August 18th, 2009
by
the angry black woman
In case you’re not up on the latest instance of gender fail in the SF community, let me give you a short summary. SFSignal posted the table of contents for a book titled The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF edited by Mike Ashley. Quickly, people cottoned to the fact that there were no women in it. I commented that, alongside, there also did not appear to be any people of color.
Folks reacted to this along predictable lines, with many chiming in to say how annoying and stupid this was and a few cluelessly wondering what the fuss was about — because surely what gender or race an author is has nothing to do with how good the stories are. (I know, I know.) It got particularly heinous (yet hilarious) when anthology author Paul Di Filippo showed up and Di Filipped out, comparing having women and people of color in the anthology to pieces of lettuce shoved in with copy paper. Oh yes. I made a few posts about this issue, including one specifically taking Paul’s points apart and one asking Mike Ashley to please explain why there are only white authors, since he had been so kind as to explain why there were no women.
Actually, that last bit is part of the point of this post. here’s what he said:
In assembling this anthology (and EXTREME SF) the emphasis was on stories that took unusual scientific concepts and developed them in even more unusual ways. When I checked out stories for these books I just picked stories that worked for me. I didn’t even always check out the by-line. In fact I was a bit surprised that as the list of likely contents grew that I didn’t have anything by women.
That probably has something to do with my concept of “mind-blowing”. Women are every bit as capable of writing mindblowing sf as men are, but with women the stories concentrate far more on people, life, society and not the hard-scientific concepts I was looking for.
Maybe, in retrospect, I should’ve looked harder, but I didn’t want to include women writers on a purely token basis. I did in fact contact a couple of women writers early on hoping they could contribute new stories, but one didn’t respond and for the other, the timescale for compiling the anthology proved too tight, which was a shame.
I’ll let that sink in for a bit.
Over on my blog we’re creating a list of Mindblowing SF by people of color. Over here I’d like to create a list by women. In comments, please list authors or stories or novels you would include in a list of mindblowing science fiction. If you’d like to include a bit on why you feel these choices are mindblowing, feel free. There is no restriction on time period, both modern and decades long past authors and fiction are desired. If someone has already mentioned an author, story, or book you were going to, co-sign.
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- More blogging by
the angry black woman at
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SF/F/H Short Fiction by Women --- Next:
Mindblowing SF Lists
Filed under Books & Literature, Cons & Community, FSF Activism, Publishing, Writers & Artists, people of colour, women writers | Comments (38)
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russel
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
I have a friend who loves Elizabeth Moon’s books.
I only recently had my mind blown by Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, who also wrote one of my all time favourite novels “The Dispossessed”. Another novel that comes to my mind instantly when talking about mind blowing is Joanna Russ’ “The Female Man”.
But what’s mind-blowing supposed to mean, anyway? I don’t think that it has anything to do with “unusual scientific concepts [that are] developed [...] in even more unusual ways.”
But maybe that’s just me? (English is not my first language BTW, so perhaps it’s possible that I don’t fully grasp the concept of mind-blowing).
Where to begin? Here I go –
C J Cherryh – Heavy Time
Ursula K Le Guin – Left Hand of Darkness
Marge Piercy – Body of Glass
Elizabeth Moon – Speed of Dark
I’m sure I can think of hundreds more, but these are on my mind because I read them recently:
Nancy Kress, Beggars in Spain
Octavia Butler, Speech Sounds
Elizabeth Vonarburg, L’oiseau de cendres
Nisi Shawl, Deep End
(Are we using Mammoth’s definition of “mind-blowing”, or just taking it to mean “this story blew my mind”?)
Sherri S Tepper – Beauty
Esmee Dodderidge – The New Gulliver
Ursula le Guin – The Lathe of Haven
Wow! I can think of dozens of excellent sf books by women off the top of my head, but the context you give here really opens up the more complicated problem of the gendered divide between “hard” and “soft” sf.
My angry female brain is fuming. What’s wrong with writing about people, life and society? What the hell is wrong with taking a scientific or technological concept and applying it to social life to see what happens? Why aren’t sociology etc considered “hard” sciences? etc….
So if the aim here is to disprove the asinine notion that only men write hard sf, these suggestion might not help–I’m now thinking more about the excellent work being done by women in “soft” sf.
Octavia Butler was deeply interested in the science of biology, and took it seriously decades before it became fashionable in mainstream sf (and, incidentally, “hard science” bastions like MIT–I write from the belly of the beast). I nominate the short story “Bloodchild” and the Xenogenesis trilogy. Also Kindred, but I’ve heard it disparaged as not “hard sf” enough. (Because time-travel doesn’t count.)
