Women of Wonder, the Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s

Women of Wonder

by Pamela Sargent (Editor)

Based on one of the most popular SF anthologies of all time, which dispelled the notion that women don’t write “real” science fiction, this volume features stories by twenty-one seminal SF writers. Included are works by Leigh Brackett, C. L. Moore, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Judith Merril. Introduction and Bibliography by the Editor.

Content

"No Woman Born" by C. L. Moore (1944)
"That Only a Mother" by Judith Merril (1948)
"Contagion" by Katherine MacLean (1950)
"The Woman from Altair" by Leigh Brackett (1951)
"Short in the Chest" by Margaret St. Clair (1954)
"The Anything Box" by Zenna Henderson (1956)
"Death Between the Stars" by Marion Zimmer Bradley (1956)
"The Ship Who Sang" by Anne McCaffrey (1961)
"When I Was Miss Dow" by Sonya Dorman Hess (1966)
"The Food Farm" by Kit Reed (1966)
"The Heat Death of the Universe" by Pamela Zoline (1967)
"The Power of Time" by Josephine Saxton (1971)
"False Dawn" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1972)
"Nobody's Home" by Joanna Russ (1972)
"The Funeral" by Kate Wilhelm (1972)
"Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" by Vonda N. McIntyre (1973)
"The Women Men Don't See" by James Tiptree, Jr. (1973)
"The Warlord of Saturn's Moons" by Eleanor Arnason (1974)
"The Day Before the Revolution" by Ursula K. Le Guin (1974)
"The Family Monkey" by Lisa Tuttle (1977)
"View from a Height" by Joan D. Vinge (1978)

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Feminism, Gender, Speculative Fiction

448 pages, Paperback

First published July 5, 1995

About the author

Pamela Sargent has won the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and has been a finalist for the Hugo Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the Sidewise Award for alternate history. In 2012, she was honored with the Pilgrim Award by the Science Fiction Research Association for lifetime achievement in science fiction scholarship. She is the author of the novels Cloned Lives, The Sudden Star, Watchstar, The Golden Space, The Alien Upstairs, Eye of the Comet, Homesmind, Alien Child, The Shore of Women, Venus of Dreams, Venus of Shadows, Child of Venus, Climb the Wind, and Ruler of the Sky. Her most recent short story collection is Thumbprints, published by Golden Gryphon Press, with an introduction by James Morrow. The Washington Post Book World has called her “one of the genre's best writers.”

In the 1970s, she edited the Women of Wonder series, the first collections of science fiction by women; her other anthologies include Bio-Futures and, with British writer Ian Watson as co-editor, Afterlives. Two anthologies, Women of Wonder, The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s and Women of Wonder, The Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s, were published by Harcourt Brace in 1995; Publishers Weekly called these two books “essential reading for any serious sf fan.” Her most recent anthology is Conqueror Fantastic, out from DAW Books in 2004. Tor Books reissued her 1983 young adult novel Earthseed, selected as a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association, and a sequel, Farseed, in early 2007. A third volume, Seed Seeker, was published in November of 2010 by Tor. Earthseed has been optioned by Paramount Pictures, with Melissa Rosenberg, scriptwriter for all of the Twilight films, writing the script and producing through her Tall Girls Productions.

A collection, Puss in D.C. and Other Stories, is out; her novel Season of the Cats is out in hardcover and will be available in paperback from Wildside Press. The Shore of Women has been optioned for development as a TV series by Super Deluxe Films, part of Turner Broadcasting.

Pamela Sargent lives in Albany, New York.

Reviews

[Linda Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The introduction and brief history of science fiction by women is invaluable alone. This anthology contains the women who were published as science fiction writers, even if some wandered away from science fiction as the decades went by. A couple of favorites are here. The Heat Death of the Universe by Pamela Zoline is outstanding, as is The Women Men Don't See by James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Sheldon). The Day Before the Revolution by Ursula Le Guin is fantastic. The Woman from Altair by Leigh Brackett, written in 1951, is superb. I have The Best of C. L. Moore added to my reading list based on Sargent's introduction.

