I haven’t tried to chart it yet, but I am finding it is common for me to have, say, three or four days in a row where I am thinking, “Er, this isn’t good” about my state of mind, and then if I wait it out, I feel okay again. I would say it’s happening roughly once a month, which makes it seem worth charting to see, but so far there doesn’t seem to be any correlation with any OTHER cycles, if you catch my drift and I know that you do. I am finding it’s best on those days to make myself walk if I can, and I usually can, because NOT walking makes it Quite Worse, even though walking doesn’t feel like it makes it any better. Also SOMEtimes it feels like it makes it worse to, say, scroll Twitter, and it’s better to leave my computer and go play Candy Crush; but OTHER times it feels like it’s the perfect time for a good wallow in despair, so I play that by ear.
I would like to recommend a trilogy my brother recommended to me. I don’t think of my brother and me as having overlapping book tastes, but after the success of the 1.5 books I’ve read of this trilogy so far, I will need to reconsider. The books are by Ann Leckie, and they’re Ancillary Justice (Target link, Amazon link), Ancillary Sword (Amazon link), and Ancillary Mercy (Target link, Amazon link).
(image from Amazon.com)
I caution you that these are science fiction. I don’t generally like science fiction, for various reasons—but after reading these books, or rather the first 1.5 of these books, I am wondering if what I don’t like is Science Fiction Written By Middle-Aged Men in the 1970s. Because these books are written by a middle-aged woman, and I am not seeing a LOT of the stuff I dislike in science fiction, such as how the narrator is always a tough, cool, ruggedly handsome man who can handle with style and coolness and ruggedness anything thrown at him, sort of like an Indiana Jones / James Bond hybrid, and the ladies all love him and the men either respect him or learn to, and if there are robots there are also SEX robots, and if there are aliens there is a lot of ALIEN SEX, and everything is trying so deeply and cringingly hard to be Masculinely Cool, and there is a lot of failing of the Bechdel test.
There are still science-fiction things I dislike, even in these—such as the names. I am just always going to dislike the names for characters and places. Paul, describing it, says it’s “doubling all the A’s, and putting apostrophes in the middle of words.” Yes. That. And I would add: “making everything unpronounceable just on principle.” And of course there is the unavoidable “As everyone knows, the Rlaa’aa invaded in 3072 and, as everyone further knows, this led to a system of etc.” Combined with NOT doing that, and just letting the reader figure out what’s going on, which I ALSO hate, which means there is no way for science fiction authors to win with me, which is why I generally don’t read science fiction. And I was not sure, for the first few chapters, if I was going to be able to hang in there. But I DID, and now I LOVE what I am reading, and after I am done with the trilogy I am going to find more books by Ann Leckie and read those too.
I feel like what I’m reading in these books is what is MISSING in most science fiction I’ve read, and that’s EMPATHY and EMOTION and RELATIONSHIPS and DEPTH and SUBTLETY and GROWTH and CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. It’s not just “What cool action scenes am I imagining playing out in the movie of this book, and what would the hot babes look like” (though there ARE cool action scenes and hot babes), it’s also “How does the character feel about this, what meaning does this have for them, what are their inner struggles, what surprising gradual ideas are forming,” etc.
I haven’t read enough science fiction to know how to explain what type of science fiction this is, overall, but I will say some of the things that SEEM like science fiction types. It is SPACE science fiction, and there is talk of life on space ships; and there are SOME aliens but not a LOT of aliens so far: there are some references to past encounters with aliens, and a brief description of one kind of alien, but not MUCH alien stuff. It is much more AI science fiction, and in fact the narrator is an AI. It is the kind of science fiction where human bodies are put into suspended animation (well, or some kind of storage, I don’t know if that’s the right term), to be used later by AIs, but the AIs have not taken over or anything…well, or I should say It’s Complicated. But it’s not (SO FAR) a series about Oh No The AIs Have Taken Over, Making Humans Their Slaves!! It’s more like how do AIs perceive the world, what are the complications that arise from having/using AIs, how do people treat AIs and how SHOULD they treat them. There is some war, and overtaking of planets, though that’s all in the past so we are hearing memories rather than reading about it as it happens; there is a fair amount of SPACE POLITICS, and talk of incorporating different cultures and how that turned out.
And there is the thing that made me want to try it even as I rolled my eyes a little, which is that the narrator’s language/culture doesn’t have words for different sexes/genders, so everyone is called she/her no matter what, and all parents are mothers and all children are daughters, and so on. It should be silly, but I found myself quite MOVED by it after awhile. What must it be like, to grow up with your sex considered the neutral default? WHAT INDEED. And it is surprising and interesting to be reading a book and often not know if the characters are male or female.
