| WOMEN OF THE FUTURE The Female Main Character in Science Fiction Betty King Metuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1984 |
Rating: 5.0 High |
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| ISBN-13 978-0-8108-1664-0 | ||||
| ISBN 0-8108-1664-4 | 273pp. | HC | $? | |
I wondered whether the numbers of women vs. men writing science fiction, as represented by the selections in this book, revealed any general trend. The following table shows their tallies decade by decade. Although more women write SF as time proceeds, it's hard to discern any definite trend. No doubt the majority of women writers found it more lucrative to target their stories to other literary genres.
| Chapter | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| 1: 1818-1929 | 9 | 15 |
| 2: The 1930s | 4 | 7 |
| 3: The 1940s | 4 | 4 |
| 4: The 1950s | 6 | 7 |
| 5: The 1960s | 9 | 10 |
| 6: The 1970s | 22 | 2 |
| 7: The 1980s | 9 | 6 |
For reference, I assembled lists of women and men cited, along with their works, chapter by chapter.
| Women Authors | Stories and Dates First Published | Men Authors | Stories and Dates First Published |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 Little is known about this author;
the Library of Congress has her as Mary E. Bradley Lane.
2 Published anonymously in 1882;
only in later editions did Walter Besant claim authorship.
3 When published by Avalon in the 1960s,
these three novels became five as the last two were each split.
4 The author also mentions The Cave Girl.
These are representative of Burroughs's ouvre of 60 novels.
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| Mary Shelley | Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) The Last Man (1826) |
Edward Bulwer-Lytton | The Coming Race, or The New Utopia (1871) |
| Mary E. Bradley [1] | Mizora: A Prophecy (1881) | Walter Besant [2] | The Revolt of Man (1882) |
| Mabel Fuller Blodgett | At the Queen's Mercy (1897) | Robert W. Chambers | The Gay Rebellion (1913) |
| Florence Carpenter Dieudonné | Rondah, or Thirty-Three Years in a Star (1887) | H(enry) Rider Haggard | King Solomon's Mines (1885) Allan Quatermain (1887) She (1886) |
| Mary (Platt) Parmele | Answered in the Negative (1892) | Edward Bellamy | Looking Backward: AD 2000-1887 (1888) Equality (1897) |
| Edith Nesbitt (Bland) | Dormant (1911) | H(erbert) G(eorge) Wells | The Time Machine (1895) The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896) The Invisible Man (1897) The War of the Worlds (1898) When the Sleeper Wakes (1899) |
| Inez Haynes Gillmore (Irwin) | Angel Island (1914) | Charles H. Palmer | "Citizen 505" (1896) |
| Gertrude Atherton | Black Oxen (1923) | George Chetwynd Griffith | A Honeymoon in Space (1901) |
| Thea von Harbou | The Rocket to the Moon (1928) | Frank Lillie Pollack | "Finis" (June 1906) |
| E(dward) M(organ) Forster | "The Machine Stops" (1909) | ||
| George Allan England [3] | Darkness and Dawn (1912) Beyond the Great Oblivion (1913) The Afterglow (1913) |
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| John Davys Beresford | Goslings (1913) | ||
| Edgar Rice Burroughs [4] | Thuvia, Maid of Mars (April 1916) | ||
| E(dward) E(lmer) Smith | The Skylark of Space (August 1928) | ||
| Ray(mond (King) Cummings | The Princess of the Atom (1929) | ||
| Women Authors | Stories and Dates First Published | Men Authors | Stories and Dates First Published |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris
2 I know this author as Nelson S. Bond,
and in the story "Magic City" he introduces Meg to Daiv again.
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| Victoria Cross (Vivian Cory) | Martha Brown, M.P., A Girl of To-Morrow (1935) | Arthur K. Barnes | "Hothouse Planet" (1937) |
| Susan Ertz | Woman Alive (1935) | John Beynon [1] | The Secret People (1935) |
| C(atherine) L(ucille) Moore | "Black God's Kiss" (October 1934) | Nelson Bond [2] | "The Priestess Who Rebelled" (October 1939) |
| Dorothy Quick | Strange Awakening (1938) | Lester Del Rey | "Helen O'Loy" (December 1938) |
| John Taine (Eric Temple Bell) | "The Ultimate Catalyst" (June 1939) | ||
| Stanley G. Weinbaum | "Dawn of Flame" (June 1939) "Flight on Titan" (January 1935) "Parasite Planet" (February 1935) "Redemption Cairn" (March 1936) "The Red Peri" (November 1935) |
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| Stanley G. Weinbaum & Ralph Milne Farley |
"Smothered Seas" (January 1936) | ||
| Women Authors | Stories and Dates First Published | Men Authors | Stories and Dates First Published |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 Henry Kuttner & C. L. Moore
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| Leigh Brackett | "The Halfling" (February 1943) | Isaac Asimov | "Strange Playfellow" (September 1940) "Liar!" (May 1941) |
| Judith Merril | "That Only a Mother" (June 1948) | Arthur K. Barnes | "Siren Satellite" (Winter 1946) |
| C(atherine) L(ucille) Moore | "Judgement Night" (August 1943) "No Woman Born" (December 1944) |
Lewis Padgett [1] | "When the Bough Breaks" (November 1944) |
| James H. Schmitz | "The Witches of Karres" (December 1949) | ||
| Women Authors | Stories and Dates First Published | Men Authors | Stories and Dates First Published |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris
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| Marion Zimmer Bradley | "The Wind People" (February 1959) | John Brunner | Echo in the Skull (August 1959) |
| Mildred Clingerman | "Minister Without Portfolio" (February 1952) "The Day of the Green Velvet Cloak" (July 1958) |
L. Sprague de Camp | Rogue Queen (1951) |
| Zenna Henderson | "Pottage" (September 1955) | Fritz Leiber | The Big Time (March 1958) |
| Anne McCaffrey | "Lady in the Tower" (April 1959) | Eric Frank Russell | "Fast Falls the Eventide" (May 1952) |
| Katherine MacLean | "And Be Merry" (February 1950) "Contagion" (October 1950) |
Jack Vance (John Holbrook Vance) | Monsters in Orbit (February 1952) |
| Judith Merril | "Daughters of Earth" (1952) "Stormy Weather" (Summer 1954) Shadow on the Hearth (1950) |
Philip Wylie | The Disappearance (1951) |
| John Wyndham [1] | "Consider Her Ways" (1956) | ||
| Women Authors | Stories and Dates First Published | Men Authors | Stories and Dates First Published |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 Printed in three monthly issues of IF, begining Nov. 1962.
