Recently, SF Signal‘s John DeNardo had a column for Kirkus Review in which he wrote about 5 George R. R. Martin novels before Game of Thrones. His excellent post had me dashing back through my old issues of Analog looking for some of Martin’s short fiction published there in the 1970s. I came across a series of 4 issues in which his novel After the Festival was serialized in the April – July 1977 issues of the magazine. The issue containing the third installment of the serial, June 1977, caught my eyes because of the banner on the cover: “Special Women’s Issue.”
It appears that the issue contained works, fiction and nonfiction, entirely by women, except for George R. R. Martin’s serial.
The guest editorial was by Terri Rapoport and while I was expecting an editorial on women in science fiction, I was surprised to find a kind of summary of the discussions that took place at that year’s Institute of Man and Science program, featuring Isaac Asimov. Stories in the issue were by Joan D. Vinge, Trudy E. Bell, Raccoona Sheldon, Jaygee Carr, Leigh Kennedy, and Alison Tellure.
I’d never known that Analog had done a “special women’s issue” and as it turns out, I’d read none of the stories that appear in the issue, but I have since set it aside as something to go through when I have a little more time. Anyone know if this is the only “special women’s issue” that Analog has done? (For some reason, I can’t imagine Campbell having done this in the Astounding days.)
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Thanks for the link love! 🙂
Asimov’s did an issue (or anthology?) called SPACE OF HER OWN: http://wiki.feministsf.net/index.php?title=Space_of_Her_Own
I am surprised how many of these stories I can still clearly remember. The 16 year old me liked the Joan Vinge yarn set on Titan the best, but the 51 year old me favors that nasty James Tiptree Jr. sex/death tale (one of her very first appearences under her post-exposure Raccoona Sheldon moniker).
In the category of “you learn something every day”: I never knew that Raccoona Sheldon was Alice Sheldon/James Tiptree, Jr.!
The Alison Tellure is the first of a crackerjack series about water based aliens fighting for survival on a planet. Good stuff, but the four sections are too brief to do a Van Vogt-esque fix-up into a novel. A pity.