My life in books

Athena's Daughters, edited by Jean Rabe, is another in the growing list of sff anthologies featuring short fiction with a focus on women as the protagonists - an anthology described in its Introduction as "completely written, illustrated, and edited by strong, competent women—about strong, competent women." Like a number of other recent projects aimed at providing a venue for the publication of underrepresented voices and stories about women, people of colour, queer authors, and other marginalised peoples, Athena's Daughters was crowdfunded. The publishers, the creative collective Silence in the Library, have announced a companion anthology, Apollo's Daughters (short stories featuring female protagonists written by men) and a second volume in the Athena's Daughters series.

I thoroughly enjoyed almost all of the stories in the anthology. My most favourite selections included:

Mary Robinette Kowal's First Flight, about a woman who travels a very long way to witness the firsts flights at Kity Hawk;

Commando Bats by Sherwood Smith, in which three elderly women are granted heroic abilities of a sort by the goddess Hera;

The Songbird's Search by C. A. Verstraete, featuring a travelling wise woman who takes on the task of showing two young women with incredible power how to control and use that power wisely and well;

Cynthia Ward's Whoever Fights Monsters, which brings together elements of Bram Stoker's Dracula and the murders committed by the serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, with hints of Sherlock Holmes and James Bond;

Millie by Janine K. Spendlove, which addresses one of the greatest aerial mysteries of the 20th century;

Vicki Johnson-Steger's Burly and Cavendish Blend, a steampunk tale which features a protagonist delightfully reminiscent of Indiana Jones and a plot interwoven with Egyptian antiquities (and, unfortunately, a lot of unexplored colonialism and Orientalism, which I must acknowledge even as I enjoy reading it);

Jennifer Brozek's Janera, which is not really a story, but the opening chapter to a YA sf novel that Brozek has not yet published. I hope she does so soon, because both situation and protagonist grabbed me instantly. It's a "lost heir" story, but so far, it's a really good one.

Maggie Allen's "Lunar Camp" is reminiscent of the Heinlein juveniles of my youth, with young kids having adventures and finding their inner courage when tested. And that's a good thing. Here, Bee loves plants and doesn't want to spend her summer away from them - but when she's tested during an emergency, she forms bonds that make her realise there are things for her to learn and enjoy even on the moon.

Lots of fun reading here, including the stories I didn't warm to as much as these. Looking forward to the next in the series.

One of the many contradictions in my life is that I am somewhat of a pacifist (short version: only violence as a last-option self-defense response) who sometimes enjoys reading milsff - both the fantasy/historical fantasy type and the harder science fiction type.

Most of my favourite milsff has been written by women, and some of it has been milsff that is deeply critical of war and its consequences. One such author is Karin Lowachee, whose military sf trilogy (Warchild, Cagebird, Burndive) is a powerful examination of the phenomenon of the child soldier.

In fact, it was Lowachee's name in the ToC of the milsff anthology War Stories: New Military Science Fiction, edited by Jaym Gates and Andrew Liptak, that made me decide to read it. And I am glad I did, because this is a collection of very good war stories, told with an awareness of the costs and consequences of war.

War Stories is a crowd-funded anthology, published by Apex. Part of the project description from the Kickstarter page says:

War Stories isn't an anthology of bug hunts and unabashed jingoism. It's a look at the people ordered into impossible situations, asked to do the unthinkable, and those unable to escape from hell. It's stories of courage under fire, and about the difficulties in making decisions that we normally would never make. It's about what happens when the shooting stops, and before any trigger is ever pulled.

The anthology opens with the award-winning story Graves by Joe Haldeman, which serves as a kind of theme piece for the remainder of the book. Haldeman, himself a veteran of the American military involvement in Vietnam, tells a story about an American Vietnam vet whose job was to collect and process the bodies of fallen American soldiers for return to the U.S., and the circumstances of one particular incident that has lived on in his nightmares for 20 years.

The other stories are divided into four themed sections - Wartime Systems, Combat, Armored Force and Aftermath. What binds them all together is a focus on the characters, their motivations for and reactions to those impossible, unthinkable, inescapable situations. The stories are told from varied perspectives - front-line warriors and support personnel, officers and grunts and solitary specialists, victors and vanquished, participants and civilians, the occupied and the occupiers, those who came home and those who did not (and those who, having come hone, could not stay), those who went to war and those who waited behind. And all written with clarity and power.

The Other Half of the Sky is one of several recent projects aimed at encouraging sff writing that includes women as diverse characters with all the range of characterisations, goals, abilities, occupations and agency that male characters have - in short, that write women as full humans. The title is taken from a Chinese saying (famously quoted by Mao Zedong) that women hold up half the sky - in sff, we have seen much of the half of the sky that men hold up, but relatively little of that held up by women. This anthology shows us some of the other half.