2 Originally Alice Mary Noton, later Andre Alice Norton.
3 Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger, with Genevieve Linebarger.
4 John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris
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| Rosel George Brown | Sibyl Sue Blue (1966) | Poul Anderson | "Kyrie" (1968) |
| Miriam Allen DeFord | "The Crib Circuit"(November 1969) | John Boyd (Boyd Bradfield Upchurch) | The Pollinators of Eden (1969) |
| Phyllis Gotlieb [sic] | Sunburst (March-May 1964) | John Brunner | A Planet of Your Own (1966) |
| Zenna Henderson | "J-Line to Nowhere(September 1969) | Edmund Cooper | The Last Continent (1969) |
| Ursula LeGuin | Planet of Exile (1966) | Samuel R(ay) Delany | Babel-17 (1966) |
| Anne McCaffrey | "The Ship Who Sang" (April 1961) | Robert A. Heinlein [1] | Podkayne of Mars (November 1962) |
| Naomi Michison | Memoirs of a Spacewoman (1962) | Alexei Panskin [sic] | Rite of Passage (1968) |
| Andre Norton [2] | Ordeal in Otherwhere (1964) | James H. Schmitz | A Tale of Two Clocks (1962) |
| James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice B. Sheldon) | "The Snows Are Melted, the Snows Are Gone" (November 1969) | Cordwainer Smith [3] | "The Lady Who Sailed the Soul" (April 1960) |
| John Wyndham [4] | The Trouble with Lichen (1960) | ||
| Women Authors | Stories and Dates First Published | Men Authors | Stories and Dates First Published |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 Real full name not given by King.
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| Marion Zimmer Bradley | The Shattered Chain: A Darkover Novel (1976) | F. M. Busby (Francis Marion Busby) [1] | Rissa Kerguelen (1976) |
| Octavia E. Butler | Survivor (1978) | John Varley | Titan (1979) |
| Jayge Carr (Margery Ruth Morgenstern Krueger) [1] | Leviathan's Deep (1979) | ||
| Suzy McKee Charnas | Walk To the End of the World (1974) | ||
| Jo Clayton | Diadem from the Stars (1977) | ||
| Phyllis Eisenstein | Shadow of Earth (1979) | ||
| Cecelia Holland | Floating Worlds (1976) | ||
| Lee Killough (Karen Lee Killough) [1] | The Doppelganger Gambit (1979) | ||
| Tanith Lee | Drinking Sapphire Wine (1979) | ||
| Anne McCaffrey | Dinosaur Planet (1978) | ||
| Vonda N. McIntyre | Dreamsnake (1978) "Screwtop" (1976) |
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| Ann Maxwell | Change (1975) | ||
| Barbara Paul | Bibblings (1979) | ||
| Doris Piserchia | Star Rider (1974) | ||
| Marta Randall | ISLANDs (1976) | ||
| Joanna Russ | The Female Man (1975) We Who Are About To... (1975) "When it Changed" (1972) |
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| Pamela Sargent | "IMT" (1973) | ||
| Raccoona Sheldon (Alice B. Sheldon) | "Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!" (1976) | ||
| James Tiptree Jr. (Alice B. Sheldon) | "The Women Men Don't See" (December 1973) | ||
| Sydney J(oyce) Van Scyoc | "When Petals Fall" (1973) | ||
| Joan Vinge | "Eyes of Amber" (June 1977) | ||
| Kate Wilhelm | Juniper Time (December 1979) | ||
| Chelsea Quinn Yarbro | "False Dawn" (1973) | ||
| Women Authors | Stories and Dates First Published | Men Authors | Stories and Dates First Published |
|---|---|---|---|
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1 These three novels form a trilogy.
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| C. J. Cherryh (Carolyn Janice Cherry) | Serpent's Reach (1980) | F. M. Busby (Francis Marion Busby) | Zelde M'tana (1980) |
| Phyllis Eisenstein | In the Hands of Glory (1981) | Joe Haldeman | Worlds (1981) |
| Tanith Lee | The Silver Metal Lover (1981) | Robert A. Heinlein | Friday (1982) |
| Francine Mezo | The Fall of the Worlds (1980) Unless She Burn (1981) No Earthly Shore (1981) [1] |
George R. R. Martin & Lisa Tuttle | Windhaven (1981) |
| Barbara Paul | Under the Canopy (1980) | Terry Pratchett (Sir Terence David John Pratchett, OBE) | Strata (1981) |
| Jessica Amanda Salmonson | The Swordswoman (1982) | Scott Sanders | "Touch the Earth" (1980) |
| Pamela Sargent | Watchstar (1980) | ||
| James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice B. Sheldon) | "With Delicate Mad Hands" (1981) | ||
| Joan D. Vinge | The Snow Queen (1980) | ||
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