The best science fiction novels about deadly women

It's a strange way to kick off a series of science fiction recommendations, but the first thing that drew me into this book is that it’s really more of a fantasy novel (that just happens to take place in space).

This book was my break from a long self-imposed laundry list of the classics, and it completely shook me up as a reader. I remembered what it was like to be so engrossed in a book that you’re staying up late in bed and ordering the next in the series when you’re only halfway through the first. I remembered what it was like to have fun.

It is utterly unique and incredibly exciting, but what really makes it stand out for me are the startling, vivid characters. Also, lesbian necromancy! That was the two-word pitch that got me into this, and thank god it did. 

This is one of the most unsettling books I’ve ever read.

For weeks after finishing it, I would find myself coming back to scenes I remembered and feeling a prickle down the back of my neck. Isserly, the main character of the book, isn’t really a woman but an alien wearing a human suit to draw in her victims while driving around rural Scotland.

I’m Scottish myself, and recently, I found myself feeling a genuine sense of paranoia while out hillwalking and seeing a lone figure in the distance. It’s a hard read, almost sickening at times, but I’m not exaggerating when I say I believe I will be thinking about it for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t recommend it for the faint-hearted, and it’s definitely not a comfort read, but if you have the stomach for it, this is a truly remarkable novel. 

This book is best read over the course of one rainy weekend if you’re feeling in a rut. I got into a bath with this book, and by the time I came out, it was nearly finished, and the water was stone cold.

Two deadly women for the price of one! And they’re in love! This is more of a novella than a novel, and it consists of a series of letters written between two agents on either side of a complicated looping and multi-threaded war.

I love epistolary novels, and I love interesting framing devices; as a writer, it made me immediately want to try my hand at something similar. The prose is rich and lovely, and for such a short book, it contains a wealth of imagination and invention. 

This was a book that really surprised me. A very no-nonsense macho family member recommended it to me on a holiday, and I remember raising my eyebrows reading the back cover and finding out it heavily featured an interspecies romance.

The minute I started reading, I got so wrapped up in the adrenaline and action that I actually went on to recommend it to my sci-fi-loving dad, who read it in a day and went on to borrow the rest of the series. The heroine, a power armor-wearing mercenary, is incredibly competent and badass but avoids falling into either Mary Sue or Damsel in Distress territory as the plot proceeds.

Additionally, while I kept going for the action-romance, the worldbuilding was surprisingly interesting and in-depth. Whenever I’m reluctantly charmed by something, I find it hard not to gush about it; it’s just such a fun experience as a reader to fall in love with something out of nowhere! 

Someone once told me if you want to read science fiction, you should start at the very beginning and gave me a copy of this book. Written in 1666, I’m not going to pretend this is an easy read but I would recommend it if only because it inspired so many of my favorite contemporary science fiction authors (including China Mieville and Alan Moore).

A woman stranded in a strange and hostile world becomes a military empress, the OG sci-fi action woman.

I admit this book originally felt like doing my homework, but by the time I finished, I immediately went on a literary criticism deep dive, finding every article and essay I could about this text and its (remarkable) author. I came out feeling like an evangelist, and now I bore people at parties talking about it.