(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1963 edition of A Handful of Time (1963), Rosel George Brown)
The time has come for a new Guest Post series on SF Short Stories by Women Writers pre-1969. My reasons are two-fold: 1) to showcase a deserving and fascinating topic in line with my goal to feature lesser known SF from a range of viewpoints and traditions 2) to feature posts from reviewers in the vintage SF blogsphere and beyond (in any combination of the following) that attempt to move past standard lists and grand narratives of canon, tackle fiction from evidence-based analytical and academic perspectives, or are simply darn good writers whose sites I cannot help but return to compulsively.
Why pre-1969? Although most endpoints are arbitrary in nature, 1969 saw the publication of Ursula Le Guin’s magisterial The Left Hand of Darkness. Considered a watershed moment in the history of women writers as it was the first to win a Hugo Award for best novel, Le Guin among many others were part of a rich (albeit oft suppressed and ignored) genealogy of women SF authors reaching back to Mary Shelly. My focus on short stories will allow exploration of many authors who did not write novels, whose novels overshadow their short fiction, and those whose rich body of early work focused predominately on the short form.
Thus I have rounded up my normal suspects along with new voices. The first guest post series covered the work of Michael Bishop and the second Kate Wilhelm.
Topics in the queue: Robot therapists, French and Soviet SF, a range of speculative fictions from the 19thcentury to the 1960s seeping with horror and psychological tension, 40s/50s pulp, and New Wave experimentation…
Authors include: Judith Merril, Sonya Dorman, Pamela Zoline, Kit Reed, Anne McCaffrey, C. L. Moore, Katherine MacLean, Edna Underwood, Nathalie Henneberg, Olga Larionova, Leslie Perri, Alice Eleanor Jones, Margaret St. Clair, Kate Wilhelm, among many many others.
Check out Ian Sales’ worthy resource the “100 Great Science Fiction Stories by Women.” And two worthwhile recent anthologies of early SF stories by women to track down: New Eves: Science Fiction About the Extraordinary Women of Today and Tomorrow (1994) and Feminine Futures: Early Science Fiction by Women Writers (2015).
List of Guest Post Reviews
- Cyborgs and Intergalactic Freight Transport: “No Woman Born” (1944) by C. L. Moore and “Lady in the Tower” (1959) by Anne McCaffrey via Kate Macdonald of Kate Macdonald: About Reading, Writing and Publishing
- Three Soviet SF women authors: “The Useless Planet” (1967) by Olga Larionova, “The Astronaut” (1960), by Valentina Zhuravlyova, and “Life in Space” (1969) by Marietta Chudakova via Kaggsy of Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings
- Three French SF women authors: “The Devil’s Goddaughter” (1960) by Suzanne Malaval, “Moon-Fishers” (1959) by Nathalie Henneberg, “The Chain of Love” (1955), by Catherine Cliff via Rachel S. Cordasco of Speculative Fiction in Translation
- Two 19th century speculative fictions: “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Little Room” by Madeline Yale Wynne (1895) via MPorcius of MPorcius Fiction Log
- From pulp to speculative psychological horror: “Vintage Season” (1945) by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner, “The Snowball Effect” (1952) by Katherine MacLean, and “The Painter of Dead Women” (1910) by Edna Underwood via Jesse at Speculiction
- Pioneer Spaceships, Robot Therapists, and Oppressive Small Towns: “Survival Ship” (1951) by Judith Merril, “Short in the Chest” (1954) by Margaret St. Clair, “The Wait” (1958) by Kit Reed via Megan of From Couch to Moon
- From Pulp to New Wave: “Space Episode” (1941) by Leslie Perri, “Recruiting Officer” (1955) by Alice Eleanor Jones, “When I Was Miss Dow” (1966) by Sonya Dorman via Ian Sales of It Doesn’t Have to Be Right…
Incomplete list of my previous reviews related to the theme
Miriam Allen deFord
- Xenogenesis (1969)
Judith Merril
- Daughters of Earth (1968)
- Out of Bounds (1960)
Kit Reed
Margaret St. Clair
- Three Worlds of Futurity (1964)
Kate Wilhelm
Anthologies with stories by women authors
- Best SF Stories from New Worlds 3 (1968), ed. Michael Moorcock, story by Pamela Zoline
- Orbit 1 (1966), ed. Damon Knight, stories by Sonya Dorman, Kate Wilhelm, Virginia Kidd, and Allison Rice
- Orbit 3 (1968), ed. Damon Knight, stories by Joanna Russ, Doris Pitkin Buck, and Kate Wilhelm
A Gallery of Tantalizing Covers and Relevant Volumes
(Uncredited interior art illustrating Pamela Zoline’s “The Heat Death of the Universe” in New Worlds Speculative Fiction, July 1967, ed. Michael Moorcock)
(Cover for The Thought Stealer / The Mechanical Man (1930), the latter is by Amelia Reynolds Long)
(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1963 edition of The Mile-Long Spaceship (1963), Kate Wilhelm)
(John Schoenherr’s cover for the 1963 edition of Out of Bounds (1960), Judith Merril)
(Mel Hunter’s cover for the September 1964 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Avram Davidson, contains stories by Miriam Allen deFord and Sonya Dorman)
(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1969 edition of Xenogenesis (1969), Miriam Allen deFord)
(Lloyd Birmingham’s cover for Fantastic Stories of Imagination, September 1962, contains Ursula Le Guin’s first published SF story, “April in Paris”)
(Frank R. Paul’s cover for Science-Fiction Plus, October 1953, ed. Hugo Gernsback, contains Anne McCaffrey’s first published short story, “Freedom of the Race”)
(Keith Roberts’ cover for Science Fantasy, November 1965, ed. Kyril Bonfiglioli, contains Josephine Saxton’s first published short story, “The Wall”)
(Richard Powers’ cover for the 1966 edition of Orbit 1 (1966), ed. Damon Knight, four of nine short stories are by women)
(Richard Merkin’s cover for the influential anthology England Swings SF (1968), ed. Judith Merril, contains stories by Josephine Saxton, Hilary Bailey, and Pamela Zoline)