Top Ten Obscure Books – 1st Round of Voting

by Naamenblog

After some discussion with the other FemSF bloggers it’s been decided to do the voting in two rounds. The first round to narrow it down to our shortlist of 20 books and then a second vote among those twenty.

Many people had reasons for nominating certain books so in a compromise between putting them in the poll itself (which made the poll too bulky) or not including them (which seems silencing) they are all being reprinted in this post below the cut. Like the poll itself the list below is alphabetical by first name of author. Again this is all the books that were nominated with reasons but not all the books nominated. If the work nominated was a series, it’s nominated under the name of the first book in that series with the series name in parenthesis next to it

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Starbridge (Starbridge Series) by A. C. Crispin - Most (all?) of the main characters are female, as I recall, and a couple of the books feature a Deaf woman.

Illicit Passage by Alice Nunn - Revolutionary, amazing stuff.

Minimax by Anna Livia – lesbian vampire story that is an entirely different take than Jewelle Gomez

Bulldozer Rising by Anna Livia – about a geriatric crone revolution

Sister of the Raven by Barbara Hambly – Men have lost their magic and women have gained their own powers but the men are not ready to give up their power without a fight. Follows several women as they learn about their powers and try to avoid whatever is abducting women with powers in the middle of the night.

Lover by Bertha Harris – Fabulous surreal radicalism. Squeezes into SF through its surrealism.

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman – Although it was taught on my utopia and dystopias module at uni, (Thank you UEA!) and would probably be reocgnised by people in the know about these things, I don’t think most of the sci-fi/fantasy reading public will have heard of it. And getting hold of the sequel, With Her in Ourland, is a nightmare.

Emergence by David R. Palmer – Yeah, by a white guy, but the protagonist is an 11-year-old girl. In the aftermath of a bioengineered plague/war that wipes out most of humanity, this girl learns that she is part of a new species — homo post hominem, immune to the plague and poised to inherit the earth. The story is told in epistolic format via her “journals” as she journeys across America searching for others of her kind. The journals are both hilarious and bittersweet; Palmer must’ve been a girl in his former life, because he nails Candy’s voice so well I think he must’ve channeled it. I remain astounded that Heinlein’s crappy female protagonists are lauded while Palmer’s is virtually unknown.

The Healer’s War by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough – follows a (white) Vietnam War nurse through various jungles. There’s a folk-magic twist in the plot, but the main impact of the book is of the lead, Kitty McCulley, lurching through the war with some Vietnamese characters who are more than set-dressing. Frightening, tragic, and memorable.

The Psalms of Herod by Esther Friesner – It’s a feminist dystopian novel like THE HANDMAID’S TALE… on crack. Set in a postapocalyptic world in which food is scarce and the human race has mutated bizarrely, and a deeply-warped version of fundamentalist Christianity has become the dominant faith. Like animals, women are only capable of reproducing once a year or so, “in season” — if they have sex outside this time, they die horribly. Alpha males rule small homesteads in which they control the lives of their people utterly. Abortion is the highest sin possible — but unwanted babies are put out on a hillside to die of exposure. Women who refuse to obey are beaten or raped to death; men who show any hint of homosexuality (even if they’re raped) are stoned; people of color are killed on sight; and the most evil creature ever rumored to exist is the Jew.

Teot’s War & Bloodchild by Heather Gladney – Long out of print, but brilliant — a fantasy world (with a whiff of sci fi) set in a culture vaguely resembling northern Africa. Naga Teot, a black warrior/mystic of a nearly extinct people, is sworn to serve the leader of a white minority that’s recently colonized the region. He fights an army to save the guy when a third culture (also black, more advanced than both) appears and threatens to conquer the known world. Teot is absolutely badass, a little crazy, and one of the most memorable characters I’ve ever seen. The friendship between him and the “Tanman” is also well-depicted; it’s very much a buddy story, with hints of homoerotic subtext (although both men are happily married; I suppose technically it’s bi-erotic subtext). Side-note: Teot’s eventual wife is a knife-dancer who can whoop his ass sideways, and he worships her for it.

The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi – Amazingly written. A sensitive, difficult British girl finally finds a friend on a trip to visit her mother’s parents in Nigeria, only to find that she is neither human nor a friend at all. Obscure among sf fans because its mainstream marketing has downplayed or hidden the fact that it’s a fantasy novel.

Prospero’s Children by Jan Siegel – It’s an Atlantis-themed fantasy story with a female lead, which could have simply been a nicely-penned example of the genre, but then went and swallowed its own tail in a head-killingly brilliant fashion.

