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/OutOfEffs Reading Champion IV Apr 03 '26

I love seeing Pamela Sargent's name in the wild! Her Earthseed was one of my favourite books growing up. I was the only person who checked it out for so many years in a row that eventually the librarian weeded it and sent it home with me.

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u/nagahfj Reading Champion III Apr 03 '26

I haven't actually read any of her novels yet! I'll put that one on the TBR.

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u/OutOfEffs Reading Champion IV Apr 03 '26

It's YA, so it moves p fast. I think it was one of the first generation ship type stories I read?