Millennial Women

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1978 hardcover edition.

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Panther, 1980 edition. Cover art by Peter Elson.

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undated; Dell edition.

Millennial Women is a 1978 science fiction anthology, edited by Virginia Kidd, in which all the stories are written by women and have a female character as the primary protagonist. The themes which these stories have in common are those of social science fiction: that which is perceived as alien, the uses of language, careers, familial relationships, sexual politics, social constructions of gender, political freedom and equality.

In 1980 the same anthology was republished under the title The Eye of the Heron and Other Stories.

Contents

• "Prayer for My Daughter" by Marilyn Hacker (prefatory poem);
• "Introduction" by Virginia Kidd;
• "No One Said Forever" by Cynthia Felice (short story);
• "The Song of N'Sardi-El" by Diana L. Paxson (short story);
• "Jubilee's Story" by Elizabeth A. Lynn (short story);
• "Mab Gallen Recalled" by Cherry Wilder (short story);
• "Phoenix in the Ashes" by Joan D. Vinge (novelette);
• "The Eye of the Heron" by Ursula K. Le Guin (novel); and
• Biographical Notes (not included in all editions).

"Introduction" by Virginia Kidd

One sentence in Virginia Kidd's "Introduction" strikes the modern reader as anti-feminist, and curiously unaware of women in science:

"But what seems to me one of the most impressive aspects of the collection is that all of these science-fiction writers avoid hard-core science fiction for sociology, soft-pedal radical feminism for humanism, and write about women simply as women." – Virginia Kidd

Were she alive today, one imagines she would write this differently; nevertheless, it strikes a jarring note, and seems intended to perhaps placate male readers upset with the outright "radical feminism" of writers like Joanna Russ.

Awards and nominations

• 1979, Locus Magazine Poll Awards, Best SF Anthology category, 12th place.

Release details

• 1978, Millennial Women, edited by Virginia Kidd, U.S., Delacorte Press (Dell Publishing), ISBN-10: 0440055997, ISBN-13: 978-0440055990, pp. 305, 1978, hardcover
• 1979, Millennial Women, edited by Virginia Kidd, Dell Publishing, ISBN-10: 0440163013, ISBN-13: 978-0440163015, April 1979, serial?
• 1980, The Eye of the Heron and Other Stories, edited by Virginia Kidd, UK, Panther Books (Granada Publishing), ISBN-10 0586050892, pp. 251, 5 June 1980, softcover

Further reading

• Internet Speculative Fiction Database entry for Millennial Women
• Wikipedia