Identify this Woman's Science Fiction Author for me

I seem to remember somewhere about 1992 or 1993 (might be a little earlier, can’t be later) reading some stories from a collection titled something like “Science Fiction by and for Women”, which I thought was funny title, since some of the authors were obviously male. (I was old enough to grasp the concept of Pen names, even involving male names for female authors, but I guess I didn’t expect it to happen to authors in modern times, or authors not named “George”). The book was probably a few years old at that time.

Anyway, one of the stories intrigued me, and I always kind of intended to see if the story came from a larger series, so I could investigate the rest of the universe.

The story featured a group of prisoners in a labor camp. They included a young woman who was coveted by one of the guards. This young woman may have been a “ship rat” and had such good control over her body that if the guard managed to rape her(not so hard) and get her pregnant(much harder), she would not carry the baby to term. Also in the group was a large man with dark skin who had been laboring hard enough for two or three of the group, but now had fallen sick. This man was using an assumed name, but had family who were wealthy and powerful enough to get him released, if they knew he was there. The young woman I already mentioned (or another member of their group) was trying to figure out whether they could get a message out in time to save his life–and whether the probably loss of his friendship was worth it.

At least, I think that’s what was going on in the story. Ring any bells? Any idea who the author was, and whether she’s written more of this tale?

Might it be Screwtop by Vonda McIntyre? I read it a long time ago and don’t remember most of the plot but I do recall it was about a woman in a prison.

That’s from The New Women of Wonder; the short story to which you refer is “Screwtop” by Vonda McIntyre. The woman with the man’s name is James Tiptree Jr who is indeed a she-person.

Was a she-person. The brilliant Alice Sheldon died some twenty years back, in a sad but somehow uplifting end.

On May 19, 1987, she took the life of her invalid husband, then 84, blind and bedridden, and then shot herself in the head. They were found dead, hand in hand in bed, in their Maclean, Virginia home, fulfilling a wish, made in a letter (to Robert Silverberg) of 1976, to “take myself off the scene gracefully . . . while I am still me”

Well, she’s one. Off the top of my head there’s also Andre Norton; I’m sure there are others. BTW, both Tiptree and Norton, whom we are speaking of in the present tense, are deceased.

Yeah, but was Andre Norton a contributor to that anthology? I don’t think she was :confused:

There was Kit Reed, a name which is androgynous I suppose.

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](http://www.iblist.com/book20244.htm)CMC fnord

Thank you very much. I would never have known what title to look for, but “Screwtop” rings a bell. I shall have to investigate her works, and perhaps some of the other women from this anthology at my leisure.

I loved Sargent’s Women of Wonder anthologies during the 70’s. By seeking out the contributors’ other works, I became a big fan of feminist sf written in that era.

Heh, this reminds me of a story my mom told about her days at Brown when a fellow female student remarked of Evelyn Waugh’s writing that Waugh really knew what it was like to be a woman and “her” writing echoed that sensibility.

I should also acknowledge that the title “New Women of Wonder” also rang a bell-- again, I would not have thought of it on my own to do a search on it, (and even if I had, I still would not have known which author or story was the one I was thinking of).

Any reference to George Sand will forever make me react with “transvestite writer”, due to a stint at French Camp where we were divided into “families” for breakfast, and the them was (French) Women Writers, one of who was George Sand, who quickly became known (to my secret irritation) as “transvestite writer” or “transvestite woman writer”.

I believe it was Robert Silverberg who praised James Tiptree Jr.'s writing as very masculine in flavor.