Space-opera heroines, gender-bending aliens, post-apocalyptic pregnancies, changeling children, interplanetary battles of the sexes, and much more: a groundbreaking new collection of classic American science fiction by women from the 1920s to the 1960s

Warning: the visionary women writers in this landmark anthology may permanently alter perceptions of American science fiction, challenging the conventional narrative that the genre was conceived mainly by and for men. Now, two hundred years after Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, SF-expert Lisa Yaszek presents the best of the female tradition in American science fiction, in the most comprehensive collection of its kind ever published. From Pulp Era pioneers to New Wave experimentalists, here are over two dozen brilliant writers ripe for discovery and rediscovery, including Leslie F. Stone ("The Conquest of Gola," 1931), Judith Merril ("That Only a Mother," 1948), Leigh Brackett ("All the Colors of the Rainbow," 1957), Kit Reed ("The New You," 1962), Joanna Russ ("The Barbarian," 1968); Ursula K. Le Guin ("Nine Lives," 1969), and James Tiptree Jr. ("Last Flight of Dr. Ain," 1969). Imagining strange worlds and unexpected futures, looking into and beyond new technologies and scientific discoveries, in utopian fantasies and tales of cosmic horror, these women created and shaped speculative fiction as surely as their male counterparts. Their provocative, mind-blowing stories combine to form a thrilling multidimensional voyage of literary-feminist exploration and recovery.

Contents:
Introduction / Lisa Yaszek --
The miracle of the lily / Clare Winger Harris --
The conquest of Gola / Leslie F. Stone --
The black god's kiss / C. L. Moore --
Space episode / Leslie Perri --
That only a mother / Judith Merril --
In hiding / Wilmar H. Shiras --
Contagion / Katherine Maclean --
The inhabited men / Margaret St. Clair --
Ararat / Zenna Henderson --
All cats are gray / Andrew North --
Created he them / Alice Eleanor Jones --
Mr. Sakrison's halt / Mildred Clingerman --
All the colors of the rainbow / Leigh brackett --
Pelt / Carol Emshwiller --
Car pool / Rosel George Brown --
For sale, reasonable / Elizabeth Mann Borgese --
Birth of a gardener / Doris Pitkin Buck --
The tunnel ahead / Alice Glaser --
The new you / Kit Reed --
Another rib / John Jay Wells & Marion Zimmer Bradley --
When I was Miss Dow / Sonya Dorman --
Baby, you were great / Kate Wilhelm --
The barbarian / Joanna Russ --
The last flight of Dr. Ain / James Tiptree Jr --
Nine lives / Ursula K Le Guin --
Biographical notes.

Two generations after destruction rained down upon America's cities, the population is scattered into small towns. Cities are forbidden by law, as is scientific research.

Rumors abound of a secret place known as "Bartorstown", where science is untrammelled by interference or hatred. A youth named Len Colter, developing an unhealthy thirst for knowledge exacerbated by the discovery of a forbidden radio, sets out on a long road. During this journey, he will change his mind many times before determining the correct direction for himself, and the benighted America in which he lives.