Read Women discussion

A place to share recommendations, ask for recs, post lists, reviews, essays, interviews and the like.

Members who know this space - please share your wisdom!

The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya is a dystopian novel. I haven't read it yet (it's on my TBR list), but I have read a collection of her short stories, and they were wonderful.

Books and Bao, one of my fave review resources for Asian lit in translation, posted this great review of That We May Live, a small (7 stories) "anthology of eerie and strange fiction by a handful of fantastic contemporary Chinese writers, from the world-renowned Yan Ge (author of The Chili Bean Paste Clan) to Chen Si’an, who is predominantly known in China as a playwright. Some of these authors are mainland Chinese; others hail from Hong Kong. All of them are daring and look at the world through a unique and speculative lens."

https://booksandbao.com/review-that-w...

I highly recommend this essay by Stephanie Toliver entitled, "On the History (and Future) of YA and Speculative Fiction by Black Women" mentioning the following:

L.L. McKinney: A Blade So Black
Justina Ireland: Dread Nation
Tomi Adeyemi: Children of Blood and Bone
Dhonielle Clayton: The Belles
Virginia Hamilton: The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl
Malorie Blackman: Noughts and Crosses series
Nnedi Okorafor: The Shadow Speaker
Zetta Elliott: A Wish After Midnight
Wendy Raven McNair: Asleep

and more.

https://lithub.com/story-type/specula...

My favourite speculative fiction:
Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (although I did not enjoy the third in the trilogy)
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
The Last Children of Tokyo by Yōko Tawada
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Kindred by Octavia E. Butler
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Little Eyes Samanta Schweblin

I've only started exploring translated speculative fiction this year and am keen for any more recommendations to add to my list. The Slynx is on my tbr too!

Thanks for the thread Carol. I've mostly read vintage or classic things but not always...so I've read the Atwood trilogy, and some Semanta Schweblin, books I've particularly enjoyed:

The Dispossessed Ursula K. Le Guin

Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents Octavia E. Butler

Woman on the Edge of Time Marge Piercy

Magic for Beginners Kelly Link

The Children of Men P.D. James

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet Becky Chambers

Among Others Jo Walton

Also enjoyed things like The Hunger Games Trilogy Boxset

Most of the writers I like are men so Philip K. Dick Jeff VanderMeer and Samuel R. Delany

Thank you all for your recommendations! Some of those books sound amazing!
I've been wanting to read The Handmaid's Tale for a while now, and I'm looking forward to reading it in the future.
I guess I never really thought of The Hunger Games as speculative fiction, but now seeing it here I realise that it totally is. I've only read the first book, and I've been meaning to get the other two, but since the pandemic happened books aren't being imported to Mexico.
Either ways, I hope this thread helps me discover new books and authors, thanks for making it!

oooh fun! I already found some interesting titles in what other people mentioned (I've been meaning to read The Slynx and something by Nnedi Okorafor for ages.... Should really get to that!)

Some favorites of mine are:
The Letter for the King and The Secrets of the Wild Wood by Tonke Dragt. These are low fantasy children's books, and they're great adventure stories! I know them inside out as I spend half my childhood reading these books (don't watch the Netflix series... don't know what happened there, but what a trainwreck!)

The books by Robin Hobb in the world that starts with the Farseer Trilogy are amazingly immersive with loads of kickass characters. It's high fantasy.

The Witch Hat Atelier series by Kamome Shirahama is an amazing fantasy manga with gorgeous (GORGEOUS!) art and very well crafted storytelling.

On the subject of manga/graphic novels: Fullmetal Alchemist by Hiromu Arakawa is a manga classic with some steampunky vibes. And On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden is a great standalone science fiction work set in space!

If you don't want to dive into series right away, check out The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, which is a standalone fantasy series with influences from both European and Asian mythology.


I'm personally not very familiar with science fiction, but I'm trying to read more in that genre. One book that's on my shelves is Trafalgar by Angélica Gorodischer. From what little I know, she's a very well known Argentinian speculative fiction writer.

Sanne wrote: "Some favorites of mine are:
The Letter for the King and The Secrets of the Wild Wood by Tonke Dragt. These are low fantasy children's books, and they're great adventure stories!"

