I usually don't read short story collections, but this one really called to me. In the last few years, I have been really drawn to some early feminist science fiction like The Female Man (1975,) Native Tongue (1984,) Woman on the Edge of Time (1976,) and A Door into Ocean (1987). This collection gives bite-sized pieces to sample a variety of authors from the '70s and helped guide me in making some upcoming reading selections.

I like modern fiction. It offers everything that fiction can in terms of story, world-building, characters, prose and ideas without being diminished by being dated. And yet, I will sometimes reach for older works for educational purposes.

In this case, the collection of short stories provides the glimpse into the minds of female science fiction writers who had to struggle to make their presence known in the field dominated by men. I appreciate every single one of those writers and even if I didn't love every single of the stories included in this anthology, I saw what all of them were trying to do and respect them for it.

I already knew and valued some of these short stories beforehand (my reviews are probably out there somewhere), all of them deserving awareness of the modern readers:
- Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand by Vonda N. McIntyre
- The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Sheldon)
- The Day Before the Revolution by Ursula K. Le Guin
- The Screwfly Solution by Racoona Sheldon (Alice Sheldon).

From the stories new to me, my favourites were the following:
- The Funeral - dark dystopia with creepy vibes
- When It Changed - a society comprising solely of women, much improved over one created by both sexes, threatened by the return of men; the story reminded me of another story from that time period, Houston, Houston, Do You Read? by James Tiptree Jr.
- The Anthropologist - an intriguing tale about an alien adopted into human society, with the undertone of nature vs. nurture considerations
- Time to Kill - a very short story, but my inner anti-Christian atheist cackled at the idea
- No One Said Forever - a story about a family in the future where people are expected to regularly relocate for work
- Wives - a story that was 0% enjoyable and 100% sad and terrifying; I believe it was exploring why women were living under men's oppression for many centuries without organising and putting up a real fight - not because they enjoyed their lives but out of fear.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the Library of America for an advanced copy of this science fiction anthology showcasing some of the best work by women in the 1970's.

Science fiction has always tried to look forward, even thought many of it's ideas are stuck in the past. The roles of women, minorities and those different from most of the male authors, always played second fiddle, or seemed to conform to some romanticized or stereotypical role. Of course there were exceptions. Though through the years more and more stories are being told about famous authors and their grabby hands, or even abusive attitudes. However women still persisted, entering the field, writing movies, books and stories that are still remembered today for their excellence, their view of the future, both positive and regressive. Edited by Lisa Yaszek, The Future Is Female! Volume Two, The 1970s: More Classic Science Fiction Stories By Women, highlights some women who entered the field during this decade and the powerful stories they presented.

The introductory essay is almost worth the price of the book being solid study of the era, the writers and changes that were taking place in the genre. How authors, even manly men authors began to include more women in their stories, some well, some poorly, and how more women began to enter the field and excel. The stories are presented chronologically from the beginning of the decade to the end to highlight the changes and depth of the stories and how previous authors might have affected later writers. Two of the best stories are Vonda N. McIntyre Of Mist and Grass and James Tiptree Jr.'s The Girl Who Was Plugged In, which really presages the work and worlds of Bruce Sterling and William Gibson and Cyberpunk stories.

Judging an anthology is difficult as stories that might seem important at the time might read poorly in the future, or even derivative. This is a very strong collection with a lot of good stories, a few that really standout, and a couple that I could not enjoy, either that I did not understand or that I could not wrap my mind around the concept of. Some stories are more classic in what they present, a few are imaginative, sometimes too much. What astonishes most is that many of the stories don't seem of an era, but seem fresh, and sadly to reminiscent of our times today, showing that nothing has really changed in 50 years, in fact has gotten worse. However there is a sense of hope in quite a few tales, that is very infectious and heartwarming.

A very good, and with a few stories very disturbing collection, that might home for a lot of readers in many different ways. Recommended for fans of science fiction, no matter what gender. These are stories with a passion and feeling behind them, and good or bad, that comes across quite strongly in the writing.

This is a great collection of classic science fiction! It includes some great authors who are not read as widely as they should be. I really enjoyed it.

