Release date: August 29, 2019
Subgenre: Silver Age science fiction, Anthology
About Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963):
- Fourteeen uncut Silver Age science fiction stories by women
- Fourteen introductions providing historical, biographical, and literary context
- One foreword by Dr. Laura Brodian Freas Beraha
- One introductory essay by Gideon Marcus
The Silver Age of Science Fiction saw a wealth of compelling speculative tales — and women authors wrote some of the best of the best. Yet the stories of this era, especially those by women, have been largely unreprinted, unrepresented, and unremembered.
Until Now.
Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963) features fourteen selections of the best science fiction of the Silver Age by the unsung women authors of yesteryear, introduced by today’s rising stars:
Unhuman Sacrifice (1958) by Katherine MacLean, introduced by Natalie Devitt
Wish Upon a Star (1958) by Judith Merril, introduced by Erica Frank
A Matter of Proportion (1959) by Anne Walker, introduced by Erica Friedman
The White Pony (1960) by Jane Rice, introduced by T.D. Cloud
Step IV (1960) by Rosel George Brown, introduced by Andi Dukleth
Of All Possible Worlds (1961) by Rosel George Brown, introduced by Cora Buhlert
Satisfaction Guaranteed (1961) by Joy Leache, introduced by A.J. Howells
The Deer Park (1962) by Maria Russell, introduced by Claire Weaver
To Lift a Ship (1962) by Kit Reed, introduced by Gideon Marcus
The Putnam Tradition (1963) by Sonya Hess Dorman, introduced by Lorelei Marcus
The Pleiades (1963) by Otis Kidwell Burger, introduced by Gwyn Conaway
No Trading Voyage (1963) by Doris Pitkin Buck, introduced by Marie Vibbert
Cornie on the Walls (1963) by Sydney van Scyoc, introduced by Rosemary Benton
Unwillingly to School (1958) by Pauline Ashwell, introduced by Janice Marcus
“Female authors wrote stories about coming of age…cautionary tales…stories set beyond our universe…You’ll find these themes and more in this anthology. I hope that as you read their stories you don’t try to ‘feminine’ versus ‘masculine’ elements. What you are about to read is really good science fiction, plain and simple.” -from the foreword by Dr. Laura Brodian Freas Beraha
Excerpt:
Why Rediscovery? Why now?
Science fiction began as a male-dominated, predominantly white endeavor. Eventually, it managed to overcome these limitations. Of late, more and more diverse writers are finally receiving recognition for their talent and hard work.
That’s today. What about yesterday?
I’ve attended lots of conventions, and when the subject of classic female SF authors has come up, fans have rarely been aware of more than a few. It’s not surprising, since only a handful of names tend to get the most press: Ursula K. LeGuin, James Tiptree Jr., Joanna Russ, Anne McCaffrey. Sometimes, a person might remember Leigh Brackett and Andre Norton, or note that the entire genre began with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. But that’s about it. As far as many modern day fans know, women writing science fiction is a relatively new thing.
It’s not.
About ten years ago, I started living in the past. Specifically, I began reading the science fiction and fantasy of exactly fifty-five years prior; in 2009, I dove headfirst into the genre as it existed in 1954. It quickly became immersive. I read the digest-sized magazines “as they came out” once every month. I bought an AM roadcaster so that 670 kHz formed the soundtrack for my journey—back then, it was Laverne Baker and Bill Haley; ten years later, it’s The Beatles and The Supremes. In 2013 (1958), filled with several years of inspiration and fired up by the newly inaugurated Space Race, I began Galactic Journey, a window into the past that had hitherto been mine alone.
My original goal had simply been to review the science fiction and space shots of the time. But another agenda quickly became imperative. I wanted to use the Journey to spotlight the women who wrote science fiction.
There were two reasons for this. One was that I was discovering all these great female science fiction authors that few seemed to have heard of. By 1962, when LeGuin was first published in Fantastic, I had already counted more than thirty active women writing SF. And while some of them only dipped their toes in the genre, others were prominent and recurring names: Margaret St. Clair/Idris Seabright, C.L. Moore, Miriam Allen DeFord, Mildred Clingerman, Evelyn Smith, Rosel George Brown, Kit Reed, Zenna Henderson, Katherine Maclean, Judith Merril, Kate Wilhelm, and on and on.
The other was that I tended to like the pieces written by women better than the stuff done by male authors. Annually, I made a list of what I felt were the year’s best stories, and women-penned tales usually made up about a quarter of the entries. And yet, women were only responsible for about 10% of the total SF output.
Why did women consistently outperform their male counterparts in my tallies? I don’t think it’s just my personal taste. After all, women made up half of the Best New Author nominees on the 1959 Hugo ballot.
I’ve come up with a few reasons why science fiction by women stood out...
Amazon | Journey Press
About Gideon Marcus:
Gideon Marcus is the founder of the Serling
Award-winning and twice Hugo-nominated historical web project, Galactic Journey, Gideon Marcus is a science fiction writer and space historian. His
alternate history story, “Andy and Tina,” is the lead tale in the Sidewise-nominated anthology, Tales from Alternate Earths 2. He lives in the San Diego area with his wife and their prodigy daughter as well as a matched
pair of cats.
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About Journey Press:
Founded in 2019 by Galactic Journey's Gideon Marcus, Journey Press
distributes anthologies of the very best science fiction with an
emphasis on the unusual and the diverse. We also partner with other
small presses to offer exciting titles we know you'll like!
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