I love Tonke Dragt's books, but, as you say, these are fantasy, not speculative fiction. Torenhoog en mijlen breed: een toekomstverhaal and Ogen van tijgers: een toekomstroman (both translated into German but not into English, AFAIK) are speculative fiction titles by her.

lethe wrote: "I love Tonke Dragt's books, but, as you say, these are fantasy, not speculative fiction. Torenhoog en mijlen breed: een toekomstverhaal and Ogen van tijgers: een toekomstroman (both translated into German but not into English, AFAIK) are speculative fiction titles by her."

Speculative fiction is an overarching term for all books with fantastical or science fiction elements. So all fantasy is by definition speculative fiction....

Sanne wrote: "Speculative fiction is an overarching term for all books with fantastical or science fiction elements. So all fantasy is by definition speculative fiction.... "

OK, I didn't know that. My personal definition is a little narrower. To me, "speculative" suggests speculating about the future, so historical fantasy would not fall under that heading.

I think it's one of those debatable issues where some groups/critics adhere to a narrower definition and some to a broader, but I'd hoped we could adopt the wider one here as offers more possibilities in terms of reading choices and sharing recommendations...

I have separate GR shelves for dystopia, science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction, which is any book that doesn't fit in those other shelves, and takes place in 'our world' but has some weirdness to it that goes beyond literary fiction, for example, Mrs. Caliban. But speculative fiction is my favorite kind, so I'm happy to make it a big umbrella here!

Recently read and enjoyed:

Homesick: Stories by Nino Cipri (author is nonbinary)
Or What You Will by Jo Walton (also has fantasy element)
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (fantasy, but not the kind with elves, etc.)
Planetfall by Emma Newman (sci fi)
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo (fantasy)
Oval by Eva Wilk

Really loving all the recs! I was thinking about genre boundaries and how leaky they are when I was reading Cold Earth, it has a supernatural element so could be horror? But set during a fictional pandemic which brings up questions about the threats to continued human existence, so could be considered speculative? Seems a lot like the duck/rabbit image, so much depends on the angle something's viewed from...

Some WIT speculative fiction books on my TBR:

Memoirs of a Polar Bear
The Core of the Sun
Tender Is the Flesh
Our Life in the Forest
Tentacle
The Queue
The Unit
The Slynx
The Goddess Chronicle
The History of Bees

And some non-WIT:
The Marrow Thieves
The New Wilderness
He, She and It
Stigmata

Has anyone read any of these?

No Hannah but like the look of Yoko Tawada's work and I've been contemplating reading Tolstaya - maybe a possible buddy read in the future?

Sanne the Tillie Walden looks great, so does Dragt, and the Shannon.

Carol, some really intriguing recs and thanks for the article link.

Nadine will definitely check on the Vo...

Looking at everyone's lists I realise most of my favourite novels that fall into the fantasy category are technically YA or for children, like Holly Black and the series starting with Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale and The Earthsea Trilogy: A Wizard of Earthsea; The Tombs of Atuan; The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin

Alwynne wrote: "No Hannah but like the look of Yoko Tawada's work and I've been contemplating reading Tolstaya - maybe a possible buddy read in the future?

I was wondering this myself 🙂

Hannah wrote: "Some WIT speculative fiction books on my TBR:

Memoirs of a Polar Bear
The Core of the Sun
Tender Is the Flesh
Our Life in the Forest..."

I've read Tentacle and He, She and It. I thought they were both pretty good. I wouldn't have thought of them together, but upon reflecting on them for this comment, I find that they have similar themes! Both stories are told in parallels - past and present (or future present) - and both stories are built upon climate change and disaster. I would recommend both, Tentacle had much more surreal aspects to it, and He, She, and It had slightly religious aspects - of course, it's built on the mythos of the golem. I have The Marrow Thieves on my list too. I recently read Empire of Wild by the same author and it was very good, but a horror.

I would be up for a group read of Memoirs of a Polar Bear any time after Jan 1. I own it and have wanted to read it for awhile, because it’s in the Japanese lit part of my reading brain.

I'd definitely be interested Carol, it looks intriguing and I'd like to try one of her books.

Carol wrote: "I would be up for a group read of Memoirs of a Polar Bear any time after Jan 1. I own it and have wanted to read it for awhile, because it’s in the Japanese lit part of my reading b..."

That looks interesting, Carol. I've put it on my TBR. Thanks.

Carol wrote: "I would be up for a group read of Memoirs of a Polar Bear any time after Jan 1. I own it and have wanted to read it for awhile, because it’s in the Japanese lit part of my reading b..."

I'm in!

