The Future is Female Vol 2 edited by Lisa Yaszek
450 pages, Hardcover
October 2022, Library of America
My Interviews with Editor Lisa Yaszek
Audio of Vol 1 interview with Lisa
Audio Interview on Volume 2 with Lisa
Video of vol. 2 interview with Lisa
The mark of an important anthology is standing the test of time. Most anthologies just have the job of collecting stories. This book and the first in the series are so much more than just stories. That being said the Future is Female has stories, great glorious stories that capture an era, a time. You will enjoy a variety of stories, but more important entertain and teach. Part of this review will be telling you about the impact the first book had on me because It had a big impact.
Before we get into the stories let's try to sell you out of the gates to open another tab on your browser and order this book, or request it at your library. Whatever you have to do to get a copy. This edition is stories from the 70s in chronological order by year. In the back of the book are extremely detailed biographies, I went back and read those before each story and I recommend that. You want to know that the very sexual “A Way Out” by Miriam Allen Deford was 92 years old when it was published. You want to know that Kate Wilham was a founder of the Clarion Writers workshop. It brings a personal touch to each story. In the end, there are 400 pages of Sci-fi from Huge names Leguin and Russ, legends like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Tiptree Jr. to stories that appeared in fanzines lost to time like the opener Bitching it by Sonya Dorman Hess.
These are stories of second-wave feminism, they explore environmentalism, post-male societies, first menstruation, and the nitty-gritty of being a woman. Common in fiction now, to find fiction about the experience of women, but sadly revolutionary in a genre that fairly or unfairly is painted as a boy's club at the time. Yaszek's books make clear women were ALWAYS there.
The stories have righteous anger and deserved frustration with patriarchy that Vol. 1 didn’t have. The women writing Science Fiction from the 1920s to 1969 had different agendas. Judith Merril aside whom openly challenged John W. Campbell and told him "I am going to sell you stories and you are going to like it." Even Campbell with his myriad problems couldn't resist the tide.
Now that I read Vol 1, four years in the past how did reading it affect me? Authors I never heard of before reading that book CL Moore and Judith Merril have become favorites I have devoted episodes of both podcasts too. Leigh Brackett an author I knew has become a heavier part of my rotation. I visited buildings CL Moore lived and worked in during visits to our mutual home state of Indiana. I have read more about Katherine Maclean and Claire Winger Harris since then.
Vol. 2 I knew the names of more of the writers, I had read a few of the stories. In the interview posted here, Lisa talks about the selection process. Her younger grad students being fourth-wave feminists reading second-wave stories and how they reacted across generations was interesting.
My favorite stories this time included “A Way Out,” by Deford, Frog Pond by Chelsea Quinn Yarbo, The Screwfly Solution is a stone-cold masterpiece, and had I just read it last year, why the hell not read it again? Joan D. Vinge's story and the closing story by Connie Willis were highlights.
Lisa Yaszek is one of my favorite interviews but her appearances, four of them total on the Dickheads podcast. She is the Regents Professor of Science Fiction Studies in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech. She is the author of Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women’s Science Fiction and co-editor of Sisters of Tomorrow. Most importantly today she is the editor of two Library of America editions of The Future is Female. These are definitive anthologies that paint the history of women’s role in the writing of 20th century Science Fiction. I interviewed her about the first Future is Female Vol 1 on DHP, She also joined us for panels on Cancel Culture, Scholars in Quarantine, and a panel on the work of Judith Merril.
Yeah, Lisa is an example of a legit in academic scholar we need. Jo Walton for example, does similar things as an author and fan. Genres like SF, horror, crime or mystery. We have to preserve out history. We need both. Books like The Future of Female are so important. These two books should be on the shelf of feminists everywhere because they highlight how unique the power of science fiction genre is for empowering women. Science Fiction can crush patriarchy in the right hands and this book is a hammer for the toolkit.
