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Reviews
Women Destroy Science Fiction!: Lightspeed Magazine Special Issue; The Stories by Christie Yant
dzana's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
mmelibertine's review against another edition
5.0
What a beautiful collection. It's such a joy to read such a wide range of stories by and for women, showcasing all that women can be and do, and all that self-appointed gatekeepers would try to keep from us. I could hug each writer, editor, and artist who made this work of art happen. (Consider yourselves warned, should I ever be so lucky as to meet you.)
It'd be foolish for me to try to choose favorites, but I'll say this - I enjoyed even the interviews and essays far more than I thought I would. The nonfiction entries give a great insight into women currently 'destroying' and thoroughly stretching the boundaries of their genre/s. As a writer it's immensely inspiring. As a reader it's unbelievably satisfying.
It'd be foolish for me to try to choose favorites, but I'll say this - I enjoyed even the interviews and essays far more than I thought I would. The nonfiction entries give a great insight into women currently 'destroying' and thoroughly stretching the boundaries of their genre/s. As a writer it's immensely inspiring. As a reader it's unbelievably satisfying.
morgandhu's review against another edition
5.0
Amazing. A collection of short stories, artwork, flash fiction, essays and personal statements, all written by women, collected and edited and assembled by women... A rare treat. There is so much really good stuff in this, i despair at the thought of naming and describing it all. Just read it. There's something here for everyone. Support women destroying science fiction.... Because then we can rebuild it to be more inclusive, wider and deeper and better for having more perspectives.
lauredhel's review against another edition
5.0
I don't know if the Puppies would consider this military SF. But it is. And it's awesome.
(Note that it isn't the horror of her other mermaid story, Rolling in the Deep. There is heavy body-mod, if you're sensitive to that sort of thing, but it isn't terrifying like RitD is.)
(Note that it isn't the horror of her other mermaid story, Rolling in the Deep. There is heavy body-mod, if you're sensitive to that sort of thing, but it isn't terrifying like RitD is.)
apostrophen's review against another edition
4.0
Reviews of individual stories will pop up on my blog under this tag.
guerrichache's review against another edition
5.0
A wonderful collection. Unfortunately I'm adding this review many months after reading it, so my memory has become spotty, but I'll say that none of the stories or essays disappointed. There was a great deal of variety along all possible axes, and the book turned me on to some new authors I wasn't aware of before. I absolutely recommend picking this up and reading it!
I'd like to specifically call out "The Hymn Of Ordeal, No. 23" by Rhiannon Rasmussen. Definitely my favourite piece of the set in terms of writing and language - beautiful, haunting, absolutely lovely. It's also very short, and I hear it's been adapted to a comic too.
I'd like to specifically call out "The Hymn Of Ordeal, No. 23" by Rhiannon Rasmussen. Definitely my favourite piece of the set in terms of writing and language - beautiful, haunting, absolutely lovely. It's also very short, and I hear it's been adapted to a comic too.
jennyanydots's review against another edition
4.0
I've been wanting to try and read a bit more sci-fi, because it's a genre I've tended to avoid, and this kept coming up in recommendations, so when Amazon got in on the act too, I gave in and bought the ebook version going cheap. I don't think there was a bad story in there, although some were just good and others were great. Some very thought provoking writing, including some that got nominated for awards, and a really good way to identify a bunch of authors I would like to read more from. The hard copy was obviously illustrated too, as they had a series of interviews with the artists - I can see myself buying a physical copy later so I can lend it out later, and refer back to it to follow up future reading. Not something I'd ordinarily have gone for but really glad I did.
tachyondecay's review against another edition
3.0
I actually don’t read Lightspeed all that much, so it’s hard for me to evaluate this special edition in that context. All I can say is that this is packed full of good content. In addition to original stories there are reprints, some good flash fiction (one of which is my all-time favourite of the volume), non-fiction discussions and essays, and a novel excerpt. It’s good times.
I didn’t like every, or maybe even most, of the original short stories. I’m starting to think that’s probably a good thing when reading a multi-author anthology. If I liked every story, then the anthology would only appeal to people with very similar tastes to mine. Rather, this indicates that the anthology might appeal to a broader audience, some of whom will have very different tastes from me and consequently like different work. Here’s a few highlights, according to my tastes.
Rhonda Eikamp’s “The Case of the Passionless Bees” was a cool take on the Sherlock Holmes mythos that I had never seen before. She swiftly captures the delicious irony that Holmes, like many great detectives, is so good at his job because he is so close to that line (though in this case, because Holmes is a robot, there is an emotional twist to that line of reasoning).
“In the Image of Man,” by Gabriella Stalker, posits an empty world in which we are reduced to arcologies within shopping centres, and suddenly any faith feels new and exciting.
Charlie Jane Anders once again demonstrates her ability to use strange technology to explore the boundaries we create in our relationship with “The Unfathomable Sisterhood of Ick.” Imagine you could download memories of your girlfriend’s ex so you don’t have to waste time learning her likes and dislikes? Now imagine your best friend does this with your ex’s memories to get closer to you. Yeah.