Carol wrote: "I would be up for a group read of Memoirs of a Polar Bear any time after Jan 1. I own it and have wanted to read it for awhile, because it’s in the Japanese lit part of my reading b..."
I'd like to participate if I can manage to get the book before the group read happens, I really hope it works out because the book sound so interesting!

Lina wrote: "Carol wrote: "I would be up for a group read of Memoirs of a Polar Bear any time after Jan 1. I own it and have wanted to read it for awhile, because it’s in the Japanese lit part o..."

Lina - why don't you let us know when you've obtained it and then we'll schedule the group read? the beauty of buddy reads is, we can adjust our timing. I don't want to pressure you, but if you do want to get ahold of it and participate, we can make that work 100%.

Thanks for being so flexible with this Carol, much appreciated. I will definitely tell you when I get the book. If everything goes according to plan, I may be able to get it as soon as mid-December. If it's not then, I'd get in around march. Thanks again!

I came across this on Gothic literature and speculative fiction

https://lithub.com/how-scary-are-ghos...

Here are my have-reads and TBRs

Favorite speculative fiction authors I've read
*Robin Hobb: high fantasy, Farseer trilogy, The Liveship Traders trilogy, etc.
*Arkady Martine: science fiction, A Memory Called Empire
*Vivian Shaw: urban fantasy, Strange Practice
*Yoko Tawada: loved Memoirs of a Polar Bear, but not so much The Emissary
*N.K. Jemisin: dystopian scifi. Her Broken Earth trilogy is excellent, starting with The Fifth Season. I plan to read her Dreamblood and Thousand Kingdom series next year.
*Octavia Butler: scifi, Xenogenesis series, start with Lilith's Brood, which I preferred to her Earthseed duology.
*Ursula Le Guinn
*Martha Well's Murderbot Diaries series. (Thanks for the reminder, Anita!)

WIT speculative fiction I've read
The Memory Police (dystopian; Japan)
Our Life in the Forest (dystopian; France)
Empty Hearts (scifi; Germany)
Tentacle (Dominican Republic)
The Heart of the Circle (Israel; found this fantasy dreadful but your mileage may vary)

WIT TBRs
Frontier (China)
One Hundred Shadows (Fantasy, Korea)

I seem to prefer science fiction to fantasy, with the exception of Robin Hobb and urban fantasy.
It's great to see everyone's books. Hannah, I've added a few of your WIT books to my 2021 TBRs. :D

Carol, a big thank you for creating this thread for us!

Alwynne wrote: "I came across this on Gothic literature and speculative fiction

https://lithub.com/how-scary-are-ghos..."

Great article Alwynne, thanks for sharing it. I just finished Mexican Gothic, and it definitely fits both gothic and speculative fiction. It was a good haunted house gothic, but more importantly, it scratched my itch for a good horror story at the end of October. Towards the end, there were weird science twists a la Jeff VanderMeer.

I also tend to assume speculative fiction means science fiction, (in which, let me plug the entire Murderbot series, starting with All Systems Red) though I'm a big fan of fantasy when I'm in the mood for it. I'm happily finding a lot of genre breaking books, thanks to goodreads, that combine speculative fiction with social commentary or fantasy, like N.K. Jemisin's books and the Binti series.

Another spec-fic I read worth mentioning is The First Sister by Linden A. Lewis. It is like The Handmaid's Tale meets Sisters of the Vast Black.

Aaaand Goldilocks by Laura Lam was a light sci-fi steeped in feminist social commentary. Also, very good.

oshizu wrote: "Here are my have-reads and TBRs

Favorite speculative fiction authors I've read
*Robin Hobb: high fantasy, Farseer trilogy, The Liveship Traders trilogy, etc.
*Arkady Martine: science fiction, [boo..."

I've had [book:A Memory Called Empire|37794149] on hold for quite some time. I'm looking forward to reading it!

Anita I've heard good things about Martha Wells but haven't tried any so will have to take a look at those. The others all sound very tempting too.

Oshizu interesting about the Butler, I tried the Xenogenesis but preferred the duology. 'One Hundred Shadows' is on my tbr list and I've been thinking about trying Julie Zeh too. Is the one you listed a good one to start with?

Also realised I forgot to mention one of my all-time favourite novels which also comes under the umbrella of speculative fiction Marlen Haushofer's The Wall

Anita
How could I forget Martha Wells! I edited my post to add her to my favorites!
And I'm looking forward to your impressions on A Memory Called Empire. It's one of my fave 2020 books but nobody else I know wants to read it. :( LOL The 2nd book in the series comes out next year.
Also, I've added The First Sister to my 2021 reads.

