I received lots of suggestions to my request for a reading challenge for 2011 – both here on my blog, on LibraryThing, and on Twitter. So, ta very much all those who commented. But I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do…

Torque Control’s Women in SF Week has inspired me to read twelve science fiction novels by women writers during 2011 as my reading challenge. I’ve tentatively identified the dozen novels I’m going to read. I didn’t want to pick only those published since 2001, although many are from the last decade. Nor would I limit myself to books published in the UK. But I did want my list to be comprise only authors I’ve not read before (bar one or two slight cheats).

The twelve books go like this:

• Kindred, Octavia Butler (1979)
• Winterlong, Elizabeth Hand (1988)
• The Steerswoman, Rosemary Kirstein (1989)
• China Mountain Zhang, Maureen McHugh (1992)
• Shadow Man, Melissa Scott (1996)
• Spin State, Chris Moriarty (2003)
• Maul, Tricia Sullivan (2003)
• The Year of Our War, Steph Swainston (2004)
• City of Pearl, Karen Traviss (2004)
• Dark Space, Marianne de Pierres (2007)
• Moxyland, Lauren Beukes (2008)
• Winterstrike, Liz Williams (2008)

I already own some of the books on this list – Winterlong, Winterstrike, The Steerswoman, and Dark Space – and so it gives me the perfect excuse to read them. It’s also a nicely varied list, covering several different types of sf. One or two authors I might have read other works by them before. I have a vague memory of reading an Octavia Butler novel when I was at school, and I think I’ve read one by Melissa Scott many years ago too. I’ve certainly read short fiction by one or two of those on the list, but that doesn’t matter.

If anyone has any must read suggestions for the list, I’m prepared to bump one or two of my choices.