annieb123
Written on Jun 23, 2020
Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women (1958-1963) is an anthology of silver age SF written by women. Released 16th Aug 2019 by Journey Press, it's 276 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
This is a varied collection, only a couple were previously familiar to me and all were enjoyable. One reason I prefer collections and anthologies is that short fiction is really challenging. It's spare and the author doesn't have a wealth of wordage to develop characters or the plotting. Well written short fiction is a delight. I also love anthologies because if one story doesn't really grab me, there's another story just a few pages away. Each of these stories are introduced by modern day authors with background info and the intros include interesting tidbits about the authors and their works. Attributions are included in the headers with publication info.
The stories are a varied bunch but all are enjoyable high quality silver age SF and all are 3-5 stars. The styles are reminiscent of a stroll through back issues of Astounding and F&SF (when my young and non-jaded self couldn't *wait* for the new issues to hit the stands). The book also includes an erudite and well written foreword and introduction by Laura Brodian Freas Beraha and Gideon Marcus respectively. I don't recommend that readers go into this anthology searching for feminist themes and righteous indignation because they won't find it. These are classic silver age stories written in classic style by competent authors who happened to be female. There are 14 stories included and, at the very end, a facsimile mimeographed copy of the 1958 Hugo award voting ballot which really made me smile.
Four stars.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.