Women SF Writers meme

[la_marquise]

Bold the ones you've read

1 Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1818)
2 Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915)
3 Orlando, Virginia Woolf (1928)
4 Lest Ye Die, Cicely Hamilton (1928)
5 Swastika Night, Katherine Burdekin (1937)
6 Wrong Side of the Moon, Francis Leslie Ashton (1951) <- Not actually a woman...(Patrick Samphire says)
7 The Sword of Rhiannon, Leigh Brackett (1953)
8 Pilgrimage: The Book of the People, Zenna Henderson (1961)
9 Memoirs of a Spacewoman, Naomi Mitchison (1962)-- no, but I've read several of her fantasies.
10 Witch World, Andre Norton (1963)
11 Sunburst, Phyllis Gotlieb (1964)
12 Jirel of Joiry, CL Moore (1969)
13 Heroes and Villains, Angela Carter (1969)
14 Ten Thousand Light Years From Home, James Tiptree Jr (1973)
15 The Dispossessed, Ursula K Le Guin (1974)
16 Walk to the End of the World, Suzy McKee Charnas (1974) -- again, not this one, but I've read others.
17 The Female Man, Joanna Russ (1975)
18 Missing Man, Katherine MacLean (1975)
19 Arslan, MJ Engh (1976)
20 Floating Worlds, Cecelia Holland (1976)
21 Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Kate Wilhelm (1976)
22 Islands, Marta Randall (1976)
23 Dreamsnake, Vonda N McIntyre (1978)
24 False Dawn, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1978) -- not sure. Have read others by her.
25 Shikasta [Canopus in Argos: Archives], Doris Lessing (1979)
26 Kindred, Octavia Butler (1979)
27 Benefits, Zoe Fairbairns (1979)
28 The Snow Queen, Joan D Vinge (1980)
29 The Silent City, Élisabeth Vonarburg (1981)-- I can't remember, I may have.
30 The Silver Metal Lover, Tanith Lee (1981)
31 The Many-Coloured Land [Saga of the Exiles], Julian May (1981)
32 Darkchild [Daughters of the Sunstone], Sydney J van Scyoc (1982)
33 The Crystal Singer, Anne McCaffrey (1982)
34 Native Tongue, Suzette Haden Elgin (1984) --- one I think I've read, but may know through secondary works.
35 The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1985)
36 Jerusalem Fire, RM Meluch (1985)
37 Children of Anthi, Jay D Blakeney (1985)
38 The Dream Years, Lisa Goldstein (1985)
39 Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, Sarah Lefanu & Jen Green (1985)
40 Queen of the States, Josephine Saxton (1986)
41 The Wave and the Flame [Lear's Daughters], Marjorie Bradley Kellogg (1986)
42 The Journal of Nicholas the American, Leigh Kennedy (1986)
43 A Door into Ocean, Joan Slonczewski (1986)
44 Angel at Apogee, SN Lewitt (1987)
45 In Conquest Born, CS Friedman (1987)
46 Pennterra, Judith Moffett (1987)
47 Kairos, Gwyneth Jones (1988)
48 Cyteen , CJ Cherryh (1988)-- I've read a lot of Cherryh, but not this one.
49 Unquenchable Fire, Rachel Pollack (1988)
50 The City, Not Long After, Pat Murphy (1988)
51 The Steerswoman [Steerswoman series], Rosemary Kirstein (1989)
52 The Third Eagle, RA MacAvoy (1989)
53 Grass, Sheri S Tepper (1989)
54 Heritage of Flight, Susan Shwartz (1989)
55 Falcon, Emma Bull (1989)
56 The Archivist, Gill Alderman (1989)
57 Winterlong [Winterlong trilogy], Elizabeth Hand (1990)
58 A Gift Upon the Shore, MK Wren (1990)
59 Red Spider, White Web, Misha (1990)
60 Polar City Blues, Katharine Kerr (1990)
61 Body of Glass (AKA He, She and It), Marge Piercy (1991)
62 Sarah Canary, Karen Joy Fowler (1991)
63 Beggars in Spain [Sleepless trilogy], Nancy Kress (1991) -- I bounced off this, sadly.
64 A Woman of the Iron People, Eleanor Arnason (1991)
65 Hermetech, Storm Constantine (1991)
66 China Mountain Zhang, Maureen F McHugh (1992)
67 Fools, Pat Cadigan (1992)
68 Correspondence, Sue Thomas (1992)
69 Lost Futures, Lisa Tuttle (1992)
70 Doomsday Book, Connie Willis (1992)
71 Ammonite, Nicola Griffith (1993)
72 The Holder of the World, Bharati Mukherjee (1993)
73 Queen City Jazz, Kathleen Ann Goonan (1994)
74 Happy Policeman, Patricia Anthony (1994)
75 Shadow Man, Melissa Scott (1995)
76 Legacies, Alison Sinclair (1995)
77 Primary Inversion [Skolian Saga], Catherine Asaro (1995)
78 Alien Influences, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1995)
79 The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell (1996)
80 Memory [Vorkosigan series], Lois McMaster Bujold (1996)
81 Remnant Population, Elizabeth Moon (1996) -- not sure.
82 Looking for the Mahdi, N Lee Wood (1996)
83 An Exchange of Hostages [Jurisdiction series], Susan R Matthews (1997)
84 Fool’s War, Sarah Zettel (1997)
85 Black Wine, Candas Jane Dorsey (1997)
86 Halfway Human, Carolyn Ives Gilman (1998)
87 Vast, Linda Nagata (1998)
88 Hand of Prophecy, Severna Park (1998)
89 Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson (1998)
90 Dreaming in Smoke, Tricia Sullivan (1999) --- on my Find This list.
91 Ash: A Secret History, Mary Gentle (2000) -- I've read all hers except this one, which I can't get on with, for complex mediaeval historian reasons.


