Irritated by an old science fiction anthology, where out of the hundred stories only five were by women, Ian Sales put together the list below of a hundred great science fiction stories by women. A list like that is always a good way of hearing about writers you haven’t encountered before, so I want to keep this simple. Bold if I’ve never heard of somebody before, italics if I’ve read something of them.
- ‘The Fate of the Poseidonia’, Clare Winger Harris (1927, short story)
- ‘The Conquest of Gola,’ Leslie F Stone (1931, short story)
- ‘Water Pirate’, Leigh Brackett (1941, short story)
- ‘Space Episode’, Leslie Perri (1941, short story)
- ‘No Woman Born’, Cl Moore (1944, novelette)
- ‘That Only a Mother’, Judith Merril (1948, short story)
- ‘Contagion’, Katherine Maclean (1950, novelette)
- ‘Brightness Falls from the Air’, Margaret St Clair [as Idris Seabright] (1951, short story)
- ‘All Cats are Gray’, Andre Norton (1953, short story)
- ‘The Last Day’, Helen Clarkson (1958, short story)
- ‘Captivity’, Zenna Henderson (1958, novella)
- ‘The New You’, Kit Reed (1962, short story)
- ‘The Putnam Tradition’, Sonya Dorman (1963, short story)
- ‘Lord Moon’, MJ Engh [as Jane Beauclerk] (1965, short story)
- ‘Weyr Search’, Anne McCaffrey (1967, novella)
- ‘The Heat Death of the Universe’, Pamela Zoline (1967, short story)
- ‘The Steiger Effect’, Betsy Curtis (1968, short story)
- ‘The Power of Time’, Josephine Saxton (1971, novelette)
- ‘And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side’, James Tiptree Jr (1972, short story)
- ‘When It Changed’, Joanna Russ (1972, short story)
- ‘Sheltering Dream’, Doris Piserchia (1972, short story)
- ‘Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand’, Vonda N McIntyre (1973, novelette)
- ‘Clone Sister’, Pamela Sargent (1973, novelette)
- ‘The Violet’s Embryo’, Angélica Gorodischer (1973, novelette)
- ‘Stone Circle’, Lisa Tuttle (1976, short story)
- ‘Eyes of Amber’, Joan D Vinge (1977, novelette)
- ‘Cassandra, CJ Cherryh (1978, short story)
- ‘The View from Endless Scarp’, Marta Randall (1978, short story)
- ‘Scorched Supper on New Niger’, Suzy Mckee Charnas (1980, novelette)
- ‘Abominable’, Carol Emshwiller (1980, short story)
- ‘Sea Changeling’, Mildred Downey Broxon (1981, novelette)
- ‘In the Western Tradition’, Phyllis Eisenstein (1981, novella)
- ‘Her Furry Face’, Leigh Kennedy (1983, short story)
- ‘Bloodchild’ Octavia E Butler (1984, novelette)
- ‘Symphony for a Lost Traveller’, Lee Killough (1984, short story)
- ‘All My Darling Daughters’, Connie Willis (1985, novelette)
- ‘Webrider’, Jayge Carr (1985, short story)
- ‘Out of All Them Bright Stars’, Nancy Kress (1985, short story)
- ‘The View from Venus: A Case Study’, Karen Joy Fowler (1986, novelette)
- ‘Reichs-Peace’, Sheila Finch (1986, novelette)
- ‘Daily Voices’, Lisa Goldstein (1986, short story)
- ‘Rachel in Love’, Pat Murphy (1987, novelette)
- ‘Forever Yours, Anna’, Kate Wilhelm (1987, short story)
- ‘Stable Strategies for Middle Management’, Eileen Gunn (1988, short story)
- ‘War and Rumours of War’, Candas Jane Dorsey (1988, short story)
- ‘The Mountains of Mourning’, Lois Mcmaster Bujold (1989, novella)
- ‘Tiny Tango’, Judith Moffett (1989, novella)
- ‘Identifying the Object’, Gwyneth Jones (1990, novelette)
- ‘Loose Cannon’, Susan Shwartz (1990, novelette)
- ‘Dispatches from the Revolution’, Pat Cadigan (1991, novelette)
- ‘The Road to Jerusalem’, Mary Gentle (1991, short story)
- ‘The Missionary’s Child’, Maureen F McHugh (1992, novelette)
- ‘The Story So Far’, Martha Soukup (1993, short story)
