Who remembers the SF Mistressworks meme, a list of science fiction by women writers from the twentieth century (and earlier)? I originally posted it in March 2011 (see here), and it then inspired me to create the SF Mistressworks website. Which is still going strong.

But that original list had a few problems. A couple of the titles I’d proposed turned out to be fantasy and not science fiction… The list also contained only 91 books, as I’d not managed to think of 100 suitable titles.

But three years later, I’ve read a lot more sf by women writers, and I’ve done more research on the topic. So I felt it was time for a new version of the list. Also, many more of the books are now available once again – either published by small presses, or made available on Kindle by the SF Gateway or the authors themselves self-publishing their back-catalogue.

The list below mostly unchanged from the original – I’ve simply expanded it to 100, removed the fantasy novels, made a few alternative selections for a couple of writers, and added some more writers I’d unfairly missed off first time around. It now looks like this:

1. Frankenstein*, Mary Shelley (1818)
2. Herland†, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915)
3. Orlando, Virginia Woolf (1928)
4. Lest Ye Die, Cicely Hamilton (1928)
5. Swastika Night, Katharine Burdekin (1937)
6. Shadow on the Hearth, Judith Merril (1950)
7. Judgment Night, CL Moore (1952)
8. The Sword of Rhiannon, Leigh Brackett (1953)
9. Agent of the Unknown, Margaret St Clair (1956)
10. Pilgrimage: The Book of the People, Zenna Henderson (1961)
11. Catseye, Andre Norton (1961)
12. Memoirs of a Spacewoman†, Naomi Mitchison (1962)
13. Sunburst, Phyllis Gotlieb (1964)
14. Heroes and Villains, Angela Carter (1969)
15. Armed Camps, Kit Reed (1969)
16. Darkover Landfall, Marion Zimmer Bradley (1972)
17. Ten Thousand Light-years from Home, James Tiptree Jr (1973)
18. The Dispossessed*, Ursula K LeGuin (1974)
19. Walk to the End of the World†, Suzy McKee Charnas (1974)
20. Star Rider†, Doris Piserchia (1974)
21. The Female Man*†, Joanna Russ (1975
22. Missing Man, Katherine MacLean (1975)
23. Arslan*, MJ Engh (1976)
24. Don’t Bite the Sun, Tanith Lee (1976)
25. Floating Worlds*, Cecelia Holland (1976)
26. Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang*, Kate Wilhelm (1976)
27. Islands, Marta Randall (1976)
28. Dreamsnake, Vonda N McIntyre (1978)
29. False Dawn, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (1978)
30. Shikasta, Doris Lessing (1979)
31. Kindred†, Octavia Butler (1979)
32. Benefits, Zoe Fairbairns (1979)
33. Leviathan’s Deep, Jayge Carr (1979)
34. A Voice Out of Ramah, Lee Killough (1979)
35. The Snow Queen, Joan D Vinge (1980)
36. The Silent City†, Élisabeth Vonarburg (1981)
37. The Many-Coloured Land, Julian May (1981)
38. Darkchild, Sydney J Van Scyoc (1982)
39. The Crystal Singer, Anne McCaffery (1982)
40. Native Tongue†, Suzette Haden Elgin (1984)
41. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1985)
42. Jerusalem Fire, RM Meluch (1985)
43. The Children of Anthi, Jay D Blakeney (1985)
44. The Dream Years, Lisa Goldstein (1985)
45. Last Letters from Hav, Jan Morris (1985)
46. Queen of the States†, Josephine Saxton (1986)
47. The Wave and the Flame, Marjorie Bradley Kellogg (1986)
48. The Journal of Nicholas the American, Leigh Kennedy (1986)
49. A Door into Ocean†, Joan Slonczewski (1986)
50. Angel At Apogee, SN Lewitt (1987)
51. In Conquest Born, CS Friedman (1987)
52. Pennterra, Judith Moffett (1987)
53. Kairos, Gwyneth Jones (1988)
54. Cyteen, CJ Cherryh (1988)
55. Unquenchable Fire*, Rachel Pollack (1988)
56. The City, Not Long After, Pat Murphy (1988)
57. Carmen Dog†, Carol Emshwiller (1988)
58. The Steerswoman, Rosemary Kirstein (1989)
59. The Third Eagle, RA MacAvoy (1989)
60. Grass*, Sheri S Tepper (1989)
61. Heritage of Flight, Susan Shwartz (1989)
62. Falcon, Emma Bull (1989)
63. The Archivist, Gill Alderman (1989)
64. Winterlong, Elizabeth Hand (1990)
65. A Gift Upon the Shore, MK Wren (1990)
66. Red Spider, White Web, Misha (1990)
67. Polar City Blues, Katherine Kerr (1990)
68. He, She and It (AKA Body of Glass), Marge Piercy (1991)
69. Sarah Canary*, Karen Joy Fowler (1991)
70. Beggars in Spain, Nancy Kress (1991)
71. A Woman of the Iron People, Eleanor Arnason (1991)
72. Hermetech, Storm Constantine (1991)
73. Synners, Pat Cadigan (1991)
74. China Mountain Zhang, Maureen F McHugh (1992)
75. Correspondence†, Sue Thomas (1992)
76. Lost Futures, Lisa Tuttle (1992)
77. Doomsday Book*, Connie Willis (1992)
78. Ammonite*, Nicola Griffith (1993)
79. The Holder of the World†, Bharati Mukherjee (1993)
80. Dancing on the Volcano, Anne Gay (1993)
81. Queen City Jazz, Kathleen Ann Goonan (1994)
82. Happy Policeman, Patricia Anthony (1994)
83. Shadow Man, Melissa Scott (1995)
84. Legacies, Alison Sinclair (1995)
85. Primary Inversion, Catherine Asaro (1995)
86. Alien Influences, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (1995)
87. The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell (1996)
88. Memory, Lois McMaster Bujold (1996)
89. Remnant Population, Elizabeth Moon (1996)
90. Looking For The Mahdi, N Lee Wood (1996)
91. An Exchange of Hostages, Susan R Matthews (1997)
92. Fool’s War, Sarah Zettel (1997)
93. Black Wine, Candas Jane Dorsey (1997)
94. A Thousand Words for Stranger, Julie E Czernada (1997)
95. Halfway Human, Carolyn Ives Gilman (1998)
96. Vast, Linda Nagata (1998)
97. Hand of Prophecy, Severna Park (1998)
98. Brown Girl In The Ring, Nalo Hopkinson (1998)
99. Dreaming In Smoke, Tricia Sullivan (1999)
100. Ash: A Secret History, Mary Gentle (2000)

