One of the problems with many anthologies – and the reason, I guess, why people often admit to only dipping into them rather than reading them through from cover to cover as unified texts – is that of unevenness. You get a couple of truly standout stories, a turkey or two maybe, and a whole bunch of what you might call so-so stories, enjoyable enough at the time of reading but not all that memorable. My own pet peeve with anthologies is that they often lack cohesion. What you get is a kind of grab-bag of odds and ends, with no real sense that the stories belong together, or make a coherent statement as a group. For me, an anthology should say something – about the theme or title of the book, about the writers who’ve been gathered together. The individual pieces should be strong in themselves, but they should also add up to something. The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women does all these things.

In her introduction to the anthology, editor Alex Dally MacFarlane states that she wanted to take a snapshot of where science fiction – and by implication, science fiction written by women – is at at the present moment, the multiplicity and variety of worlds it seeks to inhabit. For me, she has succeeded admirably. She has succeeded not only in reflecting the breadth and excellence of the work that is being done, but also in gathering together a group of stories that, through the interplay of their themes and internal resonances, form a statement that is striking in its coherence.

In terms of the individual stories, the anthology has an amazingly high strike rate. Of the thirty-three stories included, only one flat-out didn’t work for me, with very few weak spots amongst the others. As for standouts, there are so many memorable stories here that I’m having trouble picking my favourites, but just for the record and in no particular order, here they are:

1) ‘The Science of Herself’ by Karen Joy Fowler

2) ‘Spider the Artist’ by Nnedi Okorafor

3) ‘The Other Graces’ by Alice Sola Kim

4) ‘The Death of Sugar Daddy’ by Toiya Kristen Finley

5) ‘Enyo-Enyo’ by Kameron Hurley

6) ‘Valentines’ by Shira Lipkin

7) ‘Concerning the Unchecked Growth of Cities’ by Angelica Gorodischer

8) ‘The Radiant Car thy Sparrows Drew’ by Catherynne M. Valente

This list could easily have been twice as long. Many of these stories will remain with me for a long time. As well as presenting me with work by writers I already know and admire, The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women has highlighted the names of writers previously unknown to me whose work I shall definitely be seeking out in the future.  That is a marker of success all by itself.

Was there anything missing? Well, no anthology can contain everything, and every anthology must of necessity be shaped by the knowledge, ambition and personal taste of its editor – indeed that’s sort of the point. Given these caveats, I found the Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women to be remarkably well balanced, containing, as per the old adage, something for everyone, pretty much. Looking back down the table of contents, it occurs to me that the anthology is a little short on hard SF. The single hard SF story contained here – Natalia Theodoridou’s ‘The Eleven Holy Numbers of the Mechanical Soul’ – is admittedly excellent, and highly original, but I do feel the anthology could have benefited from a little more hard SF input – off the top of my head, Linda Nagata, Madeleine Ashby and Tricia Sullivan spring instantly to mind as writers working in this particular area. Something else that strikes me is the shortage of British contributions. Of thirty-three writers, we have only one British (Tori Truslow) and one British-based (Zen Cho) writer on the slate. Given the high proportion of American and US-based writers represented, it would not have hurt to have a story by Gwyneth Jones, say, or Mary Gentle in the mix.  But these are minor quibbles.

As well as fulfilling its editor’s own mission statement, The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women is an important book for other reasons, too. Firstly, it tackles the whole ‘women don’t write science fiction’ bollocks head on, and wins by a knockout. I would lay money on the fact that anyone picking up this book – out of curiosity perhaps, or as a learning experience, or just looking for something new to read – would forget all about the ‘by women’ epithet within the space of a couple of stories. They’d be too busy enjoying the wide range of material on offer, and wondering where they could get more stuff by these writers. To anyone – male, female, publisher, reader, writer – stuck with that sneaking feeling that science fiction written by women ‘just isn’t their thing’, I would say get yourself a copy of this anthology and prepare to have all your assumptions blown out of the water.

