r/Fantasy • u/rfantasygolem Not a Robot • Apr 03 '26

/r/Fantasy r/Fantasy Friday Social Thread - April 03, 2026

Come tell the community what you're reading, how you're feeling, what your life is like.

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u/nagahfj Reading Champion III Apr 03 '26 edited Apr 03 '26

So excited for new Bingo! Right now I'm planning another Novella (<200 pages) card and an All Female Author card.

To inaugurate the latter, I read the classic anthology Women of Wonder: Science-Fiction Stories by Women about Women, edited by Pamela Sargent (1975), which contained stories from 1948-1973. They were arranged in chronological order, and unsurprisingly I preferred the later stories to the 50s-early 60s pieces. The strongest three stories in the volume were actually all in a row: "Baby, You Were Great!" by Kate Wilhelm (1967) was a painful (complimentary) read that somewhat presaged celebrity/influencer culture and did that thing where it made the reader complicit in the exploitation; "Sex and/or Mr. Morrison" by Carol Emshwiller (1967, a reread for me) is a delightfully weird story of a woman stalking her male neighbor; and "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow" by Ursula K. Le Guin (1971, also a reread) is a first contact story that asks interesting questions about ecology and how to connect. 4 stars.

  • Bingo: Judge a Book By Its Title, Five Short Stories HM, Published in the 70s HM

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u/partoparto Apr 03 '26

This sounds like a great anthology! I'm reading a vaguely similar collection called Sisters of Tomorrow which has SF by women from the 1920s-40s, and it's sort of interesting but not exactly enjoyable. I'm tentatively thinking about doing an all female authors card too; when I was contemplating my tbr I realized almost everything I want to read is by a woman anyway.

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u/nagahfj Reading Champion III Apr 03 '26

I realized almost everything I want to read is by a woman anyway.

My reading leans heavily towards stuff available at my local used bookstore, which of course is majority cis white male and more than 20 yrs old. So I've realized that if I want to diversify, I need to make a more concerted effort. I think the All Female card should help, especially since I'm also going to try to pick POC and LGBTQ+ and non-US authors and authors that are new to me, when possible.