[Kamakana · Rating 4 out of 5]

200710: some stories read before (Le Guin) some that are not necessarily sf (Henderson), all are very interesting. collection of very good, some less. can compare with more recent, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... most recent predate my sf adolescence so this is history. i wish there was more context, though there is a section at the back on the authors. not higher marked because they are all direct, ordinary poetics, short stories and this format foregrounds ideas over style, short neural bursts typical of sf. an introduction, do not know whether they are all truly considered classic or they just give it that name for age...

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Introduction by Pamela Sargent
"No Woman Born" by C. L. Moore (1944) *** One of the best of the collection, a woman rebuilt with metal after a near-death accident copes with her future
"That Only a Mother" by Judith Merril (1948) * Doesn't really go anywhere
"Contagion" by Katherine MacLean (1950) *** Interesting take on individuality
"The Woman from Altair" by Leigh Brackett (1951) * Too long and obvious for what it was worth
"Short in the Chest" by Margaret St. Clair (1954) * Short in the story
"The Anything Box" by Zenna Henderson (1956) ** Great idea but little depth
"Death Between the Stars" by Marion Zimmer Bradley (1956) *** Alien aliens made for a good story
"The Ship Who Sang" by Anne McCaffrey (1961) *** A few cool, original, ideas
"When I Was Miss Dow" by Sonya Dorman Hess (1966) *** An interesting, alien, point of view
"The Food Farm" by Kit Reed (1966) ** Very odd but at least it was original
"The Heat Death of the Universe" by Pamela Zoline (1967) * Just waiting for the end
"The Power of Time" by Josephine Saxton (1971) ** I liked the originality
"False Dawn" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1972) *** Finally a real story
"Nobody's Home" by Joanna Russ (1972) ** Created an interesting future world but never really leveraged it.
"The Funeral" by Kate Wilhelm (1972) * Seriously? Dystopian sadomasochistic pedophiliatic lesbian nun/teachers?!?
"Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" by Vonda N. McIntyre (1973) **** Finally, a good, solid, very original, story!
"The Women Men Don't See" by James , Jr. (1973) *** Solid story and ending
"The Warlord of Saturn's Moons" by Eleanor Arnason (1974) * uhg, a story ABOUT writing a story
"The Day Before the Revolution" by Ursula K. Le Guin (1974) ** An old woman reminiscing over a past revolution
"The Family Monkey" by Lisa Tuttle (1977) *** Alien 1st encounter with a family from the 1900s
"View from a Height" by Joan D. Vinge (1978) *** Solo astronomy vessel 20 years and 1000 AMUs from home

