1980s

Exploration Log 17: Interview with Loïg J. F. Pascual on 1970s-1980s Feminist Science Fiction Fandoms

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  • From L to R: The Witch and the Chameleon, no. 5/6 (1976), cover by Amanda Bankier; Janus, no. 1 (1975), cover by Jennifer Wilson, Jeanne Gomoll, and Janice Bogstad; New Moon (Winter 1981, 1982), cover by Robert Kellough; Aurora (Winter 1981), cover by Steven Fox

Over the last few years, I have highlighted a few curated pieces of science fiction scholarship in my Exploration Log series that I’ve found memorable, historically important, and worth sharing.1 Today I have an interview with SF scholar (and friend) Loïg J. F. Pascual, author of the recently published article “The Collective Memory of 1970s-1980s Feminist Science Fiction Fandoms: A Case in Reflexivity and Historiography for fan Studies Practices” (2026). The article appeared in Transformative Works and Cultures, Vol. 49 (2026) You can read a translated version in English and in the original French. The French version includes multiple Youtube video interviews with important figures in the movement.

More than just an interview about his specific area of research, Loïg dives into the larger history of feminist fanzines and the vital role of fan culture in the creation and memorialization of genre. Enjoy!

  • Graphic created by my father

1. Thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Please introduce yourself and your interest in feminist SF fandoms in the 70s and 80s.

My name is Loïg J.F. Pascual, and I am a Ph.D. student at the Université du Québec À Montréal. I started reading science fiction (SF) with the books my father bought—collections of Philip K. Dick stories, Hard to Be a God (1964) by the Strugatsky brothers, and Robert Charles Wilson’s Spin (2005), Axis (2007), and Vortex (2007) series. We would spend hours looking for new SF reads in used bookstores.

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCLIII (C. J. Cherryh, Alan Burns, Brian M. Stableford, and Irene Clyde)

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Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. C. J. Cherryh’s Serpent’s Reach (1980)

  • David Mattingly’s cover for the 1980 paperback edition

From the back cover: “The constellation of Hydrus, known as the Serpent, is compact and obscure as seen from Earth’s sky. Even in the great era of interstellar colonization it remained obscure. For it was under strict quarantine – harboring an intelligent race, powerful, alien, and inhuman.

Yet there were human colonies within the Serpent’s Reach, cut off from the galaxy beyond, with their own inbred culture, their Families and traditions, and their special relationships to the inhuman majat.

This is the strange and brilliant novel of Raen, the last of the massacred Sul Family, and of her lifetime pledge to find vengeance. It was to take her across the worlds of the Reach into the very center of the alien webwork, into the strands of thought and counter-thought that knit the forbidden constellation into a complex of interbred cultures that no outsider could hope to unravel.”

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCLII (Joe Haldeman, Jack C. Haldeman II, Zenna Henderson, Thomas Burnett Swann, and Edwin Corley)

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Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. Joe Haldeman and Jack C. Haldeman II’s There is No Darkness (1983)

  • Jim Burns’ cover for the 1st edition

From the back cover: “The universe is not interested in fair play. The universe is interested in survival. That is lesson number one aboard the giant advance-training ship called ‘Starschool.’ Those who fail to learn lesson one very rarely have cause to worry about what comes next…”

Initial Thoughts: Even at his worst, I find Joe Haldeman a polished author. I’ve only read a few of his brother’s short stories. I’ve hear this volume is a bit on the juvenile SF side of things. We shall see.

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What pre-1985 science fiction are you reading? + Update No. XXIX

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What pre-1985 science fiction adventures have you started this summer? Any great reads? Disappointing ones? Intriguing discoveries? Here’s the April installment of this column.

  • A selection of read volumes from my shelves

In a conversation on Blueksy, someone asked for my history of science fiction recommendations (including a few general surveys). I scoured my shelves and came up with an all-too-large pile (with some notable volumes I wanted to include but could not find) of favorite histories of science fiction. See photo below. I tried to include monographs that were not studies of single authors.