The anthology also does great work in debunking the currently fashionable complaint that SF is exhausted. Compiling a Year’s Best must be the devil’s own job, and clearly it’s physically impossible these days to even hope to read every piece of SF short fiction published in a given year. But one of the issues I’ve seen aired about Year’s Bests in recent years is that the large majority of stories selected are culled from relatively few venues, and always the same venues, an editorial choice that is bound to result in a degree of sameness and even blandness, however honourable the intention otherwise. Hence the impression of science fictional exhaustion.  The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women isn’t a Year’s Best, of course – these works have been chosen from stories published over the past two decades – but it is noticeable and commendable to see twenty-five separate venues listed in the publication permissions credits. I would perhaps have liked to see a story or two coming from places outside the genre – but again, this is a small quibble, and overall the diversity of source venues is reflected in the stimulating diversity of the stories on offer here.

And almost as a bonus, we have the sheer quality of the writing. Anyone, and I mean anyone, who carps on about science fiction not being capable of the heights of literary expression and formal innovation reached in the sphere of mainstream literary fiction needs to read this book and then revise that opinion. The Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women offers abundant proof, if any were needed, that science fiction can do anything mainstream fiction can do and then some.

I’ve been on a wonderful journey with these stories. I recommend this book unreservedly, and I hope that once you have read it you will do the same.

31) ‘Vector’ by Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Out through the school gate, part of a crowd pouring out, you hope for familiar smells of roast pork and sticky rice, for colours you recognise: an old tree with a pink sash around it to mark the spirit within. Tiny plates of food at the base of a utility pole, to curry favour with any small god that might live in the wires or the concrete. It does no harm to put such things out. But they are superstitions and the farangs passing by smirk. A tourist more freckles than skin pauses to blink at it; her spectacles give off a flicker. Photo snapped and uploading, to be laughed at and rendered into a joke. Who believes in divinities so diminutive? 

In the near future, a young woman sacrifices her life to be turned into a computer virus, the ultimate post-human condition. Her country’s cultural landscape has been overwritten, used as a strategic stepping stone by a dominant power. As she readies herself to complete her mission, memories of her human life struggle to rise above the surface of an imposed reality:

She ascertains that she’s in a ruined hospital in Palangkaraya, basement level, far from home. It chills her until she remembers the distance is irrelevant, that come success or failure she will never leave this place. What remains of her will not survive being disconnected from the tank. 

All is anatta. Sangkarn is transient. She needs to let go. Panic rises anyway, even though she’s so detached from flesh that she should be beyond this choking terror, above this mindless fear of the grave.

This is impassioned, driven writing, with not a word wasted. The science fictional conceits merge seamlessly with the shifting layers of images worked from two opposing realities. ‘Vector’ constitutes a powerful fusion between feeling and meaning, thought and word, image and idea. I admire the strength of purpose in this narrative, which serves as a darker, angrier counterpart to de Bodard’s Immersion. This story has weight. It’s even better on a second reading.

32) ‘Concerning the Unchecked Growth of Cities’ by Angelica Gorodischer

I loved this piece – for me it had the feel of a novel in miniature – so much I was moved immediately to search for more information about it. Angelica Gorodischer is a writer I’ve been meaning to read for some time now, and ‘Concerning the Unchecked Growth of Cities’ felt like the perfect introduction to her work. If it reminded me of anything it’s Jan Morris’s Hav, or even some of Roberto Bolano’s more discursive factioneering. The story is actually a single chapter from a longer work, Kalpa Imperial (go to this page and you’ll find some links to extracts from the book, also an interview with Gorodischer), a novel detailing the rise and fall and rise again of ‘the greatest empire that never was’. The ‘mountain city’ at the centre of this particular story is described – or more accurately word-painted – as a microcosm of history in flux. Kings, empresses, wars, artists, hucksters, armies – they all pass through the city and they all leave their mark, some more indelibly than others. Always, at the centre, the city herself, warping and changing but never quite laid low, inimitably herself in spite of the erosions wrought upon her by an unruly populace:

The mountains are buried under walls, balconies, terraces, parks; a square slants down, separated from a steep drop by stone arcades; the third floor of a house is the basement of another that fronts on the street above; the west wall of a government building adjoins the ironwork of a courtyard of a school for deaf girls; the cellars of a functionary’s grand mansion become the attics of a deserted building, while a cat flap, crowned with an architrave added 200 years later, serves as a tunnel into a coal hole, and a shelf has become the transept for a window with golden shields in the panes, and the skylight doesn’t open on the sky, but on a gallery of waterwheels made of earthenware.