Even earlier than Butler, James Tiptree, Jr. was exploring many of the same biological themes–especially the power of biological needs over human free will, and the role of colonialism and power in distorting relationships. Some of her most mind-blowing stories: “The Screwfly Solution,” one of the scariest stories I have ever read; “Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death,” which treats love and death from alien pov; “A Momentary Taste of Being,” in which a generation ship riven by complex politics discovers the true purpose of human life, which renders their struggles moot; “We Who Stole the Dream,” in which downtrodden alien slaves throw off their human oppressors.
And of course, that soft-science triple whammy of biology, sociology, and the girl-cootie-rife topic of education, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Perhaps the chase across the Artctic conveys honorary testosterone?
Speaking of chasing across the ice–much of what Ursula K. Le Guin has written is mind-blowing, particularly The Left Hand of Darkness. I’d also second “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” “The New Atlantis,” “Newton’s Sleep,” “The Rock That Changed Things,” “A Fisherman of the Inland Sea,” “The Birthday of the World,” and “Paradise Lost.”
Others off the top of my head:
Ali Smith’s short stories, many of which I would consider sf. Kelley Eskridge, Solitaire. Nicola Griffith, Slow River. (Tell me the most fascinating part of the Slow River isn’t the use of microbes in the sewage-processing plant. Go ahead, just try to make that argument!)
I second pretty much all of this! Off the top of my head, and away from my bookshelf, I’d add:
The Birthday of the World, which was my introduction to Le Guin and is still my favorite of her works, particularly Paradises Lost.
Oryx and Crake, Atwood.
The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffenegger.
And another: Arkfall, Carolyn Ives Gilman.
I kind of want to know why male authors aren’t more insulted about this tired old cliche – which suggests not only that women’s writing is soft and lacking in ‘real’ science, but that men’s writing is lacking in decent characters and social concerns.
It also seems to me that the ‘hard sciences’ in hard SF are deemed so pretty much because men write about them…
Nancy Kress
Rebecca Ore
Melissa Scott
Eluki bes Shahar
Jane Emerson / Doris Egan
Elizabeth Bear (see _Carnival_ and the _Hammered_ trilogy, which are SF rather than fantasy)
Tanith Lee
Nicola Griffith
M. A. Foster
And lest we forget, C.L. Moore and Andre Norton, whose Golden Age SF isn’t cutting-edge *now*, but who blew a lot of minds in their own generation and for decades after.
Joan Sloncewski (sic) consistently uses both “Quaker”/pacifist themes and biologically based extrapolation in her novels.
L. Timmel Duchamp’s stories revolving around gender and sexual variations (intersex, transgender, cultural equivalence of asexuality and artist status, etc – it’s late enough that I don’t remember story titles).
Gwyneth Jones, recent novel “Life”
Elizabeth Vonarburg, novel pair “Silent City” and “In the Mother’s Land” and related cyborg stories. She has more output than is translated into English, and I haven’t been able to assess the most recent 5 novel cycle. She is from Quebec.
Eleanor Arnason, hwarath stories and novel “Ring of Swords”. Knapsack Poems story.
Mary Gentle, most of her novels and stories (aside from the parody “Grunts”).
Nicola Griffith and Kelly Eskridge, as mentioned above.
If nongendered people are included, Raphael Carter, “Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation” and “Fortunate Fall”.
Of course, Tiptree, Russ, LeGuin, Butler, Charnas (Riders tetralogy), and other authors whose major works start before 1980 or so, are very well known, and I would consider the first four as “canon” authors.
If I were at home, I could look at my bookshelf for titles.
Anything by Pat Cadigan! You cannot leave out the Queen of Cyberpunk. I love Mindplayers and Synners. Her short stories are also amazing (anytihng in her short story collection Patterns is worth reading).
Margaret Atwood (Oryx and Crake as well as Handmaid’s Tale)
Oh – and Joanna Russ!
[...] Mindblowing Science Fiction by Women [...]
Pretty much anything by Ursula Le Guin i has always blown me away. And I love Julian May’s Rampant World series.
Octavia Butler made a student of mine a science fiction believer.
I’m sure I’ll think of more….
Pretty much anything by Ursula Le Guin i has always blown me away. And I love Julian May’s Rampant World series.
Octavia Butler made a student of mine a science fiction believer.
I’m sure I’ll think of more….
I’ll second the appreciation for Cherryh, expressed above. I’m a bit surprised to see Heavy Time get the nod, though–it wasn’t a bad work by any means but it didn’t seem as high-quality or consciousness-expanding as a lot of her other stuff. In that sphere I’d go for Hunter of Worlds, Cyteen, Voyager in Night, Chanur’s Homecoming and The Fires of Azeroth. Although the last two on that list follow as part of a series, and probably wouldn’t make as much sense without context.
Certainly a list of awesome/insightful/paradigm-shaking authros that doesn’t include Cherryh and LeGuin isn’t doing it’s job. Among other things.
