| Author Name | Series/Book recommended | Sub-genre | Suitable for YA? | Comments from reddit | More comments | |||||||||||||||
| Joe Abercrombie | Best Served Cold | "gender role reversal." | ||||||||||||||||||
| Alan Bradley | Flavia de Luce series | |||||||||||||||||||
| Jim Butcher | Codex Alera | "Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series is a good series to give a go. Several really good female secondary characters and one (maybe two) female leads." | ||||||||||||||||||
| Bruce Coville | The Unicorn Chronicles | |||||||||||||||||||
| Nick O'Donohoe | the Crossroad trilogy | "The main character is a veterinarian who as a student is led by a professor into Crossroads, a place where multiple times, places and worlds all cross paths. I recently reread the trilogy after several years and still consider it among my favorites!" | ||||||||||||||||||
| David Drake | The Books of the Elements | |||||||||||||||||||
| Raymond E. Feist | The Empire Triology | "The Empire Trilogy by Raymond E. Feist is about a woman who takes the reigns of a family whose fortunes are in steep decline in pseudo-feudal Japan" | ||||||||||||||||||
| Jasper Fforde | The Thursday Next series | "The Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde. More alt-universe than strict fantasy, and has sci fi elements as well. I've read the first two and they're excellent, clever, and funny. If you love literature in general, you'll love this super-literary alt-verse." | ||||||||||||||||||
| Tracy Hickman | Dragonlance series | "There are several very
well written female characters in it, though arguably none that are the main
protagonist. It does follow some of them for whole chapters though. It follows a band of friends over many years trying to restore the balance between the gods. It is definitely d&d fiction." |
Written with M. Weiss | |||||||||||||||||
| Ian Irvine | Geomancer | " The main character is a female with magical talent. She runs away from home to prevent being drafted into the military. The mages make and control massive war machines. The protagonist speaks to person in her dreams who gets her to preform a ritual that opens a gate between worlds." | ||||||||||||||||||
| Michael Jasper | Contagious Magic | Y | "These are YA contemporary fantasy, with Chicago kids in Iowa (re) discovering magic in the midst of a bigger wizard arc." | |||||||||||||||||
| Jay Kristoff | Stormdancer | "What if Japan had an industrial revolution? What if it led them to ruin the land in search of power? What if all the mythical monsters were real and had been killed by industry or by hunters over time. The series follows the daughter of the Master of the Imperial Hunt, which is an entirely ceremonial role, seeing as all the things that can be hunted are dead. Until the Hunt Master is sent in search of one of the mythical beasts that's not quite dead. Trilogy not yet complete." | ||||||||||||||||||
| L.E. Modesitt Jr | Saga of Recluse | "I want to mention some of
the L.E. Modesitt Jr books (the Saga of Recluse), which has mainly male lead
characters but which in some books especially explores cultures where the
females are the ones in charge: The Fall of Angels - Mainly female "space ship" team crash onto low-tech civilisation, create female haven in previously male-dominated society, fairly militaristic. Mainly follows the guy. The Chaos Balance - around how one of the key men left considers his future whilst part of the daily struggle. Arms-Commander - focuses more on one of the female commanders a bit later The Towers of the Sunset - set years later, when a male descendant of the civilisation is handed off to the other female-dominated society for a "royal wedding" type thing." |
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| Patrick Ness | Chaos Walking trilogy | "These books are simply amazing and there is a female main character as well as a male one, though you really get to see things from her perspective until the 2nd and 3rd books, gender also plays a fairly significant role in the books. They're YA SF rather than fantasy but hopefully they'll still work for you." | ||||||||||||||||||
| William Nicholson | The Wind on Fire trilogy | Y | "It's YA fantasy that has a girl and her twin brother as the main characters, though I believe most of the focus is on the girl. Been a long time since I read them but I loved them when I was in high school and used to recommend them to everyone. Also by the same author is the Noble Warrior trilogy, has 3 main characters and one is female, it's also YA fantasy." | |||||||||||||||||