[Jack Deighton · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the Introduction Pamela Sargent traces the history of women writing SF which goes back a long way even if you discount Mary Shelley. It is true, though, that the profile of female SF writers certainly became more prominent in the 1970s. The stories in the book are listed on the contents page by the date when they were first published. I have included those dates below.
No Woman Born by C L Moore (1944) explicitly riffs on the Frankenstein story. Here a female dancer who died in a theatre fire has had her brain preserved and placed in a wonderfully supple metallic body so that she (it?) can continue performing. “‘The whole idea was to re-create what I’d lost so that it could be proved that beauty and talent need not be sacrificed by the estruction of parts or all of the body.’” The usual philosophical considerations apply.
In the war-ridden, radiation-raddled world of That Only a Mother by Judith Merril (1948) there has been an increase in the mutation rate, but the worst cases can be predicted and prevented. Infanticide committed by fathers is also on the rise. Margaret gives birth to a daughter while her husband is away on war service. The child is precociously gifted as regards cognitive development and speech. The father does not realise anything else might be amiss till he returns.
Contagion by Katherine McLean (1950) is set on a planet where a newly touched down expedition discovers previous settlers, who it turns out were severely affected by a disease they called melting sickness. Only certain genetic strains are able to survive.
In The Woman from Altair by Leigh Brackett (1951) the title character has been brought back from Altair as his wife by, David, one of the famous spacefaring MacQuarrie family. His brother Rafe, never eager to go into space, and his girl-friend Marthe begin to have suspicions when odd things start happening in the MacQuarrie household.
In a time of cold-war stress Short in the Chest by Margaret St Clair (1954) features the curious military custom of dighting, sexual encounters between members of the various armed services in order to relieve inter-service tension. Marine Major Sonya Briggs takes her problems with it to a huxley – a philosophic robot.
The box of Zenna Henderson’s The Anything Box (1956) is the invisible possession of Sue-lynn, a pupil in the narrator’s class. It nevertheless has weight and is where she goes to retreat from the world and find herself.
Death Between the Stars by Marion Zimmer Bradley (1956) is the tale of Helen Vargas, forced by circumstance and against all Terran norms and expectations to occupy the same cabin as a telepathic alien on her way back to Earth to avoid the outbreak of a war. The treatment of the alien by the prejudiced crew dismays her but its telepathic intrusions are equally disturbing. In death - brought on by its inhumane treatment - the alien finds a way to prolong its life, and study humans in secret.
The Ship Who Sang 1 by Anne McCaffrey (1961) is the story of the brain of a child malformed at birth but taken and grown inside a metal case eventually to become the controlling entity of a spaceship. She finds she can sing at any pitch and register.
The aliens in When I Was Miss Dow by Sonya Dorman Hess (1961) - who started her writing career as plain Sonya Dorman - can take various shapes at will and are able to be reconstituted in tanks. However, some of them are dependent on sulfadiazole which they can earn by working for humans. Our narrator reconstitutes as Miss Dow (recquiring her to have two brain lobes) and finds she is attracted to Dr Proctor, the human colony’s head biologist, whose assistant she becomes.
The Food Farm by Kit Reed (1966) is where our narrator is now in charge. Sent there by her parents to get over her addiction to binge-eating, a habit encouraged by hearing the singing of Tommy Fango on the radio, she rebelled when Fango visited and she was not allowed to see him, sought him out and discovered his main predilection, which she now seeks to fulfill.
The Heat Death of the Universe by Pamela Zoline (1967). “Sarah Boyle is a vivacious and witty young wife and mother, educated at a fine Eastern college, proud of her growing family, which keeps her happy and busy around the house, involved in many hobbies and community activities, and only occasionally given to obsessions concerning Time/Entropy/Chaos and Death.” Yeah, right. More like, “a woman’s work is never done” – and sometimes undoes her.
The Power of Time by Josephine Saxton (1971) uses the word Negro, likely to be frowned upon nowadays. It reverses the usual way of cross-Atlantic transactions. An English woman buys the whole of Manhattan island (previously owned by a descendant of native Americans) and transfers it to Leicestershire.
False Dawn by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1972) is set after an environmental apocalypse. A woman armed with a crossbow makes her way across the devastated landscape, trying to avoid the Pirates and mutant hunters. This contains the usual violent scenes accompanying such tales.
Nobody’s Home by Joanna Russ (1972) posits a future time of resource plenitude where people can travel the world at whim via transmission booths and hold parties willy-nilly. Leslie Smith turns up at one of these and puts a downer on it.
In The Funeral by Kate Wilhelm (1972) all non-citizens are the property of the state. This is a dystopia, with pre-echoes of The Handmaid’s Tale, where Carla has been brought up under the educational tenets of Madame Westfall. The funeral of the title is Westfall’s. She had hidden some secret knowledge the powers that be want to uncover. Carla finds the hiding place.
Vonda N McIntyre’s justly award-winning Of Mist and Grass and Sand (1973) tells of an incident in the life of a healer whose medicines are incubated by snakes before they bite the sufferer to “inject” the cure. Her clients of course fear her reptilian companions.
Another celebrated piece of feminist SF is The Women Men Don’t See2 (1973) published by Alice Sheldon under her pen name of James Tiptree Jr. Given that at the time of publication many thought “Tiptree” was a man, the story’s title is deliciously ironic. In it a plane with three passengers, our narrator Don plus a mother and daughter, goes down off the Yucatán peninsula. Don’s fantasies about female abilities are soon disabused as Ruth Parsons turns out to be very capable indeed. Also when he mentions women’s rights she tells him, “Women have no rights, Don, except what men allow us. Men are more aggressive and powerful, and they run the world. When the next real crisis upsets them, our so-called rights will vanish like … smoke. We’ll be back where we always were. Property. And whatever has gone wrong will be blamed on our freedom, like the fall of Rome was. You’ll see.” Sadly, probably only too true. However, the intrusion of aliens near the end into felt like it came from another story altogether.
The Warlord of Saturn’s Moons by Eleanor Arnason (1974) tells how a cigar-smoking, tea-drinking, silver-haired maiden of thirty-five in a world where the usual bad stuff is on the news writes the story of the title, a somewhat schlocky enterprise which will read as bad as it sounds.
In Ursula K Le Guin’s The Day Before the Revolution (1974) an old anarchist, inspiration to her followers remembers her life of struggle and ruminates on what it all means. “Favouritism, elitism, leader-worship, they crept back and cropped out everywhere. But she had never hoped to see them eradicated in her lifetime, in one generation; only Time works the great changes.” She also comments on how people see her. “How brave of you to go on, to work, to write, in prison, after such a defeat for the Movement, after your partner’s death, people had used to say. Damn fools. What else had there been to do? Bravery, courage – What was courage? She had never figured it out. Not fearing, some said. Fearing going on, others said. But what could one do but go on? Had one any real choice, ever?” Human and humane.
The Family Monkey by Lisa Tuttle (1977) is an oddly constructed tale told from four different viewpoints of the adoption by a couple in Texas of an alien who crashlands in their graveyard. He is effectively part of the family down several generations. The concept of sleep is alien to him but when he finally achieves that state he experiences the humans’ dreams – and some of them experience his. The story contains the word “nigger,” reflecting the time and place in which that scene was set.
A totally immune-compromised woman is the ideal choice for the first interstellar human traveller in View from a Height by Joan D Vinge (1978.) Her trip gives her a perspective on life.

