The third episode in our new (but still continuing!) series of conversations is now live. There are still a few audio hitches that I’m trying to iron out, but all in all, it’s ok. I did the stereo thing again – it seems to be a default setting – so I’ll work harder on getting you a good old fashioned mono recording next weekend. This time we discuss reviewing, books, and all sorts of other stuff. I did promise to mention any specific titles, but today’s chat is pretty general so there’s nothing specific to mention. Except, oops, The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction, we do discuss that a bit. More next week!
Interesting as always. A couple of notes … Baxter’s “Earth II” and “Earth III” are indeed related to ARK and FLOOD, but the two novellas are set on different planets … so they may not become a novel of their own.
Baxter was perhaps not the best example of contemporary writers not doing fixups, because he does, all the time. The MANIFOLD books, or at least one of them, was more or less serialized in SF AGE. And his series of “Old Earth” stories, fascinating stuff on the whole, until it was revealed that they are related to the Xeelee stuff, seem possibly a novel to be.
It’s entirely true that the story of SF since 1970 (or 1965 or whenever) can’t be told without novels. But still an anthology of stories since 1970 could be at least as GOOD, quality-wise, as the SF HALL OF FAME. But still not the “whole story” (or nearly so) as the SF HALL OF FAME could claime to be.
The SF HALL of FAME, by the way, had a cutoff date of stories that were not ever eligible for the Nebula. So I think the last year a story could have been published and be in the book was 1964. (I think the last story in the book was actually “A Rose for Ecclesiastes”, which if memory serves was published in 1963.)
My daughter never read Science Fiction, but did read a lot of Fantasy. (Less now, alas.) No problem, really, finding stuff for girls. Tamora Peirce was a favorite. Charles de Lint. Garth Nix (the SABRIEL books). Brian Jacques. I’m not sure how important girl characters were to her … maybe so, though. Certainly Tamora Peirce qualifies.
SF for girls? How about RITE OF PASSAGE? And some Heinlein … HAVE SPACE SUIT WILL TRAVEL, PODKAYNE OF MARS, even TUNNEL IN THE SKY … they’re not free of sexism entirely, but they don’t seem terrible in that sense. Even some Alan Nourse, if memory serves, had interesting girl characters.
But, sure, there was way less than for boys, in that era. And perhaps to this day?
Enjoyed the podcast! Thinking back about what science fiction I was reading at the age our daughters are now (early-mid ’70s). I know I found Andre Norton and a bit of Heinlein back then. But even more important to me were A Wrinkle in Time (L’Engle) and its sequels, Enchantress from the Stars and other books by Sylvia Engdahl, and The Children of Morrow and other books by H.M. Hoover. Also, maybe not as girl-centric, but I really liked the Tripods trilogy by John Christopher and The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet and its sequels by Eleanor Cameron. I also fondly remember The Forgotten Star by Joseph Greene (of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet fame) and The Magic Tunnel by Caroline D. Emerson (time travel through an old NY subway tunnel to New Amsterdam). William Sleator writes great science fiction for kids (slightly older), but I didn’t discover him till I was an adult.
Would totally agree with Rich about Alexei Pankshin’s “Rite of Passage” which was a favourite of mine as a teenager, I also loved early Heinlein. While I was a boy, I can see why they would appeal to girls!
I am currently writing a YA which I hope will have a lot for the girls (as the heroine is a 16 year old girl).
Personally though, my feeling is that the issue isn’t so much that there aren’t enough books for girls but that the whole genre is portrayed as being for boys and so the girls never even get to try it!