Susan Janice Anderson

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/aurora-beyond-equality-eds-vonda-n-mcintyre-and-....

The rubric of the anthology is “Amazing Tales of the Ultimate Sexual Revolution”, the editors sayiong in their preface that they wanted fiction that explored what the world might look like after equality between the sexes had been achieved. They didn’t really get it, but it’s a good anthology anyway.

In fact it incudes two stories by the same author, as the editors were not aware that Tiptree and show more Racoona Sheldon were the same person. It also includes the first chapter of Woman on the Edge of Time, by Marge Piercy, and Ursula Le Guin’s non-fiction essay “Is Gender Necessary?” A couple of the others are real duds, but the good pieces are very good, and I think it’s a useful representation of both how far sf had come in 1976 and how much farther there still was to go. show less

This 1976 book collections a selection of science fiction short stories on the theme of gender equality. I found them to be an interesting mixture. Indeed, some appeared to have little connection to the theme as far as I could tell. But I was reading from the perspective of 2012, so this might be inevitable. I thought that the second story, 'Houston, Houston, do you read?' was unnecessarily long, taking up more than a quarter of the book. It was also very predictable, likely because I have show more come across the same plot in other (later?) sci-fi several times before.

My favourite stories, however, were 'Corruption' by Joanna Russ, which was engagingly weird and had a wonderfully unsettling atmosphere, and 'Woman on the Edge of Time' by Marge Piercy, which presented an appealing utopian vision. I've read and greatly appreciated novels by Joanna Russ before, but Marge Piercy is new to me. This collection also reminded me that I still haven't read, 'The Left Hand of Darkness' and should.

I almost always find short story collections substantially less satisfying than full novels. With reservations, this one is well worth reading. Once you get past the lengthy second story, there are some very intriguing ideas and concepts to be found. show less

See http://sfmistressworks.wordpress.com/2014/08/26/aurora-beyond-equality-vonda-n-m...