The Rise of Women as Protagonists in Military Sci-Fi - An Article by @elveloy

Rather impulsively, I volunteered for this - after all, how hard could it be to come up with a short article? Imagine my dismay when I went to my trusty starting point and source of all instant wisdom, Wikipedia, and discovered... nothing. No article which fit this criteria (at least, none that I could find).

Even a search on Google, " the first military sci-fi books written featuring a female protagonist," only brought up a few blogs with various readers' favourites.

So I had to do some research myself. Of course there are lots of strong female characters elsewhere in sci-fi and fantasy, think of Eowyn in Lord of The Rings, but this article is about those in the specific genre of military sci-fi.

When you mention military sci-fi, most people think immediately of Ender's Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card, or Heinlein's Starship Troopers (1959) for us oldies. Both written by men and starring male protagonists. But since the 1990s, stories with female protagonists have been making their presence felt.

The following four characters, and their authors, were highlighted by more than one blogger as being the best (and possibly earliest) representatives of this genre.

Heris Serrano trilogy by Elizabeth Moon - 1993 - 95, (followed by Vatta's War series in the next decade)

Honor Harrington series by David Weber - 1993 - present

Torin Kerr series by Tanya Huff - 2000 - present

Kris Longknife series by Mike Shepherd - 2004 - present

Although each character is different, and the universes they live in vary dramatically, the series do have a few points in common. All of them are described as space operas, in addition to being military sci-fi.

The heroines are strong women, spaceship captains or commanding officers, who engage in battles against extra-planetary foes, aliens or human. In addition to the obvious enemy, they also find themselves fighting a personal battle against family members, or their

colleagues, to maintain their position. The stories contain lots of action and adventures, with a touch of romance thrown in.

One of my own favourites, not mentioned above, is Primary Inversion, written in 1995 by Catherine Asaro. Her heroine, Sauscony, has been bio-engineered and genetically enhanced into a weapon in her own right. Although there is a strong romantic thread in the story, Asaro's use of her impressive scientific knowledge (she has a PhD in Chemical Physics) puts this story - unusually - into the hard sci-fi genre.

Looking across to the medium of film and television - it seemed to me that the 1990s was the magic decade there too.

Consider that classic series - Star Trek. It began in 1966, (I remember those black and white episodes!) The most memorable female character in that first series was Lieutenant Uhura, the long-legged Communications Officer. She broke ground as one of the first African-American women portrayed as having equal status with the male characters on the program, but I don't remember much action from her, apart from swivelling on the chair to report "Hailing frequencies, open, sir." It wasn't until 1995, that Captain Kathryn Janeway became the first female commanding officer and took the lead role, commanding the starship Voyager.

Stargate SG-1 was another popular military sci-fi series. In 1997, they introduced Captain Samantha Carter, who was a United States Airforce Pilot before she joined the Stargate team and went on to participate in numerous military missions on other worlds.

Before the 1990s however, there was Ellen Ripley in Alien and Sarah Connor in Terminator. Were these films military sci fi? Or merely action sci-fi? What do you think?

Over the last ten years, the sub-genre of military sci-fi with female protagonists, has continued to expand, with works by Jean Johnson, Sarah Zettel and John Scalzi to name a few. Not to mention our own Angus Ecrivain, mentioned elsewhere in this magazine...

Obviously, this is not an academic piece.

Please feel free to add your own knowledge and opinions to the comments section of this article.