roughly 10% of the list is women, and with the exception of Shelley, all of the works written by women that appear on the list were published post-1960, when the gender balance in the genre started to noticeably shift.
But overall 70% of the winners were published post-1960. So that's some disproportionate garbage going on imo. Many of the major female figures in the genre that I noted above don't appear at all.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 24 January 2020 18:29 (four years ago) link
i don't doubt there were major female authors but what was the proportion? if you look at the nebula awards the best novel nominees are something like 80% male up till the early 90s.
― Paperbag raita (ledge), Friday, 24 January 2020 20:04 (four years ago) link
tough to evaluate (lots of caveats) but there's a wiki entry on this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_speculative_fiction
― Οὖτις, Friday, 24 January 2020 20:10 (four years ago) link
first sentence of that is probably the most relevant:
In 1948, 10–15% of science fiction writers were female. Women's role in speculative fiction (including science fiction) has grown since then, and in 1999, women comprised 36% of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's professional members.
where/when that big shift happened is hard to pinpoint, but Hugo's Best Novel awards/nominations tell some of the story:- Leigh Brackett nominated in 1956- Marion Zimmer Bradley nominated in 1963- Andre Norton nominated in 1964- Le Guin finally wins in 1970 (for Left Hand of Darkness)- Le Guin nominated again in 1972, as is Anne McCaffrey- Le Guin nominated yet again in 1975 (Disposessed)- Kate Wilhelm nominated in 1977- Marion Zimmer Bradley nominated in 1978- Vonda McIntyre wins in 1979 (for Dreamsnake. I've never read it but this seems like something of a turning point for various reasons)- Patricia McKillip nominated in 1980- Joan Vinge (argh how could I have forgotten her) wins in 1981- C.J. Cherryh wins in 1982, Julian May also nominated- Cherryh nominated again in 1983- Anne McCaffrey nominated in 1984- Cherryh yet again in 1986- Cherryh again in 1989, as well as Lois McMaster Bujold
anyway you get the idea.
Of course, the boundaries of the nominee pool in the ILX poll expanded far beyond the restrictive categories of the Hugos - compared to some of the stuff that placed I don't see why the likes of, say, Angela Carter (who would never have been up for a Hugo) didn't show up.
tbf my ballot was very male-heavy as well (the only two women I voted for were LeGuin and Tiptree) but in my defense it was also limited to a handful of authors that I very much wanted to place, particularly Moorcock and PKD, so there was some strategy there that didn't necessarily reflect what I would actually consider ALL TIME GREATS as much as it reflected what I suspected other people were going to vote (or not vote) for.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 24 January 2020 20:22 (four years ago) link
thx shakes, you make a good argument that ilx is sexist after all :) if nothing else you've given me lots of names to check out.
― Paperbag raita (ledge), Friday, 24 January 2020 20:41 (four years ago) link
ILX or not, thing that bugs me a lot is that after Kuttner died and C. L. Moore got remarried she stopped writing altogether.
― TS: Kirk/Spock vs. Marat/Sade (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 24 January 2020 20:46 (four years ago) link
surely we can figure out some way to blame that on ILX
― Οὖτις, Friday, 24 January 2020 21:07 (four years ago) link
Maybe the time tourists in “Vintage Season” were actually ILX0rs.
― TS: Kirk/Spock vs. Marat/Sade (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 24 January 2020 21:25 (four years ago) link
DO U SEE?
tbf half the sff books published since 1970 are by piers anthony, necessarily driving down the percentage of those published by women
― mookieproof, Friday, 24 January 2020 21:29 (four years ago) link
There's an N.K. Jemisin profile in the New Yorker btw
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 24 January 2020 21:37 (four years ago) link
Always frustrates me wondering how to handle short stories and poetry into these polls and lists, often collections and anthologies are too uneven to put forward with confidence.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 25 January 2020 00:09 (four years ago) link
As far as I know about CL Moore, she did tv writing until her health prevented her writing but she did attend conventions. I don't know if there's a firm basis for stories of her last husband discouraging her from writing (very grim if true).
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 25 January 2020 00:13 (four years ago) link
jeez, Silverbob's Time of Changes has to be the worst of his New Wave-period novels. A clumsily executed central premise (a culture where the first-person is grammatically verboten) that doesn't make any sense, tons of exposition, cardboard characters, tons of lame sexual stuff. I don't think I'm going to be able to finish it.
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 28 January 2020 16:27 (four years ago) link
https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/joanna-russ-the-science-fiction-writer-who-said-no
thought provoking piece on russ & feminist sf - spoilers within.
― Paperbag raita (ledge), Friday, 31 January 2020 13:36 (four years ago) link
saw that yesterday, great piece
― Οὖτις, Friday, 31 January 2020 15:56 (four years ago) link
kinda ignores how funny Russ could be though. I think her image as a dour and strident ideologue (at least in her fiction) is a little overstated.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 31 January 2020 16:02 (four years ago) link
The opening also gives a rather misleading impression of The Female Man - it's almost nothing like 'John Wayne’s wet dreams with the sexes reversed'.