As editor Athena Andreadis observes in her Introduction:

Science fiction wishes to be the genre of imaginative extrapolation. So it has come to pass that SF writers have conjured all kinds of planetary systems, ecologies, lifeforms and societies; FTL, stable wormholes, time travel, teleporters, ansibles; clones, uploading, downloading, genetic tinkering, nanotechnology; virtual reality, remote sensing, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition.

Yet the same universe-spanning visionaries seem to have difficulty envisioning women (or other “non-defaults,” for that matter) as full humans—that is, not defined by their helpmate/mother role but as rounded people fully engaged in their vocations and wider network of relationships and, furthermore, people who can be heroes, not merely heroines.

This anthology has women who can be heroes - and women who can be all sorts of other things, too. There truly is not a weak story in this anthology, and the range of stories is such that everyone will find something that hits their fancy.

For me, the memorable stories were:

Finders, Melissa Scott - in a future where salvage from the wreckage of ancient starfarers is the highest currency, a woman with a terminal disability leads a team seeking the rarest of treasures.

Bad Day on Boscobel, Alexander Jablokov - on a hollow asteroid habitat, a beleaguered social worker uncovers a thread to her home, with help of her rebellious daughter and a female agent from Mars.

Mission of Greed, Sue Lange - a survey ship finds sentient life on a planet rich in uranium, but will the greed of some of the crew lead to its destruction?

The Waiting Stars, Aliette De Bodard - can the consciousness of a being that ranged the stars as a Mindship be happy when returned to a body of flesh?

The Shape of Thought, Ken Liu - humans seeking a new planet to settle on are welcomed by a people with such a different way of thinking that only the most flexible of humans can approach an understanding of them.

Cathedral, Jack McDevitt - one woman will sacrifice anything to make sure that humans don't lose their last chance to travel among the planets.

One thing I'm loving about what's happening in the world of sff anthology editing these days is the growing number of projects devoted in one way or another to supporting the concept of diversity. Because, as editors Rose Fox and Daniel José Older note in the Introduction to their anthology Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History,

We grew up reading stories about people who weren’t much like us. Speculative fiction promised to take us to places where anything was possible, but the spaceship captains and valiant questers were always white, always straight, always cisgender, and almost always men. We tried to force ourselves into those boxes, but we never fit. When we looked for faces and thoughts like our own, we found orcs and deviants and villains. And we began to wonder why some people’s stories were told over and over, while ours were almost never even alluded to.

The brief for this anthology was simple: to publish stories of speculative history, set between 1400 and the early 1900s, stories that are grounded in real events, that focus on marginalised people, and that have a speculative element. The stories in this anthology for the most part do this very well. They speak in the voices of the ones who did not have the power to tell their history, who were subsumed and made to disappear into the dominant narrative of the powerful, the colonisers, the privileged.

Most written chronicles of history, and most speculative stories, put rulers, conquerors, and invaders front and center. People with less power, money, or status—enslaved people, indigenous people, people of color, queer people, laborers, women, people with disabilities, the very young and very old, and religious minorities, among others—are relegated to the margins. Today, mainstream history continues to perpetuate one-sided versions of the past while mistelling or erasing the stories of the rest of the world. (http://longhidden.com/)

The stories collected in Long Hidden are examples of resistance to this dominant master narrative of history. And there is much good reading here.

Worth noting is that this excellent and prigressively-themed anthology comes from a small press - Crossed Genres (http://crossedgenres.com/) - that seems to be doing some intetesting projects. I have several more of their books in my TBR pile, and a few more on my To Be Acquired list.

This anthology, edited by Fabio Fernandes and Djibril al-Ayad, of speculative fiction stories written from a post-colonial perspective is well worth reading, if at times acutely uncomfortable for the member of a colonising culture who is thoughtfully reading them.

There is a great deal of unquestioned colonialist thinking in science fiction. The literature of future space exploration, particularly as written by British and American writers, is very much a literature of humans (usually male, usually white) expanding throughout first the solar system, then the galaxy, sometimes throughout the universe, taking charge of planets that are either uninhabited, or peopled with Others either too primitive or too decadent to resist, or otherwise unfit to retain soveriegnty. It's a literature of colonisation and exploitation, occasionally leavened by the insights contained in such critiques of this vision as Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest.

These stories make us look at this narrative from the other side, for the perspective of the colonised snd exploited and othered. As Aliette de Bodard writes in her Preface:

They are the voices of the invaded; of the colonized; of the erased and the oppressed; of those whom others would make into aliens and blithely ignore or conquer or enlighten.