Anyway! I’m really enjoying it so far, and I recommend it. I also recommend it as a gift idea for someone else, if you have a science-fiction reader in your life: if my brother and I BOTH love the same books, that should cover pretty much anyone you know, unless they’ve already read them.
Space Opera. You like Space Opera. That’s the subgenre you’re describing, and may I just say, you have excellent taste. Space Opera is getting me through this damn pandemic.
I particularly adore Becky Chambers’ books. They are a loose series, starting with A Long Way From a Small Angry Planet. Same world, different characters.
But if you google Space Opera, the options will abound. Enjoy!
SPACE OPERA!
Yes, space opera and I need to highly recommend The Expanse series of books. I mean HIGHLY. Each book is told through a different combination of characters in alternating chapters (though it is very clear and not confusing). The setting is a plausible future in which humans have colonized the moon, Mars and the asteroid belt (and some moons of other solar system planets). There are relationships and politics and some great twists but none of it involves sexy aliens. There are tons of perspectives, including gender non-binary, and they’re just treated as givens, not as Something to Be Defended or Explored.
I was just coming to recommend Becky Chambers too! Love her but didn’t know it was a genre within sci fi. Awesome!
I second this recommendation! These books are absolutely fantastic (the second one – A Closed and Common Orbit – actually made me cry, but in a good way).
I ALSO CAME HERE TO RECOMMEND BECKY CHAMBERS!!!!!!
Seriously, I love her Wayfarers Series more than I have ever loved any series in the history of series. I recommend it all the time and with a pretty high success rate even among folks that have absolutely zero interest in any and all varieties of fantasy/sci-fi/space opera/etc.
Swistle, I will buy you ‘The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet’ if you share a PO box address. IT IS THAT GOOD!
Also popping in to recommend Becky Chambers! I’m not generally a sci fi reader but her books are so wonderful.
Oh yes. This is one of my favorite genres. Please read the Vorkosigan saga!!!! I keep typing and deleting reasons for why you should read it, but it is SO special and human and moving and funny and exciting. The characters are incredibly well-crafted, and you just LOVE them. And the space opera genre gives so much room for thinking about what the heck is wrong with our planet and how we can fix it, without being preachy or boring. Read the Vorkosigan saga, come back and tell us how much you liked it, and I will die happy, lol.
Yay! Just came to recommend the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold too!!! And, if you’re feeling the need for a historical fantasy series, Bujold wrote the absolute best one:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/43463-world-of-the-five-gods-publication
Oh, I love that series so much. So much!
And thanks for the book tips, Swistle, I bought the trilogy!
Cordelia’s Honor (First Vorkosigan Saga book) is my most FAVORITE book of all time and I have read a ton of science fiction. It has all the stuff that you mentioned wanting in sci-fi. Lois McMaster Bujold is a MASTER and yes, I’ll admit it, my son is named after the a main character from these books.
YES!! I came here to recommend the Vorkosigan books. The author is Lois McMaster Bujold. You can start anywhere, but A Civil Campaign is a Sci-fi Regency romance, whereas Memory is a straight up Sci-fi whodunnit. Bujold is a mistress of all genres!
I haven’t read these, but they’ve been in the back of my mind to try for a while. A series that I think will tick some of the same boxes for you is the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. The Murderbot is a security droid that becomes self-aware and wants to give up killing and just watch shows all day, and the series is about how it keeps getting pulled into human conflicts and eventually starts to care about the various humans and AI it interacts with. The first four books are novellas, so it’s easy to give one a try and get a full story and then not read more if it’s not for you.
Yes! This is a wonderful series, I loved it so much.
Thank you for recommending the Murderbot series! The “wanting to be left alone and watch shows all day” sounded really relatable, so I bought the first novella and started reading. Four novellas and a full length novel later I’m $50 poorer and just went back to the first novella to start reading the entire series again. So charming! Such tense (in a good way), well-plotted, and humane stories! So inclusive of the gender and sexuality spectrum! Banal, greed-based evil! Just what I needed right now.
I am halfway through the first Murderbot book and stopped to come here to say THANK YOU for this recommendation. I love it so much already!
I listened to Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson for no reasons at all that I remember except it may have been on one of those literary twitter book threads AND available at my library (I love those threads but my joy is tempered by the fact that like 80 people will be like “OMG, you have to read….” and I check the libraries to which I have access — and I think it’s every single one in MA via overdrive and agreements — and I dutifully type the author/title a zillion times and none of them have the book that all the literary people are raving about, FRUSTRATION). Huge digression, Aurora. Space, takes place on a ship, AI narrator, different perspective, I enjoyed it. Didn’t LOVE it, but y’all may. Someone loved it for me to hear about it in the first place.
I really liked these too! And I would really recommend The Goblin Emperor.
Oh, I loved The Goblin Emperor! The audio version is fantastic too.
Yes! Space opera or what I call literary sci-fi (no battles that last more than a page, no extend explanations of technobabble the author invented.)
