Heroic Women

I'm currently doing some of the background reading for a writing project and trying to find books by writers of fantasy fiction that show a feminist slant to their work. I am particularly interested in strong female protagonists and so far I've discovered the work of Juliet E McKenna, Jan Siegal, Patricia McKillip and Robin McKinley which all fit my requirements. McKenna's Livak & Halice from The Tales of Einarinn and Risala & Janne Daish from The Aldabreshin Compass are all far from being "Damsels in Distress": Livak is a part-time thief and full-time gambler, whilst her friend Halice is a mercenary/warrior woman; Risala meanwhile is a bard and Janne Daish is a warlord's wife. Siegel's Ferna Capel & Gaynor in the Prospero's Children trilogy both possess power of different sorts, but in sufficient quantities to disempower the "Wicked Witch" and the "Dark Lord". Similarly Patricia McKillip's Raederle from The Chronicles of Morgon, despite being promised in marriage to a man she hardly knows, is no mere "Princess", rather she possesses the power to Shape-shift which saves both her own and Morgon's life (Morgon is the man to whom she is promised in marriage) and proves vital to his success in achieving his "Quest". Robin McKinley's Aerin Firehair is a Dragon-slayer, a princess, and a destroyer of Damar's Dark Lord, whilst Harry Crewe (real name Angharad Crewe) is a distant descendant of Aerin who proves to have inherited her powers, although she only uses them to destroy a latter-day Dark Lord before marrying the King (though she is not a princess). Harry becomes one of the King's elite, a "King's Rider" (much like Tolkien's Eowyn is a shield-maiden of Rohan).

What is interesting to me is that both Philip Pullman and Garth Nix have also created strong female protagonists: Pullman's Lyra is the heroine of the His Dark Materials trilogy and saves several universes from destruction; Nix created two strong females in his Old Kingdom series - Sabriel is an Abhorsen, a sorcerer with necromanctic powers which she uses for good, whilst Lirael is Sabriel's sister who discovers that she has other powers than those she expects to develop. For me, it is a pleasure to find strong, heroic female characters who have been created by male authors.

What set me off on this search for strong female characters was J K Rowling's Harry Potter series (1). In it one of Harry's best friends is Hermione Granger, a young woman whom I am convinced is going to play a key role in Harry's final defeat of Lord Voldemort. I know quite a few adult readers and some critics of children's literature who do not think much of Hermione, but I believe J K Rowling will vindicate my reading of Hermione's character, although we'll probably have to wait another 2 years for the publication of the final Harry Potter story and for my theory to be proved right !

(1) OK, I realise that it's likely that almost everyone who can read knows who Harry Potter is, but since I've linked to the other novel series or authors mentioned on this page, I just being consistent...