Featured Illustration by: Dave Malan
*Non-Men is my word for anybody that does not identify as a cis-gendered male.
This is by no means a comprehensive list of books in the space opera genre that are written by non-men. It is, in fact, a bunch of space opera books written by non-men that I have read in the past 3 years according to my notebook “Books I’ve Read and What I Think About Them (2017 to present).”
It is during this time that I learned my literary jam is exactly what this post is about: space opera written by non-men.
Since there are quite a few space opera written by non-men, this list will be split into multiple parts of 5-7 books each.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
Women of Futures Past by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
A collection of short stories from the Golden Age of Science Fiction that were written by women. The introduction is an insightful essay about the disappearance of women writers in the sci-fi genre over time, and how the cause of that disappearance is the lack of reprinting. Authors like Arthur C. Clark and Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick are known because their works are reprinted all the time. Not so with the likes of Leigh Brackett, Pat Cadigan and C. L. Moore, who are all featured in this anthology and authors I would like to read more of.
Women of Futures Past also featured Anne McCaffrey and Nancy Kress, who have somehow pushed through time to keep their names known. And I am definitely missing out a few other notable women authors. But the problem still stands: a lot of authors are lost to time, and the ones that pass time’s test tend to be male and cis-gendered.
This anthology was meant to draw attention to those forgotten authors. Check it out to read the non-men voices of futures past.
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
A crew of six on a generation ship wake up with no memory from the previous 24 hours and their old bodies floating around, mutilated and bloody and very much dead.
This is a world where memories can be backed up and people can live forever if they keep cloning themselves and reinstalling their memories into each clone. So when the crew wake up, recently cloned, with no memory of the past 24 hours, they must piece together what happened.
Slow to get into but so good once things started to move along. The main character, Maria, was rad and the antagonist felt a bit anti-climatic. Yet the slow-burn of how everything reveals itself was very satisfying. The narrative switches between the present, where six crew members piece together the fate of their old bodies, and how each member came aboard the ship.
Read this review on NPR for a much better write-up.
The Diabolic by S. J. Kincaid
A high-concept young adult novel about a bodyguard named Nemesis who grows up protecting Sidonia, the daughter of an influential noble who must be protected at all costs. Sidonia, which is a name I can’t read without thinking of Netflix’s Knights of Sidonia, is called away to Court but Nemesis is ordered to take her place in disguise because Court could actually prove fatal for Sidonia. Naturally, Nemesis finds a romantic interest in the prince and heir to the empire. This romance and another underlying plot I don’t recall drive the story forward.
As an adult, I’ve discovered that I enjoy stories that do a little bit more than document an adventure. The Diabolic reads like a Young Adult novel, it doesn’t try to say anything more than what’s on the page. It doesn’t lend itself to further thought about the meaning of life when you lose your entire purpose for being. Then again, all that could be saved for the sequel: The Empress.
The Diabolic features two of my absolute favorite things in fiction: stoic main characters who start to FEEL THINGS, a subplot that moved me throughout the novel, and an aristocracy in space.
Binti, Binti: Home and Binti: The Night Masquerade by Nnedi Okorafor
Against the wishes of her family, Binti travels across the galaxy to seek a higher education at a prestigious university. During the journey there, she becomes the center of an intergalactic incident involving humans and a jellyfish-like alien species.
Nnedi Okorafor is one of my absolute favorite authors. Her books are engaging and her Twitter feed is a delight. When I finished the first novella Binti, I didn’t write a lot of notes because I had trouble gathering my thoughts. If I were to go back, I would mention that it feels like an incomplete story, yet it pulled me in and I was sad to see it end regardless.
A section I wrote about Binti: Home: “I like how Binti wrestles with self-doubt and cultural guilt and the traditions of her culture. But she also fights against all these things.”
From my notes about Binti: the Night Masquerade: “Does not follow standard hero’s journey. Binti is young and has accomplished much, but her adult life is a complete mystery to the reader.”
Check out this TEDTalk Okorafor gave about the Binti series!
Cosmic Powers, edited by James Joseph Adams
An anthology of modern adventures through space. Although it’s edited by a cis-man, quite a few stories are written by non-men. I’d like to draw your attention to “A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime” by Charlie Jane Anders, founder of io9.com and author of two novels I will read, I swear; “Tomorrow When We See the Sun” by A. Merc Rustad, short story writer and non-binary human; and “The Deckhand, The Nova Blade, and the Thrice Sung Texts” by Becky Chambers, the author that made me pick up this anthology in the first place.
James Joseph Adams compiles anthologies with stories from all over the place, most are places I haven’t heard about. I enjoy his compilations, and most have introduced me to authors I wouldn’t have found otherwise.
This is an anthology I would very much like to own, and I might purchase it when next I find a physical copy in a bookstore.
The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells
Includes the titles (in order) “All Systems Red”, “Artificial Condition”, “Rogue Protocol” and “Exit Strategy.” About a security unit android who gains sentience by hacking its governing module so it can watch television programs and generally slack off. It hates how it has emotions and deadpans everything. My favorite line is: “I was having an emotion and I hate that.” There are a lot of fantastic lines in this series.
A lot of people have spoken about the awesomeness of the Murderbot Diaries. For one, they’re called the Murderbot Diaries. For two, they’re a very well-done character piece about a robotic/android construct trying to find themselves in a very unfriendly place. For three, you can’t help but fall in love with the narrator, who named themselves Murderbot for reasons you read about in “Artificial Condition.”
My favorite scene happens in the first book when Murderbot, having had enough interaction with other humans but feeling unable to leave the room entirely, gets up and stands in the corner, facing the corner, and remains there until the end of the scene. What a mood.
For fun, here is Martha Wells’ speech from the 2017 World Fantasy Awards where she details the acts of women lost to history because of the patriarchy.
Provenance by Ann Leckie
Leckie came to my town as she was touring for this book, so I went to see her because I love her Ancillary series. She is a lovely woman and a wonderful speaker. Her interactions with her fans were rooted in kindness and she was genuine with everyone she met. She also doodled a spider mech in my book after signing it. ❤
This book takes place in the same universe as her award-winning Ancillary series, with a Radch ambassador playing a not-insignificant role towards the middle. My notes say that I enjoyed reading it but, in hindsight, I don’t remember much between finishing it and writing down my thoughts. There was another book read between those two actions, and that diminished the documentation of my immediate impressions.
That only means I’ll be re-reading this book sometime in the near future. After reading The Raven Tower by Ann Leckie, which is a brilliantly written piece of fantasy literature, I am definitely coming back to this book.
I’ll be documenting more space opera written by non-men in the future. In the meantime, what is your favorite space opera novel? Let me know in the comments!
KT's Bookshelf 