Although there were around sixty women actively writing science fiction or fantasy in the 1940s, I can’t find a sf novel written by any of them which was published in that decade. Several of the writers on the list are better known as writers of fantasy, but they have written science fiction and that’s what I’ve listed. Books in Gollancz’s SF Masterworks series I’ve marked with an asterisk (*) – many of these were added to the series after I posted the original list three years ago. Books that were published by The Women’s Press back in the 1980s/1990s I’ve marked with a dagger (†).

Myself, I’ve read 49 of the books, and have a further eight on the TBR. Forty-eight of the books have also been reviewed on SF Mistressworks, some of them several times.

Finally, are there any writers I’ve missed who really belong on the list? Don’t forget it’s books published up until 2000. Perhaps some of the books on the list are not the author’s best work, perhaps another title would better. One or two were, I admit, judgement calls – for example, Marge Piercy’s He, She and It (as Body of Glass) won the Clarke Award in 1992 but is no longer in print; her Woman on the Edge of Time, however, is (but it was also first published in 1976, and I felt I had more than enough books from that year). There are, as far as I’m aware, only two cheats on the list – Tiptree is represented by a collection rather than a novel; and Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind is an anthology  – and, to be honest, there are a good number of women-only sf anthologies which might be better choices.

ETA: removed Despatches from the Frontiers of the Female Mind as it’s an anthology, and added Joachim Boaz’s suggestion of Kit Reed’s Armed Camps. I’ll be posting a list of women-only sf anthologies shortly.