[Julian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of the best anthologies I've ever read. The stories are almost universally engaging and experimental. There is a small handful of authors present more for their historical relevance than for the quality of their writing, but the others more than make up for it. This anthology is feminist without being didactic and opens with a wonderful essay on the history of women writers in the science fiction genre. Standout stories include C.L. Moore's No Woman Born and Zenna Henderson's The Anything Box .

[Kristine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I usually don't care for short stories , but this is a unique collection. So interesting to read the writing styles of years past! I seemed to prefer the older stories, which were a little more positive. Just a couple I didn't care for due to the sad endings. I was surprised to see so many names I didn't recognize, as I've been reading science fiction since the 60's. The bibliography at the end will be really helpful in finding more stories by these female authors ...much more numerous than I realized!

[Jenny Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection very much. There were a few stories that weren't great, a few that were excellent, and most were pretty good. I thought Kate Wilhelm's story "The Funeral" was particularly interesting as it had some seeds of a society like Gilead in Handmaid's Tale, which Atwood would publish a decade later. "Of Mist, And Grass, and Sand" by Vonda McIntyre was utterly unexpected, and I was surprised to find myself near tears. Finally, I adored Eleanor Arnason's "The Warlord of Saturn's Moons" - a kindred spirit indeed.

Overall, I thought it was well worth the read.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite story in this compilation was 'The Warlords of Saturn's Moons' by Eleanor Arnason. About a sci-fi writer living in NYC and it chronicles a short period while she is in her little apt smoking cigars, drinking tea and writing, while over looking the smog thats only worsened with time. This book is awesome, you should read it.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very solid collection of short stories, some of them absolutely brilliant, others merely okay. Short stories can be so hit-and-miss.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did enjoy this collection very much, it still feels relevant, uhmm some of the histories I'll admit they didn't sound very much like they were written by women haha.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wide range of stories, so something for everyone.

[Lisa Feld · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the second WoW anthology first, so it's interesting to go back and see these earlier stories. Sargent has done a phenomenal job of curating here, picking stories that are remarkable for both the quality of their writing and the strangeness of their subject matter--none of the stories feel dated or predictable; they had a grace and a strangeness to them that lent itself well to moments of surprise, delight, and horror. The first four stories especially blew me away, but some of the later ones like "The Anything Box," "The Women Men Don't See," and "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" were also spectacular. (As a side note, I still don't fully understand why everyone is so focused on "The Women Men Don't See" as the great example of James Tiptree Jr.'s writing; I'm still devoted to "The Screwfly Solution.) In short, this was a straight-up glorious anthology of science fiction that also happened to be exclusively by women writers.

