I actually didn’t like this (I’m a lady) but it was actually sent to me by a male Doper who really loved it.
I really love all the other Neal Stephenson books tho.
SF-wise, Shards of Honor and Barrayar, by Lois McMaster Bujold, currently collected in one volume entitled Cordelia’s Honor. (In before Dendarii Dame!)
For more of a fantasy setting I’d recommend Robin McKinley, I’ll single out The Blue Sword and Sunshine.
The Miss Marple novels by Agatha Christie
The Joanna Brady novels by J.A. Jance
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Friday by Robert Heinlein
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Gaea books by John Varley
Podkayne of Mars by Heinlein
Exiles at the Well of Souls by Jack Chalker
I’ve read all of those at least a dozen times. I’ve prolly read Friday and Titan (by Varley) about 50 times.
Hiro Protagonist is definitely a guy. The secondary leading character, the skateboarder, is female.
Blindness by José Saramago.
Y.T. (for Yours Truly) is her name. She’s fits the description of “a female main character”, doesn’t she? Since roughly half the book is about her?
If she’s a second main character, the book still does not match the requirements requested by the OP, and underlined.
Blue Moon Rising and its sequels have a female main character, but she has a male partner. There are the old classics, of course - Pride & Prejudice et al. The Deed of Paksennarion has already been mentioned. Heinlein’s Friday too. Anne McCaffrey’s books. Pratchett. The list goes on.
Wrinkle in Time
I enjoyed Hobb’s Liveship Traders Trilogy, but it has more than one main character. Same with the Pern books.
Brian
IIRC some of the Pern books have only one main character. Moreta, for instance, or Menolly.
My boyfriend says The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula LeGuin (not sure if this one counts because there is a male main character too, but the book is told from her POV so maybe it does.)
The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped by Sheri S. Tepper
The Heir of Sea and Fire by Patricia McKillop
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
There are probably more, but it’s hard to remember.
If you’ll accept “female anthropomorphic wombat” as meeting the criteria, then definitely Digger by Ursula Vernon. Also notable for the large number of strong female supporting characters, and for the fact that (except for the dynamics of the hyena society) character gender is largely irrelevant to the story. Available in full online at the link above, or in dead tree form if you prefer.
Another one: **Here Lies Arthur**by Philip Reeve, a unique retelling of the King Arthur legend from the viewpoint of a young servant girl. To quote the Wiki, “Set in fifth or sixth century Britain and the Anglo-Saxon invasion, it features a girl who participates in the deliberate construction of legendary King Arthur during the man’s lifetime, orchestrated by a bard” - the bard being Myrddin, who is basically a medieval spin doctor. There is no magic at all and Arthur is nothing more than a local warlord Myrddin tries to get other warlords to follow. Despite the events to which Gwyna bears witness, however, this is very much her story told from her perspective.
Always Coming Home and The Tombs of Atuan/Tehanu, by Ursula LeGuin.
Contact, by Carl Sagan.
Anna Karenina
The Parable of the Sower, Wild Seed and Fledgling by Octavia Butler. I think Butler was one of the giants of the field, and she usually had a female lead.
Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. McAvoy – quirky little fantasy storei
Only Begotten Daughter by James Morrow – God has a second child in modern day. A funny reflection on modern life, religion, and messiahdom
The Priscilla “Hutch” Hutchens novels by Jack McDevitt (I think – there are sections in some of them with other protagonists, but several have her as the main character alone) – hard SF set in a universe where FTL travel is slow and the laws of physics are always a limitation.
Staroamer’s Fate by Chuck Rothman. I wrote it, so obviously I like it. I do tend to use female protagonists in my novels.
Yes!
Great idea for a thread, elfkin.
It was a man who recommended these books to me. (That man was Asimovian.) I’ve read around 18 or 19 books in the series by now, and he’s wayyyy behind.
The Changeling - Zilpha Keatley Snyder
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Huh, nobody else has mentioned Weber’s Honor Harrington books? My interest in the later ones has faded, but the series started off well.
Asimov’s I, Robot isn’t really a novel, and different stories have different characters, but to the extent that there’s one main character of the book as a whole, it’s Dr. Susan Calvin.
Oh, and I also just finished The Westing Game. There are a large number of major characters, but the main one is definitely Turtle, the girl.
I’ll also second (or third or whatever) L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door, Heinlein’s Podkayne and Friday, all of Pratchett’s Witches books and Monstrous Regiment (the Susan books arguably count as well, though they also feature DEATH as a major character), Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and Sagan’s Contact.
And the notion that boys won’t read books about girls is nonsense. My mom was a third-grade teacher for many decades, and was always in favor of any books that she could get the kids to read, and had many of them available in her room. She says that the consistent favorite of her kids, boys and girls alike, were the American Girl books about Addy.
The Kage Baker Company books almost all star a woman and i enjoyed them very much. Also Tad Williams Otherland series.