This week, there’s been a great campaign (which I’ve mostly seen on Twitter) with #WomenToRead – encouraging readers to investigate the works of the incredible female writers in the genre. I have the honor of knowing many of those women professionally and personally, so I’m very happy to give some suggestions. I could go on, but this should do you for a while.

• If you like your epic fantasy with cool worldbuilding and lush language, read The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms or The Killing Moon by N. K. Jemisin.
• If you like your dystopia with a strong sense of community, read The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.
• If you like Indiana Jones and dragons, read A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan.
• If you want something with a classic SF feel but a modern sensibility, read vN by Madeline Ashby.
• If you like pirates and magic and romance, read The Assassin’s Curse by Cassandra Rose Clarke.
• If you want to read an award-winning, truly different urban fantasy, read Zoo City by Lauren Beukes.
• If you like Downton Abbey and magical machination, read Between Two Thorns by Emma Newman.
• If you like Urban Fantasy with a overmatched but determined lead, read Nightshifted by Cassie Alexander.
• If you want to read some fantasy and SF classics by women, make sure you’ve read A Wizard of Earthsea and The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin.
• If you want to read up on the origins of Cyberpunk, be sure to read “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” by James Tiptree Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon)
• If you’re looking for some awesomely surreal 70s utopian/dystopian SF, read The Female Man by Joanna Russ.
• If you want to read what is arguably the first modern Urban Fantasy, read The War For The Oaks by Emma Bull.

What Women in Genre do you think everyone should read?

Added – friend recommendations

My friend Chad (also a writer), recommends Low Red Moon by Caitlin R. Kiernan. I haven’t read it, but she’s also a Nebula award nominee this year with The Drowning Girl.