[ SECRET POST #2651 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2651 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 051 secrets from Secret Submission Post #379.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 2 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[sarillia]

I say we have a rec thread for books with good female characters. Any suggestions?

[(Anonymous)]

The Kitty Norville books by Carrie Vaughn, and the Mercy Thompson books by Patricia Briggs.

[badass_tiger]

Discworld. Discworld all the way. Badass fighting lady? Angua von Uberwald. Sweet, gentle housewife who can take out a werewolf while pregnant? Lady Sybil. Mean old lady who sees it as her duty to help others? Granny Weatherwax? Cheery old lady who loves alcohol and young men? Nanny Ogg. Feminist badass? Cheery Littlebottom. And more. Way more. There are lots of brilliant ladies for pretty much any character trope you want.

[dreemyweird]

Sherlock Holmes canon! (okay, I had to do it. But seriously, just about every single female character there is damn awesome. Though, granted, they are not main protagonists).

I just finished reading London Falling by Paul Cornell (thanks to a minazummers and feotakahari), and Lisa Ross is jrgnfngf,gm. The book is urban fantasy stuff of the highest quality. And female antagonists are great, too (e.g. Mora Losley).

Tove Jansson <33 Her female characters aren't human, but that does not make them any worse.

Annika Thor, the Stephie Steiner cycle.

^those are my personal favourites, obvsl there are more.

[loracarol]

Patricia C. Wrede's "Enchanted Forest Chronicles"! And Tamora Pierce's books. Her earlier books are a little rough, but there's still pretty good. :3 Personally I like the Kel Quartet and the Emelan books best, (haven't read the last book though), but all of them have pretty awesome ladies!

[(Anonymous)]

Indexing by Seanan McGuire comes to mind.

[ansela_jonla]

David Weber's Honor Harrington series. A space opera series where the main protagonist is female, the gender of supporting characters is rarely an issue outside of a couple of planets that are viewed as Backwards even by the characters, and romance is not the be-all and end-all of a woman's life.

[hands4healing]

Pretty much anything Tanith Lee writes with a female protagonist. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro' vampire chronicles have some amazing characters, male, female, villain, good guy, etc. Plus, historical fiction, and both clothes and food porn. I've liked all the female characters in Peter Beagle's works.

I'm blanking on other writers at the moment, because these are authors whose works I collect.

[lazchan]

Anything by Seanan McGuire, Patricia Briggs, Lynn Flewelling....

[(Anonymous)]

The Parasol Protectorate books by Gail Carriger. Steampunk werewolves and vampires, yes, please.

[(Anonymous)]

All of the women in Garth Nix's fantasy series, but especially Sabriel and Lireal.

[(Anonymous)]

Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde

[(Anonymous)]

Also, Jasper Fforde's Last Dragonslayer series.

[(Anonymous)]

Bad Moneys by Matt Ruff
morally ambigious character, warning for csa/sexual abuse of teenagers and possibly paranoid schizophreny. Psycho Thriller.

Village of Stone by Xiaolu Guo, warning for graphic csa. collected female protagonist who has to deal with her past, but who never gets "shrill"

The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine by Alina Bronsky, features grandmother, mother and daughter as main characters. Again: warning for csa. Seriously morally ambigious characters POV with the grandmother.

Nordseedschungel by Doris Meißner-johannknecht, warning for suicidal tendencies (but heartfelt bisexual character with f/f romance)

Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell, technologically old fashioned (90s) but interesting female investigator (of a serial rape murder crime). Tackles topic like sexism at the work place, victim blaming, but has also women solidarity.

Jack Maggs by Peter Carey
has its share of stupid tropes. the protagonist is male, but the reason why stuff gets shitty is because they don't take the women serious enough- and in the end the main female character saves the day.

As much as I hate to do this

[elephantinegrace]

I have to recommend Diane Gabaldon's Outlander series. I understand if you're a little reluctant to try out her stuff after her views on writing, but her works are pretty incredible.

[(Anonymous)]

Tana French's first couple crime novels (In the Woods and The Likeness) involve one of my favorite woman characters, with her taking over as narrator in the latter. (Not recommended for people who just want a wam-bam-whodunit because the first novel is a potentially harsh fuck-you to the conventions people expect from a mystery novel in a couple ways, and you will spend many pages getting to know characters without significant development on the case aspect so you kind of have to delve into it as just being literature that happens to be about cops.) French does continue to write good women after that but they're not quite main characters (up until possibly the upcoming installment.)

Animorphs?

Seconding Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy.

The Poisonwood Bible (though other classmates definitely loved it more than me, I loved a couple of the characters).

[al28894]

If you like some non-fiction, then I heartily recommend Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. It's a novelization of five defectors from North Korea (2 males, 3 females) and how they lived, grew up, suffered,a and eventually ran away from their nation.

The story is never sappy nor maudlin, and it doesn't portray the defectors as heroes or villains. Seeing them (and especially the women) gain the courage to cross the border and rebuild their lives is... really something.

[rbhudson]

Anything by Margaret Atwood. I did a seminar on her my senior year of college and it was super refreshing.

[ketita]

The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon - features a very badass and awesome lady knight.

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold - while it's true that the lead character is a male, there are several very awesome women as secondary characters.

Graceling is a YA book, but I liked how for once we get a heroine who does the reluctant assassin thing.

The Far Side of Evil by Sylvia Engdahl - one of my favorite books as a teenager. Features a badass anthropologist who is sent to a developing planet with strict rules not to break the status quo or interfere, how she gets into trouble, and her friendship with a local woman and its results.

[inkdust]

The Flavia de Luce series by Alan Bradley, for mystery. A wide variety of great female characters of all ages, and the characterization really starts to deepen as the books progress.

[(Anonymous)]

Anything by Robin McKinley (especially Sunshine) and anything by Diane Duane (especially the Rihannsu series)

the Ring of Fire alternate history series that begins with 1632; it has a giant ensemble cast, including all kinds of women being awesome in all kinds of ways.

Artemis Fowl. Holly is a great character.

CHANUR series! Great female characters (who some from a society where women are in power, so their entire mental framework is different) and great sociopolitical scifi fare.

Timothy Zahn also tends to have good female characters--characterization as a whole isn't his strong suit, but doesn't seem to care if they're male or female, as long as they can do the job.

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Currently reading Rupetta at the moment, just finished Mockingjay and filling in the gaps of my science fiction knowledge with Parable of the Sower, Bujold tends to be good, along with Slonczewski, Karen Lord was pretty good, but unfortunately the release date of her second science fiction book was pushed back to next year.

[(Anonymous)]

The Amelia Peabody mysteries by Elizabeth Peters.

[(Anonymous)]

Anthills of the Savannah - Chinua Achebe
anything by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
anything by Jane Austen
So Long a Letter - Mariama Ba
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
Villette - Charlotte Bronte
Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
anything by Octavia E. Butler
anything by Susanna Clarke
Tam Lin - Pamela Dean
Captain Marvel - Kelly Sue DeConnick
Babel-17 - Samuel R. Delany
Sarah Canary - Karen Joy Fowler
The Lady's Not for Burning - Christopher Fry
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
Black Widow: The Name of the Rose - Marjorie M. Liu
Dreamsnake - Vonda N. McIntyre
The Housekeeper and the Professor - Yoko Ogawa
The English Patient - Michael Ondaatje
The Perilous Gard - Elizabeth Marie Pope
Franny and Zooey - J. D. Salinger
Blindness - Jose Saramago
Death by Silver - Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold
Much Ado About Nothing - William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare
Jagannath - Karin Tidbeck
Saga - Brian K. Vaughan
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak