Originally published in 1978 under the title of Millennial Women, this is a deeply interesting anthology of speculative fiction (and a poem!) written by Boomer (and, I think, older) women writers working the 1970s, all edited by a writer, editor and literary agent named Virginia Kidd who was, basically, the power behind several thrones..
Some of the writers included in the book are massive and famously big successes – Ursula Le Guin, most obviously, whose name is the one used to sell later editions of the book (including this one, released only two years after the initial publication).
Most of the writers here had careers and publishing history that would span decades: Joan D Vinge, for example, continued writing for long enough to pen the novelisation of the critically derided 2008/9/10 (I’m not Googling it) Daniel Craig movie, Cowboys and Aliens), while Marilyn Hacker had become the winner of basically all of the major poetry awards by the end of the century (and is mentioned elsewhere on this blog due to being a major character in Samuel Delany’s memoir, The Motion of Light in Water).
For some of the other writers, appearing alongside such luminaries might seem like a career highlight, certainly if you look over the author bios at the start of this book, some of these have that flavour of “amateur writer” irrelevance to the details; someone trying to be funny in a moment where being funny doesn’t matter. However, that was because these writers were indeed just starting out, and Cynthia Felice, Diana L Paxson, Elizabeth A Lynn and Cherry Wilder all went on to write and publish vast quantities of respected and loved works… and the fact that everyone included in this book has a Wikipedia page demonstrates incontrovertibly that they had legacies and careers that dwarf my ignorant presumption that this book was their peak…
The stories are all enjoyable.
Four (or three?) are short, ten pages or so and – to be frank with you – I read them well over a month ago during the ten minutes to myself I had on four (or three?) of the evenings I was in Toronto in April when I had put my toddler to bed and wasn’t needed to immediately resume extended family socialising.
These shorter pieces are then followed by a novella by Joan D Vinge and then a (short but definitely fully realised) novel by Ursula Le Guin, a characteristically brilliant piece that looks at peaceful protest, brutality, false notions of self importance and the possibilities and limits of alternative, non-capitalist forms of human existence as part of a fractured and fracturing space colony.
The novel is set on an alien world a long distance from Earth, peopled by two successive sets of colonisers sent approximately 60 years apart, both sent there in one-way spaceships to ensure no return as – shock, horror, reveal a few chapters in – this is a penal colony, and the humans sent here are those no longer wanted in the dystopian cruel future Earth where their ships originated.
The first set – and about twice as many people were sent with this one – were the same kinda people as the UK sent to people Australia early doors.
Not those believed to be “the best humanity has to offer”, but those who weren’t the absolute worst and were expected to be hardy and tough enough to set up a human establishment a galaxy away.
These initial colonisers had been there for several decades and set up a very Earth-in-miniature little city state on the parcel of land right next to where the ship landed. They farm, they mine, and when the second batch of colonisers arrive – peaceful, pacifistic protesters who were shipped off en masse when they refused to join in Earth wars – they gradually and slowly dominate and exploit them more and more, until the point when this story starts and these second colonisers – who live in a separate town but are now responsible for agricultural production for both settlements – are making plans to move elsewhere on the planet and start again, with a distance between them and the other, much more dickheaded people.
The non-pacifists are fucking livid about this, and thus follows a moving, serious and deeply characterful exploration of resistance, principles, hope and the readjustment of expectations in light of “might is right” power ideologies.
It’s not a long text, but it’s full of dense characterisation, complex societies and offers a real sense of oscillating levels of hope (“things could be better! things will be better! things will never be better! things might be better!”) that is perhaps uneasy to read during an unoptimistic period of geopoliticals, but is beautifully done. The potential of a whole planet on which to settle is rendered in a moving and considered way; the terror and the fear of the unknown wrestles with the fear and understanding of a very known danger… Le Guin – as always – works wonders.
The other pieces look, often, at kinda dystopian settings, but rarely without some kind of hope, and often with an intentional lack of discussion of domestic and family relations (Virginia Kidd flags this in her introduction). It’s a really solid set of interesting and engaging works, and the Le Guin is an absolute belter… So, yes, there’s nothing in here that competes with the headline act, but the other stories are good warm-up acts. Thematically intriguing, and socioculturally (in 1978) a deeply valid and important project.
Well worth a read, if you ever stumble across a copy!
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scott manley hadley aka SOLID BALD live
Here’s a video of me recently performing at the prestigious (it has a Wikipedia page) comedy night, Quantum Leopard. Listen to how much fun the crowd is having. You could have that much fun, too!
Forthcoming gigs include the following – there may/will be others:
10th June 2026: Jest For Laughs, St Albans
19th June 2026: Saltwater Comedy, Eastbourne
27th June 2026: One Hour of Alternative Comedy with Josh InVain & scott manley hadley as part of the PBH Weekender
14th July 2026: Poole, Dorset
22nd & 23rd August, 6.30pm: BALD PERSONALITY DISORDER at Aces & Eights, part of the Camden Fringe
25th September: Worcester
5th November: Isle of Wight
14th November: Welwyn
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