A brief concluding essay by Ekaterina Sedia summarises the recurrent themes of these stories far better than I could. Speaking to the importance and meaning of narratives such as those collected in this volume, she writes:

We find ourselves rebelling against the lies and the dominant narratives fed into our collective psyche, Clockwork Orange-style, by Hollywood’s dream factory—a truly terrifying notion, if you think about it for a bit. We find ourselves looking for ways to escape, but realizing, time and time again, that the post-colonial world is still rife with colonial injustice and oppression. And yet, slowly, slowly, we are finding voices to tell our stories, to reclaim what has been lost of history. These broken, half-forgotten histories and dreams will never be restored to their original form, and part of living in the post-colonial world is making peace with that. Because we can still create the future, and try to hope that it will be treated better than our past. The writers in this book are taking a step in that direction—because the frontier that they see is one not in space but in time, a time when all voices are heard and all stories are listened to, when no history is erased, no matter how small or inconvenient. We see a different frontier—and I hope that this book let you glimpse it as well.

Lately I've found myself drawn to anthologies of SFF by writers from a single country, ethnicity or geographical area. So far this year I've read three such books.


AfroSF: Science Fiction by African Writers, Ivor W. Hartmann (ed.)

In his introduction to the anthology, editor Ivor Hartmann says: "SciFi is the only genre that enables African writers to envision a future from our African perspective. Moreover, it does this in a way that is not purely academic and so provides a vision that is readily understandable through a fictional context. The value of this envisioning for any third-world country, or in our case continent, cannot be overstated nor negated. If you can’t see and relay an understandable vision of the future, your future will be co-opted by someone else’s vision, one that will not necessarily have your best interests at heart. Thus, Science Fiction by African writers is of paramount importance to the development and future of our continent."

It's just as important for those in the first-world countries from whence the co-opting generally comes to read these African futures. To read stories set in futuristic metropolises named Lagos and Tshwane, with characters named Wangari Maathai and Julius Masemola. Stories that come from other histories and perspectives than their own, stories in which white people from Europe or North America are barely present if at all, and have no role to play in the imagined futures. I can only say thank you to Ivor Hartmann for collecting these stories and making them available.



Cosmos Latinos: An Anthology of Science Fiction from Latin America and Spain, Andrea L. Bell and Yolanda Molina-Gavilan (eds.)

A very interesting and valuable survey anthology of science fiction short stories by Hispanic and Latino authors from Spain, Mexico, Cuba, and South America, from the early days of science fiction writing to modern day. The collection includes some very powerful pieces, many of which have a much stronger element of political awareness, analysis and critique than one might expect to find in a representative sampling of North American science fiction writing.



It Came from the North: An Anthology of Finnish Speculative Fiction, Desirina Boskovich (ed.)

An interesting collection of SFF stories from Finnish authors. After having recently read Johanna Sinisalo's Birdbrain (and before that After Sundown, published in English as Troll: A Love Story) I was perhaps primed to notice how strong a role that nature plays in many of these stories. Landscapes, geology, animals, organic growth, ecology - use of these elements seemed to be more prevalent than in collections that tend to be more focused on American and occasionally British writers.

Very much worth reading.

Or at least, that's what my choices of anthologies this year would seem to indicate. My beloved Lovecraft mythos and the eternally fascinating Great Detective are part of the mix, as is my perennial interest in seeing alternative sexualities represented in fiction.

As usual, in all four antholgies there were some great stories, many enjoyable stories, and one or two that just didn't grab me. Special mention goes to Brit Mandelo's fine editing, bringing together a solid collection that presents many perspectives and includes some true classics.


Ross E. Lockhart (ed.), The Book of Cthulhu

Joseph R. G. DeMarco, A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes

Laurie R. King & Leslie S. Klinger (eds.), A Study in Sherlock

Brit Mandelo (ed.), Beyond Binary: Genderqueer and Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction

The as-yet unrecorded short speculative fiction read in 2009:


Report to the Men’s Club, Carol Emshwiller - a collection of Emshweller's short fiction, many of the stories with distinctly feminist overtones, which greatly pleased me. My introduction to Emshweller.


A Mosque among the Stars, Ahmed A. Khan & Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmed (eds.) - I was very pleased to see this anthology; as Constant Reader is surely aware, I have a strong interest in seeing the experiences of all sorts of people represented in speculative fantasy, and there has been a definite scarcity of stories about Muslim people - and particularly positive stories about Muslims.


Gratia Placenti, Jason Sizemore & Gill Ainsworth (eds.) - sometimes I like me a little dab of horror in my speculative fiction diet, and I've found the short story collections from Apex Publications do very well at feeding my kink. This volume was no exception.


Trampoline, Kelly Link (ed.) - a solid fantasy anthology, notable in my opinion for its inclusion of Vandana Singh's "The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet."

Battle Magic, Martin H Greenberg and Larry Segriff (eds.)

I bought this anthology because it contains Michelle West’s short story “Warlord” set in the same universe as her Sacred Hunt duology and Broken Crown series, and being the story of how a key character in that series ends up in the crucial place in which he is found, I wanted to read it becasue, well, I can be obsessive like that.

