The Other Half Of The Sky

One of the depressing things about the science-fiction scene here in the UK at the moment is that the proportion of women writing and publishing SF doesn't seem to have much increased from the fairly low level it was at when I started to buy SF books in the 1970s. The percentage of novels by women submitted to the Clarke Award this year was around 20% (and Farah Mendlesohn, who read many of them, reports that 'most of the books by women are simply not eligible however wide I draw the net'). The average over the past decade wasn't much higher, at around 30%.

Add to this recent incidences of crass sexism in the field, including reports of sexual harassment at conventions, multiple scandals in the Science Fiction Writers of America (here's a useful timeline), and a dumb post about the 'differences' between men and women genre writers on the blog of a publisher which is actually making some effort to publish new women sf writers . . .  There's a growing feeling that science fiction is becoming like one of those antediluvian golf clubs that excludes women so that flush-faced fifty-year-old boys can belly up to the bar and make dubious jokes, complain about political correctness and anyone who doesn't share their skin colour or political opinions, and bang on about imaginary triumphs from days long lost.

I don't want to be a member of that club. Tricia Sullivan points out that it's mostly women who are spending their time and energy pushing back against this stuff - 'I can count on one hand men who have done anything about this' - so for what it's worth, here's my first tiny contribution: an incomplete list of science fiction books by women that I think you should read. You should also check out Ian Sales' ongoing project, Mistressworks, and Nina Allan's excellent cross-genre list. Oh, and take a look at the anthology The Other Half of the Sky, from which I totally stole the title of this post: science-fiction stories about women, not exclusively by women. Meanwhile, the list (shaped by personal taste - let me know what I've missed):

Gill Alderman - The Archivist
Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale
Lauren Beukes - Moxyland
Leigh Brackett - The Long Tomorrow
Octavia E. Butler - Parable Of The Sower
Pat Cadigan - Fools
Suzy McGee Charnas - Walk To The End Of The World
C.J. Cherryh - Downbelow Station
Jennifer Egan - A Visit From The Goon Squad
Eleanor Arnason - A Woman Of The Iron People
Carol Emshwiller - Carmen Dog
M.J. Engh - Arslan (a.k.a. A Wind from Bukhara)
Gertrude Friedberg - The Revolving Boy
Karen Joy Fowler - Sarah Canary
Patricia Geary - Strange Toys
Kathleen Anne Goonan - In Wartime
Eileen Gunn - Stable Strategies And Others
Elizabeth Hand - Winterlong
Nalo Hopkinson - Brown Girl In The Ring
Mary Gentle - Golden Witchbreed
Molly Gloss - The Dazzle Of Day
Lisa Goldstein - Tourists
Kij Johnson - At The Mouth Of The River Of Bees: Stories
Gwyneth Jones - Spirit: or The Princess of Bois Dormant
Ursula K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed
M.J. Locke - Up Against It
Leigh Kennedy - The Journal Of Nicholas The American
Nancy Kress - Beggars In Spain
Katherine MacLean - The Missing Man
Maureen F. McHugh - After The Apocalypse
Judith Merril - The Best Of Judith Merril
Judith Moffett - Pennterra
Elizabeth Moon - The Speed Of Dark
C.L. Moore - Clash By Night And Other Stories
Pat Murphy - The City, Not Long After
Linda Nagata - Deception Well
Kit Reed - The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories
Justina Robson - Natural History
Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Diving Into The Wreck
Pamela Sargent - Cloned Lives
Josephine Saxton - Queen Of The States
Melissa Scott - Trouble And Her Friends
Tricia Sullivan - Lightborn
Sue Thomas - Correspondences
James Tiptree Jr (a.k.a. Alice Sheldon) - Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
Lisa Tuttle - A Spaceship Made Of Stone And Other Stories
Joanna Russ - Picnic On Paradise
Joan Slonczewski - A Door Into Ocean
Joan D. Vinge - The Snow Queen
Kate Wilhelm - Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang
Liz Williams - Empire Of Bones
Pamela Zoline - The Heat Death of the Universe and Other Stories