Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Niall Harrison's poll on recent sf novels by women

I thought I'd better remind everyone that Niall Harrison is taking sf readers' lists for a poll he's doing on "the best sf novels by women" of the decade, and the deadline is Dec. 5.

I'm not at home, so I don't have visual access to my bookshelves. So I may be omitting something I really love. Also, I made the decision not to list two titles by the same author, so that I could list ten different women writers. But here's what I've come up with, myself:

Gwyneth Jones, Life
Andrea Hairston, Mindscape
Ursula K. Le Guin, Lavinia
Nalo Hopkinson, The Salt Roads
Carol Emshwiller, The Mount
Tricia Sullivan, Double Vision
Molly Gloss, Wildlife
Rebecca Ore, Time's Child
Nnedi Okorafor, The Shadow Speaker
Kathleen Ann Goonan, In War Times

Some powerful stuff, no?

3 comments:

Timmi Duchamp said...

I've learned that the cutoff date is 2001, so I'm dropping Molly Gloss's Wildlife & am adding Laura J. Mixon's Burning Ice.

Marie-Thérèse said...

What a fantastic list! I am nodding in agreement on some and taking down names for others.

I'm commenting though to state how truly thrilled I am to see someone else who properly appreciates 'Life'. It's a remarkable, deeply thought-provoking book that it seems like far too few people have read (although, based on conversations on Library Thing and elsewhere, many sci-fi/speculative fiction readers seem to have it in their TBR pile).

P.S. I do watch your library on LT. You have a wonderful collection and I like seeing what we have in common and what is unique to you there. Gives me a lot to explore and search out. So thank you for making your library public.

Timmi Duchamp said...

I've just realized an omission (probably made because I'd somehow remembered it as belonging to the prvevous decade), Lctavia Butler's Fledgling.

@Marie-Therese: Thank you! Anent LT, I haven't quite finished listing my entire library. I find doing that fun &relaxing. & I love checking out other people's libraries myself--as you might imagine, I'm always curious when visiting others' homes about what books I'll find on their shelves.