The protagonist of Una McCormack’s recently released novella
The Undefeated is a woman way past forty.
At Tor.com the author tagged "five female characters who can still kick ass, even after forty," including:
Cordelia Vorkosigan in Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold
Fans of Bujold’s space opera series the Vorkosigan Saga have, over the last thirty years, loved her sensible, intelligent, and resourceful heroine, from the beginning of her story as Captain Naismith, commanding a ship during a war; watching her run away with Admiral Aral Vorkosigan, who happens to be on the other side; and, as Regent-Consort, becoming the most powerful woman (behind 
the throne, of course) in the Barrayaran Empire, responsible for the education of its young Emperor. In this most recent novel in the series, Cordelia is older, and widowed, and about to reinvent herself once again. Other books in the series are military sf with a spin; this novel concerns parenting, and the new forms of family that technological innovation will allow. You won’t want to start the series with this book—but that’s OK. The whole series is a marvel. (I should also mention Bujold’s fantasy novel Paladin of Souls: at the start of the book, its heroine, Ista, is a widow, a dowager queen, and surplus to requirements. By the end she is… Well, should read this brilliant, subversive novel (and its counterpart, The Curse of Chalion), and see.)
Read about
the other entries on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
The protagonist of Una McCormack’s recently released novella The Undefeated is a woman way past forty.
Posts
