I’ll put in additional nominations for Diamond Age, Pratchett’s witch books,Chapterhouse Dune, and Anna Karenina, and add a few I haven’t seen yet:
Nancy Kress’ Beggars in Spain and Beggars and Choosers - a gripping duo about genetically modified children created without the need to sleep, and the ensuing societal and personal consequences, told from a strong female protagonists’s view
Norman Rush’s Mating - scintillatingly narrated from the first person POV of a brilliantly complex unnamed female graduate student in Africa, and is such a fantastic first-person portrayal that it’s one of those books that makes you sad the protagonist is fictional rather than a real-life person
Charles Stross’ Iron Sunrise - a fun and easy reading space opera featuring a Wednesday Addams clone as protagonist, along with strong secondary female characters who are spooks and assassins respectively
Mira Grant’s Feed and the other two books in that series, a zombie-as-virus book whose protagonist is the usual kick-ass zombie killer type needed in universes like that
As a teacher, I consider Susan Sto Helit (from Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather etc.) to be the ultimate example of our profession.
And the books are amusing too…
I suppose that’s true when I think hard about it, but when the female POVs are the only ones I readily remember, and the ones that made the most impact, does that make it count?
The “Mistborn” (fantasy) trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Several of his works, in fact: the novella “The Emperor’s Soul” and the novel “Warbreaker” feature strong female central characters as well.
I’ll second this, it’s one of the best books I’ve read in recent years, and a rare genuinely self contained fantasy story without obvious hooks for a series.
The first Wayfarers book by Becky Chambers, The long way to a small, angry planet has an ensemble cast with strong female roles, but the second one, A closed and common orbit has two protagonists, both female, and it’s much the better book.
Vernor Vinge’s Fire Upon the Deep and Children of the Sky both have the same two female humans as main characters. There are also some major alien female characters, including the leader of the ‘good guy’ kingdom and arguably the leader of the ‘bad guy’ kingdom, but the gender roles for the Tines are not well explained and it’s not clear how analogous to our gender theirs is. I love Fire Upon the Deep (Children of the Sky is good too), and definitely was able to related to the female characters. It’s pretty impressive that Ravna is paired up with a guy who is basically a several hundred year old legendary hero who has the ‘corpse’ of an alien demigod/superintelligence in his brain and still manages to be the driving force in her story arc.
Pratchett’s Witches, Susan, and Montrous Regiment books are good examples that have already been mentioned, I especially love the way the witches interact with each other. David Weber’s Honor Harrington series is also good military space opera in the early books (my recommendation is to read in release order until you find one boring, then declare the end of the series).
