From the very inception of science fiction, women have always played a crucial role in the evolution of the genre. Now, just as the genre continues to grow, so does the long list of talented women penning stories that take centre stage in sci-fi. From the classics to the more recent talents featured heavily in the Hugo and Nebula awards, here are some of the must-read names in the long list of female sci-fi writers.
Women sci-fi writers you need on your bookshelves
This list is by no means exhaustive, but it does contain some of my favourites. A special mention goes out to Mary Shelly, who is widely considered to be the founding mother of the genre. If you haven’t read Frankenstein yet, give it a chance, and then pick up one of these phenomenal female sci-fi authors.
Ursula K. La Guin
La Guin is a master of illustrating complex and challenging social ideas and playing them out in the form of science fiction literature. She doesn’t shy away from subjects such as race, gender, and social politics, tying them up in complex and alien worlds.
Books such as The Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness take themes we may find familiar and study how we as humans would behave if they were polarised. La Guin is able to imagine a world in which the things we take for granted, like sex and world politics, are completely flipped on their head. Each one of her books is a dive into human psychology and morality therin.
Margaret Atwood
If you have somehow managed to miss the award-winning show, The Handmaid’s Tale, pick up her trilogy of books before you watch it. Along with this set of novels is her lesser well-known but still exceptional Maddaddam trilogy. Atwood comfortably embraces dystopia with her writing and keeps them disturbingly close to home.
In both the Maddaddam and Handmaids trilogy, we are faced with a reality not too far distant from our own. Atwood writes of dystopias we could easily see our own world slipping into. Giant corporations have left the earth a barren, unpopulated landscape, and fascist governments have turned humans into powerless slaves. Her sci-fi is chilling, predictive, and always a little strange.
Octavia E. Butler
Octavia E. Butler is a multiple-award-winning female sci-fi writer. For her library of works, she has won the Hugo and Nebula awards multiple times. She is an author who repeatedly rises back up into conversations as her works dip back into relevance. Butler has been writing since the 1970s and curated quite the reading list during that time.
Her work is often labelled as Afro-Futurist and contains themes of race, God, and the human struggle within. Octavia E. Butler’s first two series, the Pattenist and Xenogenesis collections, examine race divides. They explore the ways people in her sci-fi stories deal with forced segregation with aliens, genetically modified humans, and other strange inventions.
However, her Parable series examines what we consider to be God. In the future, painted in her sci-fi books, she questions what we need from God and what religion could and should mean in the future of human society.
Becky Chambers
Becky Chambers is rising to ever-growing popularity with her heartwarming studies of personality and societies. I won’t say a study of people because there are all sorts of other elements and organisms thrown into her sci-fi microcosms. These little worlds, stepping into sci-fi, are what make her one of my best female writers of the moment.
For a perfect snapshot of what Becky Chambers is able to do with her science fiction, pick up the Wayfarer series. This collection of four books takes place in confined environments and studies the various beings’ interactions. Each new book places different personalities, backgrounds, and often physiologies together and studies how they react. Her emotional intelligence is what sets her apart from the rest.
N.K. Jemisin
As far as decorated sci-fi writers go, there are few who can stand beside N.K Jemsin. Her various works have received extensive praise, with her Broken Earth collection being the first trilogy to win the Best Novel Hugo award for all three books. She has shaken up the world of science fiction and produced some of the finest work in the genre in her generation.
Taking her award-winning Broken Earth as an example, we see Jemisins ability to paint enormous, generation-spanning sci-fi novels. With this trilogy, a planet is plagued by seasons that last generations, obliterate humanity, and reshape the planet. In these books, we see the human struggle to survive and weather the apocalypse over and over again.
Arkady Martine
With a few science fiction novels under her belt so far, Martine is certainly one to watch on the best of female sci-fi writers list. The first two books in her Teixcalaan series have already made waves, winning multiple awards. She has captured the eye of the science fiction world and is making a name for herself.
Her Teixcalaan series is a fascinating blend of ancient Mayan cultures, cyberpunk futures, and dramatic space opera. These books take an incredibly engrossing crime fiction approach to the narrative, spinning a tale of murder, political intrigue, and, of course, the vast unknown of space.
C.J. Cherryh
When looking at C.J. Cherryh’s repertoire, you have to wonder when she had time to do anything else other than write. In her illustrious career as one of the best sci-fi writers of all time, she published over 80 novels, which makes even Stephen King look like a part-timer. She has written vast collections of science fiction based on deep and fleshed-out universes.
If you had to choose from her mountain of books, start with something from her Union-Alliance series. Picking up the multi-award-winning Cyteen is a fantastic introduction to the collection. It is set in a world in the Union in which children are grown in tanks and educated from birth with ‘tapes’. The twisting and gripping narrative delves deeper into the world and problems surrounding this environment.
Anne McCaffrey
The first woman to win the Nebula and Huga awards can’t be missed from the list of the best female sci-fi writers. She has published a vast library of works ranging from the fantastical to the decidedly science fiction. When asked about her work, she insists that she is much more into the science fiction genre than fantasy, but for any fans of both, there are plenty of elements of either.
Her best-known works in the Dragonriders of Pern series are a fantastic place to start with McCaffrey. Humans have colonised a planet that is periodically terrorized by a flesh-eating alien. To fight back, the dragons of the planet have been genetically modified to bond with humans. If this isn’t enough of an intro to make you pick up one of her books, nothing will be.
Kameron Hurley
With sub-genres under her belt, such as cast space operas, grimdark, military science fiction, and her own coined term, bugpunk, Hurley is a very well-versed science fiction writer. She may not be as widely published as McCafrey or C.J. Cherryh, but she’s certainly making waves with her varied and engrossing science fiction.
The Light Brigade is an interesting look not only into the theory of light-speed travel but also a delve into the human psychology and motivations between governmental wars. In this book, we see the world through a soldier fighting a war on a distant planet. When things start to go awry with his drops, the cause he is fighting for starts to unravel, or maybe it’s all in his head.
Nnedi Okorafor
Of both African and American heritage, Okorafor is one of the finest writers in the Africanfuturism subgenre of science fiction. She has written for children, adults, and comics, winning numerous awards along the way. Her works are being adapted into film and TV series, working alongside Hulu, HBO, and George R.R. Martin.
The Binti series by Okorafor is being adapted into a Hulu series, making now the perfect time to pick it up and read. This series by one of the best female sci-fi writers focuses on our heroin as she travels to a prestigious, off-planet university. On the journey, her transport is overrun by aliens, who wipe out the rest of the crew. However, she is able to communicate with them and develop some kind of truce.