And “A Burglary, Addressed By a Young Lady,” by Elizabeth Porter Birdsall was just alt-Victoriana fun. I would love to read a novel set in a universe where upper class women have to burgle houses as part of their coming out into society.
Of the reprints, I particularly enjoyed the first and last: “Like Daughter,” by Tananarive Due, and “The Cost to Be Wise,” by Maureen F. McHugh.
Perhaps unusually, the flash fiction section was my favourite. I am not a big short story reader, and even less so flash fiction (though I suspect that’s more a matter of opportunity rather than preference). So I really appreciated being fed some as a kind of coffee break between the short fiction main course and the non-fiction dessert. I enjoyed pretty much every piece.
Carrie Vaughn’s “Salvage,” is interesting because it belies the typical idea that overt conflict must drive a story. Stuff happens, but there is little conflict. It’s an almost entirely descriptive story driven by the protagonist’s narration. The only conflict is in the emotional fatigue of the protagonist.
“The Sewell Home for the Temporally Displaced” is a nice little time travel piece from Sarah Pinsker. (I know Sarah from here on Goodreads, and she is good people. But I single it out because I have a soft spot for fun takes on time travel that resonate in an emotional way.)
By far my favourite piece in the entire collection, however, is “#TrainFightTuesday“ by Vanessa Torline. As with many of the pieces in this collection, you can find it online—in this case, on Lightspeed’s website. Go read it—it’s flash, so it’s short. Enjoy.
Plenty of authors embrace the new wave of epistolary writing that email, blogs, and now Twitter offer up. Torline is not the first, nor will she be the last, to experiment with storytelling in micro-blogging form. But she just does it so well. “#TrainFightTuesday” is a pitch-perfect recounting of a bystander’s observations of a superhero/supervillain showdown in a city where this is the norm. Torline manages to make this world utterly convincing in a short piece of fiction. I like the idea of postmodern superhero fiction, but so far, most of the postmodern superhero novels I’ve read don’t quite work. Maybe shorter fiction is the way to go. Anyway, I was laughing out loud through most of this piece.
There is some good stuff in the non-fiction as well. I liked hearing some perspectives on how the field has changed from people like Ursula K. Le Guin and Nancy Kress in “Women Remember: A Roundtable Interview”. I think it’s important to remember that women have always been a part of science fiction. As exciting and excellent as it is to see so many new women authors receiving accolades and acclaim, we should also celebrate those whose voices stretch back into the decades.
That’s where the personal essays come into the picture. They are short, poignant, and like the rest of the collection, diverse and uneven and of varying appeal. This is what makes them valuable, particularly to me, as a man. I love science fiction, but I am lucky enough that, as a result of the way I perform gender, I have never had my SF fan or geek credentials questioned. No one has ever barred me from science fiction and said I couldn’t read it or write it or attempted to circumscribe whether I could write it “soft” or “hard” (how I hate those designations now). So I can mansplain about misogyny and sexism and barriers all I want … but at the end of the day, it’s academic in the most visceral sense, because the truth is, I just don’t know.
These essays, then, can help me understand, at least a little bit, what it’s like. Because it’s tempting—and the more privilege you have, the more tempting it becomes—to think that we have succeeded in equality for women, or for minorities, simply because authors who fall into those categories are more numerous and more visible. These stories make it clear that’s not the case. And while not every woman experiences discrimination in the same way or to the same extent, it’s there. And for those of us who identify as men, our duty is to listen to women when they tell us about that discrimination and believe them, instead of just shaking our heads and telling them to stop being so hormonal and worrying about nothing.
Do we even need an all-woman special edition of a science-fiction magazine?
The fact that some people are even asking the above question seriously in 2014 shows that we do.
That Women Destroy Science Fiction! happens to be a wonderful exercise in giving women SF authors voice and space doesn’t necessarily make it good. (The wonderful stories it contains take care of that.) It’s possible to laud this effort for its aims even if one doesn’t enjoy many of the stories. Likewise, it’s possible to enjoy the stories herein even if one isn’t as convinced as I am about the wider sociopolitical issues that led to its existence. (And if that’s the case, I hope you read the non-fiction section with an open mind and allow yourself to listen to the wider discussion, of which this work is only a small part.)
Really though, at the end of the day, we won’t truly be able to call ourselves equal and unbiased until we get a special edition of Lightspeed authored entirely by robots.
We can call it Our Gracious Machine Overlords Destroy Science Fiction!.
Robot rights: it’s the issue of 2015, people.
I didn’t like every, or maybe even most, of the original short stories. I’m starting to think that’s probably a good thing when reading a multi-author anthology. If I liked every story, then the anthology would only appeal to people with very similar tastes to mine. Rather, this indicates that the anthology might appeal to a broader audience, some of whom will have very different tastes from me and consequently like different work. Here’s a few highlights, according to my tastes.
Rhonda Eikamp’s “The Case of the Passionless Bees” was a cool take on the Sherlock Holmes mythos that I had never seen before. She swiftly captures the delicious irony that Holmes, like many great detectives, is so good at his job because he is so close to that line (though in this case, because Holmes is a robot, there is an emotional twist to that line of reasoning).
