SF Mistressworks

~ Cheryl

In response to the ongoing discussion about the lack of visibility of women SF writers, Ian Sales has set up a blog that intends to review SF books written by women. He can’t do it all himself, so he is looking for volunteers to write the reviews. You can find the blog here.

9 thoughts on “SF Mistressworks”

  1. I’m a bit unhappy that fantasy is so explicitly excluded (with one book crossed out). That tends to reinforce another one of those stereotypes (women write fantasy — which is Bad! and Swamps SF!). I’m sure it’s unintentional, though the removal of Sword of Rhiannon gives the impression that once again fantasy is elided and denied as the lesser genre. And since many of the writers listed write across both genres, that’s unfortunate.

    1. Yeah, I know. It annoyed me too. But, as I said yesterday with regard to transphobic feminists, sometimes you have to take support where you can get it, even if the person concerned has some dubious views in other areas.

    2. I am first and foremost a fan of sf, and it was in response to the numerous male-dominated lists of classic sf, as well as the conversation on the topic which has been going since earlier this year, that I started up the SF Mistressworks blog. I’m also excluding sf works published after 2000, because I’d like the blog to champion works that have been forgotten or have unfairly low profiles.

      But that doesn’t mean someone else can’t do the same for fantasy or twenty-first century science fiction by women writers.

      1. I certainly didn’t think you’d excluded fantasy for negative reasons. Your list is an excellent thing. I may well start on a fantasy equivalent.

  2. This made me think (not for the first time) that the eight planet stories by Johanna Sinisalo really should be published as a collection. *And* translated into English. They are good feminist science fiction, some of them quite hard sf IIRC.

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