Arnason, Eleanor    

Category: Alien society
Summary: The Hwarath society is homosexual and thinks heterosexuality is a perversion.

Arnason, Eleanor    

Category: Alien society
Summary: Women live together in villages, but the men, when they reach puberty, leave the villages and live alone in the wild. Women who mate with other women are mentioned, but the native characters think it is perverted.

Bear, Elizabeth    

Category: Humans on another planet
Summary: Michelangelo and Vincent, Coalition spies posing as diplomats, come to New Amazonia to broker an agreement between the two governments. As the story unfolds, you find that nothing is as it seems. Michelangelo and Vincent are lovers, which is why they were chosen for the mission--New Amazonia is ruled by women and they are suspicious of "stud" males. The women of New Amazonia, especially Lesa, are strong and interesting, though the "gay" females in the story are separatists and are not sympathetic characters. Bear did a great job of depicting how cultural assumptions and biases influence our perceptions.

Boyd, John    

Category: Science Fiction
Summary: The invention of Vita-Lerp, a drug that not only allows parthenogenesis, but gives great orgasms as well, makes men superflous and sparks a movement to eliminate men altogether. Captain Benjamin Franklin Hansen of the US Navy finds himself promoted into the highest ranks of government as the men make plans to stop the women's crusade. Hansen must choose whether to put his faith in the loyalty of his beloved wife Helga and daughter Joan Paula, or to side with the High Command, who is so intent on victory that they would even consider nuking the United States.

Brin, David    

Category: Alien society
Summary: Female-dominated world, where men are trying to change their place in it. Well done.

Burdekin, Katharine    

Category: Far future
Summary: Written in the 1930's, but unpublished until recently, this book depicts a future utopia where women rule a peaceful, prosperous society, but at a cost. The men are infantilized; barely more than children mentally and emotionally. One woman believes it is time for men and women to be equal and sets about trying to start a revolution. The reason I gave this a 1 was because 3/4s of the book is nothing but her telling the history of their world to her son and since it is all just exposition, I found it boring. It does have historical and academic merit though.

Carr, Jayge    

Category: Alien society
Summary: Delyafam is a water world, ruled by females. The Kimassu Lady has risen far in her society, despite her odd coloration. Through a male Terran, captured after violating the Inner Holy, she discovers that the Terrans, considered little more than pests by the Council, have plans to wipe out her people and take the planet for themselves. The more time she spends with the Terran, the more she realizes that her people have been shortchanging the males of her species. Ultimately, she must act to save her world from the Terran threat, and at the same time create equality between the sexes.

Charnas, Suzy McKee    

Category: Fantasy
Summary: Book Four of the Holdfast Chronicles. Alldera's daughter, raised by the Riding Women, comes to the Holdfast with a boy child borne by an escaped slave because the Riding Women won't accept him. This novel deserves a 6. The four books together, but especially the last two, have the most complex and realistic characters I've ever encountered.

Charnas, Suzy McKee    

Category: Fantasy
Summary: Book 3 of the Holdfast Chronicles. Alldera and the Free Fems return to the Holdfast and conquer it. Then they have to figure out how to create a new society that also includes the newly freed slaves, and the men, and the women who want to sleep with the men.

Charnas, Suzy McKee    

Category: Fantasy
Summary: Book Two of the Holdfast Chronicles. In this book, Alldera, a slave, escapes the Holdfast and meets the Riding Women, and all female society who have been genetically engineered to reproduce without men. We are also introduced to the Free Fems, who are a band of women who also escaped the Holdfast.

Duchamp, L. Timmel    Lesbian Author!

Category: Alien invasion
Summary: The Marq’ssan come to Earth to teach humanity to change, become less violent and hierarchical. Kay Zeldin, a historian with former ties to “the Company” is recruited by her old nemesis to be one of the USA’s negotiators.

There are a lot of lesbian characters. I thought the book needed another draft or two. This is the first of five books in the Marq’ssan cycle. Available from the publisher: Aqueduct Press (http://aqueductpress.com), who specializes in feminist science fiction.

Freireich, Valerie J.    

Category: Science Fiction
Summary: In the Polite Harmony of Worlds, Testament, a small planet ruled by Matriarchal clans, is in quarantine because of the genetically modified Altereds. All of Freireich's books are good.

Gilman, Charlotte Perkins    

Category: Utopia
Summary: Set just before World War I, the story concerns an all-female society that is discovered by three male explorers. I haven't read it in 20 years, so it is unrated.

Griffith, Nicola    Lesbian Author!

Category: Alien society
Summary: Men cannot live on the planet Jeep because of a virus that kills them. Women are changed by the virus so that they can communicate with the planet itself and give to birth to healthy, genetically diverse children without males. Marguerite Angelica Taishan is an anthropologist who makes the decision to expose herself to the virus so that she can study the society of women that has developed on Jeep since the original colonization effort.

Kress, Nancy    

Category: Alien society
Summary: Humans ship-wrecked on an alien planet are confined by the local inhabitants to be studied. Over the many years of imprisonment, the humans revert to a less civilized lifestyle. Includes a society of female soldiers who eschew the company of men.

Leigh, Stephen    

Category: Alien society
Summary: Alien females had sex/relationships with each other and males were “animals.”

Picano, Felice    

Category: Far future
Summary: Women rule the galactic empire, but not everyone is satisfied with the state of the union.

Russ, Joanna    Lesbian Author!

Category: Science fiction
Summary: Four women in four different worlds, all with names beginning with ‘J.' Through mysterious means, they start crossing the barriers between their universes and their interactions change all of their lives.

Sargant, Pamela    

Category: Dystopian future
Summary: In the far future, women live in walled cities, and the men are banished outside the walls to live as they can. But one woman leaves the city, meets and falls in love with her female lover's brother, and in the process discovers that men are people too.

Slonczewski, Joan    

Category: Alien society
Summary: The Elysians have built floating cities in the oceans of Shora, which they share with the raft-dwelling, all-female, genetic-whiz Sharers (from A Door Into Ocean). When they hear rumors that the planet Urulan, home to a warlike society, has nuclear missles, they invite a translator from another planet to help them find out what's going on.

Slonczewski, Joan    

Category: Alien society
Summary: The water planet Shora is inhabited by the humanoid Sharers, an all-female species that lives on rafts and whose governing structure is based on consensus and non-violence. When humans come to Shora and try to dominate the Sharers, the Sharers resist in very interesting and sometimes amusing ways.

Spencer, Wen    

Category: Fantasy
Summary: In this tale of boy meets girl(s), gender roles are flipped. In this world that is reminiscent of the US Wild West, women are in charge, and men are kept at home to cook, clean, and take care of the children. The ratio of men to women is on the order of 1 to 10, so men are rare and precious and are closely guarded against kidnappers. It's a good read, like all of Spencer's novels. One of Jerin's new wives alludes to a past relationship with another woman.

Tepper, Sheri S.    

Category: Fantasy
Summary: In the far future, women live in walled cities, and the men are banished outside the walls in military camps. One young woman falls in love with a soldier and leaves the city to be with him, only to discover that she had it a lot better at home.

Tiptree, James Jr.    Lesbian Author?

Category: Science Fiction
Summary: James Tiptree, Jr was a pseudonym for Alice Sheldon. Her stories are provocative and lyrical examinations of human nature, and of the role of women in American society.

Vonarburg, Elisabeth    

Category: Far future
Summary: This is a future earth where only 3% of the population is born male, and there are very strict rules for how men and women can live their lives. Women form relationships with each other, but men are discouraged from doing so. Male-Female relationships based on love are unheard of.