Celebrating Women's Writing in SFF

I missed International Women's Day yesterday (as I miss most of these things). This morning I saw someone tweet their desk filled with books by female authors, and I thought, I can do something like that.

So here are books I own (physically and digitally), written by women, that I can recommend. It also highlighted a few gaps in my ownership (no Hunger Games or Parable of the Sower??). I've mostly separated them into SF and fantasy, though the fantasy image has a few historical fiction books on the bottom left. Note, I own a lot more fantasy novels in general, as it was my preferred subgenre until more recently, hence the disparity between the SF and fantasy piles.

I hope you find something new here, or something you realize it's time to reread!

Rethinking Gender Part 2

Posting my review of Ancillary Justice this week got me thinking about gender in books again.  Paired with Bookworm Blues’ post from last week, where she reflects on how some people have recommended books to her with the proviso ‘but you’d probably not enjoy it because you’re a woman’, I started thinking about my own relationship with gender and books.

I’ve personally never had anyone say that I wouldn’t like a book because of my gender (for which I’m grateful), but it reminded me of something I’d noticed over the holiday season when I was working extra at the bookstore.  I realized that when men asked me for book recommendations I avoided recommending books by women unless I’d read the book in question and knew there was limited/no romance.

This disturbed me because I was assuming that men wouldn’t want books written by women and/or men didn’t want romance in their books.  Granted, I tend to ask what other books a reader liked before recommending something and try to fit my recommendation within that framework.  But the fact that I automatically defaulted to ‘dude wants stereotypical dude book’ was an awkward revelation for someone who believes women write books equal to men.

It was also disturbing because I wasn’t sure if this was something I’ve always done and only recently become aware of or if my aversion to recommending female authors was because of all the posts I’ve read on the internet by and about men saying they don’t read female authors.

The posts have made me more aware of the female authors out there and I’ve made a point of displaying them on endcaps, but it still disturbs me that I could be actively preventing men from reading women by assuming they don’t want to read books by women.

I’m personally not keen on romance plots (though I like sexual tension in books - as it tends to create fun dialogue and situations), so I generally look for books by women - and men, since they write romantic plots too - that are light on or missing the romance and are, instead, heavy on plot.  I also tend to recommend books I’ve personally read, since it’s easier to be excited about a book - and pass on that excitement - when you liked it yourself.

It’s also only something I’ve done with regards to SF, probably because I’m more widely read in fantasy and so have more I can recommend.  I’ve been reading more SF lately, including books by women, so I plan to make more female SF recommendations in future.

Re: The Strange Horizons 2012 SF Count

io9 has a post about the number of male vs female SF authors who were reviewed last year by a variety of venues in response to this post by Strange Horizons.  As usual, books by women were greatly underrepresented.

But what surprises me are the comments by people asking where these books by women are and what they should read if they want to read a science fiction book by a woman.

Seriously?  You're writing a comment on a website on this amazing thing called the internet, and you can't figure out how to find books by women?  Try doing a google search.

Here are two websites with lots of suggestions that came up immediately under the search "science fiction books by women": Goodreads' Science Fiction Books by Female Authors and The New York Review of Science Fiction's 200 Significant Science Fiction Books by Women, 1984–2001, by David G. Hartwell.  Wow, that was easy.  There's also a list of female SF authors I put together some time ago with a lot of suggestions.  

It's really not hard to find female authors in any genre.  I can't walk two steps at the bookstore where I work without stumbling over several books by women in any genre (though you don't find many books by men in the romance section).  I'll admit, I'm spoiled in that my store's unusual in its size and the variety of books we carry.  I forget sometimes that all the backlist titles we carry in full aren't available in other stores.  And online bookstores leave a lot to be desired when it comes to discovering books.  If you don't know what you're looking for, good luck finding it.

Which is where the Strange Horizons' findings become a problem.  More than ever book review magazines and blogs are how readers discover books, and if women's books aren't reviewed, how are readers supposed to find them?  And how many more readers will wonder in the future, where the books by women are?

