A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away called the 1970s, there was a bad-ass princess who wielded a mean blaster … and was also, bizarrely, just about the only woman in the entire Star Wars universe. But since then, there’s been progress. Female action heroes like Rey and Jyn Erso have helmed the last few films in the franchise. Television shows like Westworld and films like Ex Machina explicitly criticize the exploitation of women, and (in Westworld especially) of women of color. Next year’s edgy sci-fi event film, Annihilation, based on a Jeff Vandermeer novel, stars Natalie Portman as one of four women explorer/scientists venturing into the wild and foreboding Area X.

But while science-fiction film and television have arguably made strides in terms of female representation, they’ve carefully avoided the more adventurous storylines and approaches of feminist sci-fi in print. Meanwhile, science-fiction writers like Ann Leckie write about future societies in which gender is so different as to be virtually unrecognizable.

Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy is a sweeping space opera with a sprawling cast of characters, a ruthless space tyrant, sentient ships, mysterious alien races and a tortured, determined, daring superpowered protagonist. The first book in the series, Ancillary Justice, won the prestigious 2014 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

“Much like a lot of books aren’t interested in whether somebody is left-handed—it’s just not relevant.”

The series is mostly set in a society, the Radch, where gender is irrelevant. Virtually every character in the book is referred to as “she,” and our tortured, ruthless protagonist, One Esk, is artificial intelligence implanted in a human shell. Her relationship to her own body is complicated, and doesn’t include much interest in sexual intercourse or, for that matter, her own genitals, whatever they may be. Occasionally she vaguely notices another character is male or female, though the terms are so indistinct it’s hard to tell what they mean to her, if anything.

“I know I’ve seen readers talk about going through and trying to figure out every character’s real gender,” Leckie said. “I know where that’s coming from, but it’s not something that I meant to be an issue in the book at all for any of the characters. It’s not something that the text is interested in. Much like a lot of books aren’t interested in whether somebody is left-handed—it’s just not relevant.”