Top Badass Lady Sci-Fi Writers

This month’s theme is science, and while I’m not a big science individual, I do love science fiction! I decided that I would write another themed post but focus on some of the top lady sci-fi writers, celebrating their stay in the literary world and the amazing impact so many of them have. Be sure to list your favorites in the comments!

1. Anne McCaffrey

I love Anne McCaffrey, and she is a great example of combining fantasy and science fiction. She is well known for her amazing series, The Dragonriders of Pern. First of all, it has dragons. Secondly, it has a mix of old, but “new” to Pern, technology. Third, it has a great element of science fiction. If you’ve never read these books, you should definitely give them a chance. Anne McCaffrey aimed to make sure almost anyone could enjoy her books, and she achieved that with her many different series. She won the Hugo Award for Best Novella, the Gandalf Award (for best fantasy), Nebula Award, and several others. In fact, she was the first woman to win the Hugo and Nebula Award!

2. Margaret Atwood

I am still very new to Margaret Atwood. I read The Handmaid’s Tale a few months ago and really liked it. She has a great writing style, and I fully plan on reading more of her works. I have Oryx and Crake and fully plan on that being my next Atwood book. She is also an incredible individual, and if you follow her on Twitter, you’ll notice that she is pretty sassy, as well, which I love. The Handmaid’s Tale was the first ever to receive the Arthur C. Clarke Award and has been nominated for the Nebula and Prometheus Awards. For the longest time, Atwood kept saying she wasn’t a science fiction writer, that she wrote speculative fiction. However, she now embraces the science fiction world, saying her works are more social science fiction than stories that take place in outer space with Martians and spaceships. She is a massive encouragement to all female science fiction writers.

3. Mary Shelley

Mary Shelley is the ultimate badass lady science fiction writer. Many in the science fiction world even credit her and her book Frankenstein as one of the first science fiction books. She wrote many other stories, but Frankenstein is what she is well-known for. She became a huge icon within feminism in the 1970s and is still someone many feminists look to as inspiration when it comes to writing fiction. If you’d like to read more of her works, I highly suggest it! I plan on reading The Last Man, which takes place in the 21st century and is an apocalyptic science fiction novel. She published it in 1826 but didn’t get many great reviews. It went out of circulation but came back in the 1960s. How interesting!

4. Madeleine L’Engle

I’m definitely cheating with this one because A Wrinkle in Time is a teen/YA book, but I absolutely love Madeline L’Engle. Also, I will be completely honest and say that I’ve only read the First-Generation of Kairos AKA the stories that are based around A Wrinkle in Time. However, she was one of my first real introductions to the science fiction literature world, and I loved every minute of it. By the time I read her in jr. high, I had already been introduced to the awesomeness of fantasy, but seeing this world of science fiction was incredible. I remember thinking that girls couldn’t be true sci-fi fans for the longest time though my parents kept saying girls could be. And, I realized they were right as soon as I read A Wrinkle in Time. This is one of the many reasons why I wanted to list Medline L’Engle.

5. Hiromu Arakawa

While I have never read any manga, I have noticed many Iggles talking about things such as Fullmetal Alchemist and figured I should add Hiromu Arakawa. She has written and created the artwork for different manga series, which includes being the writer and illustrator for Fullmetal Alchemist. FMA also won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize for “Best Science Fiction Comic” in 2011 in addition to all of the other awards Arakawa has received. She is an excellent example of someone who had huge dreams and ended up accomplishing them. She has stated that she wanted to be a manga artist since she was little, and, as we can all see, she is an incredible one with some great titles!

6. Octavia Butler

This is one author that I have really been wanting to read and haven’t yet. I need to hurry up and get one of her books, don’t I? Octavia Butler was one, and is still, one of the top well-known female writers within the science fiction genre and won multiple awards. She won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards for her various stories and is a woman who really helped pave the way for many newer female science fiction authors. She was even the first science fiction writer to win the MacArthur Fellowship. She tackled a lot of issues in her books including sexism, racism, classism, and more. When it comes to talking about some of the most badass lady writers, she should always be on the list!

7. Ursula K. Le Guin

I read my first Le Guin book a few months ago, but it wasn’t a science fiction story. I read the Wizard of Earthsea and absolutely loved it. Once I finished, I knew I would need to read the rest of the series plus I wanted to get into more of Le Guin’s writing. She is yet again another multi-award winner winning things like the Hugo and Nebula awards, along with many others. Each of her stories focuses on amazing themes that range from social and political to psychological. I am really excited to get into more of her works, and I know that she definitely deserves to be on this list.

Badass Lady Science Fiction Writers, FTW!

There are several other incredible women who are have influenced the literary world, and there are many who are currently writing excellent science fiction works. I wish I could’ve dedicated this list to even more awesome writers, but I am over 1000 words with this (eek!). Who are some of your favorite lady sci-fi writers? Let me know!

Image Credit:

1. Anne McCaffrey
2. Margaret Atwood
3. Mary Shelley
4. Madeleine L’engle
5. Hiromu Arakawa
6. Octavia Butler
7. Ursula K. Le Guin