Women of the Pulps

By: Katherine MacLean, Greye La Spina, Judith Merril, Sonya Dorman, Alice Eleanor Jones, Sophie Wenzel Ellis, Francis Stevens

Narrated by: Rachael Endrizzi

Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

Historically, science fiction has a reputation of being created by men for other men. Women who wrote speculative fiction often used their initials or male pseudonyms to conceal their gender. During the '50s and ‘60s, only 10 percent of pulp fiction stories were written by women, many of whom have since been lost or forgotten.

This anthology attempts to preserve the place of women in American society and imagination by collecting some of the best stories by women pulp writers, including Katherine MacLean, Greye La Spina, Judith Merril, Sonya Dorman, Alice Eleanor Jones, Sophie Wenzel Ellis, and Francis Stevens.

©2021 PraxiScope Productions (P)2021 PraxiScope Productions

Very interesting, would’ve been helped by dates.

The content of these stories is catnip for fans of golden age sci-fi, though an editorial chapter explaining the rationale of which writers and stories were selected, and what themes might connect them, would’ve helped.

Women writing pulp sci-fi is already a specific enough book that a more explicit editorial outline would’ve helped: were they selected for being good examples of work by women writers, or examples of perspective or story beats notably different from what men wrote at the time? There are examples that might indicate both, but guessing isn’t as handy as being informed.

Similarly, it would be nice to have dates of publication, to put the stories into perspective.