This list is for military sci-fi/space opera books where the female soldier stars or receive equal billing as a POV character along with the other characters. The focus should be on a military (or police or mercenary or resistance) fighting unit and the mechanics/sisterhood required to win the battle. Any romantic subplots should be subtle. These are women who go kick alien butt!!! ONLY THE FIRST BOOK OF A SERIES PLEASE!!! Please state in the little 'Why you added this book' comment why you feel your book fits this list. NO PRIMARILY ROMANCE NOVELS. NO NOVELS WHERE THE WOMAN SOLDIER / MERCENARY / POLICEWOMAN IS NOT THE FOCUS OF THE BOOK. (Books written by male authors are fine ... it's the gender and military training of the primary protagonist which matters). Inappropriate suggestions will be deleted.

This listopia is maintained by the Space Opera Fans community: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

We maintain MANY listopias in many space-opera sub-genres ... just visit our community to find the right 'fit' for your Space Opera sweet tooth.

AUTHORS: these listopias are a pain-in-the-butt to update (requires grovelling to Goodreads administration), so you will not endear yourself to the very small and intimate community of avid sci-fi readers you hope to reach if you are a jerk and spam this list with irrelevant crap or every...single...book in your series. You will quickly find yourself blacklisted from people's reading lists if you act like a jerk, so please be polite and follow the rules. If you want to get to know us, come visit us and interact as a READER.
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273 likes · 
Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes.


Anna 345 books
358 friends
Clare 8448 books
346 friends
Sarah 1150 books
42 friends
Cassandra 319 books
892 friends
Betsy 2616 books
28 friends
Aaron 1348 books
13 friends
Malin 2113 books
13 friends
Kaitlin 2149 books
39 friends

More voters…


Comments Showing 1-13 of 13 (13 new)

dateUp arrow    newest »

message 1: by Andrew (new)

Andrew I would add Friday by Robert A. Heinlein.


message 2: by Anna (new)

Anna Erishkigal Andrew wrote: "I would add Friday by Robert A. Heinlein."

Then you SHOULD add Friday :-) These Listopias are community-generated. Just read the criteria carefully, and if it fits, add it. If it doesn't fit, visit Space Opera Fans and find the We Have Listopia's folder to find a better fit (we've got about a dozen sub-genre lists).,


message 3: by Keith (new)

Keith Added Scott Westerfeld's The Risen Empire, Walter Jon Williams' The Praxis, and Hannu Rajaniemi's The Quantum Thief to the list.


message 4: by Vikarti (new)

Vikarti Is Quicker by Laurence E. Dahners really belongs here? It's not space opera in any sense of word. Ell have only brief time in military academy and military service (It was decided that she will serve USA much better as civilian (technically in reserve))


message 5: by Megalion (new)

Megalion Sleeping Giants counts I think? Didn't love it myself. Excited to see this list as I've been jonesing for more like Sirantha Jax!


message 6: by Trike (new)

Trike I love The Forever War. It does not belong on this list. There are kickass women soldiers, yes, but the protagonist is a man.

There are a lot of non-first books on the list, too, which should be removed.

I added Velocity Weapon because it is both Space Opera and has a woman soldier (space pilot) as the protagonist.


Women_of_the_Future Trike wrote: "There are a lot of non-first books on the list, too, whic..."

I love GR lists but unfortunately they cannot be maintained by the list creator. Only GR librarians can remove books from listopias 🙄


Women_of_the_Future For anyone who'd like to see a list of women in SciFi, that is maintained...you can check out the group bookshelves of the Group Women of the Future . I'm not hear to promote the group, you don't need to join the group to see the list. I'm just here to promote books with great female representation 😁

https://www.goodreads.com/group/books...


Kay Dee (what is your storygraph name? mine is in my bio. join me!) Meadows Women_of_the_Future wrote: "Trike wrote: "There are a lot of non-first books on the list, too, whic..."

I love GR lists but unfortunately they cannot be maintained by the list creator. Only GR librarians can remove books fro..."


ugh i HATE that amazon bought all the great reading list websites. they do not listen to us at all. things like this have been suggested for years. YEARS. as long as they can gather our info to sell more books they don't care about how we use GR.


message 10: by Micka22 (new)

Micka22 checked


message 11: by Travis (new)

Travis Yeah, unfortunately, the fact that the list creator can't remove books almost makes the lists useless. Sorry to say that, but unfortunately it's true. Many books on this list aren't firsts, and several others aren't female main characters. Such a shame the list gets broken so badly. I liked it much better when shelfari was indipendent, at least there, I could fix errors. (had several thousand edits edits on books because of things like this), although shelfari didn't have user maintained lists that I recall anyway. Still, was a site better in terms of being able to maintain books themselves. I've also noticed several series lists are broken, and only a librarian can fix those as well.


Kay Dee (what is your storygraph name? mine is in my bio. join me!) Meadows Travis wrote: "Yeah, unfortunately, the fact that the list creator can't remove books almost makes the lists useless. Sorry to say that, but unfortunately it's true. Many books on this list aren't firsts, and sev..."

oh man...i miss shelfari soooooo much.
following comment conversation threads - easy
customizing your layout- easy
reporting and fixing book errors- easy
PRIVATE book shelves!!!

oh... i miss it so much. that might have been when i started to hate amazon.


Kay Dee (what is your storygraph name? mine is in my bio. join me!) Meadows Women_of_the_Future wrote: "For anyone who'd like to see a list of women in SciFi, that is maintained...you can check out the group bookshelves of the Group Women of the Future . I'm not hear to promote the group, you don't n..."

honestly the book lists are the only reason i join groups on GR. i rarely if ever participate in the discussions.


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