It's an interesting list -- I've read a lot of women who aren't on it, like Justina Robson and Liz Williams, Julie Czerneda, Lisanne Norman, S L Viehl, Elizabeth Bear, Patricia Geary, Louise Lawrence, Tanya Huff, Diana Wynne Jones, Sharon Shin.... I could go on and on.

Comments

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Francis Leslie Ashton.

You'd have thought the spelling would have been a giveaway. Both masculine variants (and the 1911 census lists him as male).

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

But with both names sounding as though they could be female. It may come down to one's default assumptions - if one's default mental image of a novelist is female (a reasonable position for a female novelist), there may not be enough in the name to flip one over to the other conclusion.

For what it's worth, the only person I know named 'Nicola' happens to be a six foot, bearded Italian, so one can also be deceived by foreign usage.

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

Cyteen , CJ Cherryh (1988)-- I've read a lot of Cherryh, but not this one.

Quite a few people, myself included, think this is her best novel. It not only has one of the most carefully balanced "murder/suicide/accident" cases in fiction, but one can also argue for years over the relative morals of the various character in it. It's a seriously rewarding book while at the same time not being as impenetrable as Cherryh can be.

[coth.livejournal.com]

B had a copy of Dreaming in Smoke on sale at Illustrious - do you want me to ask him if he still has it?

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Yes, please.

[pogodragon.livejournal.com]

I've only read about a dozen of those, but I've read lots of other stuff by those writers, and by the others you've listed.

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

This seems like an odd list. I've read books by some of these authors, but never heard of the ones by them listed here.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

There are some odd choices there, and some books I have hurled towards the waste bin in fury. (Doomsday Book, for starters.) Why Kairos for example? There isn't a book by Jones that I haven't liked, but that one is ... odd.

I don't like Cyteen myself, and I own most of Cherryh's books. She's one of the very few authors I have been known to buy new in hardback. I don't like Ash either, though I am fond of most of Gentle's White Crow books. The Norton and the Tiptree are not the ones I'd've picked either.

[aliettedb.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure how the list was compiled, and Ian Sales certainly has admitted to many omissions (I also think that he has a natural tendency for preferring hard SF, which probably led him to give a lot less precedence to novels such as Sharon Shinn's). He also picked 2000 as a cutoff point, which explains why Elizabeth Bear and Liz Williams aren't on it (despite being among my favourite writers).

[freda-writes.livejournal.com]

That's a hell of a list... I've read some, but it's making me sad to think I probably won't live long enough to catch up with all the stuff I want to read!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Too random, who's on it and who not--paying no attention.

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

Echoing those who find this an interesting but somewhat strange list. Likewise echoing everyone who multiple times thought "I've read so many by her but not THAT one".

And I gotta say it (laughingly, as you've read far more of these books than I have) -- YOU NEVER READ FRANKENSTEIN??!??

OTOH, a great way to make additions to my ever growing, never to be caught up on, "To be read" list. Especially since some of these are things I've meant to read since the late 70's or early 80's when I first heard of them and had since sort of forgotten.

[miintikwa.livejournal.com]

I didn't know CS Friedman was a woman until I picked up her most recent novel series. I was startled and very pleased. I've loved her stuff for a long time. :)

Also, "Dreamsnake" is one of my FAVORITE books of all time. It's lovely to see someone else has read it! :)