Word is getting out that SF author Joanna Russ has died.
Russ was best-known for her Nebula-winning short story, “When It Changed.” Her influence on the field is shown by the fact that when the story came out, the concept behind it was considered outrageous and somewhat controversial, and something that the field had never experienced. Now, the concept is so routine that no one would even notice it.
She wrote feminist SF back when feminism was new (and hadn’t become a scorned label). Her The Female Man was probably the most influential novel in that subgenre next to The Left Hand of Darkness (though it was far more direct in its message).
She also won a somewhat controversial Hugo Award for “Souls” (controversial not because of its message, but because the science fiction element seemed very tacked on, showing up only for a moment in the last two pages. Still a great story).
I was partial to her collection Extra(Ordinary) People and her story “The Mystery of the Young Gentleman” is one of the finest examples of ambiguity in literature.