Women Science Fiction Writers

Focusing on the connection between metaphor and myth, Thelma Shinn provides a methaphoric reading of fantastic literature by women that enables the reader to glimpse its underlying mythic purpose and content. She examines some seventy novels by twenty-four women writers and draws on a rich variety of secondary sources in literature, women's studies, science fiction/fantasy scholarship, and comparative mythology.

This analytical survey of contemporary fiction is a study of more than twenty-five novels written by women during a twenty-year period of rapid socio-cultural change resulting from the philosophy & goals of the contemporary women's movement. Winner of the 1990 Eudora Welty Prize.

In this major study of the work of Joanna Russ, Jeanne Cortiel gives a clear introduction to the major feminist issues relevant to Russ’s work and assesses its development. The book will be especially valuable for students of SF and feminist SF, especially in its concern with the function of woman-based intertextuality. Although Cortiel deals principally with Russ’s novels, she also examines her short stories, and the focus on critically neglected texts is a particularly valuable feature of the study. "I recommend this book to any reader interested in Russ’s fiction, or in women’s science fiction generally."--Science Fiction Studies

At the heart of this stimulating and provocative study is a science fiction story by James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon-Bradley, 1916–1987) about a brother and a sister (and 58 other human beings) who encounter an alien while on a starship traveling to discover a habitable planet. The book includes an outline of Tiptree’s work and of her remarkable life as the only child of jungle explorers, as a painter, an American agent during and after World War II, an experimental psychologist, and a female science fiction writer in male disguise.

Science fiction is at the intersection of numerous fields. It is literature which draws on popular culture, and engages in speculation about science, history, and all varieties of social relations. This volume brings together essays by scholars and practitioners of science fiction, which look at the genre from different angles. It examines science fiction from Thomas More to the present day; and introduces important critical approaches (including Marxism, postmodernism, feminism and queer theory).

This wide-ranging volume explores the various dialogues that flourish between different aspects of science fiction: academics and fans, writers and readers; ideological stances and national styles; different interpretations of the genre; and how language and �1voices�2 are used in constructing SF. Introduced by the acclaimed novelist Brian W. Aldiss, the essays range from studies of writers such as Robert A. Heinlein, who are considered as the "heart" of the genre, to more contemporary writers such as Jack Womack and J. G. Ballard.