“In the Image of Man,” by Gabriella Stalker, posits an empty world in which we are reduced to arcologies within shopping centres, and suddenly any faith feels new and exciting.
Charlie Jane Anders once again demonstrates her ability to use strange technology to explore the boundaries we create in our relationship with “The Unfathomable Sisterhood of Ick.” Imagine you could download memories of your girlfriend’s ex so you don’t have to waste time learning her likes and dislikes? Now imagine your best friend does this with your ex’s memories to get closer to you. Yeah.
And “A Burglary, Addressed By a Young Lady,” by Elizabeth Porter Birdsall was just alt-Victoriana fun. I would love to read a novel set in a universe where upper class women have to burgle houses as part of their coming out into society.
Of the reprints, I particularly enjoyed the first and last: “Like Daughter,” by Tananarive Due, and “The Cost to Be Wise,” by Maureen F. McHugh.
Perhaps unusually, the flash fiction section was my favourite. I am not a big short story reader, and even less so flash fiction (though I suspect that’s more a matter of opportunity rather than preference). So I really appreciated being fed some as a kind of coffee break between the short fiction main course and the non-fiction dessert. I enjoyed pretty much every piece.
Carrie Vaughn’s “Salvage,” is interesting because it belies the typical idea that overt conflict must drive a story. Stuff happens, but there is little conflict. It’s an almost entirely descriptive story driven by the protagonist’s narration. The only conflict is in the emotional fatigue of the protagonist.
“The Sewell Home for the Temporally Displaced” is a nice little time travel piece from Sarah Pinsker. (I know Sarah from here on Goodreads, and she is good people. But I single it out because I have a soft spot for fun takes on time travel that resonate in an emotional way.)
By far my favourite piece in the entire collection, however, is “#TrainFightTuesday“ by Vanessa Torline. As with many of the pieces in this collection, you can find it online—in this case, on Lightspeed’s website. Go read it—it’s flash, so it’s short. Enjoy.
Plenty of authors embrace the new wave of epistolary writing that email, blogs, and now Twitter offer up. Torline is not the first, nor will she be the last, to experiment with storytelling in micro-blogging form. But she just does it so well. “#TrainFightTuesday” is a pitch-perfect recounting of a bystander’s observations of a superhero/supervillain showdown in a city where this is the norm. Torline manages to make this world utterly convincing in a short piece of fiction. I like the idea of postmodern superhero fiction, but so far, most of the postmodern superhero novels I’ve read don’t quite work. Maybe shorter fiction is the way to go. Anyway, I was laughing out loud through most of this piece.
There is some good stuff in the non-fiction as well. I liked hearing some perspectives on how the field has changed from people like Ursula K. Le Guin and Nancy Kress in “Women Remember: A Roundtable Interview”. I think it’s important to remember that women have always been a part of science fiction. As exciting and excellent as it is to see so many new women authors receiving accolades and acclaim, we should also celebrate those whose voices stretch back into the decades.
That’s where the personal essays come into the picture. They are short, poignant, and like the rest of the collection, diverse and uneven and of varying appeal. This is what makes them valuable, particularly to me, as a man. I love science fiction, but I am lucky enough that, as a result of the way I perform gender, I have never had my SF fan or geek credentials questioned. No one has ever barred me from science fiction and said I couldn’t read it or write it or attempted to circumscribe whether I could write it “soft” or “hard” (how I hate those designations now). So I can mansplain about misogyny and sexism and barriers all I want … but at the end of the day, it’s academic in the most visceral sense, because the truth is, I just don’t know.
These essays, then, can help me understand, at least a little bit, what it’s like. Because it’s tempting—and the more privilege you have, the more tempting it becomes—to think that we have succeeded in equality for women, or for minorities, simply because authors who fall into those categories are more numerous and more visible. These stories make it clear that’s not the case. And while not every woman experiences discrimination in the same way or to the same extent, it’s there. And for those of us who identify as men, our duty is to listen to women when they tell us about that discrimination and believe them, instead of just shaking our heads and telling them to stop being so hormonal and worrying about nothing.
Do we even need an all-woman special edition of a science-fiction magazine?
The fact that some people are even asking the above question seriously in 2014 shows that we do.
That Women Destroy Science Fiction! happens to be a wonderful exercise in giving women SF authors voice and space doesn’t necessarily make it good. (The wonderful stories it contains take care of that.) It’s possible to laud this effort for its aims even if one doesn’t enjoy many of the stories. Likewise, it’s possible to enjoy the stories herein even if one isn’t as convinced as I am about the wider sociopolitical issues that led to its existence. (And if that’s the case, I hope you read the non-fiction section with an open mind and allow yourself to listen to the wider discussion, of which this work is only a small part.)
Really though, at the end of the day, we won’t truly be able to call ourselves equal and unbiased until we get a special edition of Lightspeed authored entirely by robots.
We can call it Our Gracious Machine Overlords Destroy Science Fiction!.
Robot rights: it’s the issue of 2015, people.