What pre-1985 science fiction adventures have you finished this summer? Any great reads? Disappointing ones? Intriguing discoveries? Here’s the June installment of this column. I know, it’s been a while…
A selection of read volumes from my shelves
On Bluesky, a Youtube channel that I follow sought to collate a list influential cyberpunk novels for a future video or review series from the first generation of the subgenre’s practitioners. Other than Pat Cadigan’s multiple contributions, the list was entirely male. Knowing me, I suggested a few works by female authors that engaged with similar ideas that might be considered either important predecessors–for example Joan Vinge’s “Fireship” (1978) and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Hyacinths (1983) (I think the proto-internet isn’t that central so it tends to be dismissed)–or works by the second generation right around the original poster’s cutoff date of 1990: Lisa Mason’s Arachne (1990), late 80s short fiction by Candas Jane Dorsey, Melissa Scott’s Trouble and Her Friends (1994), Gwyneth Jones’ Escape Plans (1986) and White Queen (1991), Misha’s Red Spider White Web (1990), and Nisi Shaw’s “I Was a Teenage Genetic Engineer” (1989).
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