Despite the growing number of female writers in the science fiction genre over the past 40 years, the community still identifies itself as a mostly male organism. With the growth of the internet we have seen female fans of Sci-Fi suffer with other female geeks through the “fake geek girl” frenzy (for full details or in case you’ve been living under a rock http://www.themarysue.com/on-the-fake-geek-girl/ ). Such that female readers and writers would seem to have been erased from the perceived landscape.
This summer one of the most popular online Sci-Fi/Fantasy literary magazines—and 2014 HUGO Award winner— Lightspeed Magazine, decided to honor those female contributors to Sci-Fi. Their June issue was comprised and edited entirely by women. A reclamation of a genre which many believe started with a woman, nearly 200 years ago. When Mary Shelley published her novel Frankenstein, and changed the literary world.
The June issue of Lightspeed, ironically titled “Women Destroy Science Fiction!” honors the influence authors like Shelley have had on the genre, while showcasing current authors and their work. The magazine offers several stories free to read, and others can be found republished in other places around the net.
One such reprint is the short story The Unfathomable Sisterhood of Ick by Charlie Jane Anders, which you can read here at Tor.com. In this particular story, Anders shows a different side of Science Fiction. One that is wholly more intimate and emotional than is typical of the genre. Her story studies familiar human emotions through the changes in relationships; set in a slightly more technologically advanced time.
Anders creates a vivid glimpse of a possible future, showing enough difference from our own time, while maintaining a certain familiarity. Much like the feeling achieved in the film Her with Joaquin Phoenix. Such near futures are less extreme, perhaps, than far-off worlds or post-apocalyptic earths. But this ability to dissect human emotional relationships comes across as an infinitely more powerful glimpse at the worlds of tomorrow.
[author] [author_info]Amber Timlin is a writing geek. She is obsessed with reading, watching and creating anything and everything sci-fi, fantasy, horror, paranormal, or just plain weird. Originally from West Chester, PA (aka Dub C) she now lives with her fiance and two cats in Royersford, PA (RoFo!). She has a MFA in Creative Writing from Arcadia University and is currently working her first novel. She works part-time with her father supplying book-fairs to local schools through his company Jabberwocky Books For Kids. She can be reached via email at ambiezomber@gmail.com. [/author_info] [/author]
