Feeding the Hunger – female writers are storming the male citadels of sci-fi

A generation of readers raised on Harry Potter has had a knock-on effect on demand for fantasy fiction, and left publishers scrambling to sign up women

Samantha Shannon, author of The Mime Order, one of several hotly anticipated sequels by female writers due out this spring - as fantasy fiction goes mainstream. Photograph: Karen Robinson

Sarah Hughes

Sunday 12 April 2015 - The Guardian

The coming of age of the Harry Potter generation, raised on young adult dystopian novels such as The Hunger Games and Divergent, has had a knock-on effect on fantasy fiction and left publishers scrambling to sign up a new generation of female authors.

Fantasy, once seen as fiction’s last male enclave, is now host to an array of female-centric titles – a number of which look set to dominate the genre in 2015.

This spring will see the arrival of three hotly anticipated sequels – Samantha Shannon’s The Mime Order, Jen Williams’ The Iron Ghost and Erika Johansen’s The Invasion of the Tearling – and a number of promising debuts, including Helena Coggan’s The Catalyst and Francesca Haig’s The Fire Sermon.
More