BOOKS I’VE NEVER READ (LADIES EDITION)
Jul. 7th, 2011 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogOooooh, a book meme!
By order of pussreboots:
1970s Women Authors of Science Fiction Meme
Instructions:
Eleanor Arnason
Octavia Butler
Moyra Caldecott
Jayge Carr
Joy Chant
Suzy McKee Charnas
C. J. Cherryh
Jo Clayton
Candas Jane Dorsey
Diane Duane
Phyllis Eisenstein
Cynthia Felice
Sheila Finch
Sally Gearhart
Mary Gentle
Dian Girard
Eileen Gunn
Monica Hughes
Diana Wynne Jones
Gwyneth Jones
Leigh Kennedy
Lee Killough
Nancy Kress
Katherine Kurtz
Tanith Lee
Megan Lindholm (AKA Robin Hobb)
Elizabeth A. Lynn
Phillipa Maddern
Ardath Mayhar
Vonda McIntyre
Patricia A. McKillip
Janet Morris
Pat Murphy
Sam Nicholson (AKA Shirley Nikolaisen)
Rachel Pollack
Marta Randall
Anne Rice
Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Pamela Sargent
Sydney J. Van Scyoc
Susan Shwartz
Nancy Springer
Lisa Tuttle
Joan Vinge
Élisabeth Vonarburg
Cherry Wilder
Connie Willis.
On the one hand, I’m embarrassed at how few names I can check off this list (and most of them I haven’t read since high school). On the other hand, the list not only seems incomplete (Anne McCaffery? Ursula K. Le Guin?), but also seems to include many authors who are technically fantasy writers, not SF. And as I’ve said elsewhere, I read all my fantasy novels in high school and have rarely looked back.
Also, whether we’re talking SF or fantasy, Anne Rice arguably doesn’t belong on this list, unless vampire novels somehow now count as SF/fantasy.
(On the other hand, half the SF/fantasy section of any given bookstore contains vampire/werewolf books, most of them written by women, half of them by either Laurell K Hamilton or Charlaine Harris, and the other half essentially supernatural chick-lit – Bridget Jones Meets Sparkly Dracula, etc. So maybe it IS a fantasy sub-genre now. This is progress?)
Still, point taken – I probably should read more female writers than I do, but not only are women the minority in the genres I tend to read (particularly SF), but also they tend to write the kind of SF I wouldn’t be interested in regardless of the gender of the writer. (Elizabeth Moon comes to mind – I’m sure she’s great, but military space opera isn’t really my thing.) In fact, all of the names I checked off are authors I haven’t read past the first book I tried by them (with the exception of Rice). And of the bunch, Connie Willis is the only one I’m considering revisiting.
Of course it's not like it’s all blokes in the SF section of my bookshelf – Tricia Sullivan is brilliant, as is Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction. And I do have Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker in the reading queue.
Meanwhile, I’m happy to take recommendations of really good female sci-fi writers (from the 70s or any era).
Open to suggestion,
This is dF
By order of pussreboots:
1970s Women Authors of Science Fiction Meme
Instructions:
- Italicize the authors you've heard of before reading this list of authors
- Bold the ones you've read at least one work by
- Underline the ones of whose work you own at least one example of.
Eleanor Arnason
Octavia Butler
Moyra Caldecott
Jayge Carr
Joy Chant
Suzy McKee Charnas
C. J. Cherryh
Jo Clayton
Candas Jane Dorsey
Diane Duane
Phyllis Eisenstein
Cynthia Felice
Sheila Finch
Sally Gearhart
Mary Gentle
Dian Girard
Eileen Gunn
Monica Hughes
Diana Wynne Jones
Gwyneth Jones
Leigh Kennedy
Lee Killough
Nancy Kress
Katherine Kurtz
Tanith Lee
Megan Lindholm (AKA Robin Hobb)
Elizabeth A. Lynn
Phillipa Maddern
Ardath Mayhar
Vonda McIntyre
Patricia A. McKillip
Janet Morris
Pat Murphy
Sam Nicholson (AKA Shirley Nikolaisen)
Rachel Pollack
Marta Randall
Anne Rice
Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Pamela Sargent
Sydney J. Van Scyoc
Susan Shwartz
Nancy Springer
Lisa Tuttle
Joan Vinge
Élisabeth Vonarburg
Cherry Wilder
Connie Willis.
On the one hand, I’m embarrassed at how few names I can check off this list (and most of them I haven’t read since high school). On the other hand, the list not only seems incomplete (Anne McCaffery? Ursula K. Le Guin?), but also seems to include many authors who are technically fantasy writers, not SF. And as I’ve said elsewhere, I read all my fantasy novels in high school and have rarely looked back.
Also, whether we’re talking SF or fantasy, Anne Rice arguably doesn’t belong on this list, unless vampire novels somehow now count as SF/fantasy.
(On the other hand, half the SF/fantasy section of any given bookstore contains vampire/werewolf books, most of them written by women, half of them by either Laurell K Hamilton or Charlaine Harris, and the other half essentially supernatural chick-lit – Bridget Jones Meets Sparkly Dracula, etc. So maybe it IS a fantasy sub-genre now. This is progress?)
Still, point taken – I probably should read more female writers than I do, but not only are women the minority in the genres I tend to read (particularly SF), but also they tend to write the kind of SF I wouldn’t be interested in regardless of the gender of the writer. (Elizabeth Moon comes to mind – I’m sure she’s great, but military space opera isn’t really my thing.) In fact, all of the names I checked off are authors I haven’t read past the first book I tried by them (with the exception of Rice). And of the bunch, Connie Willis is the only one I’m considering revisiting.
Of course it's not like it’s all blokes in the SF section of my bookshelf – Tricia Sullivan is brilliant, as is Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction. And I do have Cherie Priest’s Boneshaker in the reading queue.
Meanwhile, I’m happy to take recommendations of really good female sci-fi writers (from the 70s or any era).
Open to suggestion,
This is dF
