But to say that all of this represents progress for women in the traditionally male-dominated world of sci-fi oversimplifies the history of the genre a bit.

As with anything else, women have long been working alongside men to create fiction that covers on science, the future, technology and more. Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein is often cited as one of the first classics of the sci-fi genre, and even before that Margaret Cavendish wrote The Blazing World—a satirical utopian vision—in 1666. “We’ve been doing this for ever,” says writer Kameron Hurley. This idea, that women have always been beside men everywhere from the battlefield to the writers’ room, is one that Hurley thinks about a lot. This year, her essay “‘We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle and Slaves' Narrative” on the long history of female fighters and why history writes them out of the picture, won a Hugo Award for Best Related Work. (She also won another Hugo this year for Best Fan Writer.)

Like the fighters she wrote about, Hurley says that female science-fiction writers are often forgotten. “It’s always Asimov and Heinlein,” she says. “You don’t hear about Russ or LeGuin. And there are very particular ways that people talk about it. One of those is by saying ‘well she did it, but it wasn’t really science fiction,’ or ‘her husband has a big impact.’”

Today, both Hurley and Leckie say that female voices in science fiction are far louder than they used to be, largely thanks to blogs and social media. Now, when men wonder aloud (as they often do on their blogs) where all the women in science fiction are, those women can take to the comment section and point out that they’ve been there all along. They can use Twitter and Facebook not just to promote their work, but to connect with one an other. “We mirror a lot of what the overall culture is doing now,” Hurley says, “which is saying that we have always been here you’re just not listening. And we’re able to do that now because there are more channels. There’s incredible profusion of all of these other avenues for us to get our voices out there, and to collaborate right. To say okay let’s go flood that comment system, and have dialogue around that.”

Leckie agrees, saying that there is a community of women writers who have been bolstered by their ability to find and support one another. “The Internet really lets people connect that wouldn’t have in the past, and lets conversations happen and connections happen. That’s really something that happens, I’m not sure it’s a club with membership cards but I think there’s some kind of community.”

But both Leckie and Hurley express a combination of optimism and cynicism when it comes to whether or not women in the science fiction world are actually making progress, and how quickly. Leckie points out that this isn’t the first time women have been in the spotlight for writing award winning science fiction. “Sometimes I feel very optimistic about it, I say look at this, there are more women getting awards,” she says. “And then I look back and the ‘70s. The ‘70s was a decade that was crammed with prominent women science fiction writers, and a lot of women made their debut in that decade or really came to prominence.”