Alwynne
That's funny about how our preferences for Butler's two series are reversed. In general, I'm less drawn to dystopian literature unless the world-building is really fantastic.
And thank you for reminding me about The Wall, which is already on my 2021 WiT TBRs.

It's so wonderful to swap book ideas with everyone. Thank you!
I'm getting really excited about our Spec Fi quartely!
Will we have a thread for female sleuths, too? *whistles innocently

oshizu wrote: "Here are my have-reads and TBRs

Favorite speculative fiction authors I've read
*Robin Hobb: high fantasy, Farseer trilogy, The Liveship Traders trilogy, etc.
*Arkady Martine: science fiction, [boo..."

Thanks for the recs oshizu, I've been meaning to try [author:N.K. Jemisin|2917917] for a while and was also unsure where to go next with Octavia E. Butler after reading kindred (I am hesitant over earthseed as i don't like things that are overly religious). Glad you discovered something new from my list too

Another author I've been hesitating over is Can Xue have you tried any of her others?

Hannah, the Butler isn't religious in the strict sense that would be a problem for me too...I haven't reviewed it on here but think this review sums it up quite well but might be too bleak a read at the moment?

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Alwynne wrote: "Also realised I forgot to mention one of my all-time favourite novels which also comes under the umbrella of speculative fiction Marlen Haushofer's The Wall"

I love that novel so much! It haunted me for weeks after I read it.

(Excellent on audio for any audiobook fans out there.)

Alwynne, have you read anything else by Haushofer?

Me too, thought it was brilliant and the film version's surprisingly good too. I haven't read anything else but have a copy of The Loft that I'm planning to read as part of my German lit challenge.

I agree that the film was surprisingly good. So beautifully shot too.

The Loft sounds quite intriguing. I'll have to see if I can track down a copy. I wish more of her work was translated into English (or better yet that my Austrian father had taught me to speak and read German!)

Alwynne wrote: "Hannah, the Butler isn't religious in the strict sense that would be a problem for me too...I haven't reviewed it on here but think this review sums it up quite well but might be too bleak a read a..."

Thanks Alwynne that's helpful

I've been looking forward to Goldilocks and The Wall for a while but haven't found copies yet. Glad you guys liked them.

I'm currently reading The Book of the Unnamed Midwife by Meg Elison and am enjoying it. It's an apocalyptic (pandemic) dystopia with feminist and LGBT elements

I've been meaning to read The Wall this year. I bought it in january for my Read German challenge as well! But after a rather unfortunate reading experience with The Last Children of Tokyo, I'm putting off dystopian reads to a post-plague era. I'm not dealing well with the subject matter at the moment.

I'm also dropping by because I totally forgot to mention one of my favorite reads this year: Terra Nullius by Claire G. Coleman. Excellent speculative fiction that really made me think about history

Sanne wrote: "I've been meaning to read The Wall this year. I bought it in january for my Read German challenge as well! But after a rather unfortunate reading experience with [book:The Last Children of Tokyo|37..."

Thanks Sanne that looks interesting. I really liked last children but i can see why you'd have to be in the right head space for it. I hope your next read is better for you

I came across this great article from sciencefriday.com in which they ask writers of color to list speculative fiction recs written by people of color. Not all recs are female authored, but a great many are! Lots and lots of books and authors to peruse.
https://www.sciencefriday.com/article...

The Nebula Awards will be given out tomorrow, June 5, in a virtual event.

https://events.sfwa.org/

Award winners announced at the SFWA website:

Nalo Hopkinson has been named the 37th Damon Knight Grand Master for her contributions to the literature of science fiction and fantasy. The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award recognizes “lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.”

Connie Willis, winner of the Kevin O'Donnell Service to SFWA Award

The Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award, for distinguished contributions to the science fiction and fantasy community, will be presented to Jarvis Sheffield and posthumously to Ben Bova and Rachel Caine.

https://www.sfwa.org/2020/12/01/nalo-...

https://www.sfwa.org/2021/02/17/conni...

https://www.sfwa.org/2021/01/26/kate-...

Unrelated to the awards, here's a link to the Nebula Reading List,
a collaborative list of 2021 reads on-point.

https://www.sfwa.org/forum/reading/