As I am a historian by training and trade who holds on to some of my disciplinary ticks and hangups, I also included works by trained academics with two major exceptions 1) Mike Ashley’s multi-volume study of science fiction magazines (but no other recent works exist and they’re really good for the nuts and bolts of genre magazines) and 2) Alec Nevala-Lee’s approachable and well-researched group biography  Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction (2018). Both should be read.

  • A photo of a few of my history of science fiction recommendations

I deliberately avoided works by science fiction authors like Damon Knight, Brian W. Aldiss, and Frederik Pohl. They’re great sources and I own and have read many of them but…. they are not histories by trained scholars. I do not mean for this to come off as elitist. Rather, my personal remit for my list—I needed to winnow down the hundreds and hundreds I own–was deliberately narrow! I read and use sources widely. Remember, these are my favorites — they might not be the best but they got me thinking and reading and writing. And that’s what we all should be doing, reading what makes us happy.

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCXLIX (Aldous Huxley, Joyce Thompson, John Collier, and an anthology of stories from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction)

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Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

1. The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction, 8th Series, ed. Anthony Boucher (1959)

  • Ed Emshwiller’s cover for the 1963 edition

From the back cover: No summary blurb.

Contents: C. S. Lewis’ “Ministering Angels” (1955), Poul Anderson’s “Backwardness” (1958), Kit Reed’s “The Wait” (1958), Isaac Asimov’s “The Up-to-Date Sorcerer” (1958), Fritz Leiber’s “A Deskful of Girls” (1958), Damon Knight’s “Eripmav” (1958), Brian W. Aldiss’ “Poor Little Warrior!’ (1958), Shirley Jackson’s “The Omen” (1958), Jules Verne’s “Gilt Braltar” (1887), Avram Davidson’s “The Grantha Sighting” (1958), C. M. Kornbluth’s “Theory of Rocketry” (1958), John Shepley’s “Gorilla Suit” (1958), Zenna Henderson’s “Captivity” (1958), and Alfred Bester’s “The Men Who Murdered Mohammed” (1958)

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Updates: Recent Science Fiction Purchases No. CCCXLVII (Edgar Pangborn, Rudy Rucker, Sally Miller Gearhart, and a SF anthology)

/ Joachim Boaz / 21 Comments

Which books/covers/authors intrigue you? Which have you read? Disliked? Enjoyed?

The first purchases of 2026!

1. A Mirror For Observers, Edgar Pangborn (1954)

  • Richard Powers’ cover for the 1985 edition

From the back cover: “We would call them Martians, though they refer to themselves as Salvayans. Refugees from their dying planet, they arrived on our world almost 30,000 years ago to make new lives for themselves. From their vast underground cities, hidden from discovery, the Salvayans have ben observing us with care and concern, waiting for the day when humans will be ready to meet them. The Salvayans are not many, but they are long-lived and patient….

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Exploration Log 12: Adam Rowe on the Best Retro Science Fiction Art Collections

/ Joachim Boaz / 14 Comments
  • Jim Burns’ cover for the 1st edition of Mechanismo (1978)

I would like to welcome Adam Rowe again to Science Fiction and Other Suspect Ruminations. Back in 2023, I interviewed him about his lovely book Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s (2023)–on 70s science fiction cover art with a foreword by SF artist Vincent Di Fate. You can buy Worlds Beyond Time on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can follow Adam’s art account on Bluesky and Tumblr. I also recommend subscribing to his free 70s SF art newsletter.

Adam Rowe is a writer who has been collecting retro science fiction art online since 2013. He covers technology at Tech.co and has been a Forbes contributor on publishing and the business of storytelling. He has also written for iO9, Popular Mechanics, Reactormag.com (previously Tor.com), and the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog. Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s (2023) is his first book.

  • Graphic created by my father

Your Guide to the Best Retro Science Fiction Art Collections

Adam Rowe

I’ve read a lot of art books covering science fiction in the 20th century. This likely isn’t a big surprise, given that I sunk more than a few years into compiling my own retrospective art collection, Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s. 