― Paperbag raita (ledge), Friday, 31 January 2020 16:25 (four years ago) link
haha yeah that is not a blurb I would put on the back cover
― Οὖτις, Friday, 31 January 2020 16:28 (four years ago) link
that piece about going back in time to fix her relationship with her mother was in that collection I read recently ("The Hidden Side of the Moon"), really great in its emotional depth, all these conflicting impulses and desires about how she wants to be seen by (and see) her mother. I'm glad a bunch of her stuff has come back into print recently, would love a comprehensive collection of her short fiction and/or criticism.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 31 January 2020 16:36 (four years ago) link
I picked up Jeff Vandameer's Dead Astronauts in the library, and it passed the totally unfair, ruthless Random Read Test, which rarely happens. So far so good: he fuses show and tell via starlit, pungent, burnt-in imagery, which can also turn slippery, like wet tattoos and brands---the bitterness of many defeats/continuations, also the idealism and love of common cause and deep connection/metamorphosis, revelations along the way---the three principals have been through a lot together, incl. killing themselves and each other--- story now: once more unto the breech, for another assault on the City and the Company:
The equation of the Company eluded Chen, perhaps because he had been lost within it once upon a time (he used to work for it, was maybe created by it; assaults tend to or maybe always incl. Chen vs. Chen, physically and every other way.)Or as he said sometimes, the system abhors source, makes its mapping into a maze, a mockery, and the more you think you understand it, the more you are colonized by it, and lost.So, the "affecting poetic compression" I mentioned re that story by early New Waver Sonya Dorman, but also like he's been smoking Ballard, Malzberg, early Delany, Peter Watts. Maybe PKD, we'll see (ontology figures, but don't yet know how much or how).
― dow, Friday, 31 January 2020 18:42 (four years ago) link
*Vandermeer's"!
sounds promising
― Οὖτις, Friday, 31 January 2020 18:45 (four years ago) link
It sure did, but now the occasional bits of poo are starting to accrue, and just ruined a whole chapter. Think I'm done.
― dow, Sunday, 2 February 2020 06:02 (four years ago) link
A few interviews with Brian Stableford on his productivity, translations (including which ones he likes best) and quite a few bleak pronouncements about what he's doing. Most of these are getting old.
"If your august predecessor Charlie Brown was correct when he declared that print-on-demand books don’t really count as publications, but only as ‘‘potential publications’’ then I suppose I ceased to exist ten years ago, when I was finally relegated from the commercial arena, but if physicists are right in deeming that even the hardest vacuum is a seething chaos of imperceptible subatomic particles, I guess there’s some potential even in the virtual vacuum in which I’m working nowadays. At present I’m trying to produce 24 volumes of translation and a quarter of a million words of fiction per year, which would be quite a lot of potential if anyone ever paid enough attention to any of it to cause it to materialize; but if no one does, it hardly matters; I don’t have anything else to do."
https://locusmag.com/2011/11/spotlight-on-brian-stableford-translator-and-author/https://www.sfintranslation.com/?p=4408http://theakersquarterly.blogspot.com/2011/01/brian-stableford-new-worlds-of-fantasy.htmlhttp://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/intbs06.htm
Recently learned he's written a bit about Sopor Aeternus and other goth music!
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 2 February 2020 20:33 (four years ago) link
Where would you suggest someone start with Stableford, and why? xpost The finely tuned approach of Vandermeer's latest (my first by him) leaves no room to stumble, without disturbing the vibe and groove toward overwrought solemnity and facefalls--even though he gets up and continues, the story's arrived at some very bad precedents. My life's too short.Random Read Test is ready for these possibly tasty Tors:http://view.mail.macmillan.com/?qs=ad7ebe31fa0cbca348929a951f49ab8d7e63a7353658c4af53b6b3c037b182dca03a5517118da7e82ecc9f824aa4de4052873b96c0ea45151a38114a6642a62ffcb717a31636300a1845c1459e069e43197eb9992fb1e6a3
― dow, Sunday, 2 February 2020 22:44 (four years ago) link
is altered carbon good
― Bstep, Sunday, 2 February 2020 23:25 (four years ago) link
No
― Οὖτις, Monday, 3 February 2020 00:19 (four years ago) link
thanks. lol
― Bstep, Monday, 3 February 2020 00:26 (four years ago) link
altered carbon (the novel) has some of the worst sex scene i have ever read, like 40 yo virgin "bag of sand" bad
― adam, Monday, 3 February 2020 01:02 (four years ago) link
Yeah the writing is appallingly bad and all the ideas are one-dimensional riffs on old cyberpunk tropes
― Οὖτις, Monday, 3 February 2020 01:11 (four years ago) link
is there even any good cyberpunk besides Gibson?
