Can anyone recommend some SciFi books with well written female characters?

I’ve recently read Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie and am looking for well constructed, non male, well thought out characters.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancillary_Justice

26 points
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The Expanse series has Naomi Nagata, Avasarala, Bobbie Draper, and Drummer (among others)

The Revelation Space trilogy by Alastair Reynolds has the badass Ilia Volyova (cyborg space pirate; it makes sense in context lol) as a main character (not primary protagonist though) in the first two books and Ana Khouri (ex-military/assassin) is the primary protagonist in the second two (and major character in the first).

Some of Reynolds’s other works also have strong female protagonists as well (e.g. Pushing Ice and the whole Revenger series). House of Suns is one of my favorites, and there are two protagonists, male and female, and have equal spotlight throughout.

Both of those are hard sci-fi, so hopefully that’s your jam.

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5 points

Pretty much anything by Cherie Priest, the Clockwork Century books are great!

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14 points

Try out the Wayfarer’s series! Becky Chambers is amazing. Her books are wholesome and character focused, and give you a great feel of what it would be like living in that setting.

I also really like Brandon Sanderson’s Cytoverse. It’s a fantastic adventure that will keep surpsing you, but it is YA, so be ready for a little silliness.

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6 points

Yay!!! I’m so happy I’m not the first to mention Becky Chambers.

Octavia E. Butler is right up there too if OP has never read their stuff.

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3 points

Haha was just here to comment wayfarer’s series

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2 points

I love these books!

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2 points

The Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao. Think Neon Genesis Evangelion X Female Rage X Chinese History. It’s by no means a perfect book, but it’s entertaining, the premise is very interesting and the character work is quite good!

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2 points

Chinese “history” in this case being pretty questionable, but Wu Zetian is always going to be a natural target of more or less accurate revisionism, and if there’s one thing we know about her for sure it’s that she was already the target of patriarchal revisioning.

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2 points
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Well my first recommendation was going to be Ancillary Justice, but there’s also Artemis by Andy Weir! It’s been a minute since I’ve read it but I don’t immediately recall it snacking of a “men writing women” feel.

Edit: Not super SciFi, but like steampunk fantasy maybe… Another option might be Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson.

Second Edit: Whatever you do DONT read Hyperion. Oof that one was one of the most ridiculous examples of “men writing women” I have read, although he notably grew as the series progressed.

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