So I was really happy to come across this list of science fiction tales by female authors, because as I said in a previous post of mine on women in speculative fiction--I love seeing what ideas women bring to the genre! I love seeing women front and center. The future belongs to all of us, so all of us should be well-represented, ya' know? Here is a list that includes books written by female authors of different cultures, backgrounds, and races. It's an excellent beginners' compilation showcasing some of the best and brightest of the women in the genre, but also demonstrating the breadth and complexity that can be found in a scifi book. Spanning from Europe to Africa to China, they tell very diverse stories but the connective tissue is the exploration of women's experiences within circumstances that are often completely beyond their control. Which is, interestingly, reflective of the situation many women find themselves in in real life, minus the fantastical scenarios.
11 Sci-Fi Books Every Woman Should Read by Crystal Paul
An author who was one of the few women of color in speculative fiction was Octavia Butler. Her writing came along at a time where narratives of Black women in the genre were pretty scarce.
I still have so many of her novels on my ginormous 'to-read' list! One of the novels on the list which I want to read immediately is Parable of the Sower. This book centers around a young woman with a spectacular ability to identify with the misery and pain of others like it was hers. The story is set in a dismal Los Angeles (only nine years from now, actually) where the privileged live behind walled communities and the rest...well the rest have no money, no work, no home and are ANGRY rampagers.
First of all, this is the kind of unique, socially conscious perspective I was talking about a few posts back, about how and why I love exploring the female voice in scifi literature. The protagonist Lauren Olamina, seems intruiging--a young Black woman featured in the kind of story that you don't often see revolving around the power and brilliance of women of color. Lauren's belief is that "God is change" and leads a form of spirituality around this conviction called Earthseed. This is right in the midst of violence and upheaval in this nightmare L.A. born out of economic and government collapse. Octavia Butler was a trailblazer in bringing the narratives of people of color to scifi in a fresh and highly original way. Butler's imagination soared in a genre where it was greatly needed. This is probably number one on my 'to-read list' now. When I finish it, I'll ultimately post a review both here and at Goodreads.
During the course of my journey as a reader and aspiring writer of speculative fiction, I've often tried to find stories that reflect the experiences of women, especially women of color, in a way that is exciting, unique, and outside-the-box. Along with Octavia Butler, I'm also interested in further exploring the work of author Alaya Dawn Johnson.
She published a young adult novel I MUST READ called Love is the Drug about a young woman of color from a well-to-do family in Washington, D.C., who is drugged and ensnared in government intrigue in the middle of a flu pandemic sweeping the globe. Seriously. The plot sounds like a summer blockbuster waiting to happen.
When I first started becoming interested in writing speculative fiction, one of Alaya Johnson's short stories was one of my early inspirations...Shard of Glass and the biracial girl who is at the center of a desperate and supernaturally-based escape from danger with her mother, was one of the works of fiction I read that actually gave me a good amount of encouragement as a mixed-race aspiring writer in the genre. I believe what a female writer of color with creativity, consciousness and most importantly--PASSION--can accomplish through their writing in the genre is virtually limitless. I recommend any aspiring scifi/speculative fiction writer of color to read this story. The plot is thrillingly crafted and the twist at the end is superbly written. Her name isn't on the Buzzfeed list above--I just HAD to mention her work and how powerful I felt her writing was. You can read the story here.
Along with this Buzzfeed list and those like it, I also recommend checking out the lists compiled over at my main literary hang-out, Goodreads, for more titles both featuring female characters and/or written by women. I'm always on the hunt for more!
Happy reading!
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