The authors are overwhelmingly male (90%), and the titles are overwhelmingly old.
That's not to say that they're bad (though at least one is objectively bad). Just old and male.
Here's three for diversity:
- Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. Character-driven space opera, with side-trips into mystery, thriller, and (gasp) romance. Start with the short story collection _Borders of Infinity_ to get a taste for it.
- Elizabeth Bear -- lots of variety, but _Carnival_ and _Dust_ are excellent. Respectively, they are an espionage/police procedural and a political thriller on a doomed starship.
- Linda Nagata -- she's best known for the epic nanotech series (The Bohr-Maker, Limit of Vision, Tech Heaven...) but recently started a near-future series about the impact of cybernetics, prosthetics and early AI (First Light).
That's not to say that they're bad (though at least one is objectively bad). Just old and male.
Here's three for diversity:
- Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. Character-driven space opera, with side-trips into mystery, thriller, and (gasp) romance. Start with the short story collection _Borders of Infinity_ to get a taste for it.
- Elizabeth Bear -- lots of variety, but _Carnival_ and _Dust_ are excellent. Respectively, they are an espionage/police procedural and a political thriller on a doomed starship.
- Linda Nagata -- she's best known for the epic nanotech series (The Bohr-Maker, Limit of Vision, Tech Heaven...) but recently started a near-future series about the impact of cybernetics, prosthetics and early AI (First Light).