Now let the arguing begin…

The list below contains 100 pieces of short fiction – short stories, novelettes and novellas – by women writers, published between 1927 and 2012. Each author appears only once. The stories are by no means the best by each writer. In most cases, I’m simply not familiar enough with an oeuvre to choose the best; in other cases, I’ve picked a story I’ve read and thought good, and yes, there are a few of my favourite stories in the list too. I’ve not read them all – some came from suggestions on Twitter or on an earlier post on this blog (many thanks to all who contributed), others I took from various award lists or Year’s Best TOCs. One or two fantasy stories might have sneaked through the net, because I couldn’t find copies to read and check. However, the list should all be science fiction – and it should also demonstrate a good spread of styles and themes and approaches across the genre.

The point of the exercise was to demonstrate that women have been writing good science fiction since the beginnings of the genre – a point signally ignored by the table of contents of the 1978 anthology 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories, which contained only five stories by women. The first story on this list, for example, came third in a competition in Amazing Stories during the magazine’s second year of publication.

1 ‘The Fate of the Poseidonia’, Clare Winger Harris (1927, short story) online here

2 ‘The Conquest of Gola,’ Leslie F Stone (1931, short story) available in

3 ‘Water Pirate’, Leigh Brackett (1941, short story) available in

4 ‘Space Episode’, Leslie Perri (1941, short story) available in

5 ‘No Woman Born’, CL Moore (1944, novelette) available in

6 ‘That Only a Mother’, Judith Merril (1948, short story) available in

7 ‘Contagion’, Katherine Maclean (1950, novelette) available in

8 ‘Brightness Falls from the Air’, Margaret St Clair [as Idris Seabright] (1951, short story) available in

9 ‘All Cats are Gray’, Andre Norton (1953, short story) available in

10 ‘The Last Day’, Helen Clarkson (1958, short story) available in

11 ‘Captivity’, Zenna Henderson (1958, novella) available in

12 ‘The New You’, Kit Reed (1962, short story) online here

13 ‘The Putnam Tradition’, Sonya Dorman (1963, short story) online here

14 ‘Lord Moon’, MJ Engh [as Jane Beauclerk] (1965, short story) available in

15 ‘Weyr Search’, Anne McCaffrey (1967, novella) available in

16 ‘The Heat Death of the Universe’, Pamela Zoline (1967, short story) online here

17 ‘The Steiger Effect’, Betsy Curtis (1968, short story) available in

18 ‘The Power of Time’, Josephine Saxton (1971, novelette) available in

19 ‘And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side’, James Tiptree Jr (1972, short story) available in

20 ‘When It Changed’, Joanna Russ (1972, short story) online here

21 ‘Sheltering Dream’, Doris Piserchia (1972, short story) available in

22 ‘Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand’, Vonda N McIntyre (1973, novelette) available in

23 ‘Clone Sister’, Pamela Sargent (1973, novelette) available in

24 ‘The Violet’s Embryo’, Angélica Gorodischer (1973, novelette) online here (excerpt)

25 ‘Stone Circle’, Lisa Tuttle (1976, short story) available in

26 ‘Eyes of Amber’, Joan D Vinge (1977, novelette) available in

27 ‘Cassandra, CJ Cherryh (1978, short story) available in

28 ‘The View from Endless Scarp’, Marta Randall (1978, short story) online here

29 ‘Scorched Supper on New Niger’, Suzy McKee Charnas (1980, novelette) available in

30 ‘Abominable’, Carol Emshwiller (1980, short story) available in

31 ‘Sea Changeling’, Mildred Downey Broxon (1981, novelette) available in

32 ‘In the Western Tradition’, Phyllis Eisenstein (1981, novella) available in

33 ‘Her Furry Face’, Leigh Kennedy (1983, short story) available in

34 ‘Bloodchild’ Octavia E Butler (1984, novelette) available in

35 ‘Symphony for a Lost Traveller’, Lee Killough (1984, short story) available in

36 ‘All My Darling Daughters’, Connie Willis (1985, novelette) available in

37 ‘Webrider’, Jayge Carr (1985, short story) available in

38 ‘Out of All Them Bright Stars’, Nancy Kress (1985, short story) available in

39 ‘The View from Venus: A Case Study’, Karen Joy Fowler (1986, novelette) available in

40 ‘Reichs-Peace’, Sheila Finch (1986, novelette) available in

41 ‘Daily Voices’, Lisa Goldstein (1986, short story) available in

42 ‘Rachel in Love’, Pat Murphy (1987, novelette) available in

43 ‘Forever Yours, Anna’, Kate Wilhelm (1987, short story) available in

44 ‘Stable Strategies for Middle Management’, Eileen Gunn (1988, short story) available in

45 ‘War and Rumours of War’, Candas Jane Dorsey (1988, short story) available in

46 ‘The Mountains of Mourning’, Lois McMaster Bujold (1989, novella) available in

47 ‘Tiny Tango’, Judith Moffett (1989, novella) available in

48 ‘Identifying the Object’, Gwyneth Jones (1990, novelette) available in

49 ‘Loose Cannon’, Susan Shwartz (1990, novelette) available in

50 ‘Dispatches from the Revolution’, Pat Cadigan (1991, novelette) available here

