On Friday, December 12th the Otherland Speculative Fiction Boook Club meets to discuss "Khatru: A Symposium On Women In Science Fiction".  

We already discussed the symposium last December, but in the year since it has come up repeatedly in other book discussions, and we thought it may be fun to delve a little deeper into the subject. And so there is now a (long) recommended reading list to serve as background  information. None of this is required reading, it's purely to possibly enrich the discussion. See list below.

Please remember that we ask everyone:

* to register beforehand (email bookclub@otherland-berlin.de) and please cancel if it turns out you can't make it)

* only come if you're feeling healthy, to avoid spreading around anything other than ideas and opinions

Start time is 19:30, drinks and snacks are available, hope to see you here!

If you'd like to be informed about upcoming book club meetings and vote on the books we will read, let us know ( bookclub@otherland-berlin.de ) and you'll receive 1-2 monthly emails on the matter.

 

On to the recommendations:

List By Author:

Suzy McKee Charnas:

• "The Slave and the Free" (Holdfast 1+2, contains 'Walk to the End of the World' and 'Motherlines') (1974/78, 448 pages)
• "Boobs" short story (1989,14 pages) in "Visions of Wonder" and "The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women" (s. below)

Samuel R. Delany:

• "The Jewel-Hinged Jaw (Revised Edition)" non-fiction collection (originaly 1977, revised 2009, 254 pages), particularly the essays "Alyx" and "To Read The Dispossessed"
• "Wonder Woman" comic #203 September 1972
• "Tales of Nevèrÿon" novel in the form of 5 stories (1979, 264 pages), particularly the stories "The Tale Of Old Venn" and "The Tale Of Potters And Dragons"

Karen Joy Fowler:

• "The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things", short story (1985, 16 pages) in "The Big Book Of Science Fiction" below

Jeanne Gomoll:

• "Remembering Vonda" hommage to Vonda McIntyre (2019, 228 pages)

Gwyneth Jones:

• "Joanna Russ" biography (2022, 217 pages), may be out of print, 1 copy available at the Otherland (and generally available as ebook)
• "Identifying the Object" short story (1993, 21 pages)
• "White Queen" novel (1991, 312 pages)

Ursula K. Le Guin:

• "Introducing Myself" (essay, 5 pages) https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/IntroducingMyself.html, and in "The Wave in The Mind" (2004, 304 pages)
• "Is Gender necessary? Redux" essay with revisions from a 1976 version (1987, 13 pages) in "The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction" (1989, 210 pages - be sure to get a version published after 1987) and "Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places" (1989, 306 pages) and "Hainish Novels And Stories Volume one" (2017, 789 pages)
• "The Carrier Bag Theory Of Fiction" nonfiction (1988, 48 pages)
• "Winter's King" short story with a 1969 and 1975 version in "Hainish Novels And Stories Volume one" (2017, 789 pages, contains both versions) and "The Wind's Twelve Quarters" (1975, 303 pages, only the latter version)

Vonda N. McIntyre:

• "Dreamsnake" novel (1978, 282 pages)
• "Ursula K. Le Guin: Mutinous Navigator", essay

Pat Murphy:

• "Rachel In Love" short story (1987, 46 pages) in "The Big Book Of Science Fiction" (s.below)

Joanna Russ:

• (These three, and also the complete Alyx, can be found in the "Library Of America" collection "Joanna Russ - Novels And Stories")
  - "Picnic On Paradise" novel (1968, 157 pages) (really all of "The Adventures Of Alyx", but this one in particular)
  - "We Who Are About To" novel (1977, 170 pages)
  - "The Female Man" novel (1975, 214 pages)
• "How To Suppress Women's Writing" nonfiction (1983, 159 pages)

Jeffrey D. Smith:

• "Tiptree Symposium: A Report" https://file770.com/tiptree-symposium-a-report/

James Tiptree Jr.:

• "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever" (1990, 508 pages), short story collection by James Tiptree Jr. originally published 1969-1981
• "James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon" by Julie Phillips (2006, 469 pages)

Kate Wilhelm:

• "Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang" (1976, 242 pages)
• "Baby, You Were Great" (1967, 18 pages)
• "Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop" (2005,190 pages)

Chelsea Quinn Yarbro:

• "Cautionary Tales", collection of short stories and essays, with an introduction by James Tiptree Jr. (1978, 192 pages)

 

Collections
All of these are in print and can be obtained/ordered from the Otherland, they contain stories/essays from the above recommendations
as well as others by the Khatru authors.

