Books: can you recomend any Sci Fi with "Feeeeeeeemales" in it?

[Vault101]

The Honor Harrington series has a rather large female cast, including the eponymous title character. It's set in a future that plays along the lines of the Napoleonic Wars with Space England (with a ruling queen) and Space Revolutionary France dukeing it out with spaceships that fire 'broadsides' due to the gravity drives used.

ohh I'm a bit of a fan! of Honor Harrington (even if it veers into "guilt pleasure" territory at times) I admit I probably liked the series more for what it [i/]wasn't[/i] rather for what it was, I liked the fact that at the start she was just a captian who didn't care for frivalous things and although

[spoiler/]as soon as she gets a boyfriend she grows her hair long because...I don't know she's a "real woman" now? pfft the love interest gets killed off! ha![/spoiler]

but anyway I'm on the 5th book I think and there are two things which bother me most

1. the mary sueness, my god is she going into mary sue mode...but still that I can handle

2.the writers political thing...now I get that in his fictional world lefties and liberals are terrible...thats all good and well, except in either this book or the one before he goes onto explain how Haven (which is amess) came about and its essentially "there once was a really cool republic that was cool untill the dicded to fix all the problems and EVERYONE WENT ON THE DOLE!! AND NOW IT SUCKS" that just struck me right in the face...not only that but Honor herself has no upper class lineage or anything that gave her an advantage...through her awsomoness she gains not only money but a title....and then it hit me [i/]oh god is this whole thing just a metaphor for if you bull up your bootstraps and work hard you too can get money? ewww! EEEWWW! do not want![/i]

but as much as I've bitched about it I still enjoy it

honestly though I thourght about reading "In Fury born" I'm not sure about David Weber as a writer...

I'd recommend Engines of God.

It's about a group of archaeologists studying long dead alien civilizations, the protagonist being their female pilot. It's part of a series, but I haven't read any of the others so I can't vouch for their quality. Engines of God finished up quite nicely so you could treat it as a standalone if you had to.

huh turns out that one was on my goodreads reading list, certainly sounds like something I may be itnerested in

 

[BraveSirRobin]

Old Man's War and The Android's Dream by John Scalzi are both pretty good sci-fi and have some fairly strong female characters in them. If you like Old Man's War its sequels center more around the main female character from the first book as well. They aren't exactly high literature or anything, but they're definitely entertaining and I'd highly recommend them.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Karl Schroeder's Virga Series might do you, So far 3/5 of the books have had a female main character and definitely don't seem like bodice ripper novels in disguise...

They're about a world that's a basically a giant space balloon packed with specialized fusion reactors that act as artificial suns. The plots are classic adventure novel fair, the first book is about a secret mission, the second one about a revolution, the third about a long and dramatic escape, the fourth is a mystery story etc. They just all have an incredible backdrop as well.

The second book is the most "lady centric" as it stars one of the main characters from the first book after her dramatic exit from the previous story and chronicles her attempts to escape the madness and decay of one of the worlds oldest civilizations.

 

[bauke67]

The saga of seven suns series has a huge cast of characters of both genders, with all of them being protagonists in parts of the story.
I really enjoyed reading this some years ago, so you could give it a try.

 

[Vault101]

Anne Macafferies books are a good bet, with her first novel Restoree specifically written as an attack of the way female characters were treated in 50's sci-fi novels. Most of the Dragons of Pern books have prominent female characters, and some main characters (personal favorites are Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, the first two I read. The heroine from those books was arguably my first crush). Also, don't be fooled, they may come off as fantasy at first, but they are Sci-Fi through and through (Pern is a colony world, with its name meaning 'Parallel Earth, Resources Negligible').

oh yeah I heard about this one...wasn't there some weird thing where if your dragon wants to screw somone elses dragon then you want to screw the person too?

 

[Antitonic]

Anne Macafferies books are a good bet, with her first novel Restoree specifically written as an attack of the way female characters were treated in 50's sci-fi novels. Most of the Dragons of Pern books have prominent female characters, and some main characters (personal favorites are Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, the first two I read. The heroine from those books was arguably my first crush). Also, don't be fooled, they may come off as fantasy at first, but they are Sci-Fi through and through (Pern is a colony world, with its name meaning 'Parallel Earth, Resources Negligible').

