Five heroines over the age of forty

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:

Helen Kane in The Wanderers by Meg Howrey

Meg Howrey’s richly imagined novel concerns a mission to Mars—with a twist. We follow the three astronauts selected not as they blast off for Mars, but as they embark upon a seventeen-month simulation of the mission. At the heart of the book is the world’s most famous woman astronaut, Helen Kane, a collected, ambitious, and intelligent woman who has worked her whole life for this chance. Helen is fully realised: as career woman, as widow, and as mother—her relationship with her daughter Mireille, an aspiring actor eclipsed by her mother, is brilliantly and tenderly drawn. The book’s concern is the personal and the psychological; the rarity of characters like Helen make her all the more precious.

Read about another entry on the list.

The Wanderers is among Michelle Anne Schingler's five books centered on women in space.

--Marshal Zeringue