I’ve read and enjoyed (in random order):
- Broken Earth and Inheritance series by N. K. Jemisin
- Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir
- She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan
- The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
- Teixcalaan series by Arkady Martine
- How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu
- Anything by Octavia Butler
The Left Hand of Darkness // Ursula K. Le Guin.
Absolutely recommend The Left Hand of Darkness! I loved it and it was possibly the only book to move my husband to tears. It explores gender both as a social construct and as a biological truth, as well as love across cultures.
Everything by Le Guin is gold, honestly. I particularly loved the fourth Erthsea novel, Tehanu, on gender discrimination. And The Dispossed, discussing exile. As an expat/immigrate, it resonated deeply with me.
On a light note, I enjoyed “Trail of Lightning” by R Roanhorse. What if native american myths came to life?
Maybe try Ann Leckie.
I was going to say Ursula Le Guin but someone beat me to it lol.
So instead: I haven’t read all of her books yet, but I’ve really liked everything by Emily St. John Mandel that I’ve read so far. Station Eleven was great (and the TV series is even better somehow!) and Sea of Tranquility was super interesting.
I really liked St. John Mandel books! I will have to watch the TV adaptation
Connie Willis is a SF author I love. Her short stories are very political in regards of gender and sexuality, then you have her long time-travel books and her short romantic-comedy novels.
Aliette de Bodard also has many nice stories (I have only read some of the Xuya ones)
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Anything by Becky Chambers really! Her Wayfarers (starting with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet) and her Monk and Robot (starting with A Psalm for the Wild-Built) series are such cozy scifi!