Becky Chambers is great! You may also like The Sol Majestic by Ferrett Steinmetz.
Oh! And The Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal
I read The Raven Tower by Leckie and enjoyed it.
So much good sci-fi out there. N.K. Jemisin and Octavia Butler are not to be missed. I’m currently reading Anne McCaffrey and enjoying her writing as well.
And if you want to give fantasy a try, Robin Hobb is *chef’s kiss*
My dad gave me Isaac Asimov to read as a kid and I formed the early impression that I don’t like science fiction. At all. But it turns out I DO like science fiction, just definitely not that kind.
N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy is one of my favorite things I’ve read in the past couple years. Based on what you like from the Leckie series, I think you might enjoy it. It does take a little bit to get into/figure out what’s happening, but very worth it.
Yes yes! I clicked over to recommend N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy too! I also have not considered myself to be a fan of science fiction, turns out I am a fan of her writing. So good!
I knew someone would recommend The Broken Earth, so rather than suggest it, I found the comments to reply to with SO AMAZING, BROKE MY HEART. I’ve always had a soft spot for sci-fi with heart, things like Vonnegut, and N.K. Jemison just destroyed me. I need to read something else by her but I fear it could never be as good.
I know nothing about sci-fi in general (SPACE OPERA omg I love that), but I had a few women recommend the Red Rising series to me, and I really enjoyed it for many of the reasons you listed.
OMG and this too! The Red Rising series was soooo entertaining, quite an escape, highly recommend!
I really enjoyed the Ancillary series. I made it a mission a few years ago to read all the Female Hugo Winning Novels (I was tired of middle-aged-white-male sci-fi for the same reasons you listed) and this one was on the list. I thought she handled the gender/sex thing in a really awesome and cool way and the entire thing was just so different from the usual sci-fi that I really loved it. Last year I tried to read a bunch of newly published sci-fi and fantasy by female authors but ran into a lot of duds, including the one that won the most recent Hugo. Apparently Leckie was a runner up but because she had already won a Hugo she withdrew, which I am salty about because the book that won had an amazing premise but was just so awful to read.
Have you read any Connie Willis? I love her Oxford time travel series.
This is only tangentially related to your post, Swistle, but I have been rolling my eyes about it today and your comment on default gender in these books made me think of it again. At work this morning I came across a brand-new scholarly article on men and childbirth that says in part, “Men felt challenged by the lack of attention shown to them during labor and birth.” And, okay, not all men blah blah blah, but seriously?? It’s not enough to be the default gender and to run the world– you want CHILDBIRTH to be about you too?!
Science fiction has been one of my favorite genres of books since like elementary school and I wanted to recommend my favorite sci fi author Julie E Czerneda, specifically her Web Shifters series (Amazon link https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FK7MK3J?ref_=dbs_p_mng_rwt_ser_shvlr&storeType=ebooks).
The main character is an alien who can shapeshift into pretty much any form of intelligent life, including human, but when she is in human form, she looks like a 10 or 11 year old little girl.
I’d describe Czerneda’s type of sci fi as “gentle” sci fi. There aren’t really any space battles, though there are some space car-chases (kind of), there is no sex or swearing, and almost all of the main characters are smart, capable, and female people, sometimes with male sidekicks (this is true of most of Czerneda’s books, actually).
I didn’t know about any of this, and I’m excited to have a new genre (Space Opera!) to check out and a list of books to read. Reading your description reminded me of why I liked the TV series Battlestar Galactica (the remake that started airing in 2004). I made so much fun of my husband for watching it, then got sucked in one night and watched the entire series with him. I even labored with my first child to a new episode that was on! I might need to revisit it. I feel like it would be a good series for this very special time we’re in.
I thought I didn’t like sci-fi until a co-worker convinced me to watch Battlestar Galactica (remake). Now one of my all time favourite series!
So I haven’t actually read her fiction but this made me think of Ursula LeGuin and I read part of her autobiography and her sci fi takes place on a planet with no/fluid genders and my sense was that she sort of invented that concept? I could be wrong here but perhaps check out her work? She seems to have a large canon.
Ursula Le Guin’s “Birthday of the World and other stories” is a set of short stories that deal with different ideas of gender and family – I keep a copy around to lend out to friends who think they hate SF.
The Ancillary series is one of my absolute favorites – and I agree with all the suggestions I’ve seen here so far! I also loved Lois McMaster Bujold’s Chalion series – main character is a middle aged woman who is SO not done with life yet. I’m currently reading Martha Well’s Ile-Rien series after falling in love with Murderbot and also her Raksura series.
It’s The Left Hand of Darkness! Highly recommend, though at some point when we all agree on a set of gender neutral pronouns, she needs to rewrite it using them.