I watched this fight unfold… a hundred million thank-yous for your insight and tenacity. I would never have had the patience to try and talk down someone as privilege-blinded as Di Filippo.
Amazing female science fiction writers! I agree with everything in prior comments that I am familiar with, I am a huge fan of LeGuin, Atwood, and Butler. Some more great female scifi authors I would suggest:
Anne McCaffrey (esp. ‘Dragonriders of Pern’ series)
Kelly Link
Justina Robson ‘Natural History’
Elizabeth Hand
K.J. Parker
All he had to do was sweep pretty much every other collection of ‘Best scifi’ published in the last decade or so. Really any effort at all would have rewarded him with a whole bushel of excellent women and POC who write scifi, even “hard” scifi, and would have not only improved this collection but saved him from having to defend his ass against allegations of bigotry.
I absolutely second the Pat Cadigan note – and she was writing about new ways of bio-computing earlier than many of the men writing cyberpunk fiction at the time (plus everything she writes is fantastic on multiple levels, not just the scientific).
And they’ve both been mentioned over and over, but definitely Joanna Russ and Octavia Butler. And how on earth can anyone not want to include James Tiptree Jr.?
Thank you for making this list!!
Frustration.
I’ve been trying to use everyone’s suggestions on here to search for new reading at my local library.
The only Tiptree Jr. they have is a book of her unpublished short stories and one biography. Only four Butler books in the system. No Russ, only 6 Cadigan, no Eskridge, only 1 Nisi Shawl, a pitifully small selection of LeGuin’s impressive catalogue (only 20 different works). None of our blog hostess’ work.
But, plentyandplenty of Ellison, Bova, Heinlen, Bradbury, Updike…And I live in my state’s capital!
Methinks my library needs a long letter explaining what’s wrong with this.
There’s a (non-comprehensive) list of women SF writers here
http://phiogistic.blogspot.com/2007/06/women-in-sf.html
Lots and lots of mindblowing stuff has been written those authors.
I’d say Diane Duane counts, right? Either way, mindblowing.
[...] Mindblowing Science Fiction by Women [...]
Connie Willis! I can’t believe no one has mentioned Connie Willis! Especially Bellwether (fads meets chaos theory with *the* best romantic scene in which nothing happens ever), also Passage, plus dozens of short stories & novellas, many of which have received awards (Last of the Winnebagos; At the Rialto; Daisy, In the Sun; Spice Pogrom; Blued Moon; etc.)
Kage Baker
Lois McMaster Bujold (yes, I recognize the horrible part she played re: Patricia Wrede and Thirteenth Child, but her writing is superb and occasionally mind-blowing, though I’ll own that I like her fantasy better)
Leigh Brackett
Kathe Koja
Catherine Asaro
Robin McKinley, Sunshine
Kate Elliott’s Jaran books
Andre Norton
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Seconded on:
Anne McCaffrey
Nancy Kress (hello, Beggars in Spain, anyone?)
Octavia Butler
Ursula K LeGuin (on a completely different note, her translation of the Tao is still blowing my mind)
James Tiptree Jr
Elizabeth Moon (although my fave will probably always be her fantasy trilogy, The Deed of Paksenarion)
Kelly Link
Elizabeth Bear
Shadow Man by Melissa Scott
The five volume EXORDIUM series by Dave Trowbridge and Sherwood Smith. It came out in the early nineties and wasn’t out long, but it had the rarity of not only a person of color as a heroine, she was even on the cover of a couple of books. Queer, poly, bi relationships are the norm in that world–along with a complicated world and space opera adventure. The first 100 pages of the first is complicated, but then the story clicks in and it’s a wild ride.
Double Vision, and its follow-up Sound Mind), by Tricia Sullivan. In Double Vision, the protag believes she’s a psychic because she gets visions while watching TV, and has been hired to use this skill to spy on an ongoing war on an alien planet, between a human army and a native sentience called ‘The Grid’ that is absorbing human knowledge from the invaders. Sound Mind is mostly focused on a character that emerged during Double Vision – she’s a music student in New Jersey, and her world is being ruptured into fragments by a force of ultimate rationality, and only she seems to be able to pick up the pieces.
Apart from a significant focus on women (and most of Sullivan’s protagonists are WOC), what I find mindblowing about Sullivan is that she uses high-sci fi storytelling tools like space exploration, non-human intelligences, alternate dimensions, the sciences (Sound Mind is a sci fi built on music theory/philosophy, and is the only such book I’ve ever had the pleasure to read), to explore the really important things in our world; marketing, television, junk food, junk religion, shopping.