Brother To Dragons, Companion To Owls by Jane Lindskold – a wonderful YA cyberpunk with a disabled heroine.

Into The Forest by Jean Hegland – definitely obscure among sf fans, but deeply female-centered, and I personally love the way it subverts the tropes of the post-apocalyptic novel with its presentation of the end of civilization (not with a bang, but with a whimper).

Kirith Kirin by Jim Grimsley – intergenerational queer relationship between a king and his young wizard as they plot revolution

Juniper Time by Kate Wilhelm – perhaps her first SF novel that could be unambiguously styled “feminist”

Polar City Blues by Katherine Kerr – Her fantasy is well-known, but this is SF (and a police procedural, and a thriller, and … stuff). Prominent roles for women, a gay man, and Black people. Bobbie Lacey hit a glass ceiling, but not because she’s a woman … I read it right after a lot of material on the web about white privilege, and it might have been designed to wake up the privileged reader.

The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson – Beautifully written fantasy set in Heian-era Japan. Unlike a lot of the Japan-flavored crap that’s come out more recently, the story feels of its time and place, perhaps because it’s based on a folk tale. Kitsune, the fox who desires to be human, is one of the most memorable characters I’ve met; the woman whose rival she becomes is a real and complicated character; and every time I reread it I’m surprised by how much the queer male subplot moves me. This is literally the the book that kept me from giving up on sf/f, and I am amazed how hard it is to find someone who’s heard of it.

The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington – another amazing surrealistic novel, about a crazed old lady.

Po Man’s Child by Marci Blackman – are both very heavy about abuse and trauma, but beautiful and deep and far too little read. And I confess that they are kind of a reach for SF, but I swear they both do have minor elements of supernatural/ magical realism. Or hints of it. Anyway they’re underrecognized and they should be read.

Black Juice by Margo Lanagan – Dark, poetic, powerful short stories set in genuinely inventive worlds, where people risk their lives facing infernal angels, clowns kill for their art, and a young girl can be sentenced for her defiance to sink into a tar pit. Obscure because she writes YA, uses a non-novel form, and is Australian (thus hard to find in the US, in my experience).

Mission Child by Maureen McHugh – it’s out of print, was dissed by the Tiptree jury, and met with a bunch of criticism from people who thought the protagonist should have been a superhero rather than a resourceful but confused picaresque young woman.

Shadow Man by Melissa Scott – It was even snubbed by a Tiptree jury — maybe they thought it was trying too hard in the “explore and expand gender roles” category. Anyway, it really is superb. The complexity of the gender roles, and the contrast of a dynamic main character against a rigid society reminded me of Vance. The setting is strongly realized, with a palpable sense of place. There were also some wonderful light touches to the story, including subtly snarky references to cyberpunk tropes that Scott is often associated with.

Magic’s Pawn (Last Herald Mage Trilogy) by Mercedes Lackey – queer lead character and love story

Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson – Amazing collection of short stories dealing with race, gender, sexuality and more

Zahrah The Windseeker by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu – Yay kickass girl protagonist of color in YA sf/f! Also at last year’s WisCon I went to the Entering the Labyrinth panel & realized how much this book subverts what some of the panelists & audience said were tropes for the “young girl in labyrinth/Wonderland”-type stories. I was annoyed that no one on the panel seemed to have heard of the book when I mentioned it.

Earth Seed by Pamela Sargent – which is ya-y and good and had some gender stuff, though not groundbreaking in terms of feminism, me thinks, but I was 13 when I read it last.

The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea – A Young Adult/kids book set in Ireland about two kids going on off a quest to save the world. It’s a mix of the mundane and Irish mythology and it’s quite simply one of the best books I have ever read. It is still my comfort read when I’m low. I’ve included it because no one else I’ve spoken to has ever heard of it much less read it. I will rectify this when my friends have kids as they will all be given a copy when they get to a suitable age.

Unwillingly To Earth by Pauline Ashwell – shows obvious signs of joining a series of stories into a novel, and it’s the first two novellas in the series that I’d recommend most. Lizzie Lee, who is brought from an obscure interstellar mining colony to school on Earth, studies cultural engineering and solves various problems in inimitable first-person style. The first novella was published in _Analog_ in the 50s, and while there are definite signs of Boys’ Own SF in the setting and so on, it shows equals numbers of male and female students and mentions that they’re of all colors and backgrounds, and generally doesn’t regard women as exceptional or default-sexual. The last section of the novel unfortunately slides into romantic cliche, which is so pasted-on that 3/4 or more of the book is quite unmarred by any kind of romantic set-up at all.

