gets to save the day—at least in part because they’re the only ones who can figure out what’s going on." One title on the list:Bellis Coldwine in The Scar, by China MiévilleRead about the other entries on the list.
Fleeing New Crobuzon after the events of Perdido Street Station, Bellis Coldwine is a brilliant linguist who is soon captured by pirates and forcibly made a citizen of the floating city Armada. There she is put in charge of the library and spends her time resentfully missing her home even as the Lovers, the leaders of Armada, involve her in their plot to raise the sea monster known as the Avanc. When information on an ancient book explaining how to summon the Avanc is found, Bellis destroys it and puts herself into danger in order to warn her home city—which cast her out—of impending danger, making her the best kind of hero: the unappreciated kind.
--Marshal Zeringue