What what makes, one may also destroy. Women writers, having created science fiction in works like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, are now destroying it. NPR books picks up this idea today. Of course, science fiction isn’t being destroyed. It’s changing, and the new space being claimed by diverse voices in the genre is the energy changing it.
Warning: you don’t want to read the comments!
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If your notion of SF is confined to the vision brought forth by the likes of Asimov, Heinlein, Herbert, Sturgeon and Clarke all fine writers, mind, then the stories within these pages may well seem like destruction. As will such alarming developments as women sweeping the fiction categories of the Nebula Awards. And the way that speakers at feminist SF conventions characterize science fiction as an “exploration of the future and myth and history” and call for more stories that include “the voices, experiences, subjectivities and realities of many.”
So are women destroying science fiction? Yes. Women created it, so its only fair. Most would cite Frankenstein author Mary Shelley here, but others point out that Margaret Cavendish preceded her. In destroying it, women are creating a larger space for themselves within science fiction; one filled with their voices, dreams, experiences and realities.
Damien Walter 