| Garth Nix | Sabriel, Lirael, Abhorsen | Y | ||||||||||||||||||
| Daniel O'Malley | Rook | Urban Fantasy | "it's an Urban Fantasy in which the heroine loses her memories and must maintain a strong front in the face of her enemies, while trying to figure out exactly who those enemies are. It's hilarious, and reminiscent of Men in Black. Also, lot of swearing." | |||||||||||||||||
| Joshua Palmetier | The Skewed Throne (et al.) | "I liked Joshua Palmetier's The Skewed Throne, followed by The Cracked Throne and The Vacant Throne. Varis, a poor thief from the slums of her city, is elevated to the heights of power at the time of her city's greatest need." | ||||||||||||||||||
| Terry Pratchett | Tiffany Aching books | Y | "There are four books in
the series (starting with Wee Free Men) and they are YA. The books take place
on Discworld, but I don't think you really need to have read the other
Discworld books to enjoy the series (although the awesomeness of some of the
Granny/Tiffany interactions will be lessened). The books don't play that much with gender roles, but I love Tiffany as a protagonist - she has her faults, but takes responsibility for her actions and tries to do the right thing." |
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| Tim Pratt | Marla Mason series | "the series is about a woman who clawed her way to the top of the magical hierarchy of her city by sheer determination" | ||||||||||||||||||
| Philip Pullman | Dark Materials | Y | "His Dark Materials" has a great female lead. She's a kid, but she's still a great character. 3 books total starting with the Golden Compass." | |||||||||||||||||
| Philip Reeve | The Mortal Engines series | Y | "It has multiple protagonists in the series and in my eyes they did not confirm to older gender expectations you find in many fantasy series." | |||||||||||||||||
| Alastair Reynolds | Revelation Space trilogy | |||||||||||||||||||
| R.A. Salvatore | Demon Wars saga | "R.A. Salvatore's Demon Wars saga (7 books) was very good and had strong female characters, especially the last 3-4 when the focus shifted to the main supporting female as the main character." | ||||||||||||||||||
| Brandon Sanderson | Mistborn | |||||||||||||||||||
| Christian Schoon | Zenn Scarlett | Y | "Zenn Scarlett by Christian Schoon is the first book in a YA sci-fi series about young girl growing up on Mars learning to be a xenoveterinarian." | |||||||||||||||||
| Joel Shepard | Sasha | "It's pretty realistic, with very little, if any, magic. The fighting descriptions are well done and make sense. There's also a bunch of politics and intrigue that play critical roles. The characters and their motivations are both believable and interesting. It's a great series where the main character just happens to be a woman. There's definitely some discussion of gender roles and social backlash when people defy those norms too." | ||||||||||||||||||
| Neil Stephenson | Reamde, The Diamond Age | |||||||||||||||||||
| Scott Westerfeld | Leviathan, Uglies | Y | "Scott Westerfeld's The Uglies series and his Leviathan Series both have strong female protagonists and in some cases antagonists. Highly recommended!" | |||||||||||||||||
| Tad Williams | Shadowmarch series | |||||||||||||||||||
| wildbow | Worm | "Technically "super hero" rather than "fantasy", but I think it's close enough to count. Main character is a girl, many strong female characters. Not much in the way of gender, but it does have a very good take on homosexuality (as in, it managed to include homosexual relationships as both character-building elements and plot devices while avoiding seeming to actively make a point of it. ) As for length and modernity, it's in web serial format for now, but the author estimates it at around 22 novels in length, and it just finished a week or two ago." | ||||||||||||||||||
| John C. Wright | Orphans of Chaos trilogy | "The Orphans of Chaos trilogy by John C. Wright is urban fantasy violently collided with Greek mythology. And really well researched Greek myth. It features 6 different destructively interacting forms of magic that are based around the way the user sees the world. Physical laws actually change depending on which of the main characters is doing the observing." | ||||||||||||||||||
| John Varley | Titan (et al.) | |||||||||||||||||||