Also, check out The Ship Who... series, especially the first one, The Ship Who Sang, about 'brainships', children born with crippling deformities who are trained to be installed into spaceships, witht he ship becoming their own body.

On a similar note; the Crystal Singer series, by McCaffery ("The Crystal Singer", "Killashandra", "Crystal Line") and the Planet Pirates trilogy (which is a collaboration between Anne McCaffrey, Elizabeth Moon, and Jody Lynn Nye). These specific books play a large part in my interest in sci-fi.

I really need to read the Dragonrider books again...

 

[MrBaskerville]

What an odd choice of books to buy for your mother... you realize it's pretty bloody and violent right? It's been awhile since I read it, but pretty sure there's even some rape thrown in there too to good measure. Not really the sort of book I typically recommend to my mother, although I'm sure she's read worse since she's a pretty avid reader herself. Still...

so in other words much better than the 50 shades knock off's that were featured for mothers day?

edit: she didn't like it because of the language and finding it tedious to read

edit2: and now I remember it might have been mothers day instead

I also found it quite tedious to read, it's just written in a fairly clunky manner (perhaps intentionally, but i really didn't like it) i will say that the two sequels seemed a lot better when i read them. They also feature prominent female characters and both (atleast the third book) spend several chapters following their stories. I would also recommend Hyperion by Dan Simmons, it features a wide variety pf characters and some pretty strong females too and it's a very engaging and thought provoking read.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

The Honor Harrington series has a rather large female cast, including the eponymous title character. It's set in a future that plays along the lines of the Napoleonic Wars with Space England (with a ruling queen) and Space Revolutionary France dukeing it out with spaceships that fire 'broadsides' due to the gravity drives used.

ohh I'm a bit of a fan! of Honor Harrington (even if it veers into "guilt pleasure" territory at times) I admit I probably liked the series more for what it [i/]wasn't[/i] rather for what it was, I liked the fact that at the start she was just a captian who didn't care for frivalous things and although

[spoiler/]as soon as she gets a boyfriend she grows her hair long because...I don't know she's a "real woman" now? pfft the love interest gets killed off! ha![/spoiler]

but anyway I'm on the 5th book I think and there are two things which bother me most

1. the mary sueness, my god is she going into mary sue mode...but still that I can handle

2.the writers political thing...now I get that in his fictional world lefties and liberals are terrible...thats all good and well, except in either this book or the one before he goes onto explain how Haven (which is amess) came about and its essentially "there once was a really cool republic that was cool untill the dicded to fix all the problems and EVERYONE WENT ON THE DOLE!! AND NOW IT SUCKS" that just struck me right in the face...not only that but Honor herself has no upper class lineage or anything that gave her an advantage...through her awsomoness she gains not only money but a title....and then it hit me [i/]oh god is this whole thing just a metaphor for if you bull up your bootstraps and work hard you too can get money? ewww! EEEWWW! do not want![/i]

but as much as I've bitched about it I still enjoy it

honestly though I thourght about reading "In Fury born" I'm not sure about David Weber as a writer...

Never read In Fury born, and you're partly right about points 1 and 2. For 1 it helps that the later novels begin to focus more on other characters and have spin off series running alongside the main plot. With 2 there was a reason why Haven went down the shitter and the whole 'liberals R bad' strawman politicals get removed from the picture and replaced with a more 'mega-corporations R evil' in the latest novels (Book 12, the Saganami Island series). Plus Catherine Montaigne's Liberals are pretty much to opposite of the old guard that got caught out in book 10.

In general I prefer the Safehold series.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Anne Macafferies books are a good bet, with her first novel Restoree specifically written as an attack of the way female characters were treated in 50's sci-fi novels. Most of the Dragons of Pern books have prominent female characters, and some main characters (personal favorites are Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, the first two I read. The heroine from those books was arguably my first crush). Also, don't be fooled, they may come off as fantasy at first, but they are Sci-Fi through and through (Pern is a colony world, with its name meaning 'Parallel Earth, Resources Negligible').

oh yeah I heard about this one...wasn't there some weird thing where if your dragon wants to screw somone elses dragon then you want to screw the person too?