Sunburst by Phyllis Gottlieb – a coming-of-age novel for 13-year-old Shandy Johnson, in what I recall as a post-apocalyptic small-town setting. There are bands of teenagers (not all white) with psi of various sorts. This is solid and vivid writing on some SF tropes that are well known, but not always this well done.

The Fortunate Fall by Raphael Carter – a beautifully crafted cyberpunk novel. It has some of the most vivid and improbable images I’ve ever encountered in a book, but it all makes sense. As someone who works in high tech, I felt this was actually one of the most technically solid novels in the genre; I just had a lot of “why didn’t I think of that before?” moments, some of them quite scary. Another real strength of the novel is the characters. I read it when it came out, over ten years ago, and they’re still on my mind.

Shadowdance by Robin Wayne Bailey -The protagonist is a paraplegic who is granted the ability to walk via magic — but with a terrible price attached. Every night he must dance, or lose the ability to walk. However, anyone who witnesses his dance is compelled to act on his/her most “Id”-ish impulses. So the protagonist and his male lover travel across the land in search of a cure for his curse. The gay relationship is handled very matter-of-factly and realistically, despite the fantastic setting. I have a vague memory of the protagonist being dark-skinned too, but it’s been a really long time since I read this so I’m not sure. Don’t think his race or appearance mattered in the story, though. As I recall, the core question of the story is whether it really is so terrible to be disabled, and whether love transcends ability. Beautifully written too.

Galactic Sibyl Sue Blue by Rosel George Brown – an engaging futuristic thriller written in the 60s, more police investigation than SF except for the space ships, aliens and weird fashions. *But* the lead detective cop is a single mother of a teenaged daughter, who handles her own problems and falls into the alpha male’s embrace only when it suits her, and not permanently. The background assumptions show mid-20th-century sexism to some degree, but Sibyl Sue, like Emma Peel, nearly makes up for it all in one place. She’s like a James Schmitz heroine in a Retief novel — good (if default-White) trashy fun.

Firethorn by Sarah Micklem – fantasy, open exploration of “coarse” sexuality

Cereus Blooms at Night by Shani Mootoo – are both very heavy about abuse and trauma, but beautiful and deep and far too little read. And I confess that they are kind of a reach for SF, but I swear they both do have minor elements of supernatural/ magical realism. Or hints of it. Anyway they’re underrecognized and they should be read.

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale – YA fantasy, Mongolian-inspired setting

The Goulep by Stella Atrium – Nobody has ever heard of this one. But I loved it for its deep examination of colonialism.

Crossroads by Stephen Kenson – queer lead character

Life As We Know It by Susan Beth Pfeffer – YA sf novel; a teenage girl grows up quickly when a large asteroid collides not with Earth, but with its moon, changing tidal, volcanic, & weather patterns.

The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price – YA time-travel fantasy where the past is shown to be properly alien.

Don’t Bite The Sun by Tanith Lee – It’s a (mostly) female protag in a body- and gender-swapping society, where the essentialist gender dynamics are balanced by some less superficial observations about body as a personality trait, although this isn’t used as racial commentary that I recall. The narrative might even be taken as an extreme of shopping-and-fashions (as mentioned a post or two down) to the point of satirizing both, even from a female POV.

Blood Price (Blood Books series) by Tanya Huff – for a bi vampire and a vision-impaired female protagonist

Smoke and Shadows (Smoke and Shadows series) by Tanya Huff – for a gay protagonist.

Valor’s Choice (Valor Confederation series) by Tanya Huff – military sf with a female protagonist

Sound Mind by Tricia Sullivan – (white author, but the two main characters are both WOC). It’s a stunningly good picture of a world literally fractured into pieces by reason. It follows two different people through this world – a music theory student who finds that places she knows are vanishing, or being broken off into their own bubbles, and only she can travel between these places; and an ex-prisoner who travels to an alternate dimensions using her television set.
There are many things to love about Sullivan, but my favourite is that she uses hard sci-fi concepts and logic and applies them to the basic mundane stuff of our world – shopping , popular music, junk food, junk religion, TV, etc. I don’t know of any other writers who do that.

Solstice by Ulises Silva – maybe more Urban Fantasy than SF, but it actually covers the ending of the world (not just the dystopic or utopic societies built by survivors) from the perspective of women of color – one of whom is also a lesbian. It’s a spectacularly written book, lyrical and horrifically depressing.
2nd Commentor – It’s speculative fiction about writers who can make their writing come true. The lead character is a tough woman of Japanese and Mexican descent. Also, I can’t remember the last time I read a book, let alone SF, where two Laos women were main characters.

- More blogging by Naamenblog at http://naamenblog.wordpress.com/

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