These two books are set in the mid-1980s, which I’ve seen a reviewer say is a really interesting pick for a sci fi story because it was the era when so much escapist, consumerist sci fi/fantasy was being written, so focusing on the lives of the women who were the initial audience for said stories is unusual.
second everything above, even the stuff i haven’t read ;)
also:
nalo hopkinson: midnight robber
timmi duchamp: alanya to alanya
nnedi okorafor: shadow speaker (melds SF with fantasy, so maybe it isn’t HARD enough)
samantha chanse: lydia’s funeral video (a play, which is playing on weds in san francisco and which I just saw a preview of tonight)
liz duffy adams: the listener; dog act (also plays.)
and by the way, can we just stop and observe that the sciences supposedly favored by male writers are called “hard” and the sciences supposedly favored by female writers are “soft.”
Many, many, thanks to Stranger! I found a few more books I’d be interested in reading.
Allow me to add some unmentioned novelists that niggle under the soulskein…
Rosemary Kirstein–The Steerswoman series is basically a unique product, but related mostly to philosophy of science like N Stephenson’s Anathem.
Linda Nagata(she’s white, married to japanese)–nanopunk, relatively “hard” sci-fi.
Paula Downing–space opera with large social science component
Syne Mitchell–also fairly nanopunkish and fairly “hard” sci-fi. Criminally less known than she should be.
C.S. Friedman–for obvious reasons
Kate Wilhelm–oldie but goodie
Chris Moriarty–one of my favorite authors–but like Kelley Eskridge, just not enough novels from her. She essentially stole from a lot of good sci-fi novels and stuffed it all into a Ghost In the Shell I plot superstructure. “Hard” Sci-fi.
Dana Copithorne–eh, just read it.
Jus Neuce–heh, THE SAME
Down on the list…
Valerie J Freireich is pretty decent
Liz Williams, I think, is better than many that have been mentioned before on this thread.
Kat Richardson and Barbara Hambly are both examples of fantasy writers with a pronounced tendency to write with a sci-fi sensibility.
Joan Vinge’s Summer and Winter novels are certainly worthwhile
…
I shall stop here. I do believe that I’ve given a nice pool of potential novels for reading. If your mind isn’t blown by one of my suggestion, I’ll give you your money back!
has anyone read and enjoyed Larissa Lai?
[...] maybe awesome SF writer/consultant John Scalzi wouldn’t mind having one of the women from this list or this list joining him for those advising duties. They could tag team. It would be fun. August [...]
[...] other day I asked folks to name me some mindblowing sf stories, novels and authors in response to this silliness here. As I expected, you came through, as did a bunch of other people [...]
Feminist science-fiction? How much science fiction can you really squeeze out of gender-issues? I mean, it’s such a damn boring subject. Now black holes and time-travel I can see, but the whole put-upon-woman thing. Yawn!
well thank you SO MUCH, flenflan, for your stimulating response to the topic at hand. Next time you stop by to comment, it would really help if you were:
A – on topic
B – not stupid
C – not an ass
D – intelligent
If you can manage to nail all four of those, you’ll be well on your way to being a productive member of the human race. Cheers!
I love Larissa Lai’s work! I think her short story “Rachel,” based on Bladerunner, is a great example of a woman of color reclaiming a white male narrative.
[...] are still adding to the original posts and to the one at Tor.com, which makes me happy. It shows that even when you’ve named [...]
[...] Mindblowing Science Fiction by Women (tags: unfiled page) [...]
Actually — and note this is not to defend the editor’s weak defense of himself — the majority of the names and titles I see on this list are what I’d consider ‘mind-blowing’ sf in that they are great, thought-provoking, big-concept books by women but they don’t mostly fit the concept he claims he was centered his choices around, of a narrow range of breakthrough science concepts. What we needed clearly was a Mammoth Book of Big-Concept Science Fiction that would include social sciences, psychology, and such, and then Margaret Atwood, Mary Doria Russell, Ursula K. LeGuin, et. al. would be shoe-ins.
But that is all intellectualizing after the fact. I think the plain truth is probably just that the damn guy included the stuff he read, liked, & knew himself already. And/or that in his wee mind, all these books written by women were categorized in his head as “women’s sf” and therefore simply didn’t count in his considerations.
I’m not surprised the guys are getting so defensive, though. They know we’re taking over the industry and that when book publishing as we know it is dead, it’s women who will control what’s left. Why? Because women still read more books than men, and because the worse an industry does (and the lower its pay scale gets) the more women will be employed by it. Book publishing is already female-dominated at most levels and has been for 20 years.
For big-concept books by women, how about The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge?
Oooh, and another shout out for Rosemary Kirstein’s “Steerswoman” books. I love love love those books. They are smart and deep and Big Concept and feature deeply engaging characters, too. They remind me of how much I loved reading Anne McCaffrey and Marion Zimmer Bradley as a kid, except this is for me as a grown-up. Read them, read them, read them.
[...] The fabulous work on the alternative Hottest 100 and the work on the Feminist SF site on Mindblowing Science Fiction by Women. Also I have seen some wonderful lists of science fiction related areas recently, including Den of [...]