Yep. The books were quite progressive, for their time.

Now they are rather dated.

Try the two above Dragonsinger books, pretty fun if you can get over the occasional angst.

 

[Malty Milk Whistle]

I'd second the Hyperion Cantos (The Dan Simmons versions, not the unfinished Keats epic) as they feature a very capable and strong main female character, and the leader of humanity is pretty much Angela Merkel INNN SPAAACE!
considering it was written in 70s/80s, it's pretty damn progressive.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

The Otherland series by Tad Williams is one of my favourites. It has a great ensemble cast of both genders with different chapters told from different people's points of view. The amount of characters actually kind of affects the pacing a bit in the beginning so it is a slow boil but it's totally worth it.

 

[Shock and Awe]

Well seeing as most of the Sci-Fi regrettably is older I can't say much besides Divergent. Its sci-fi by any most metrics and its a pretty damn good series. It has a strong female protagonist that reacts as one would expect a person of that age would to a lot of whats happening in the series. Shes not "WOMYN STRONG" and shes not useless either. Shes a fairly realistic character thats tough, can take of herself, and is willing to fight and sacrifice for what she believes is right.

 

[Nimcha]

Anything by Alastair Reynolds. A lot of his books feature female protagonists, villians and side characters. His latest works even include lesbian and gay characters without anyone making a fuss about it.

Besides that he's my favourite sci-fi writer, so maybe I'm not completely unbiased

 

[Auberon]

Only thing close to rape with Molly is the puppet* business, which may qualify with unwilling participant - but she did it to finance her cyber.

*Chip implant with programmed personality, and they use memory filter. Molly's just started to leak at some point, possibly by purpose.

 

[Flatfrog]

I'd recommend Engines of God.

It's about a group of archaeologists studying long dead alien civilizations, the protagonist being their female pilot. It's part of a series, but I haven't read any of the others so I can't vouch for their quality. Engines of God finished up quite nicely so you could treat it as a standalone if you had to.

I just read this myself and quite enjoyed it but found it a bit too episodic in its storytelling. Lots of great moments and fantastic universe-building, and much stronger characterisation than most SF, but plotwise it didn't quite hold my interest. Still, I'm definitely going to read further.

For the OP, if you like your SF hard and mind-bending, you could certainly try Greg Egan, who's written several books with interesting female protagonists. And for an even more head-spinning experience, there's Pat Cadigan's book Mindplayers.

 

[Piorn]

Recently started the Paradox-Trilogy by Rachel Bach. I'm at the 3rd book now and love it.
The premise is basically Samus gets hired to protect some Trade Ship that seems to be cursed with bad luck, though there is more to it than that.
The action consists of fast paced power armor/alien fights and the characters are varied and interesting. Also has a nice variety of different Aliens.

 

[Alterego-X]

Worm [http://parahumans.wordpress.com/category/stories-arcs-1-10/arc-1-gestation/1-01/] has a female protagonist and quite a lot of female characters. It starts out as a superhero genre setup, although I would recommend it as a straight sci-fi specifically, because there is quite a lot of thought put into the mechanics and logic of the whole. There is no blatant feminist message, but the author did a really good job at making it feel natural that half the superheroes just happen to be female.

 

[happyninja42]

Old Man's War and The Android's Dream by John Scalzi are both pretty good sci-fi and have some fairly strong female characters in them. If you like Old Man's War its sequels center more around the main female character from the first book as well. They aren't exactly high literature or anything, but they're definitely entertaining and I'd highly recommend them.

Yes, Old Man's War is a VERY good series with strong female characters. Fuzzy Nation, also written by Scalzi has a good female character in it.

Dune is another with strong and dynamic female characters.

And Honor Harrington as well. I've only read the first book in the series, but it was enjoyable.

Also, the Iron Druid Chronicles. Not scifi I know, but there are several good female supporting characters in the book IMO.

And yeah, the William Gibson books have some good ones too.

 

[RoonMian]

I haven't read the Honor Harrington books yet but given that the titular character is a woman I'd say it might qualify.

Edit: Damn, ninja'ed. Sorry, please move on.