12 september 2001

My Favorite SF/F Books By Women
by Susanna J. Sturgis

Susanna J. Sturgis wrote the f/sf review column for Feminist Bookstore News from 1984-96, chaired the James Tiptree Jr. Memorial Award jury in 1994 and was a Wiscon special guest in 1997. She edited three anthologies of original f/sf by women: Memories and Visions (1989), The Women Who Walk Through Fire (1990), and Tales of Magic Realism By Women (1991). The good news is that she's almost done with her first novel; the bad news is that it's not f or sf. She owes what sanity she has left to her dog, Rhodry Malamutt, and her Morgan mare, Allie.

Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin. Big, unwieldy, and totally engrossing. I've never read a novel that conveyed so well what novelists do.

The Female Man by Joanna Russ. Of course. No, it's not dated, and yes, it's funny as hell.

Motherlines and the rest of the Holdfast saga by Suzy McKee Charnas. What the modern feminist movement is about, and a great story as well.

Beggars In Spain by Nancy Kress. Want to know why separatism is necessary, and why it's dangerous? Read this book.

Trouble and Her Friends by Melissa Scott. In which Outsiders Like Us save the (virtual) universe without losing their edge.

Kindred by Octavia Butler. A modern African-American woman has to save the life of a despicable white antebellum slave owner — because he's her ancestor and if he dies too soon, she won't be born.

The Wanderground: Stories of the Hill Women, by Sally Miller Gearhart. Among the first, and probably the best, f/sf novels published by a feminist press. For a while there I thought I could fly . . .

The Sardonyx Net by Elizabeth A. Lynn. Dark and brilliant. Before you know it, you're identifying with a slave, a slave holder, and a truly terrifying sadist. It was years before I could talk myself into rereading it.

Soverign by R. M. (Rebecca) Meluch. Meluch, a ridiculously under-recognized writer, is a master at creating heroes that you admire, root for, but never quite understand. Teal Ray Stewert is one of my very favorites.

The Deverry novels by Katharine Kerr. What can I say? I named my dog Rhodry after one of her protagonists. The most compelling fantasy series I've ever read, well-written and thoroughly alive. Read them all. You won't do anything else for a week.