Recommendations -- FSF/F/U for Beginners

aka the feminist sf canon

OK, I know I'm asking for it by setting up a recommended reading list. This is just a starting point. I would certainly not say that exclusion of a particular work makes it less feminist, less interesting, whatever. I'm listing works here for any one of several reasons: They are significant in science fiction circles, significant in mainstream literature circles, groundbreaking in one or another way, winners of the Tiptree Award, representative of a particular style of feminist science fiction, or particularly interesting in some other way. Pretty murky criteria, huh? -- LQ, 4/14/96.

First things first. Everyone should go, now, and read all the James Tiptree, Jr., Award Winners. Then read the short-lists. Then read anything below on this list that you haven't already read. Then read the Tiptree long-lists. Now you're ready to get going.

• Margaret Atwood. The Handmaid's Tale.
• Louky Bersianik. The Euguelionne (1976) (translated from the French)
• Marion Zimmer Bradley. The Mists of Avalon.
  --. Thendara House. (Darkover)
  --. The Shattered Chain (Darkover).
• Gerd Brantenberg. Egalia's Daughters
• Dorothy Bryant. The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You
• Katherine Burdekin. Swastika Night
• Octavia Butler. Wild Seed.
  --. Parable of the Sower.
  --. Kindred.
  --. Xenogenesis Trilogy: Dawn, Adulthood Rites, Imago.
• Leonora Carrington. The Hearing Trumpet
• Angela Carter. The Bloody Chamber and Saints and Sinners
• Suzy McKee Charnas. Walk to the End of the World.
  --. Motherlines.
  --. The Furies.
  --. The Conqueror's Child
• Samuel Delany. Triton
  --. Dhalgren
• Candas Jane Dorsey. Black Wine
• Suzette Haden Elgin. Native Tongue.
  --. The Judas Rose: Native Tongue II.
  --. "For the Sake of Grace" (copyright 1969 from Fantasy & Science Fiction; reprinted in Donald Wollheim & Terry Carr's World's Best Science Fiction: 1970).
• Sally Miller Gearhart. The Wanderground.
• Charlotte Perkins Gilman. "The Yellow Wallpaper"
  --. Herland
• Jewelle Gomez. The Gilda Stories
• Nicola Griffith. Ammonite.
• Bertha Harris. Lover (1976)
• Nalo Hopkinson. Brown Girl in the Ring
• Gwyneth Jones. White Queen
• Tanith Lee. The Birthgrave (1975)
• Ursula K. Le Guin. Always Coming Home.
  --. The Left Hand of Darkness.
  --. Tehanu.
  --. The Birthday of the World and Other Stories (2002)
• Elizabeth Lynn. The Northern Girl.
  --. The woman Who Loved the Moon and Other Stories (1981)
• Maureen McHugh. Mission Child
• Vonda McIntyre. Dreamsnake (1978)
• Judith Merril. Daughters of Earth and Other Stories (1969)
• Naomi Mitchison. Memoirs of a Spacewoman (1962)
  --. Solution Three (1975)
• Elizabeth Moon. Sheep-Farmer's Daughter
• C.L. Moore. Jirel of Joiry (1969) (a series of stories)
• Marge Piercy. Woman on the Edge of Time.
  --. He, She, and It.
• Joanna Russ. The Female Man
  --. The Adventures of Alyx
  --. The Two of Them
  
• Jessica Amanda Salmonson. Amazons! anthologies (two)
• Pamela Sargent. Women of Wonder anthologies.
  --. The Shore of Women.
• Melissa Scott. Shadowman
  --. Trouble and Her Friends
• Mary Shelley. Frankenstein
• Joan Slonczewski. A Door Into Ocean.
• Secret Feminist Cabal. Flying Cups and Saucers (1998) (the Tiptree anthology)
• Nancy Springer. Larque on the Wing.
• Starhawk. The Fifth Sacred Thing.
• Theodore Sturgeon. Venus Plus X
• Sheri Tepper. Beauty.
  --. The Gate to Women's Country.
• James Tiptree, Jr. "Your Faces, O My Sisters!" in Aurora: Beyond Equality.
  --. "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" in Aurora: Beyond Equality.
• Elisabeth Vonarburg. The Silent City.
  --. In the Mother's Land.
• Sylvia Townsend Warner. Lolly Willowes, or, The Loving Huntsman (1925)
• Monique Wittig. Les Guerrilleres
• Virginia Woolf. Orlando
• Jane Yolen. Sister Light, Sister Dark