This is a really wonderful collection of stories. Like any anthology, the quality of individual stories varies quite a bit, but this provides what feels like a good cross-section of the genre. I knew some of the authors and had even read the Le Guin short story before, but a lot of this was new to me. There were some really great pieces in here--I particularly liked “Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand” (Vonda N. McIntyre), “The Funeral” (Kate Wilhelm), and "When It Changed” (Joanna Russ) but there were so many good moments in this collection. I think this is a good anthology for someone seeking to deepen their understanding of the genre, as well as those interested in feminist literature.

If you came to sci-fi, especially by female writers, later in life like me, you have to read this collection. I had no idea revolutionary thinking about gender and gender issues was written about so dynamically, and I wouldn’t have guessed it was so prolific in the 20th century. I would have benefitted greatly from reading these writers during my teen years. I’m benefiting greatly reading them now too.

I'm sometimes leery of older sci-fi, but this is well curated, and includes both variety and quality stories. For anthology sci-fi fans, this likely be a good fit. Recommended.

Thanks very much of the free ARC for review!!

This is a great volume of 1970s science fiction. It is full of Nebula and Hugo award winning short stories. The only author from this anthology that I had previously read was Ursula Le Guin, so I was excited to be exposed to other women in science fiction. I really love short stories because they are helpful to get myself out of a reading slump and liked having the stories in this collection to turn to. Reading science fiction from the 70s is interesting to me as someone who doesn't remember a time before the internet because you can really see the themes that are still relevant today. I really enjoyed this and will recommend it to other science fiction lovers!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

Lisa Yaszek has put together another very fine set of stories that highlight the variety of science fiction that has been produced by women, this time in the 1970s. Arranged chronologically by publication date, this fiction has some stories that are angry, and some that are more on the whimsical side; some that (I think) could only have been written by a woman, and others that don't particularly reflect a gendered authorship (and then there's the James Tiptree, Jr). Some feel like classic SF, others are more experimental. I didn't love them all. As a set, this is a really amazing way to showcase the variety of what women can write and have written.

Some I've read before: "When It Changed" (Joanna Russ) always gets me and I hope will always be discussed as part of science fiction in general, and not ever just relegated to 'battle of the sexes' conversations. I don't understand why we don't talk more about "The Girl who was Plugged In" (Tiptree) when we discuss cyberpunk; "The Screwfly Solution" (Raccoona Sheldon) is always completely horrific, and so is "Wives" (Lisa Tuttle), for very different reasons. I have always loved "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" (Vonda N. McIntyre) for its exploration of love and compassion - and same, in some ways, with "The Day before the Revolution" (Ursula K. Le Guin), although the latter is even more poignant; I always need to just stop and stare into the distance for a moment when I read it.

Of the others, there were several that stood out. I've read very little by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro; "Frog Pond" was very nicely paced, and the reveals built up beautifully. Kate Wilhelm's "The Funeral" was quietly terrifying as the state of America was slowly revealed - and these two, next to each other, were particularly distressing to read in the current state of the world. "The Anthropologist" (Kathleen M Sidney) feels in some ways like it's in conversation with Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, with its exploration of living between two very different worlds. And as someone who occasionally feels sad for Curiosity and Voyager etc, never being able to come home, "View from a Height" (Joan D Vinge) was something of a gut-punch. Gorgeous, but a bit harrowing.

... clearly, I think this anthology works for both people with some knowledge of the state of the 1970s field, and I believe it would also work for those who want an introduction to 1970s SF in general. It's nicely comprehensive.

I really love short stories, and this book specially it brings to us the knowledge that there were good stories brought to life through woman's hands in the 70’s, most of the names in this book I didn’t know them, but now I know some more authors names that I will hunt down in second hand book shops. Without talking in special about the stories I will just say that even thou they were written on the 70’s you wont feel that they’re old, hmm in some you may get some vibes of activism, but then again, you get that kind of feelings even with stories that were released last year…

I did like some stories better than others, but that's the normal what is expected, even in a box of chocolates there are the ones you really like and the others you just eat because are the leftovers and the ones that you leave for your dad to eat (sorry dad hahah).

Thank you NetGalley and Library of America for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion.

It is really hard to rate anthologies, especially ones like this that include so many different stories from so many different authors. There were some stories that I really enjoyed, some stories that I didn't really like, but I appreciated, and some that I intensely disliked. In the end, I decided the fairest way to do it would be to keep track of my rating for each story and then average them out, which resulted in a 3.5 (which rounds up to 4). This feels pretty accurate!

