Celebrating the women authors who shaped science fiction and fantasy

J.K. Rowling

Okay, so let’s be straight here. I don’t particularly want to talk about J.K. Rowling. You don’t particularly want to read about J.K. Rowling. She’s been criticized a lot in recent years, and I’m the first to admit that I think it’s well justified. However, it would be disingenuous to create a list of influential women authors and not at least touch upon her, so let’s consider this an exercise in separating the art from the artist for a good cause.

J.K. Rowling has stirred up no end of controversy in the past few years for repeatedly spouting transphobic rhetoric. It has lost her a lot of good will with the Harry Potter fandom, and with compassionate humans in general. We’ve discussed the controversy elsewhere; for now, let’s just take a moment to reflect on the absolutely enormous influence that the Harry Potter novels had on a whole generation of readers. They are some of the biggest fantasy novels of all time, full stop. Regardless of Rowling’s rhetoric, we have to acknowledge the broad effect her books have had not only on the publishing industry at large, but readers and writers the world over. Can you imagine what modern fantasy would look like if Hogwarts and Harry Potter had never existed? I certainly can’t.

When we talk about books that changed the course of fantasy, and of publishing, few series are as noteworthy as Harry Potter. It ignited the imaginations of millions of readers the world over, so we must tip our wizarding cap to them.

But now that that’s done, let’s end by talking briefly about the writers to come, and the brighter future ahead.

Women authors shaping sci-fi and fantasy today

You may have noticed as we went through this list that almost every one of the women on it is white. This is not a coincidence. Publishing has a long and fraught history when it comes to representation, but thankfully, it has been making some pretty enormous strides in that department in the past decade.

It’s encouraging to reflect on the authors who are shaping science fiction and fantasy and realize that when the time comes to memorialize those who steered the ship in the early 2000s, it’s going to be a much more diverse group. Authors like N.K. Jemisin, Fonda Lee, C.L. Clark, Tasha Suri, K.S. Villoso, S.A. Chakraborty, Arkady Martine, Tamsyn Muri and Andrea Stewart are pushing science fiction and fantasy in ways that are making the genres better across the board. One of the core elements of science fiction is the examination of what the future might look like, and in this case that future for readers of these genres looks bright.

The landscape of the book industry is ever-changing, and in this writer’s opinion it is changing for the better. We owe a debt to the women who shaped science fiction and fantasy into what it is, who wrote so many of our favorite books and paved the way for an even broader field of incredible sci-fi and fantasy stories by women authors coming out today, and that are still to come.

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