The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women

by Alex Dally MacFarlane

Overview

This anthology showcases the most exceptional science fiction stories written by women in recent decades, from classic stars like Ursula K. Le Guin and James Tiptree Jr. to science-fiction greats such Nancy Kress, Lois McMaster Bujold, and Karen Joy Fowler to new award-winning talents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762454709
Publisher:	Running Press Book Publishers
Publication date:	12/02/2014
Series:	Mammoth Books
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Alex Dally MacFarlane is a writer, poet, anthologist, and occasional Londoner. Her stories have been published in many anthologies and magazines, including Clarkesworld Magazine and the anthology The Other Half of the Sky. She is the editor of the anthology Aliens: Recent Encounters.

Editorial Reviews

★ 10/27/2014
Written in the form of letters, travelogues, encyclopedia entries, and galactic gazetteers as well as conventional narratives, and embracing approaches that include folktales (Nalo Hopkinson’s “Tan-Tan and Dry Bone”), Lovecraftian horror (Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette’s “Boojum”), steampunk (Tori Truslow’s “Tomorrow Is Saint Valentine’s Day”), and hard SF (Nisi Shawl’s “Good Boy”), the 33 stories that MacFarlane (Aliens: Recent Encounters) has gathered for this volume dazzle with the virtuosity of their contributors’ talents. Particularly outstanding are Carrie Vaughn’s “Astrophilia,” a gripping postapocalyptic scenario, and Nnedi Okorafor’s “Spider the Artist,” a searing indictment of capitalist exploitation of poor countries. A clutch of selections feature characters embarked on quests for identity: ethnic, in Zen Cho’s “The Four Generations of Chang E,” about an Asian family’s assimilation into lunar society; sexual, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Mountain Ways,” about a culture whose sexual politics complicates freedom of choice; and gender, in Karen Joy Fowler’s “The Science of Herself,” in which 19th-century paleontologist Mary Anning makes discoveries that revolutionize a scientific discipline from which women are excluded. Representing nearly a dozen countries and twice as many ethnicities, this book’s contents offer something for every fan of well-written SF. (Dec.)

Publishers Weekly

"Alex Dally MacFarland should be commended for putting together such a diversity of voices in one anthology. Amongst its pages you can find winners and nominees for Hugo, Tiptree, World Fantasy, and Nebula Awards, from established print magazines (Asimov's and F&SF), to online outlets (Clarkesworld makes a good showing, as does Tor.com) and stand-alone anthologies...There will be stories for most palates here, much to think about and argue with. An excellent showcase, subverting paradigms as well as expectations.
--Locus Magazine

From the Publisher