Anna, I’ve always wanted to read The Left Hand of Darkness with all the pronouns switched to the feminine. Nothing else would change, but I think the book would feel vastly different.
Oh yes, please please please read Ursula Le Guin. She’s everything you’re looking for.
More by Ursula K LeGuin: The Dispossessed (this is also on my mental list of “accurate and moving depictions of breastfeeding in fiction”), The Hainish Novels and Stories. A bunch of her sci fi takes place on different planets in the same (Hainish) universe.
Another excellent piece of sci fi by a woman is Sue Burk’s Semiosis. It has some violence, but it also has an INTELLIGENT PLANT and is one of the most original things I have read in a long time.
Also if you are interested in sci fi that has to to with relationships and character development, and not so much cool ships and hot aliens, I recommend Dune. I know, I know, it’s old and by a man, but it doesn’t read as dated as you would expect. There are powerful women and great plot twists and if you like the first one it’s a whole series… and it does no harm, no harm at all to imagine Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides. If you haven’t already seen the trailer, save it for after.
I read a heckofa lot of SF & fantasy, but lately all my favorite authors are women who write character driven stuff. The earlier comments handily listed all my favorite authors, so I don’t have to! Definitely check out Murderbot if you like the Ancillary series though. It has a few similar themes, but it’s a lighter mood-wise. (Ok, there is a sexbot, but it definitely doesn’t get the classic SF treatment…)
And I have to confess a weakness for the occasional werewolf/vampire dealie…. Patricia Briggs is my very favorite for those.
I enjoyed the Ancillary series too so came rushing to the comments to recommend some of my favourites, Lois McMaster Bujold and Becky Chambers and the Murderbot stories, but it looks like they are all well covered.
I’d also recommend Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty – a murder mystery set in space, with lots of interesting food for thought about clones.
Have you read Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon? SO GOOD. And The Ship Who Sang series by Anne McCaffrey (with other writers writing in the same universe) is fun.
You’ve made this trilogy sound really interesting! Now I want to check it out. I don’t usually gravitate toward science fiction, but there are a few authors that I really enjoy (probably many more that I would also enjoy but just haven’t discovered).
Have you read anything by Octavia Butler? You might like her writing.
This trilogy has been recommended to me multiple times, and I keep avoiding it for many of your reasons, although I like sci fi, just not hard sci fi with too much detailed sci, and space opera is not usually my thing. But I feel like this is a sign that I’m going to have to give it a shot. This and the Vorkosigan series, which keeps popping up on my radar as well.
I haven’t read the Ancillary series yet, but I’ve heard from many people that it’s great. NK Jamison was fantastic! The Lady Astronaut series is another great one! I also enjoyed Middlegame by Seanan McGuire and The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders for reasons I no longer remember (nor the synopsis of either book).
However, I do recommend following John Scalzi’s blog, “Whatever”. Aside from enjoying his blog writing style, he has a Big Idea series where authors with books coming out get to write about the big idea behind their new book. It’s how I’ve taken chances on quite a few books lately that I probably wouldn’t have (All listed above and the Worldshaper series by Edward Willett).
I am reading all these book recommendations with great interest! My Goodreads to-read list is growing. I just wanted to add that if you are, indeed, curious about patterns in your mood, the app Daylio is great for that. It prompts you every day to rate your mood and select buttons for activities you did that day. It takes less than a minute, and it’s customizable for whatever activities you want to track. Plus it makes pretty graphs.
As someone who already loves sci-fi / fantasy (but NOT middle-aged-white-man version) this comments section is a GOLD MINE, THANK YOU EVERYONE!
One that I just devoured in a day on vacation last week was The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg. I hadn’t heard anything about it (it just showed up in my bookbub weekly email on sale) and it looked interesting – AI/hybrids “real” princesses built for a near-future version of Disneyland on steroids, told from the perspective of one of the hybrid princesses. It’s YA, so an easy read, but I couldn’t put it down once I got into it.
I love that you love these books, because I love these books! I also love the murderbot diaries. I resisted reading them for a long time because I was put off by the name for some reason, but I was wrong.
I ‘ve always liked Science Fiction, but I’ve ended up around where you are which is that I now vastly prefer to read the books that weren’t written by any-aged white men.
Coming to this late to second all the recs for Bujold (her Chalion fantasy series is also sooo great, the second one is about a middle aged heroine!); also Martha Wells writes tons of great fantasy novels too, Wheel of the Infite also has a crabby cynical badass but not physical middle aged heroine. Also I would recommend Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire – very chewy but completely awesome space opera. And T Kingfisher has some fab fairy tale retelling and fantasy romances with deeply excellent characters and very funny bits. All of these authors have won tons of awards, modern space opera and sci fi and fantasy is a very different place with some really awesome reads. Plus sometimes you just want to read about women setting gross guys on fire with magic or lasers, right?