20 female masters of science fiction to add to your reading list
Ancillary Justice (Cover image via Orbit)
13. Ann Leckie
Women and non-gender-conforming people have perhaps more of a stake in issues of gender and sexuality, compared to men. After all, when you’ve got the short end of the stick, it often behooves you to examine it closely. How else can you escape a bad situation but study it?
At any rate, it’s a central tenet of science fiction to question some of your most basic assumptions. For example, who says that computers can’t become sentient, or that life couldn’t have arisen on another planet? Why not imagine that humans could escape their prison of Earth and make new lives on new worlds? In the face of giant, consciousness-shaking questions like those, it seems strange to get so worked up over someone’s gender or gender expression.
This isn’t to say that explorations of gender and science fiction don’t play well together. Look at Ann Leckie’s masterful debut novel, Ancillary Justice (2013). In this universe, thousands of years in the future, an intelligent AI called Breq must investigate the disappearance of an imperial starship, forming the basis for the first novel’s plot.
The importance of pronouns and language
While Ancillary Justice and its follow-up novels, Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy, are compelling space operas, Leckie earns her spot on this list through her attention to gender. See, the people of the Radch empire do not distinguish one another by gender. Breq reverts to simply using the female pronoun for everyone, regardless of their biology or presentation.
It’s a brilliant move. For instance, while reading, you might sometimes be surprised to learn that a character is biologically male. Indeed, you might be forgiven if you at first think that everyone involved is biologically, culturally and personally female. And why shouldn’t “female” be a default, anyway? Think back on all of the literary presumptions of our own human cultures, which have historically assumed “male” to be the default when talking about groups or unknown individuals. With a relatively simple turn, Leckie opens up an entire universe of possibility and philosophical musing.