That Mistressworks List

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

You can check out Ian Sales' Mistressworks list here. It's a riposte to the largely (but not exclusively) male Gollancz Masterworks series.

I thought it might be interesting to list those books I've read, as it was the disparity between what I've read from that list and from the (shorter) list of MALE SF FOR MEN that inspired Monissaw and me to start reading from the Mistressworks list, and, obliquely, to have a stab at keeping this blog.

Let me see if I can find that list of MALE SF FOR MEN again. Hang in there.

Nope. I think it was cut down from a more general list someone else had generated so only the SFF books were included. I can find the complete list but not the cut-down version. Darn.

Anyway, books I have read from Ian's list:

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret 'I don't write SF' Atwood
Swastika Night by Katherine Burdekin
Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh
The Dream Years by Lisa Goldstein
Floating Worlds by Cecelia Holland
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress (at least, I've read a novella with that title/author)
Crystal Singer by Anne McCaffrey
The Female Man by Joanna Russ
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski (at least, I'm pretty sure I've read this one....)
Grass by Sheri S. Tepper
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

And I think I've got a copy of Mary Gentle's Ash somewhere, waiting for me to find it and read it. Somewhere....

So, off a list of 90 books, I've read thirteen for certain and probably fifteen, ie fourteen per cent.

I know I went through a phase where I would pick up any Women's Press SF book on principle and reading the summary of A Door Into Ocean it seems vaguely familiar, but who knows? Some day I'll get all my books together again. Then I'll know.

From the MALE SF FOR MEN list, I had read far more than fourteen per cent. Although to be honest I question the idea that, for example, The HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy is particularly male. What makes it manly? Anyone? Presumably more is required than being written by a man and having men in the leading roles, as then 99% of all SFF would have had to be on the list, and I vaguely remember it being around ten to twenty books or so.

Comments

[littlerdog.livejournal.com]

Apparently I've read 37% of the Gollancz Masterworks series. This may be influenced in part by the prevalence of books by Philip K. Dick, all of which I have read. Every single book. Whereas the Mistressworks list only allows one book per author.