- ‘The Good Pup’, Bridget McKenna (1993, short story)
- ‘California Dreamer’, Mary Rosenblum (1994, short story)
- ‘Last Summer at Mars Hill’, Elizabeth Hand (1994, novella)
- ‘Coming of Age in Karhide’, Ursula K Le Guin (1995, novelette)
- ‘De Secretis Mulierum’, L Timmel Duchamp (1995, novella)
- ‘Merlusine’, Lucy Sussex (1997, novelette)
- ‘Noble Mold’, Kage Baker (1997, short story)
- ‘All the Birds of Hell’, Tanith Lee (1998, novelette)
- ‘Rain Season’, Leanne Frahm (1998, short story)
- ‘Echea’, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1998, novelette)
- ‘Patient Zero’, Tananarive Due (2000, short story)
- ‘Knapsack Poems’, Eleanor Arnason (2002, short story)
- ‘State of Oblivion’, Kaaron Warren (2003, short story)
- ‘Inside Out’, Michaela Roessner (2004, short story)
- ‘Griots of the Galaxy’, Andrea Hairston (2004, novelette)
- ‘Riding the White Bull’, Caitlín R Kiernan( 2004, novelette)
- ‘The Avatar of Background Noise’, Toiya Kristen Finley (2006, short story)
- ‘Captive Girl’, Jennifer Pelland (2006, short story)
- ‘The Bride Price’, Cat Sparks (2007, short story)
- ‘Tideline’, Elizabeth Bear (2007, short story)
- ‘Arkfall’, Carolyn Ives Gilman (2008, novella)
- ‘Legolas does the Dishes’, Justina Robson (2008, short story)
- ‘The Ecologist and the Avon Lady’, Tricia Sullivan (2008, novelette)
- ‘Infinities’, Vandana Singh (2008, novelette)
- ‘Chica, Let Me Tell You a Story’, Alex Dally Macfarlane (2008, short story)
- ‘Spider the Artist’, Nnedi Okrafor (2008, short story)
- ‘Cold Words’, Juliette Wade (2009, novelette)
- ‘Eros, Philia, Agape’, Rachel Swirsky (2009, novelette)
- ‘Non-Zero Probabilities’, NK Jemisin (2009, short story)
- ‘Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast’, Eugie Foster (2009, hort story)
- ‘It Takes Two’, Nicola Griffith (2009, novelette)
- ‘Blood, Blood’, Abbey Mei Otis (2010, short story)
- ‘The Other Graces’, Alice Sola Kim (2010, short story)
- ‘Agents of Repair’, Rosie Oliver (2010, short story)
- ‘Amaryllis’, Carrie Vaughn (2010, short story)
- ‘I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno’, Vylar Kaftan (2010, short story)
- ‘Flying in the Face of God’, Nina Allan (2010, short story)
- ‘Six Months, Three Days’, Charlie Jane Anders (2011, short story)
- ‘Nahiku West’, Linda Nagata (2011, novelette)
- ‘The Cartographer Bees and the Anarchist Wasps’, E Lily Yu (2011, short story)
- ‘Silently and Very Fast’, Catherynne M Valente (2011, novella)
- ‘Jagannath’, Karin Tidbeck (2011, short story)
- ‘A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel’, Yoon Ha Lee (2011, short story)
- ‘Immersion’, Aliette de Bodard (2012, short story)
- ‘The Lady Astronaut of Mars’, Mary Robinette Kowal (2012, novelette)
- ‘The Green’, Lauren Beukes (2012, short story)
- ‘Significant Dust’, Margo Lanagan (2012, novelette)
Ian Sales
August 6, 2013 at 2:55 amI’m surprised you’ve not heard of Aliette – she’s on the cover of Locus this month. Some of the other names new to you – I’m guessing you don’t read much online short genre fiction. A few names are Australian, so it’s not surprising they’re new to you. Duchamp runs Aqueduct Press – give her Marq’ssan Cycle a go, it’s excellent. And Finley isn’t a genre writer per se, although her story in the list did appear in a genre anthology. It’s also one of my favourite recent genre stories.
Martin Wisse
August 7, 2013 at 3:07 pmNo, I don’t read much short fiction period. And before I started to make a conscious effort to read more women, I was somewhat conservative in my reading choices, mainly sticking to authors I already knew.