Re: 10 Women Who Changed Sci-Fi

No argument, although I'd include Sherri S. Tepper. I'm sure there will be
a slew of other suggestions.

charley

On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 7:41 AM, Dennis Fischer <[email protected]>
wrote:

> 10 Women Who Changed Sci-Fi
> *As the Radio 4 documentary Herland
> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06yfhqr> examines how science fiction
> tackles ideas of gender in future worlds, we present a selection of great
> female authors who have radically altered the genre...*
> Mary Shelley
> Credited with founding science fiction as a field, Shelley’s key
> contribution to the genre was Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. She
> completed the novel in 1817, when she was still a teenager, after she and
> her lover, Percy Bysshe Shelley, were challenged to produce a ghost story
> by their friend Lord Byron. The book’s terrifying insight - that we could
> make life and intelligence – continues to be one of science fiction’s
> enduring themes.
> Ursula K Le Guin
> Le Guin has been a significant player in the science fiction field since
> the 1960s and has nourished the sci-fi and fantasy genre with piercing
> visions of race, gender, ecology and politics. She has also been its heroic
> defender with a host of best-selling writers citing her as an inspiration
> <http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/NvYCd6pbQ0wCvvY1PFZdtX/7-bestselling-authors-influenced-by-ursula-le-guin>
> .
> Photo by Marian Wood Kolisch
> Connie Willis
> With 11 Hugo Awards and seven Nebula Awards to her name, Willis has won
> more major science fiction and fantasy awards than any other writer. Her
> work is witty, varied, and often satirical. From her breakthrough story
> Fire Watch, which was awarded her first Hugo and Nebula awards, her fiction
> has often explored the great science fiction trope of time travel.
> Photo by Kyle Cassidy
> Octavia E Butler
> If she didn’t exist, we would have to invent her. Butler’s work broadened
> the themes and vision of the genre as a whole, encompassing race, sex and
> power. A black woman writing in a genre dominated by white males, her work
> was most highly praised for the depth of its humanity. She was the first
> science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, sometimes known
> as the ‘Genuis Grant’. Indispensable.
> Joanna Russ
> Despite her small output – five novels, four short story collection and a
> novella – Russ’s achievement was huge. Noted for her contribution to
> feminist science fiction, Russ’s power also lies in her critique of the
> science fiction dream, particularly immortality among the stars.
> Photo by Tee A. Corinne (Lesbian Herstory Archives)
> James Tiptree, Jr.
> In spite of the name, Tiptree wasn’t a man. She was, in fact, a spy who
> worked for the CIA. Tiptree was the penname Alice Bradley Sheldon used
> exclusively for her science fiction work, which she debuted in 1968.
> Explosively influential at the time, her short stories changed the field
> and there is now a literary prize named in her honour.
> Pat Cadigan
> After the feminist 1970s and 1980s, cyberpunk announced that the boys were
> back in town – except that Cadigan was right at the core of the movement.
> Her 1991 novel, Synners, showed how people and computers could merge.
> Anne McCaffrey
> The first woman to win a Hugo, the first woman to win a Nebula, McCaffrey
> also enjoyed wide commercial success. The Ship Who Sang – a 1969 work
> encompassing five previously published stories - combined space and
> artificial personalities with utter originality.
> Margaret Atwood
> Uncomfortable with the term she may be, but she is, at times, a science
> fiction writer. Her influence, and readership, spans far beyond the genre
> and the five-time Booker nominee (who won the prize in 2000) would feature
> any credible list of heavyweight late-20th Century authors. Written in
> 1986, The Handmaid’s Tale’s dystopian future dominated by religious
> extremists gets more prescient by the day.
> Photo by Jean Malek
> Ann Leckie
> Her trio of Ancilliary novels, published between 2013 and 2015 combine two
> main strands of science fiction – artificial people and travel in space.
> Winning a slew of awards, they have announced a major new talent whose next
> steps will be eagerly anticipated.
>



-- 
Charley
Desert Sailor