The city as organism is a beloved theme among readers and writers of speculative fiction alike. Gorodischer’s work here is a fabulous addition to this particular canon. It’s a privilege to see a master at work.

33) ‘The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew’ by Catherynne M. Valente

…and my Beast came up to me one night and said: “Oh please, oh please, can you write me a story where Venus is like it was in old SF books, all waterworldy and with big fish and stuff?” (While I was writing Golubash, he said “oh, please, oh please, can I have a pony in it?” You can’t blame him, he’s been waiting for me to write SF for four years–exactly, in fact, as today is our anniversary–so it is a bit like getting a vending machine suddenly stocked with your favorite stuff. He just keeps mashing the buttons to see what will come out.)

(Catherynne M. Valente – extract from a post at Rules for Anchorites)

This is the story of the documentary film maker Bysshe, who goes to film the legendary callowhales of Venus. Lovely links and resonances with both Gorodischer’s story and Truslow’s. There’s as much New Weird here as there is science fiction – the story’s aesthetic brought Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s film The City of Lost Children instantly to mind – but who cares about categorisation when the writing is this good? I love Valente’s work. Her imagination is so fluid, so fearless, and her command of language feels completely effortless, even though I know that isn’t the case, that prose like this has to be crafted and fought for every word of the way.

The levitator told her of a town called Adonis, a whole colony on Venus that vanished in the space of a night. Divers they were, mostly, subject both to the great callowhales with their translucent skin and the tourists who came to watch and shiver in cathartic delight as the divers risked their lives to milk the recalcitrant mothers in their hibernation. They built a sweet village on the shores of the Qadesh, plaiting their roofs with grease-weed and hammering doors from the chunks of raw copper which comprised the ersatz Venusian beach. They lived; they ate the thready local cacao and shot, once or twice a year a leathery ‘Tryx from the sky, enough to keep them all in fat and protein for months. 

I think I mentioned before how much I enjoy stories that contain found documents or pose as secret histories, fictitious biographies. This is one of those, and it is a beauty.

Well, that’s the last of our 33 stories. It’s been an amazing journey. Stay tuned for a wrap-up post, coming soon!

27) ‘Sing’ by Karin Tidbeck

On the off-world colony of Kiruna, a tailor, Aino, comes into contact with a scientist, Petr, who is visiting the colony in a research capacity. Petr finds himself increasingly drawn to what he sees as the honest simplicity of life on Kiruna, and enchanted by the seemingly miraculous singing abilities of the colonists. He is determined to discover their secret. Aino fears that such a discovery will destroy the growing bond between them.

He reached into the back pocket of his trousers and drew out something like a very small and thin book. He did something with a quick movement – shook it out, somehow – and it unfolded into a large square that he put down on the counter. It had the outlines of letters at the bottom, and his fingers flew over them. WHAT HAPPENED WITH SOUND?

I recognised the layout of keys. I could type. SAARAKKA, I wrote.  WHEN SAARAKKA IS UP, WE CAN’T HEAR SPEECH. WE SING INSTEAD. 

WHY HAS NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT THIS? He replied.

I shrugged.

He typed with annoyed, jerky movements. HOW LONG DOES IT LAST?

UNTIL IT SETS, I told him. 

This is a classic ‘curiosity killed the cat’ story. It’s also a story about acceptance, and difference, and coming to terms with who you are and where you fit in. The worldbuilding in ‘Sing’ is charming, and skilfully wrought, but in many ways the science fictional elements are incidental – this story could be set in any small community, anywhere. It’s the way people relate to one another here that make the story what it is: odd, with a quiet beauty, and just a little unnerving.

