List of Women's Press SF Books

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

The Women's Press was founded in London in 1977 and has published a range of SF books over the years. This list of their publications was compiled by the indefatigable Ian Sales and can be found here.

1. Kindred, Octavia Butler;
2. Walk to the End of the World and Motherlines, Suzy McKee Charnas;
3. The New Gulliver: Or The Adventures of Lemuel Gulliver, Jr. in Capovolta, Ésme Dodderidge;
4. Machine Sex and Other Stories, Candas Jane Dorsey;
5. Native Tongue, Suzette Haden Elgin;
6. The Judas Rose, Suzette Haden Elgin;
7. The Incomer, Margaret Elphinstone;
8. Carmen Dog, Carol Emshwiller;
9. The Fires of Bride: A Novel, Ellen Galford;
10. The Wanderground, Sally Miller Gearhart;
11. Herland, Charlotte Perkins Gilman;
12. Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind, Jen Green & Sarah LeFanu;
13. The Godmothers, Sandi Hall;
14. Women as Demons, Tanith Lee;
15. The Book of the Night, Rhoda Lerman;
16. Evolution Annie and Other Stories, Rosaleen Love;
17. The Total Devotion Machine, Rosaleen Love;
18. The Revolution of Saint Jone, Lorna Mitchell;
19. Memoirs of a Spacewoman, Naomi Mitchison;
20. The Mothers of Maya Diip, Suniti Namjoshi;
21. Planet Dweller, Jane Palmer;
22. The Watcher, Jane Palmer;
23. Woman on the Edge of Time, Marge Piercy;
24. Star Rider, Doris Piserchia;
25. Extra(Ordinary) People, Joanna Russ;
26. The Adventures of Alyx, Joanna Russ;
27. The Female Man, Joanna Russ;
28. The Hidden Side of the Moon, Joanna Russ;
29. The Two of Them, Joanna Russ;
30. We Who Are About To…, Joanna Russ;
31. Queen of the States, Josephine Saxton;
32. Travails of Jane Saint and Other Stories, Josephine Saxton;
33. I, Vampire, Jody Scott;
34. Passing for Human, Jody Scott;
35. A Door Into Ocean, Joan Slonczewski;
36. Correspondence, Sue Thomas;
37. A Spaceship Built of Stone and Other Stories, Lisa Tuttle;
38. Across the Acheron, Monique Wittig.

I've read The Two of Them, We Who Are About To..., Extra(ordinary) People, The Female Man, The Adventures of Alyx, The Planet Dweller, The Book of the Night, Queen of the States, Woman on the Edge of Time and possibly some others. Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind is our next read from the Mistressworks list. Busy busy busy.

Currently Reading #2 (cont #2)

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

It's a shame the book title isn't the other way round, because then I could have given my thoughts on Crosses and Noughts.

Okay. Shut up with your stupid jokes, littlerdog, and talk about the book.

Noughts and Crosses is an engaging, enjoyable book. It's also something of a challenge to a reader like myself who's always lived in an environment where domination by whites is pervasive. I had enormous difficulty visualising the Crosses as black. I'm not sure I even managed it. And that in itself makes me hesitant to offer any criticism. I had problems with the book, but for the most part those problems lie within myself, not within the book. And that's a hard admission to make, especially as a Guardian-reading bleeding heart white liberal.

The book is light on description, but that wasn't a problem as I often find description bogs a story down. It focused on what I like to focus on: the interactions between characters, their thoughts and feelings. At times it was a bit repetitive, perhaps not surprising for such a long book. Callum comments more than once on how his sister Lynette relieved his anger and anxiety, but I don't recall a scene in which we're shown this actually happening. Less tell and more show would have suited me better. But I'm not the target audience here, so my preferences are perhaps irrelevant.

Sometimes the book seemed to pass too lightly over major life events that I can't help feeling would have had far more impact on the characters than we see. This is a tricky balance to keep, in my experience--no life events and the story feels flat, too much emphasis on a particular event and the story bogs down. Blackman works hard to keep the story moving along so perhaps that's why the two protagonists aren't as twisted out of shape emotionally as I'd expect them to be.

The book's approach to the protagonists works well: we hear from Sephy, then Callum, then Sephy, then Callum, sometimes going over previous events from the other POV, sometimes progressing to new events. It's well paced and holds the attention.

Overall, a damn good book.

(Oh, and I did read the prologue, which I don't usually. And it was completely unnecessary.)

Genre Spotlight: Women Science Fiction Writers by K. Ceres Wright

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

When asked why she wrote SF, Ms. Butler said, “Because there are no closed doors, no walls. I mean the only rule is, if you use science, you should use it accurately. You can look at, examine, play with, anything. Absolutely anything.”

More Women in Science Fiction by K. Ceres Wright

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

Said Kress, “I know writers who seem to have a firm control of their creative process. … I can’t do that. I always feel lucky to have one idea and it kind of shapes itself in my mind and I don’t feel that I have the level of control, so when those early stories came up science fiction, and they always have, science fiction is what I wrote.”