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Short Book Reviews: Kim Stanley Robinson’s Icehenge (1984) and Peter Vansittart’s The Game and the Ground  (1956)

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Note: My read but “waiting to be reviewed pile” is growing. Short rumination/tangents/impressions are a way to get through the stack before my memory and will fades. My website partially serves as a record of what I have read and a memory palace for future projects. Stay tuned for more detailed and analytical reviews.

You’ll soon understand why I haven’t posted regularly. There’s a substantial article (mostly complete) with original (and laborious) research on the horizon. Stay tuned!

1. Kim Stanley Robinson’s Icehenge (1984)

  • Mark Weber’s cover for the 1st edition

4.5/5 (Very Good)

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Icehenge (1984), a fix-up from two previously published stories “To Leave a Mark” (1982) and “On the North Pole of Pluto” (1980), tells three interconnected tales that all connect to a mysterious monolith left on Pluto (the titular Icehenge).

In part I (2248 A.D.), hydroponics specialist Emma Weil, stationed on a mining ship in the asteroid belt, finds herself caught up in a radical act of defiance to coincide with a revolt on Mars–the creation of a spaceship for a voyage outside the solar system. She must confront the pull of home and the multitude of ways the power of the state informs and manipulates her life. In part II (2547 A.D.), historian and archaeologist Hjalmar Nederland discovers evidence of the revolt on Mars long covered up by authorities, the diary of Emma Weil, and the monolith on Pluto — a testament to the act of defiance? In so doing, he too, must reckon with Mars’ bureaucratic dictatorship and its amorphous ability to claim narratives of resistance as its own. In part III (2610 A.D.), Edmond Doya, a descendant of Nederland, spins his own conspiracy theory casting all that went before into question. As the threads intersect and split and cross, a voyage sets off, again, for Pluto and its icy pillars—a testament to our desire to find meaning in a disenchanted world.

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Short Story Review: Izumi Suzuki’s “Terminal Boredom” (1984, trans. by Daniel Joseph 2021)

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Today I’m joined again by Rachel S. Cordasco, the creator of the indispensable website and resource Speculative Fiction in Translation, for the sixth installment of our series exploring non-English language SF worlds. Last time we covered Arkady and Boris Strugatsky’s ruminative “Wanderers and Travellers” in International Science Fiction, ed. Frederik Pohl (November 1967).

Please note that Rachel and I are interested in learning about a large range of authors and works vs. only tracking down the best. That means we’ll encounter some stinkers. Thankfully, not this time! We got a powerful one.

Unfortunately, Izumi Suzuki’s “Terminal Boredom” (1984, trans. by Daniel Joseph 2021) does not exist online. A large range of her SF stories were translated and published in two volumes by Verso books with various translators. You can acquire Terminal Boredom (2021) and Hit Parade of Tears (2023) at relatively inexpensive prices online. Despite my substantial qualms with the editions (see my review below), I recommend acquiring them.

“Terminal Boredom” (1984) does double duty as the 35th installment of my review series on media landscapes of the future.

Previously:  George H. Smith’s “In the Imagicon” (1966).

Up Next: TBD

Enjoy!

Rachel S. Cordasco’s Review

In an article on the “iconoclast” Japanese sf writer Izumi Suzuki, Andrew Ridker distills her stories down to three words: “Ambivalence, disappointment, resignation: Suzuki’s stories speak so eloquently to our burnt-out moment that it’s easy to forget the importance of her cultural context” (LitHub, 5/7/21). We are indeed burnt out, more burnt out even than when Ridker was writing just four years ago. It’s now 2025 and time to face the fact that Facebook and YouTube have been around for over twenty years. The iPhone has been around for nearly that long, and for an entire year, the world was turned upside down during a pandemic, during which time we were even more closely connected to our devices. We’re burnt out by phones, by the rapidly-developing world of AI, by the streaming services that offer us so many choices that it’s nearly impossible to pick something to watch.

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