28) ‘Good Boy’ by Nisi Shawl

The invitation is entirely legitimate. Those who find the language in which it’s couched to be odd should refer to the available historical data on mid-twentieth century black musicians, specifically Sun Ra, Parliament, Funkadelic, and Earth, Wind & Fire. A notable space travel mystique developed around their work, and it is to honour its creative impetus that I’ve arranged for y’all to party up! Everybody party up! Come fly with me! I am the Mothership Connection. You have overcome, for I am here! 

On the planet of Renaissance, the City’s colonists are falling prey to a mysterious infirmity. The doctors are stumped. Ivorene McKenna has her own ideas about how to effect a cure, though there are those who disapprove, to put it mildly. When chaos breaks loose in the City, Ivorene is absent – but who’s that wearing her body? Her daughter Kressi is caught in the crossfire between the old and the new. The funk is risin.

Oh, this story! How it sneaks up on you. There’s no way it should work, but it so does. There’s everything in here from pulp to cyberpunk and seventies funkadelic. Fundamentally, this is a story about how the values and accumulated wisdom of the past have to be carried with us into the future, lest we forget who we are and undermine our spiritual foundations as a result. ‘Good Boy’ is tremendous fun – I was completely swept along by it. But it turns out to be genuinely interesting as science fiction, too, seizing upon tropes and reshaping them to create something entirely original, a law unto itself. Also, there’s music and dancing. Go party!

29) ‘The Second Card of the Major Arcana’ by Thoraiya Dyer

Some lovely resonances here with Elizabeth Vonarburg’s ‘Stay Thy Flight’, and also with Nisi Shawl’s ‘Good Boy’, although the tone of this story could not be more different. The main character is a sphinx, but she’s definitely not chained to a pedestal. She’s stalking the world and she’s angry. She kills people who can’t answer her riddles, just by thinking at them. But who is she really, and what is her mission? As with the Nisi Shawl, ‘The Second Card of the Major Arcana’ is a story about how we accommodate the past within our vision of the future.

We descend into Beirut, a capital mismatched as an unsolved Rubik’s cube, so often wrenched apart and poorly put back together. No two pockets of any single alliance are placed handily together but instead separated suburb from suburb, street from street. Like the national draft, the strategy of melding disparate peoples is designed to create unity. 

Instead, it creates paralytic indecision.

The language of this story is rich and dense with imagery and symbol. My grasp of Middle Eastern history is scattershot, to say the least, so I know there will be plenty of references here that will have slipped by me. As a reading experience though, I found this work hugely satisfying. A thought provoking story, with prose to slay for. The ending, where fantasy morphs into science fiction, is brilliant.

30) ‘A Short Encyclopedia of Lunar Seas’ by Ekaterina Sedia

The Sea of Clouds is entirely contained by mountains, so high above the blue moon surface that the clouds fill the basin. Mermaids from all over the world make their yearly pilgrimage to this sea – they crawl over land, their tails trailing furrows in the blue dust, their breasts and elbows scuffed on the flat lunar stones. They leave traces of pale mermaid blood, its smell tinged with copper. 

So we’re back with mermaids on the moon, a nice echo here of Tori Truslow’s ‘Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day’ and at this point in the anthology I’m really liking the way these resonances between the stories have been set up. ‘A Short Encyclopedia of Lunar Seas’ is what’s known as a list story – the narrative taking the form of a series of shorter mini-stories that together form an over-arching whole. Sedia’s tales of the lunar seas run parallel in some ways with Hao Jingfang’s invisible planets, and thence with Marco Polo’s journey through the invisible cities. Sedia’s magical realism is nuanced, wry and charming, thrumming with beautiful images and engaging ideas. Yet I cannot help wanting a little more from my ideal list story than this. There is no story here, not really, and these twenty sparkling parts do not exactly add up to a whole. Still lovely to read, though.