51 ‘The Road to Jerusalem’, Mary Gentle (1991, short story) online here

52 ‘The Missionary’s Child’, Maureen F McHugh (1992, novelette) available in

53 ‘The Story So Far’, Martha Soukup (1993, short story) available in

54 ‘The Good Pup’, Bridget McKenna (1993, short story) available in

55 ‘California Dreamer’, Mary Rosenblum (1994, short story) available in

56 ‘Last Summer at Mars Hill’, Elizabeth Hand (1994, novella) available in

57 ‘Coming of Age in Karhide’, Ursula K Le Guin (1995, novelette) available in

58 ‘De Secretis Mulierum’, L Timmel Duchamp (1995, novella) available in

59 ‘Merlusine’, Lucy Sussex (1997, novelette) available in

60 ‘Noble Mold’, Kage Baker (1997, short story) available in

61 ‘All the Birds of Hell’, Tanith Lee (1998, novelette) available in

62 ‘Rain Season’, Leanne Frahm (1998, short story) available in

63 ‘Echea’, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1998, novelette) available in

64 ‘Patient Zero’, Tananarive Due (2000, short story) online here

65 ‘Knapsack Poems’, Eleanor Arnason (2002, short story) available in

66 ‘State of Oblivion’, Kaaron Warren (2003, short story) available in

67 ‘Inside Out’, Michaela Roessner (2004, short story) online here

68 ‘Griots of the Galaxy’, Andrea Hairston (2004, novelette) available in

69 ‘Riding the White Bull’, Caitlín R Kiernan (2004, novelette) available in

70 ‘The Avatar of Background Noise’, Toiya Kristen Finley (2006, short story) available in

71 ‘Captive Girl’, Jennifer Pelland (2006, short story) online here

72 ‘The Bride Price’, Cat Sparks (2007, short story) available in

73 ‘Tideline’, Elizabeth Bear (2007, short story) online here

74 ‘Arkfall’, Carolyn Ives Gilman (2008, novella) available in

75 ‘Legolas does the Dishes’, Justina Robson (2008, short story) available in

76 ‘The Ecologist and the Avon Lady’, Tricia Sullivan (2008, novelette) available in

77 ‘Infinities’, Vandana Singh (2008, novelette) available in

78 ‘Chica, Let Me Tell You a Story’, Alex Dally MacFarlane (2008, short story) available in

79 ‘Spider the Artist’, Nnedi Okrafor (2008, short story) online here

80 ‘Cold Words’, Juliette Wade (2009, novelette) available in

81 ‘Eros, Philia, Agape’, Rachel Swirsky (2009, novelette) onine here

82 ‘Non-Zero Probabilities’, NK Jemisin (2009, short story) online here

83 ‘Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast’, Eugie Foster (2009, short story) available in

84 ‘It Takes Two’, Nicola Griffith (2009, novelette) available in

85 ‘Blood, Blood’, Abbey Mei Otis (2010, short story) online here and here

86 ‘The Other Graces’, Alice Sola Kim (2010, short story) available in

87 ‘Agents of Repair’, Rosie Oliver (2010, short story) available in

88 ‘Amaryllis’, Carrie Vaughn (2010, short story) online here

89 ‘I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno’, Vylar Kaftan (2010, short story) online here

90 ‘Flying in the Face of God’, Nina Allan (2010, short story) available in

91 ‘Six Months, Three Days’, Charlie Jane Anders (2011, short story) online here

92 ‘Nahiku West’, Linda Nagata (2011, novelette) available in

93 ‘The Cartographer Bees and the Anarchist Wasps’, E Lily Yu (2011, short story) online here

94 ‘Silently and Very Fast’, Catherynne M Valente (2011, novella) online here, here and here

95 ‘Jagannath’, Karin Tidbeck (2011, short story) available in

96 ‘A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel’, Yoon Ha Lee (2011, short story) online here

97 ‘Immersion’, Aliette de Bodard (2012, short story) online here

98 ‘The Lady Astronaut of Mars’, Mary Robinette Kowal (2012, novelette) online here

99 ‘The Green’, Lauren Beukes (2012, short story) available in

100 ‘Significant Dust’, Margo Lanagan (2012, novelette) available in

No doubt there are stories and authors I’ve missed off the list, and which/who you feel strongly should be on it. Tell me so in a comment. Also, feel free to disseminate the list as a meme – you know, bold those you’ve read, italicise those on the TBR; or something like that.

For the record, I’ve read: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 53, 55, 57, 58, 64, 65, 70, 73, 74, 75, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 87, 89, 90, 91, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98. Which I make to be sixty-three in total. Not too bad a showing…

ETA

This is a list of short fiction – short stories, novelettes and novels. If you’re interested in novels by women sf writers, then check out SF Mistressworks.

ETA #2: NOTES FOR REDDITORS

This is the easy summary for those on reddit who seem to have trouble understanding the purpose of this list:

It is not novels, it is short stories, novelettes and novellas. Each writer appears only once. It is not a list of “best” or “top” sf stories by women. It is “great” because it was inspired by the anthology 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories. The list demonstrates that women have been writing good science fiction since the genre was created in 1926. There are many more than 100 excellent women sf writers, but I chose 100 because of the anthology named in point 3. The gender of the author is not irrelevant. Find me a list of great or top or best sf stories where at least half were written by women. You will fail. The stories were chosen from a) my own favourites, b) suggestions by other people, c) award shortlists, and d) the tables of contents of Year’s Best anthologies. I have read 63 of the stories on the list. There are several authors on the list who have yet to have novels published – ie, new authors. If there’s someone missing you feel should be on the list, tell me in a comment. I’m happy to defend all my choices – leave a comment. Finally, why not click on the links in the list and read those stories which are available online?