There’s a thing that’s been going around Bluesky the first days of January: posting a list of 10 authors where you have read at least 5 of their books. I’m not sure who started that, but I’m certainly willing to throw my hat in the ring, as it were.
Here goes (in pretty random order):
- Tanith Lee
- Elizabeth A. Lynn
- Claire North
- Becky Chambers
- Jo Walton
- N.K. Jemsin
- Connie Willis
- Ursula K. Le Guin
- Nancy Kress
- Sherri S. Tepper
(*Phew*. Got through it without having to admit how many books I’ve read by Marion Zimmer Bradley…)
Are those all science fiction and fantasy authors? Why yes. Why, yes they are.
Are those all women? Also, yes (and I could have listed more than 10). There are an equal (at least!) number of male authors I could have listed, but I remember noticing sometime in the early 90s my SFF shelves were dominated by men, and I made a concerted effort to change that. I don’t exclusively buy novels by women, but when I buy new books, women invitably outnumber men about 2-1 — I consider it my (very small) contribution to make up for many decades of male domination in the field.
And I don’t regret it for a moment — writers like Claire North, Jo Walton, Becky Chambers, and N.K. Jemsin are second to none in contemporary SFF.
What does you list look like?