"The Big Book Of Science Fiction" by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer (2016, 1178 pages). Stories by

• Ursula K. Le Guin - Vaster Than Empires and more slow (1971, 37 pages)
• Joanna Russ - When It Changed (1972, 6 pages)
• James Tiptree Jr. - And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side (1972, 13 pages)
• Karen Joy Fowler - The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things (1985, 16 pages)
• Pat Murphy - Rachel In Love (1987, 46 pages)
• Gwyneth Jones - The Universe of Things (1993, 14 pages)

"The Future Is Female!: 25 Classic Science Fiction Stories by Women" collection by Lisa Yaszek contains these relevant stories:

• Joanna Russ - The Barbarian (Alyx) (1968, 26 pages)
• James Tiptree, Jr. - The Last Flight of Dr. Ain (1969. 9 pages)
• Kate Wilhelm - Baby, You Were Great (1967, 18 pages)
• Ursula K. Le Guin - Nine Lives (1969, 34 pages)

"Letters To Tiptree", non-fiction collection of letters to James Tiptree Jr. written posthumously by, among others, Gwyneth Jones, Pat Murphy, and an exchange of letters between Tiptree, Le Guin and Russ between 1976 and 1980 (2015, 361 pages)

"Visions of Wonder: The Science Fiction Research Association Anthology" edited by David G. Hartwell, Milton T. Wolf, 798 pages. Stories by

• Kate Wilhelm - Forever Yours, Anna (1987, 10 pages)
• Ursula K. Le Guin - Sur (1982, 21 pages)
• Joanna Russ - Souls (1982, 33 pages)
• Joanna Russ - Towards an Aesthetic of Science Fiction - essay (1975, 9 pages)
• James Tiptree Jr. - The Girl Who Was Plugged In (1973, 36 pages - also in "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever" above)
• Gwyneth Jones - Identifying The Object (1992, 21 pages)
• Suzy McKee Charnas - Boobs (1989, 14 pages)
• Samuel R. Delany - Science Fiction and "Literature" — or, The Conscience of the King? - essay (26 pages)

 

Supplementary, but hard to find:

These may be completely out of print or only obtainable as ebooks, but they all sound fascinating and contain some materiel from the authors, so may be worth hunting down .

• "80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. Le Guin" with essays by Gwyneth Jones, Vonda N. McIntyre and many others
• "Edges: Thirteen New Tales from the Borderlands of the Imagination" collection edited by Virginia Kidd & Ursula K. Le Guin (1980 (239 pages), with a story by Raylyn Moore
• "Future Females" by Marleen S. Barr. Essays by Joanna Russ, Suzy McKee Charnas
• "Imagination/Space: Essays and Talks on Fiction, Feminism, Technology, and Politics", collection of essays and reviews by Gwyneth Jones, reviews of books written by Joanna Russ, Vonda N. McIntyre, Ursula K. Le Guin, Kate Wilhelm, James Tiptree Jr., Karen Joy Fowler
• "Meet Me At Infinity: The Uncollected Tiptree: Fiction and Nonfiction" collection of Tiptree stories and essays edited by David G. Hartwell, with an introduction by Jeffrey D. Smith (2001, 396 pages)
• "The Penguin Book of Modern Fantasy by Women" Editors: Richard Glyn Jones, A. Susan Williams , 560 pages. Introduction by Joanna Russ, stories by Kate Wilhelm, Joanna Russ, James Tiptree Jr., Vonda M. McIntyre, Ursula K. Le Guin, Suzy McKee Charnas
• "The Witch And The Chameleon" by Amanda Bankier (fanzine 1974-76, especially double issue 5-6) - contains essays by Joanna Russ, Raccoona Sheldon (i.e. Tiptree), Suzy McKee Charnas
• "Aurora: Beyond Equality" Anthology edited by Susan Janice Anderson and Vonda N. McIntyre, which they actually talk about in the symposium, with stories by James Tiptree Jr. and Joanna Russ and a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin (also, the novelette version of "Woman On The Edge Of Time" by Marge Piercy )