Women in/and Science Fiction

Science Fiction is a stereotypically male genre. I'm not going to pretend I'm one of those awesome nerdy girls who reads nothing but sf*, but I am a born reader and writer - I will read anything with fleshed-out characters and an engaging narrative. I took a Science Fiction course for my English degree and quite enjoyed it.

Me being me, I always prefer reading women writers. I also prefer when those women writers are writing about women. Reverse sexism, yes, but it's a powerful feeling. Having said that, the best book I read in my course was The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin. A woman writer, obviously, but a male protagonist - and a brilliant example of world-building and character exploration in a fascinating plot.

Recently I've been reading the short story anthologies I've collected over years of English study; we never read more than ten stories per class and the volumes are just bursting. I started with Canadian Short Stories and gradually made my way to the final page. Now I've returned to Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts, hence the content of this post. The stories cover quite a span of the history of English literature, and I find that most are only tolerable. Vaguely interesting, vaguely well-written, nothing to call home about.

However, yesterday I got to a story that I just adored and had to write about. A woman writing a woman, yes, and about time in an anthology like this. I'm always excited to find a new "default" author - one that writes so effectively I immediately possess faith enough to go pick up a stack of her books and start devouring. Maybe she's very popular and I'm just out of the loop, but here is my recommendation regardless!

The story is "Nekropolis" by Maureen McHugh. I see from the Amazon page what the anthology told me and I forgot: the author developed the short story in question into a full-length novel. The entry in the anthology reads, "Maureen McHugh has won widespread critical acclaim for her quiet, psychologically probing fiction, which is sometimes compared to the work of Ursula K. Le Guin, with whom she shares an anthropological bent and a gift for finely crafted, character-driven stories." Is it any wonder I fell in love?

The setting is ambiguous, though certainly Middle- or Near-Eastern. The focus is a young woman who chose to enter into a type of servitude assured by an enforced emotional and affectionate bond to her master. She is bought and sold and cannot choose to change positions. Her life is no longer her own. The woman is disturbed when her master's household adds a new technology - a bioengineered clone created to look a certain way, feel a certain way, and act a certain way. She is disgusted by the idea, but slowly comes to realize that he is closer to human than she first thought. DOT DOT DOT.

I was thoroughly engaged throughout and dejected when I came to the end. I can only hope that the novel will be equally intriguing.

*Did you know that the accepted term for Science Fiction is actually sf? My sources say "sci fi" is actually a faux pas. Who knew.