Science fiction that would appeal to women

[elemenoP]

Originally Posted by ApK

Another one. I pictured you as a grey haired man smoking a pipe, translating books in a leather appointed office...like Indiana Jones' father at the beginning of 'Last Crusade. '
Now, I bet you look NOTHING like Sean Connery.

ha ha, now I want a description too!

I loved The Sparrow and I'm getting lots of other reading ideas in this thread!

Oh and I am currently enjoying the Wool series by Hugh Howey.

eP

[ApK]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

ha ha, now I want a description too!
eP

Please don't take this personally. I only had the image of her because we were just in a thread concerning Greek translation.

Honestly, your name is letters of the alphabet, and the first thing that pops into my head has always been Cookie Monster singing "C is for Cookie."
I don't know why, and I was almost certain you were not a Muppet.

[elemenoP]

Well, I only said that I was female. I have never said that I'm NOT a muppet....

[ApK]

Originally Posted by elemenoP

Well, I only said that I was female. I have never said that I'm NOT a muppet....

I did say I was almost certain.

[bill_mchale]

I am not a woman... but I am married to one. I occasionally recommend books to her. Right now I have her reading Ender's Game which she is enjoying (Though I did that so she could read Speaker for the Dead which I think she will enjoy more). She also enjoyed Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear. I have a feeling she will like Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress.

--
Bill

[Yapyap]

Dystopia / YA dystopia may well be a good place to start - YA dystopia is doing very well right now and I'd say most of the bestselling books/series are decently written, so if she's not completely opposed to reading about 16-year-olds, then anything from The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) to Divergent (Veronica Roth) to the Uglies series (Scott Westerfeld) to Matched (Ally Condie) might do well. Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi, which I didn't care for that much, was also one of the more recent YA dystopias that actually had a bit of a scifi feel to it, which I didn't necessarily get from any of the other abovementioned books (apart from the Uglies, perhaps).

Wyndham's The Chrysalids is a good example of older dystopian fiction (which really didn't feel dated at all when I read it last year), while Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go is a good example of a more literary kind.

Other than dystopian books, I've always preferred adventure-oriented scifi to hard science and technology oriented scifi. Granted, now that I think about it, I haven't actually read a great deal of books - some Alfred Bester, some old Soviet scifi - apart from the Babylon 5 and Doctor Who tie-in books (lots and lots of those), but I rather think those work best for fans of the respective TV series.

I might not be a "typical woman" (whatever that is), but I don't generally care for much romance in my scifi (or fantasy), so I'd hesitate to recommend romance-heavy scifi just because the potential reader is a woman.

[alishajordan]

The Vatta's War series by Elizabeth Moon was good if you like space operas.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by alishajordan

The Vatta's War series by Elizabeth Moon was good if you like space operas.

Yes, her Serrano Legacy series isn't bad either.

[Xanthe]

As a woman, I'd recommend:

David Weber - the Honor Harrington series
Catherine Asaro - the Saga of the Skolian Empire series
Ann Aguirre - the Sirantha Jax series
Chris Bunch - the Star Risk Ltd. series
Jack Campbell - the Lost Fleet series

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller - the Liaden Universe series
Tanya Huff - the Confederation series
Steven L. Kent - the Clone Republic series
Karin Lowachee - the Warchild series
R. M. Meluch - Tour of the Merrimack series

Elizabeth Moon - the Vatta's War series and the Serrano Legacy series
Chris Moriarty - the Spin series
Laura E. Reeve - the Major Ariane Kedros series
John Scalzi - the Old Man's War series
Joel Shepherd - the Cassandra Kresnov series

Mike Shepherd - the Kris Longknife series
David Weber & John Ringo - the March Upcountry/Prince Roger series
Kristine Smith - the Jani Kilian series
Karen Traviss - the Wess'har Wars series
S. L. Viehl - the Stardoc series

These are all series that I read and enjoy.

[FizzyWater]

It might be helpful to know what she normally enjoys reading.

There's a whole sub-genre of science-fiction romance (SFR) that goes from one end of the spectrum (almost all SF, little romance) to the other (mostly romance that pretends to be in a SF universe but no real science - and maybe not even very good world-building, generally known as "futuristics").

Linnea Sinclair writes what I consider to be a pretty even split between romance and space opera science fiction. Fans on her board who like sci-fi enjoy the sci-fi and tolerate the romancy stuff. Romance lovers might skim the laser fights for the next interpersonal scene.

I'm at work, so I'm trying to remember her titles off the top of my head: Command Performance, Gabriel's Ghost, Down Home Zombie Blues (this is actually set on earth, it's the only one - and it really has nothing to do with horror zombies, the space alien robots are called zombies), Accidental Goddess (woman in space in statis for a long time wakes to find the culture has deified her), Finders Keepers...ooh, there are more that are sequels to Gabriel's Ghost, but I'm not remembering the titles...