* Edited to add

I just read this great article by Radish Reviews responding to the Strange Horizons info, questioning why Romantic Times Magazine, which reviews a good number of SF/F isn't included in their survey.  I've made a habit over the past few years of reading their reviews every month.  Ok, I read the SF/F, urban fantasy, graphic novel and teen reviews but they do so much more (general fiction, all branches of romance, and mysteries).  They review a mix of titles by men and women, including a few ebook originals.  While I don't always agree with their ratings, they've got some great reviews.  The reviews are also a good way of seeing what's coming.  The magazine itself often has information about the state of the publishing industry.  So don't let the "Romantic" label fool you, this is a good source for book reviews.

Female Science Fiction Author Reading List

This post is in belated response to all the hoopla that comes up over and over again about female authors and awards, etc.  It goes along with the guest post I've done for Fantasy Cafe (which is now up, so go and check it out).  Unlike most of my reading lists, which are endcap displays at the store where I work, this was a list I put together for my blog, by walking through the aisles and writing down every female SF writer I could find.  I know I've missed a lot (as not all authors are still in print, some still use pseudonyms and so many authors are going the epublishing route nowadays), so feel free to mention other authors in the comments.

In the case of romantic SF, I'm linking to the list I did a few months ago and adding a few names here that aren't on that list.  And if you want Dystopian, check out the reading list I did for that.

I tried to categorized authors but apologize for any mistakes I might have made.  The only places I doubled names were to flesh out Time Travel and Alternate History and in one case Series (if an author wrote one of those as well as another category).

My hard SF list is purposefully small, as it's hard to judge the accuracy of the science and if the book revolves around a specific scientific idea without reading it.  So these are books that I'm pretty sure are hard SF, but I'm also pretty sure there will be hard SF books in my general SF category.

As you can see from this long yet incomplete list, there are a lot of women writing science fiction.  Seems a shame more of them aren't remembered come award time.

