Witches, Werewolves and Starship Captains: Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy

On Friday, March 8 for International Women’s Day, Catherine Lundoff and I hosted a radio program on KFAI. You can hear it here.

Since we ran through a whole lot of names and titles during the show, we thought we’d list them on our blogs for anyone who wanted to follow up on our recommendations (or add some of your own in the comments). You can see Catherine’s picks over on her blog.

These are roughly in order that we mention them, though not exactly.

Rachel Pollack – Unquenchable Fire, Temporary Agency, Godmother Night, and more

Robin McKinley – Sunshine (named as an example of an urban fantasy with a vampire rather than paranormal)

Louisa May Alcott – She wrote more than Little Women, check out her tales of suspense!

Emma Bull – War for the Oaks (wonderful urban fantasy set in Minneapolis)

Nnedi Okorafor – Akata Witch (amazing young adult urban fantasy set in Nigeria)

Charlaine Harris – The Sookie Stackhouse books on which the HBO show True Blood is based

Patricia Briggs – Check out her Mercy Thompson series

Jacqueline Carey – If you only know her Kushiel books, I also highly recommend her novels Santa Olivia and Saints Astray

Kim Harrison – The Hallows series

Tate Hallaway – Precinct 13 (cool urban fantasy set in South Dakota. Yep, South Dakota.)

D. Jordan Redhawk. – The Strange Path (lesbian vampires!)

Eleanor Arnason – Ring of Swords (in which she sets out to create a believable culture in which homosexuality is the norm and does an amazing job of it)

Joan Slonczewski – Brain Plague (wicked cool hard science with strong female characters)

Marge Piercy – Woman on the Edge of Time (so many interesting issues are addressed in this novel, I don’t know where to start)

Sylvia Engdahl – The Far Side of Evil (one of the most formative books of my teen years because of the way it showed that a person can retain their agency even in hard situations)

Suzette Elgin – Native Tongue (also check out her Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense series of non-fiction titles)

Allison Goodman – Eon (fabulous world, great main character and wonderful transgender supporting character)

Ellen Kushner     – Privilege of the Sword (just plain fun – Jane Austen meets high fantasy)

Louise Marley – Terrorists of Irustan (rich novel with a transgender supporting character who also appears in her novel The Child Goddess)