|
|
| Line 3: |
Line 3: |
| There are at least several ways to organize such as canon... | | There are at least several ways to organize such as canon... |
|
| |
|
| * [[Historical Canon]] | | * [[Historical Canon]] - by [[Liz Henry]] |
| * [[Canon by Format and Title]] | | * [[Canon by Format and Title]] - by [[Cynthia Ward]]. This was a list assembled by Cynthia Ward for The Internet Review of Science Fiction. (cf. [http://www.irosf.com/zine/article/10054 "Feminist SF: Futures for Humankind"]). It is organized by format (novel, short form, anthology) and title. Authors marked with an asterick are essential feminist SF authors, and most or all their SF is relevant. |
| | |
| ==A Canon By Format and Title==
| |
| | |
| This was a list assembled by Cynthia Ward for The Internet Review of Science Fiction. (cf. [http://www.irosf.com/zine/article/10054 "Feminist SF: Futures for Humankind"]). It is organized by format (novel, short form, anthology) and title. Authors marked with an asterick are essential feminist SF authors, and most or all their SF is relevant. | |
| | |
| ===Essential Novels===
| |
| | |
| * Ammonite by Nicola Griffith*
| |
| An offworld anthropologist must discover how the women of planet GP continue to reproduce after a virus kills all the men.
| |
| * Benefits by Zoe Fairbairns
| |
| Men use near-future reproductive technology to control women.
| |
| * Black Wine by Candas Jane Dorsey
| |
| A challenging saga of mothers and daughters.
| |
| * The Book of Ash by Mary Gentle*
| |
| The complex story of an alternate-history Joan of Arc. Published in the U.S. as four books, A Secret History et seq.
| |
| * The Disappearance by Philip Wylie
| |
| The opposite sex vanishes.
| |
| * Divine Endurance by Gwyneth Jones*
| |
| A female android wanders a matriarchal post-apocalyptic land.
| |
| * Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre*
| |
| Nuclear holocaust alters male-female relations.
| |
| * Egalia's Daughters: A Satire of the Sexes by Gerd Brantenberg
| |
| (a.k.a. Daughters of Egalia) Biological differences between men and women prove female superiority.
| |
| * The Female Man by Joanna Russ*
| |
| The battle of the sexes becomes literal war.
| |
| * The Gate to Women's Country by Sheri S. Tepper
| |
| Men and women must live apart to ensure human survival.
| |
| * The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
| |
| A near-future theocracy systematically dehumanizes women.
| |
| * Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
| |
| Three male explorers discover an isolated all-female society.
| |
| * The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin*
| |
| On the planet Gethen, gender does not exist...most of the time.
| |
| * Mizora by Mary E. Bradley Lane
| |
| A race of technologically advanced superwomen inhabits the hollow Earth.
| |
| * Native Tongue et seq. by Suzette Haden Elgin*
| |
| Oppressed women invent their own language.
| |
| * Parable of the Sower et seq. by Octavia E. Butler*
| |
| As America descends into barbarism, a woman founds a new religion.
| |
| * Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler
| |
| A mysterious woman polarizes reactions in nineteenth-century America.
| |
| * The Shattered Chain et seq. by Marion Zimmer Bradley
| |
| The first novel focusing on the Renunciates, or Free Amazons of Darkover (collected with its sequels in The Saga of the Renunciates).
| |
| * Triton by Samuel R. Delany
| |
| (a.k.a Trouble on Triton) In a future of dazzling diversity, one man becomes a woman.
| |
| * Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon
| |
| The only way to end the war between the sexes is to replace both men and women with a new sex.
| |
| * Walk to the End of the World et seq. by Suzy McKee Charnas*
| |
| Enslavement of women leads to war—and more shocking acts.
| |
| * A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason*
| |
| Humans encounter an alien race trapped by its own sexuality.
| |
| * Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
| |
| A contemporary woman visits a future of true sexual equality.
| |
| | |
| ===Essential Short Fiction===
| |
| | |
| * "All My Darling Daughters" by Connie Willis
| |
| New reproductive imperatives engender profound sexual alienation.
| |
| * "Baby You Were Great" by Kate Wilhelm
| |
| In this proto-cyberpunk classic, a woman is used and abused to broadcast emotion to the masses [available online].
| |
| * "A Birthday" by Esther M. Friesner
| |
| Scary dystopia extracts a grim price for abortion.
| |
| * "Consider Her Ways" by John Wyndham
| |
| Men are extinct and society is perfect.
| |
| * "Even the Queen...." by Connie Willis
| |
| When menstruation is eliminated, women take over the world.
| |
| * "The Forbidden Words of Margaret A." by L. Timmel Duchamp*
| |
| One woman's words are so powerful, a Constitutional Amendment is passed to silence her.
| |
| * "The Heat Death of the Universe" by Pamela Zoline
| |
| A housewife experiences entropy.
| |
| * "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" by James Tiptree, Jr.*
| |
| Timewarped astronauts find themselves in a future in which they, being men, are obsolete.
| |
| * "My Lady Tongue" by Lucy Sussex
| |
| A near-future women-only community engenders prejudices of its own.
| |
| * "The Logistics of Carthage" by Mary Gentle
| |
| Those who write history stunt identity. Set in the world of The Book of Ash.
| |
| * "Motherhood, Etc." by L. Timmel Duchamp
| |
| Men respond to a woman with a crucial difference.
| |
| * "The Screwfly Solution" by James Tiptree, Jr.
| |
| Aliens interfere with the human reproductive drive, to deadly effect for both sexes. (First published under the byline Raccoona Sheldon.)
| |
| * "The View from Venus" by Karen Joy Fowler
| |
| Aliens observe male-female mating rituals.
| |
| * "When It Changed" by Joanna Russ
| |
| A lost extrasolar colony is rediscovered by Earthmen centuries after plague killed all the male colonists.
| |
| * "The Women Men Don't See" by James Tiptree, Jr.
| |
| Life with unknown aliens is better than life with men.
| |
| | |
| ===Essential Anthologies and Collections===
| |
| | |
| * Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Debbie Notkin
| |
| Reprints many Tiptree Award winners and finalists.
| |
| * Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree, Jr.
| |
| This indispensable collection contains several classic feminist-SF stories.
| |
| * Love's Body, Dancing in Time by L. Timmel Duchamp
| |
| Women find within themselves the freedom and power denied by society.
| |
| * The Start of the End of It All by Carol Emshwiller*
| |
| Eighteen incisive stories about women, men, animals, and aliens.
| |
| * The Wanderground: Stories of the Hill Women by Sally Miller Gearhart
| |
| In an estranged future, men and women live apart.
| |
| * Weird Women, Wired Women by Kit Reed*
| |
| Collects twenty stories from thirty years of insightful science-fictional examination of women's roles and issues.
| |
| * Women of Wonder: The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s and Women of Wonder: The Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s edited by Pamela Sargent
| |
| This definitive two-volume historical overview collects short SF written by women.
| |
| | |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| [[category:Reading & Media Lists]] [[category:Scholarship]] | | [[category:Reading & Media Lists]] [[category:Scholarship]] |
| [[category:Canons]] | | [[category:Canons]] |