Hard SF

Nancy Kress - Probability Moon
Glynn Latner - Hurricane Moon

M. J. Locke - Up Against It

Syne Mitchell - Changeling Plague

Joan Slonczweski - Brain Plague

General SF

Ann Aguirre - Grimspace

C. L. Anderson - Bitter Angels

Margaret Ball - Disappearing Act

Elizabeth Bear - Dust

Lauren Beukes - Zoo City
Leigh Brackett - The Secret of Sinharat

M. M. Buckner - Watermind

C. J. Cherryh - Foreigner

Sara Creasy - Song of Scarabaeus

Julie Czerneda - A Thousand Words for Stranger

Marienne de Pierres - Dark Space

Diane Duane - Omnitopia Dawn

Jaine Fenn - Principles of Angels

J. M. Frey - Triptych

Nicola Griffith - Ammonite

Jane Jensen - Dante's Equation

Kay Kenyon - The Braided World 

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller - Fledgling

Ursula K. Le Guin - The Word for World is Forest

Doris Lessing - Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta

Karin Lowachee - Warchild

Anne McCaffrey - The Ship Who Sang

Maureen McHugh - China Mountain Zhang

Chris Moriarty - Spin State

Sheryl Nantus - Blaze of Glory

Andre Norton - Prison Ship

Diana Palmer - Morcai Batallion

Kit Reed - Thinner Than Thou

Justina Robson - Mappa Mundi

Joanna Russ - The Female Man

Melissa Scott - Trouble and Her Friends

Suzan Shwartz - Hostile Takeover

Kristine Smith - Code of Conduct

Wen Spencer - Tinker

Sheri Tepper - Grass

Karen Traviss - City of Pearl

Joan Vinge - Psion

Lynda Williams - The Courtesan Prince

Liz Williams - Banner of Souls

Phoebe Wray - Jemma 7729

Military SF

Lois McMaster Bujold - Cordelia's Honor

Tanya Huff - Valor's Choice

Jean Johnson - A Soldier's Duty

Anne McCaffrey & Elizabeth Moon - Sassinak

Sandra McDonald - The Outback Stars

Elizabeth Moon - Hunting Party

Romantic SF

Gini Koch - Touched by an Alien

Stephenie Meyer - The Host

Sharon Shinn - Jenna Starborn

Lisa Paitz Spindler - The Spiral Path

Time Travel

Kage Baker - In the Garden of Iden

Linda Evans & Robert Asprin - Time Scout

Kay Kenyon - Seeds of Time

Audrey Niffenegger - Time Traveler's Wife

Andre Norton - Echoes in Time
Marge Piercy - Woman on the Edge of Time

Connie Willis - Doomsday Book

Alternative History

Secrets of Jin Shei - Alma Alexander

Virginia DeMarce - 1635: The Tangled Web

Debbra Doyle - Land of Mist and Snow

Bernardine Evaristo - Blonde Roots

Sophia McDougall - Romanitas

Naomi Novik - His Majesty's Dragon

Ekaterina Sedia - Heart of Iron

Jo Walton - Farthing

Connie Willis - Blackout

Steampunk (part 1 and part 2)

Gail Carriger - Soulless

Phil & Kaja Foglio - Agatha H and the Airship City

Dru Pagliassotti - Clockwork Heart

Cherie Priest - Boneshaker

Ekaterina Sedia - The Alchemy Stone

Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic

Margaret Atwood - Oryx & Crake

Octavia Butler - Parable of the Sower

Suzanne Collins - Hunger Games

Nalo Hopkinson - Brown Girl in the Ring

P. D. James - Children of Men

Nnedi Okorafor - Who Fears Death

K. M. Ruiz - Mind Storm

Mary Shelley - The Last Man

Series Books

Karen Traviss - Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Sacrifice, Halo: Grasslands, Gears of War: Anvil Gate

Diana Carey - Aliens: Cauldron, Star Trek TNG: Ship of the Line

Diana Dru Botsford - Stargate SG1: Four Dragons

Olivia Woods - Star Trek DS9: The Soul Key

Kristen Beyer - Star Trek Voyager: Children of the Storm

Christie Golden - Star Craft: The Dark Templar Saga

Authors mentioned in comments

Alma Alexander - Secrets of Jin Shei (alternate history), Random (YA)
Zoe Archer - Skies of Fire (steampunk)
Catherine Asaro - Primary Inversion (general, hard, military and romantic SF)
K. S. Augustin - In Enemy Hands (romantic SF with hard SF elements)
Jay Blakeney - The Goda War (general SF)
Marion Zimmer Bradley - The Colors of Space (general SF)
Meljean Brook - The Iron Duke (steampunk)
Pat Cadigan - Dervish is Digital (general SF)
Jayge Carr - Navigator's Sindrome (general SF)
Jo Clayton - Diadem From the Stars (general SF)
Michelle Shirey Crean - Dancer of the Sixth (general SF)
L. Timmel Duchamp - Alayna to Alayna (general SF)
Suzette Haden Elgin - The Communipaths (general SF)
Kelley Eskridge - Solitaire (general SF, short stories)
Sharon Lynn Fisher - Ghost Planet (romantic SF, out December 2012)
Eileen Gunn - Stable Strategies and Others (general SF, short stories)
Gwynith Jones - North Wind (general SF)
Shariann Lewitt - Momento Mori (apocalyptic/plague SF)
Louise Marley - Singer in the Snow (general SF)
Susan Matthews - Colony Fleet (general SF)
Judith Merill - Survival Ship and Other Stories (short stories)
Judith Moffett - "Surviving" (short stories)
C. L. Moore - Northwest of East (short stories)
Pat Murphy - There and Back Again (general SF)
Linda Nagata - The Bohr Maker (general SF)
Jane Palmer - The Planet Dweller (general SF)
Doris Piserchia - A Billion Days of Earth (general SF) 
Marta Randall - A City in the North (general SF)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Diving Into the Wreck (general SF)
Pamela Sargent - Starshadows (short stories)
Jody Scott - Passing For Human (general SF)
Tricia Sullivan - Someone To Watch Over Me (general SF)
Sue Thomas - Correspondence (general SF)
James Tiptree, Jr. - Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (general SF, short stories)
Kate Wilhem - Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (general SF)
Karen A. Wyle - Twin-Bred (general Sf)
Pamela Zoline - "The Heat Death of the Universe" (short stories)

Websites to check out:

The Galaxy Express
SF Mistressworks
Daughters of Prometheus