Susan Grant writes SFR that mostly is more romance, but I trust her science as well (she was/is a pilot - no dummy about tech stuff). My absolute favorite of hers was Contact. She's had a series of lighter (more humor, definitely more romance) books published by Harlequin, but once again, the titles aren't coming to my mind. Her oldest books were self republished recently (I think they were self published) - Star King, Star Prince, Star Queen, Star Princess. I remember thinking these were more in the "futuristic" genre, but that they had more brains than most.

If she likes romance and would like to dip her toes in SFR, let me know, and I'll check my book list at home. I like the genre, and I have more names and titles I can look up (again, they may range up and down the spectrum, with some being more intelligent than others).

Oh...and if you're really hoping to get her to read "normal" SF (no romancy stuff), these might be her gateway drug if she likes the SF part of the SFR enough.

[sabredog]

Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War and Serrano Legacy.

Both have strong female main characters.

My wife has these on her to read list.

[Pegster]

I believe I have the requisite genes that say that yes, I am a woman. I have a terrible memory for names, so scanning through my ebook library, sci-fi wise, I would recommend:

David Weber - Honor Harrington, Dahak, Safehold series. Weber's books have technical/combat scenes, but I don't mind that myself. (His fantasy series, War God, is also excellent.)
Lois McMaster Bujold - Vorkasigan series - excellent (and her fantasy series, Chalion is one of my favorites!)
David Drake's books - Republic of Cinnabar (RCN) series, Hammer's Slammers series and the General (with SM Stirling) series, and also a lot of his stand-alone works.
Robert Heinlein - any
Arthur C. Clarke - any
Andre Norton - A lot of her books are from the 50s/60s and are YA, but I still enjoy them.
Jack Campbell - The Lost Fleet series
Jeffery A. Carver - Chaos Chronicles and Star Rigger series
John Ringo - Troy Rising series
Sharon Lee - The Liaden universe series (again excellent!)
Linnea Sinclair - any but I loved The Down Home Zombie Blues and An Accidental Goddess
Steve White - Starfire series (and most of his other works)
Tanya Huff - Valor series
C. J. Cherryh - Chanur series & Alliance-Union series

I'm sure there are others - I like both 'hard' sci-fi and 'soft' sci-fi. Nothing like a good space opera or save the universe theme, or a hard look at social issues via the lens of 'what if, in the future'.

Edited to add: Ah I see some of those I've mentioned up above! And more that I had missed - Elizabeth Moon, John Scalzi, etc.

[artifact]

As a female reader I'll second Liaden (Lee & Miller) and Vorkosigan (Bujold) as less tech and more story and character space operas. Campell's Lost Fleet might be a bit a bit too ship and war focused.

I've heard that Sheri. S. Tepper is considered feminist SciFi so there is another sub-genre not yet mentioned. The book that got me started on her is Grass. I also vote for Raising the Stones or Fresco. For a giggle at turning the gender tables there is Six Moon Dance which is set on a world where the men wear face veils lest women get lured into lust looking at beards.

Edit:
Oh! We forgot Anne McCaffery. There is another I'd consider 'light' SciFi. Too many books to mention by name .

[Elfwreck]

"Sci-fi that appeals to women" is a drastically different category from "sci-fi that appeals to people who don't normally read sci-fi."

As a woman who grew up loving science fiction, I can't think of any I didn't like. Oh, there were occasional authors and certainly some individual books, but for the most part, I was happy to read anything with a "SCIENCE FICTION" label on the spine. The ones I didn't care for were matters of individual taste rather than genre conventions. I like military scifi, romantic scifi, alien anthropology stories (xenology stories?), short stories with moralistic overtones, high-tech retellings of fairy tales, cyberpunk, humans-vs-aliens struggles (regardless of the winner), post-apocalypse, dystopias, time travel, physics-puzzle stories, murder mysteries on space stations, Star Trek novels, golden-age adam-and-eve stories, and fake encyclopedia listings from a thousand years in the future. And I've suggested some of each of those to friends, including women, who also enjoy SF.

However, I wouldn't recommend all those to someone who doesn't normally care for science fiction, regardless of gender.

For a specific woman who hasn't read much SF but is willing to try some, I'd want to know her literary tastes--does she like romance? Try Bujold's Shards of Honor and Barrayar. Does she like horror? Ellison's Deathbird Stories might appeal. Reads fantasy normally? McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series are often considered fantasy, and might be a pleasant transition, possibly followed by her Ship Who Sang series. She watches soap operas diligently? Point her at Batman comics and fanfic; the Batfamily is possibly the most warped and dysfunctional family in modern science fiction.

... and so on. Women who like science fiction have been reading books written by & for men for a century or more. Aside from the obvious "find female authors because they are more likely to include details that men overlook" (like, the fact that women sometimes have conversations among themselves that aren't about men), there's not going to be a general list of "science fiction for women."

[Crusader]

Thanks for all the suggestions. This isn't for a specific person so I can't really give feedback on what she likes to read. The friend in question runs a large book club/newsletter and wanted to add more sci-fi to the books she highlights so something that should appeal to as many as possible would be best.

Personally I'm of the opinion that sci-fi is for EVERYBODY regardless of gender.