Part of me might have liked to see the stories in chronological order, to have a sense of evolution or development in the genre, but part of me was also glad not to get that, so I could take each story and each writer on their own terms, without preconceptions. While I felt the anthology lagged a little in the middle, that may have just been a matter of taste, and certainly there are plenty of amazing stories here overall.

[Gigill · Rating 2 out of 5]

This volume of short stories is leftover from my uni days when I had to read many of these short stories for a women in literature class. Five years later, I decided to go through the whole volume. Pamela Sargent gathered around 20 sci-fi short stories from writers from the 1940s to 1970s, including big names like Ursula K. LeGuin and Joanna Russ.

Overall? The experience was just ok, which is pretty good considering I am not sci-fi fan in the slightest. The two-star rating is more a reflection of my personal reading preference vs. the quality of the stories in this compilation.

I had read Sargent's other Women of Wonder this series earlier in the year and prefer this one infinitely as I found myself quite engaged in many stories for some reason. Perhaps it was the awesome female heroines presented, a refreshing rarity in this male-dominated genre. I wish I paid more attention to why some stories stuck with me and others didn't. That being said, the intro and a handful of stories were plodding/confusing at times. It was a bit of an effort to keep reading at times but I got through it.

I liked changing up my reading routine and venturing into the sci-fi world, but ultimately it's not a book I would ever read again. It has warmed me up the genre ever so slightly though!

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent anthology. Sargent made wonderful choices, picking stories that are not only by women but about women or issues that affect women in some way. Some of these are famous stories, and some aren't but deserve to be. A couple of the early ones made me check and double check the dates; they seemed too current to be fifty or sixty years old. Most anthologies have their share of skippable stories, but there were only one or two in here that didn't immediately draw me in, and even those were interesting in their own way.

Highlights for me included Judith Merril's "That Only A Mother", Katherine MacLean's "Contagion", Leigh Brackett's "The Woman From Altair," Anne McCaffrey's "The Ship Who Sang," Tiptree's "The Women Men Don't See", Vonda McIntyre's "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand,"... at which point I've named more than half of the book. I have read several of these in the past, but it was interesting to read them again in this context. The introductory essay, the biographic paragraphs, and the recommended reading appendix all serve to make this a cohesive volume, not just a collection of stories.

Highly recommended.

[Matthew Gatheringwater · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful introduction to many of the early female contributors to the field of science fiction. I rediscovered some stories that left a great impression on me as a child. (The Funeral, by Kate Wilhelm, makes The Handmaid's Tale look insipid.) Other stories and authors, especially those published in the forties and fifties, were new to me and some, including Margaret St. Clair and Zenna Henderson, I'd like explore further. This is a good gateway book, with a helpful introduction to guide readers to more good reading. It is also only the first in a series. I'm looking forward to reading the next volume.

[C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, its just a great colleciton of sci-fi shorts. Second, it sheds light on one of the most overlooked sections of the sci-fi world - female authors. This book gives a great historical overview that lets readers know that yes, women have been writing sci-fi for as long as the genre's been around, and often beter than their better known male peers.

[Dominick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good, if not ideal collection of SF by women from the forties to the late seventies. There are several excellent selections, but in a few instances I know better alternatives exist. Still, a very strong collection.

[Clare Driscoll · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this collection! Some of the best, funniest, most thought provoking SciFi from authors I bet a lot of folks didn't know were female. "The Women Men Don't See" by James Tiptree, Jr. is one of my favorites.

[Tribefan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun read! I especially liked the history of women in Science Fiction at the beginning!

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some hits, some misses. A nice way to pass some reading time if you enjoy sci-fi and/or short stories.

[Lisa]

Women of Wonder, the Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s by Pamela Sargent (1995)

[Mills College Library]

Fiction W87253 1995

[Sean]

Wonderful, and surprising all over the place.

[Simon]

Hope to return to this. Some very good stuff in it.