There are other cool stories about magic as a method of combat or a weapon in warfare here, too, from Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s unique take on the Sleeping Beauty fairytale, “The Strangeness of the Day,” to John DeChancie’s truly funny “BattleMagic(TM) for Morons,” to Elizabeth Ann Scarborough’s retelling of the cursing of the men of Ulster, “the Fatal Wager,” to Charles De Lint’s intriguing variation on the theme of the infernal musical contest, “Ten for the Devil” – with lots of other interesting tales in between.

Most fans know that while there’s a lot of really good science fiction and fantasy being published by the large publishing companies, often through trusted imprints, there is also some interesting material being put out through small presses, and not all of it gets to your standard big box bookstore.

I like finding and supporting small presses – if they’re publishing interesting things, that is. One such press that I’ve recently discovered Norilana Books, a venture undertaken by science fiction author Vera Nazarian. Norilana has an interesting list of recent and forthcoming speculative fiction titles, ranging from from Catherynne Valente’s A Guide to Folktales in Fragile Dialects to a YA series by Sherwood Smith and illustrated reprints of Tanith Lee’s fantasy, as well as an ambitious project to release a line of classics in world literature from author such as Sand, Trollope, Gaskell, Thackeray, Voltaire… oh, just go visit the website, there’s stuff for just about anyone. (Norilana Books has a LiveJournal, too, where new acquisitions and other announcements are posted for your convenience: norilanabooks.)

Norilana has acquired the rights to Marion Zimmer Bradley’s very successful anthology series, Sword & Sorceress, and has also released several other anthologies – at least three of which are intended as the first in a series - that appear to be modelled on the same pattern that made Sword & Sorceress such a great success: sticking to a theme that is nonetheless broad enough to encompass a lot of variety, and providing a mix of seasoned writers and new talents.

Sword & Sorceress XXII, Elisabeth Waters (ed.)

This is the classic fantasy anthology series begun by Marion Zimmer Bradley and reborn under the editorial hand of Elisabeth Waters. Represented among the list of contributing authors are some writers who published some of their first work in earlier volumes of the series , such as Heather Rose Jones and Deborah J. Ross, some well-established and well-known writers such as Esther M. Friesner and Robert E. Vardeman, and some relatively new names in the field – exactly the same kind of mix that MZB herself used to aim for. Waters has taken the vision of MZB and made it live again. It’s a fine thing to know that you can always turn to at least one anthology a year that will provide you with stories about women that begin from the assumption that women have agency in their own lives.

Warrior Wisewoman, Roby James (ed.)

With this volume, Norilana begins a new themed anthology series intended as a science fiction counterpart to the Sword & Sorceress brand. Where Sword & Sorceress featured stories with women protagonists in the sword and sorcery genre, Warrior Wisewoman is described as “an annual anthology series of science fiction featuring powerful and remarkable women.” I found the first volume to be a bit uneven, but with a lot of promise. I hope to see it become a long-running sfnal sister to Sword & Sorceress, because you can never have enough anthologies that tell stories about women in their own right.

Lace and Blade, Deborah J. Ross (ed.)

Another planned annual themed anthology series, Lace and Blade is to be an anthology of romantic fantasy “in the spirit of classic period swashbucklers, Zorro, the Scarlet Pimpernel, and D'Artagnan, brimming with romantic courtly intrigue and dangerous liaisons, with cloak and dagger and perfumed handkerchiefs, the language of the fan and stolen glances, with the manners of Jane Austen and the sparkling rapier wit of Oscar Wilde…” Ross has certainly brought together a stellar group of writers for the inaugural edition, including Tanith Lee, Sherwood Smith, Diana Paxon, Catherine Asaro, Robin Wayne Bailey and Chaz Brenchley, and I enjoyed a number of these stories, despite being rather picky about how people go about mixing romance in with fantasy. I’ll probably get the second volume when it’s out, because while some of the stories were a bit too much romance, others were just fine.

Clockwork Phoenix: Tales of Beauty and Strangeness, Mike Allen (ed.)

And finally, an annual themed anthology series devoted to “fantastic literature” (or literary fantasy, whichever you prefer): “works that sidestep expectations in beautiful and unsettling ways, that surprise with their settings and startle with the manner in which they cross genre boundaries, that aren't afraid to experiment with storytelling techniques, and yet seamlessly blend form with meaningful function.” Authors such as Tanith Lee, Ekaterina Sedia, Catherynne Valente, Leah Bobet, Marie Brennan, Vandana Singh, Cat Sparks and John Grant deliver cutting-edge fantasy. Again, I found the anthology a bit uneven, but with more than enough interesting material to justify the purchase, and I’ll be checking out the next volume of this anthology.