Female SF/F Authors

This is gonna be very different from other reviews I've done in the past. Here, I'm mainly talking about women I've read in sci-fi/fantasy fiction, both past and present. While a lot of the authors are white, this list also includes women of color, because I believe it's necessary for everyone to read books from a wide variety of perspectives, in order to broaden our horizons and lose our prejudices. Beginning in chronological order from the beginning of the 20th century:

Andre Norton (1912 - 2005)

Andre Alice Norton started writing at about the same time as beloved author Ray Bradbury and, in my opinion, is equally as talented. She wrote a combination of high fantasy and hard sci-fi. Some highlights include the Witch World series, the Time Traders series, and the Elvenborn trilogy. She was a very prolific author, and you can buy some of her books from her website.

Anne McCaffrey (1926 - 2011)

Anne McCaffrey's first novel, Restoree, was published in 1967, although she'd been published in sci-fi magazines before that. While not all of her books have aged well, she was quite progressive for her time. Restoree gives its female main character agency to fight alongside men in a time when other authors treated women as bargaining tokens or part of the furniture. At a time when children with disabilities were often institutionalized and rarely got an education, The Ship Who Sang dared to imagine a world in which these children could grow up to have jobs and feel useful. Her famous Dragonriders of Pern series didn't shy away from controversial topics, either--in 1996, Dragonseye showed a rare sympathetic same-sex couple at a time when gay representation was rare on the ground. (McCaffrey was hardly an LGBT+ icon, however, and has indicated that she had no idea how sexual orientation works in an interview in which she was asked about the riders of blue dragons.) I personally recommend The Petaybee series, a beautiful series of six ecological novels beginning with Powers That Be, and the Acorna series, in which an alien girl raised by Earthling asteroid miners seeks information about her people and what happened to her biological parents.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929 - 2018)

What can I say about Le Guin that hasn't already been said? Best known for the beloved Earthsea series, Le Guin often wrote about worlds with new, different ideas about everything from sex and gender to religion to property. Definitely read The Dispossessed and her short-story collections. Children will enjoy the Catwings books.

Marion Zimmer Bradley (1930 - 1999)

I'm mentioning Bradley here only because she was significant in the fantasy genre. She's best known for the Darkover series and Mists of Avalon. I haven't been able to stomach her books since I learned that she

CSA warning

molested her daughter and helped her then-husband groom and molest other children.

Octavia Butler (1947 - 2006)

Sadly, I haven't read as many of Butler's books as I've been meaning to. She was an excellent author whose works centered the Black experience and Black characters. As she wrote in her essay "A World Without Racism," "Simple peck-order bullying is only the beginning of the kind of hierarchical behavior that can lead to racism, sexism, ethnocentrism, classism, and all the other 'isms' that cause so much suffering in the world." Her books are often about the dismantling of hierarchies, the creation of alternatives to Western family norms, and what makes people truly human. I need to read more of her books. You need to read her books. They will expand your mind.

Mercedes Lackey (1950 - )

Mercedes Lackey is another one of those big names in fantasy that most fans of the genre recognize, and with good reason. At an average pace of 5.5 novels per year, she is an extremely prolific author! Her longest series is The Heralds of Valdemar. If you're looking for shorter, more manageable series of hers, I recommend the Elemental Masters series, the Bedlam's Bard/SERRAted Edge series, and the Heirs of Alexandria series, which was co-written with David Freer and Eric Flint.

Rosemary Edghill (1956 - )

An Arab-American author who took her penname as her legal name in 2004, Edghill, in my opinion, doesn't get enough attention. Maybe it's because she got her start writing Regency romances instead of sf/f. In any case, I read The Twelve Treasures trilogy as a teen and fell instantly in love. Read. Her. Books.

Phylis Alesia Perry (1961 - )

Perry is mainly a journalist; she only has two novels to her name. That said, READ THEM! Stigmata is an excellent book about generational trauma and how to heal--especially as these traumas affect African-American families. The prequel, A Sunday in June, primarily centers the grandmother of the protagonist from Stigmata. If Perry makes another outing into the world of fiction, I have no doubt that it, too, will be spectacular.

Shira Glassman (date of birth not online)

Glassman is another lesser-known author. Her biggest hit, Knit One, Girl Two, is a short romance about lesbian knitters, but where she really shines fantasy-wise is her Mangoverse series. Inspired by Jewish communities in Florida, Perach is a Jewish-based fantasy kingdom, in stark contrast to the more common European-based (and thus culturally Christian) fantasy worlds by so many other authors. Not only is the Mangoverse loaded with excellent LGBT+ representation, the stories are heartwarming and just plain fun to read. (One character gets the equivalent of the "Chuck Norris" memes told about them.) Definitely recommended if you're Jewish, LGBT+, or just looking for something different from all the other fantasy series out there.

More authors to be added, including Seanan Macguire and Jadzia Axelrod!