― Bstep, Monday, 3 February 2020 01:39 (four years ago) link
KW Jeter’s Dr. Adder, Glass Hammer and Death Arms, early Bruce Sterling (Islands in the Net, Schismatrix, Crystal Express), handful of other things
― Οὖτις, Monday, 3 February 2020 01:42 (four years ago) link
thankshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLlj_GeKniA
― Bstep, Monday, 3 February 2020 01:48 (four years ago) link
omg
― TS: Kirk/Spock vs. Marat/Sade (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 3 February 2020 01:52 (four years ago) link
Lmao
― Οὖτις, Monday, 3 February 2020 02:18 (four years ago) link
Maybe we should poll that
― TS: Kirk/Spock vs. Marat/Sade (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 3 February 2020 02:34 (four years ago) link
Thats from... 1993?
― Οὖτις, Monday, 3 February 2020 02:36 (four years ago) link
(A Cybernaut I Should Turn to Be)
― TS: Kirk/Spock vs. Marat/Sade (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 3 February 2020 02:55 (four years ago) link
Simak was such a weirdo: https://sciencefictionruminations.com/2020/02/08/book-review-the-werewolf-principle-clifford-d-simak-1967/#more-19629
― Οὖτις, Monday, 10 February 2020 20:41 (four years ago) link
Dow- Again ashamed to admit that aside from some articles written by him, I haven't started on Stableford yet, so it's questionable that I own 5 novels by him (some were charity shop finds and some might have been going scarce). He's written all kinds. He's a specialist in biological hard SF; he's done a fair amount of stuff in the vein of Kim Newman's Anno Dracula and Moore's League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, sometimes with characters, writers and trends even more obscure and out of fashion; he written a bunch of Warhammer and vampire/werewolf stuff in the 90s for cash but it's some of his most acclaimed work; he done a lot of decadent, Lovecraftian and dying earth stuff.
I was originally going to start with Curse Of The Coral Bride but I want to read all my Clark Ashton Smith first (it's a sort of tribute).
Then I was going to start with Empire Of Fear (his most popular book) and Young Blood, but they're quite long and I've been getting plenty of vampires recently.
But right now I'm decided on Cassandra Complex (the start of a bio-tech series that was published out of order, but can seemingly be read in any order) and his anthology Scientific Romance (pre-pulp writers from france, usa and uk). Maybe then some of his Maurice Renard, Jean Lorrain and Jacques Spitz translations.
Walking Shadow was chosen by Pringle for 100 Best Novels and Cassandra Complex was in Di Filippo/Broderick's 101 Best Novels.
I found these two overviews extremely helpful.http://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/stableford_brian_mhttp://sf-encyclopedia.uk/fe.php?nm=stableford_brian_m
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 15 February 2020 18:22 (four years ago) link
Are those two (noticeably? completely?) different?
― He’s the Listener DJ, I’m the Listener Rapper (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 15 February 2020 18:44 (four years ago) link
I thought so. Second is much shorter.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 15 February 2020 18:47 (four years ago) link
First one's his SF, second one's his fantasy work.
― Tsar Bombadil (James Morrison), Saturday, 15 February 2020 22:24 (four years ago) link
Much more colorful and appealing track record than expected, Robert! I've read a few things, incl. a whole novel, that I can't remember the titles of, only left with faint impression of work way too reined in: maybe he was overcompensating for vampire/werewolf etc.? The Scientific Romance anth def up my alley, will check for that, thanks.
― dow, Sunday, 16 February 2020 03:21 (four years ago) link
There's also this one coming next month that looks really cool.https://blackcoatpress.com/forthcoming-weird-fiction-in-france.html
And this which really exemplifies what I said about his delving into forgotten trendshttps://blackcoatpress.com/fiction-tales-of-enchantment-and-disenchantment.htmlHe's written fanfiction about some of these writers and their creations.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 16 February 2020 04:32 (four years ago) link
Awes---although will have to think about digesting 38 fay stories in one slab---but that other anth---!
― dow, Sunday, 16 February 2020 22:25 (four years ago) link
https://thebedlamfiles.com/fiction/aniara/
Sounds interesting
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Saturday, 22 February 2020 22:42 (four years ago) link
https://www.abc-clio.com/Praeger/product.aspx?pc=A5676Chttp://www.nerds-feather.com/2020/02/interview-jess-nevins-author-of-horror.html
This should be impressive. His previous books are very highly praised and extensive.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Sunday, 23 February 2020 02:40 (four years ago) link
There was an opera of Aniara composed by Karl Blomdahl, it’s really cool actually. Some bits got used in 2001 iirc.
― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Sunday, 23 February 2020 16:23 (four years ago) link