Science Fiction: Fantasy, Thy Name Is Woman

Jenn Lyons’s novel introduces a world full of shape-shifters, firebloods and shadowdancers—but not a hairy-chested hero in sight.

Back in the days of Robert E. Howard and Conan the Barbarian, epic fantasy was about as teenage-male-oriented as it could get. Apart from the odd pirate queen, female characters were damsels in distress or princesses waiting to be rescued. Tempestuous, alluring and scantily dressed, they nevertheless used to vanish in between stories, to be replaced by another with the same function.

Not any more. In “Game of Thrones,” Queen Cersei scraps it out with Queen Daenerys at the top, while Brienne of Tarth and Arya Stark, in their...