The Future is Female!: because Shameless Ploy to Cash in on a Feminist Slogan Plus One Random Story by Ursula K. Le Guin...
A story collection, edited by Yaszek (Science Fiction/Georgia Inst. of Technology), billing itself as a set of science-fiction classics written by women.
With a title like this, readers may assume they’ll get a sweeping look at all science fiction written by women from the early to mid-20th century. And that is the case—to a point. Upon closer examination, 24 of the stories are taken directly from pulp magazines, except for Ursula K. Le Guin’s contribution, which, in this version, appeared in her 1975 collection, The Wind's Twelve Quarters. The selection of pulp stories is somewhat questionable. For instance, the introduction recounts how the editor of Weird Tales “closed his office for the day in celebration” upon reading C.L. Moore’s story “Shambleau.” If that piques your interest, too bad: That story isn’t here. Moore’s “The Black God’s Kiss” is—but it’s sword-and-sorcery with a hint of eldritch horror, not science fiction. And why acknowledge that Marion Zimmer Bradley has been accused by her daughter of sexual abuse yet still include her in this anthology? These issues aside, make no mistake: The quality of the stories here is unassailable. “The Last Flight of Dr. Ain,” written by James Tiptree Jr. in 1969, still adeptly offers the chilling fear of a global pandemic. Alice Eleanor Jones’ post-apocalyptic “Created He Them” is surely just as disturbing as it was in 1955. Zenna Henderson’s “Ararat,” with its what if everyone on The Waltons were actually aliens? vibe, is also a delight. This could have been a thoughtful collection, specifically highlighting the women of pulp magazines, but this theme is unconvincingly broadened, apparently to accommodate a perplexing title. Also, the editor shoehorns in recently deceased Le Guin, whose selection never appeared in a pulp magazine, and her inclusion on the cover feels like cynical marketing. These stories—and the women who wrote them—deserve far better.
The Future is Female!: because Shameless Ploy to Cash in on a Feminist Slogan Plus One Random Story by Ursula K. Le Guin (RIP) wouldn’t fit on the cover.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-59853-580-8
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.
A man walks out of a bar and his life becomes a kaleidoscope of altered states in this science-fiction thriller.
Crouch opens on a family in a warm, resonant domestic moment with three well-developed characters. At home in Chicago’s Logan Square, Jason Dessen dices an onion while his wife, Daniela, sips wine and chats on the phone. Their son, Charlie, an appealing 15-year-old, sketches on a pad. Still, an undertone of regret hovers over the couple, a preoccupation with roads not taken, a theme the book will literally explore, in multifarious ways. To start, both Jason and Daniela abandoned careers that might have soared, Jason as a physicist, Daniela as an artist. When Charlie was born, he suffered a major illness. Jason was forced to abandon promising research to teach undergraduates at a small college. Daniela turned from having gallery shows to teaching private art lessons to middle school students. On this bracing October evening, Jason visits a local bar to pay homage to Ryan Holder, a former college roommate who just received a major award for his work in neuroscience, an honor that rankles Jason, who, Ryan says, gave up on his career. Smarting from the comment, Jason suffers “a sucker punch” as he heads home that leaves him “standing on the precipice.” From behind Jason, a man with a “ghost white” face, “red, pursed lips," and "horrifying eyes” points a gun at Jason and forces him to drive an SUV, following preset navigational directions. At their destination, the abductor forces Jason to strip naked, beats him, then leads him into a vast, abandoned power plant. Here, Jason meets men and women who insist they want to help him. Attempting to escape, Jason opens a door that leads him into a series of dark, strange, yet eerily familiar encounters that sometimes strain credibility, especially in the tale's final moments.
Suspenseful, frightening, and sometimes poignant—provided the reader has a generously willing suspension of disbelief.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-101-90422-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
PROFILES
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
