In our most recent episode of Galactic Suburbia, Alisa pointed us towards this Mind Meld post that asked a variety of people which 10 SF books should be part of every fan’s library. Alisa noted that while the women asked this question generally mentioned books from a variety of authors, and more than one female writer especially, no man asked in this first part included more than one book by a woman – and that book was always Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness.

While this does point towards the incredible success and popularity of that particular text as a SF classic, it was both interesting and concerning that there was still such imbalance. This led to all kinds of discussion, not only in the podcast, but across Twitter, about the usefulness of these kinds of top 10 lists, and how they could be used to construct an “agreed-upon canon.”

Jonathan Strahan expanded upon his own thoughts on the matter in this audio-post, looking more closely at the terms of definition implied by the question, on the fun and problematic nature of canon-building, and in fact why he doesn’t like the concept of making such lists.

I agree with Jonathan that discussions of canonicity (hmm, is that a word?) are best done without formal structures or restrictions such as those lists offer. While lists (and I include awards shortlists here as well as top 10 list) do provoke conversations, inevitably those conversations tend to be negative rather than positive, and I think that’s a shame – so many people respond to a list by saying what was overlooked or left off! Which of course is utterly valid, but not entirely fair when the list is the choice of an individual. Having said that, I am disappointed at the lack of women that men have chosen to recommend in this forum, and that the exception to this is always the same woman and the same single work is intriguing. Certainly, the women in the experiment had no trouble coming up with multiple works by women which they considered significant!

(I have to admit that I get just as outraged as anyone when my favourite is not on a list, especially a list of key importance, though I do my best not to use the word ‘overlooked’ as it suggests the person making the list made a mistake rather than, you know, asserting their actual opinion)

I do think lists have a value in more than just provoking people to complain about what isn’t on them. The Mind Meld system is excellent in that it is asking a variety of people to comment and suggest works, rather than for instance trying to compose a single list from the various top 10s… had they done that, chances are very likely that The Left Hand of Darkness would have been very high up the single list, but also that it might have been the only work by a woman recommended at all.

This is why I find shortlists more interesting than who won the award (though winning awards is lovely), and collections of lists more interesting than single lists. The more people are consulted, and the more works they are able to reference, the more likely you are to find diversity and range in recommendations.

As soon as lists become restricted, you see fewer women on them. Many people complained about the Best Picture award of the Oscars this year having a shortlist of 10, but I liked it. The longer shortlists are, the more likely they are to reflect the whole range of excellent work produced in a single year. I know I used to get terribly frustrated when judging awards that the maximum number for a shortlist was 5 – sometimes there really are 7 excellent works in a year, and you want to talk about all of them!

Whenever people discusscanon, about what is in the canon and what should be in the canon, I always start feeling scratchy and uncomfortable. Because this leads into discussion about what books are ‘important’ and somehow that usually turns into a conversation about white men, all over again.

Jonathan suggested that with a top 10 list, people might have a tendency to look at which authors should be represented, rather than starting with the books: “okay, I have to have a Heinlein, and and Asimov, and… and…” which leads them to be celebrity-heavy. I think that’s true and also true that, as Alisa said in our podcast, with a list of 10, no one really has to look beyond the white men. The problem is figuring out which books to leave out, of those that first come to mind. There are few women whose names resonate to the majority of SF fans with the same power as Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, Leiber, Dick, Pohl, Haldeman, Gibson, and so on. Which is not to say that their work is inferior, merely that their names do not carry the same star power. As Alisa has been saying a lot lately, our perceptions of how important an author are skewed by many factors: publisher support, awards, how memorable they are, and word of mouth. We’re still coming out of a time when the majority of opinions voiced about SF were those of male critics and readers, and that is bound to have an effect for many decades to come. Things are changing on that score, but slowly. I really liked that Jonathan, in his audio post, cited several works by women that would “tell the same story” as the iconic male-authored SF works by men, but sadly it rarely works out that way when most male readers are asked which books are important. Few people going to stop and think about which women contributed to early cyberpunk when they can just write down “Neuromancer” and move on.

My list, should I make one, of books which an SF fan should have in their library, would be almost entirely packed with feminist SF. Not because I would be wanting to make a statement, though statements are awesome things, but because that is my SF. I have read my share of the classics, and even appreciated many of them. If pressed, I could cite Starship Troopers or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep or The Forever War, and I would acknowledge that most people should read Neuromancer at least once, though I liked Pattern Recognition a lot better…

But.

My science fiction fandom, my explorations of the genre, the parts of SF that really made me excited, aren’t about those books. My science fiction is the Women of Wonder anthologies, and the Tiptree Award history as told through their fundraising anthologies, and Women of Other Worlds, and more recently On Joanna Russ. My science fiction is Larbalestier and Mendelsohn and Merrick’s works of feminist SF history and criticism. My science fiction is Connie Willis and Lois McMaster Bujold.

My canon is “The Heat-Death of the Universe” and “The Ship Who Sang” and “What Men Don’t See” and “What I didn’t See” and “Rachel in Love.”

I mentioned on Twitter that my list of 10 would probably be all feminist SF and Jonathan pointed out that the question asked for general SF, not feminist SF. Which is true enough… But I’m sure no one who answered with 10 cyberpunk or space opera or “hard” SF titles would feel self-conscious about it. My SF is feminist SF, the two are intertwined for me, and I can sympathise with those men who answered the Mind Meld with mostly male authors, because I really would struggle to keep the male-authored books on there when I had so many great women that, quite frankly, every fan should have in their libraries.

Even then I know that my list would be lacking, because I just haven’t done well enough yet in reading SF by people of colour. Octavia Butler and Samuel Delaney are there on my list of authors to educate myself about, once I’m done with all this Joanna Russ, but they still leave a gaping hole in my education. I haven’t decided which of the two will be my Classic Author Obsession of 2011, and would be interested to hear from anyone as to which works of either of them I should start with! With Delaney I’m particularly interested in the ways that his work intersected with so much of the feminist SF of the 70′s, as most of what I’ve heard about him has been in relation to Russ or Tiptree. I’m also wondering if I should start with the new book that is due out shortly I think, or start back with his early work.

Ironically, at the end of all this, I’ve never personally been that excited by much of novel-length written by Ursula Le Guin. I am, however, very glad that a woman has written a book that so many people still consider vital and interesting and important, so many decades later. She wouldn’t have been on my mythical list of 10, but I think it’s awesome she is in so many other people’s.

No one person can read or love or recommend everything, and we’re all limited by our own biases and personal tastes.

All this goes to show I think is that if you are going to do something like the Mind Meld, the key is to ask as diverse a range of people as possible, in order that their answers also add diversity to what is considered “canon”. I think they did pretty well with that – after all it matters less that the men thought of including more than one female author when you have women whose opinions are also being sought, and ultimately a good range of works were recommended. I look forward to seeing what other works are discussed in the second post on this topic.

EDIT: I didn’t manage to articulate this on the first pass, but I think it’s important to note that the word ‘canon’ has quite negative connotations for anyone who has ever taken much of an interest in the way that female authors intersect with the history of literature. I know that my first gut reaction to the concept of canon building is along the lines of “something else to exclude Jane Austen from, then.” This is a big reason why I appreciate the acknowledgement of Mary Shelley’s contribution to the development of SF as a genre, every single time.

Tags: connie willis, feminism, feminist SF, joanna russ, jonathan strahan, lois mcmaster bujold, octavia butler, podcasts, samuel delaney, SF, ursula le guin, women in SF