I have recently picked up Downbelow Station though, and I think that'll be the next book I start. But, annoyingly, the next in that series (Merchanter's Luck) seems to be out of print...

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Alasdair5000

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Reply #10 on: August 01, 2014, 07:55:19 PM
Courtesy of Kameron Hurley, some REALLY good books on here. The Koyanagi especially.

http://www.kameronhurley.com/if-you-liked-ancillary-justice-and-gods-war-youll-love/



wintermute

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Reply #11 on: August 01, 2014, 09:37:32 PM
Courtesy of Kameron Hurley, some REALLY good books on here. The Koyanagi especially.

Wow, nice. At least half of those are immediately going onto my wishlist.

Thanks :)

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wintermute

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Reply #12 on: August 06, 2014, 02:54:56 PM
I found this today: http://sfmistressworks.wordpress.com/about/

Looks like a handy source.

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Varda

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Reply #13 on: August 06, 2014, 03:31:31 PM
I don't know how I missed this thread, but I likes it. :D

I strongly second Fenrix's recommendation of Tiptree. I'm most familiar with her short stories and novellas, but definitely check out that link to the Lightspeed story as it's a good introduction to her major themes (particularly the question of biological determinism, and the relationship between love, sex, and death)

Sticking with just novels and not short fiction, I'll also add:

- Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake, which is really well-researched posthuman, postapocalypse SF with an eye toward genetic modification. Also, The Handmaid's Tale is a classic.
- Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness (and everything else in the Hainish Cycle, really).
- Octavia Butler - Xenogenesis trilogy (or really, everything she wrote)
- Check out Pat Murphy - The Falling Woman isn't a bad place to start
- Pat Cadigan writes great cyberpunk. I'm more familiar with her short stories, but I hear her novels are great too.
- Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death - sci-fantasy, but it won pretty much all the awards and is on my to-read list.
- Also, you can't go wrong with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein if you want to follow SF back to its roots. :) I think it's aged very well, too. I still reread it every once in a while.

ETA: and yeah, pick up Lightspeed's Women Destroy Science Fiction anthology/mega-issue. Aside from all the great stories, the nonfiction section contains reams of recommendations for outstanding women-authored SF to fill out your list.
« Last Edit: August 06, 2014, 03:37:56 PM by Varda »

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wintermute

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Reply #14 on: August 06, 2014, 10:58:27 PM
Varda:
I just listened to an audiobook of Frankenstein a couple of weeks ago. I was quite impressed by it, but mostly surprised by how different it is from the movie (and, therefore, from what everyone knows about Frankenstein).

Thanks for the suggestions.

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kibitzer

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Reply #15 on: August 06, 2014, 11:39:57 PM
Not sci-fi but I've always loved the Deryni novels of Katherine Kurtz. You don't hear much about her these days. The first Deryni novel (Deryni Rising) came out in 1970. She is not afraid to have bad stuff happen to her characters.


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Reply #16 on: August 07, 2014, 12:38:03 AM
I don't see anyone having mentioned Anne McCaffrey.  The Pern series starts out looking like fantasy, but contains surprises.  The Earthsea series is pretty much fantasy, though to me the Wizards seemed more like scientists and engineers than magicians.

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wintermute

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Reply #17 on: September 09, 2014, 03:16:37 PM
OK, some female Science Fiction authors I've discovered in the last couple of months, and have really enjoyed:

Kage Baker
Alena Graedon
Neve Maslakovic
Jaqueline Koyanagi
CJ Cherryh

Some of those are from recommendations here, some are not. Feel free to make other suggestions you think I might like.

Thanks guys.

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skeletondragon

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Reply #18 on: September 09, 2014, 05:23:57 PM
Pamela Sargent's series of Women of Wonder anthologies not only contain a huge wealth of stories by female authors from throughout the history of sci-fi, they also contain "further reading" sections that could keep you occupied for years to come.

As far as my favorite authors that haven't been mentioned yet - Jayge Carr, Joanna Russ, Judith Merril, and Sonya Dorman.



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Reply #19 on: November 05, 2014, 06:14:06 PM
Along with the already-mentioned C J Cherryh, I'm fond of Kate Wilhelm.

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