There are several things that are strengths of this anthology - quantity, variety, innovation of ideas, and the significance of these stories in the time frame in which they were written. I think the concepts are the biggest strength of this collection; these authors explore a lot of themes related to misogyny, feminism, justice, sex, relationships, etc, through inventive settings and scenarios.

Although there was a lot to like about this book, I did ultimately feel that parts of this book were a slog. I thought for a long time about why that was, and I ultimately came up with this: something that I really like and appreciate about both science fiction and feminist writing is that even in the darkness of the genre, there's some sort of sense of optimism and hope for a better future. What many of these stories lacked was any shred of optimism; they commented on social issues and imagined possible futures, but often they just came to the conclusion that it sucks to be a woman and always will. There's certainly still value in these, but I had a harder time getting through them and connecting because I was searching for that shred of hope.

A quick recap of my thoughts on each story, with a few brief comments (although I don't want to spoil too much, since discovering the premise of the stories is one of the highlights of reading an anthology):

SONYA DORMAN HESS - Bitching It: 0/5 (Basically just “what if women raped men and it was normalized?” I found it very gross and uncomfortable.)

CHELSEA QUINN YARBRO - Frog Pond: 4/5 (Intriguing, interesting reveal, made me curious about the world of the story.)

KATE WILHELM - The Funeral: 3.5/5 (Interesting setup, not much resolution. Handmaid’s tale vibes)

JOANNA RUSS - When It Changed: 5/5 (Interesting, inspiring, upsetting. A sad reminder of the power of patriarchal violence)

KATHLEEN SKY- Lament of the Keeku Bird: 0/5 (Just gross. Gore, incest, cannibalism, not much even happens. Ew.)

MIRIAM ALLEN DEFORD - A Way Out: 3.5/5 (Interesting view of humanity from the perspective of a very nonhuman alien, but parts of it a little gross. Also not seeing much of the feminist slant?)

VONDA N. MCINTYRE - Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand: 5/5 (The world was fascinating and I liked the exploration of cultural differences and fear causing harm. I felt a clear sense of character despite the short length.)

JAMES TIPTREE, JR. - The Girl Who Was Plugged In: 4.5/5 (I have a few nitpicks with the writing style, but the concept and execution are interesting in a “chilling because it could happen” way.)

PAMELA SARGENT - If Ever I Should Leave You: 4/5 (Good, but sad. A time traveling love story)

DORIS PISERCHIA - Pale Hands: 2/5 (It’s clearly trying to say something about sex but it’s just not working for me.)

URSULA K. LE GUIN - The Day Before the Revolution: 3/5 (I love Le Guin and it’s very thoughtful, but the sadness was too much for me)

ELEANOR ARNASON - The Warlord of Saturn’s Moons: 4/5 (Very meta - a woman writing about a woman writing about a woman in a sci fi story. Still, engaging!)

MARTA RANDALL - A Scarab in the City of Time: 5/5 (Interesting and engaging, ultimately hopeful!)

KATHLEEN M. SIDNEY - The Anthropologist: 3/5 (Interesting concept, I guess, but kind of hard to follow)

GAYLE N. NETZER - Hey, Lilith!: 3/5 (Vaguely interesting premise maybe, lacking in executions - very short!)

RACCOONA SHELDON - The Screwfly Solution: 4/5 (Very well executed, but chilling. Handmaid’s tale vibes but more science-y and sci-fi)

ELINOR BUSBY - Time to Kill: ??/5 (Unsure how to rate, feel weird about the premise as someone who was brought up religious)

M. LUCIE CHIN - The Best Is Yet to Be: 5/5 (Very interesting, Trill-esque (Star Trek) concept. Leaves you wanting more)

JOAN D. VINGE - View from a Height: 3/5 (Decently written, interesting concept, but kind of just a bummer. Captured loneliness well, I guess)

CYNTHIA FELICE - No One Said Forever: 4/5 (Wrenching portrait of a relationship faced with conflicting pressures and expectations for men and women, and how our pasts continue to hurt us.)

C. J. CHERRYH - Cassandra: 2/5 (Did not really understand this, nor did I particularly want to)

LISA TUTTLE - Wives: 5/5 (Again, chilling, but very well written. Fascinating concept.)

CONNIE WILLIS - Daisy, in the Sun: 4/5 (Well written, very scary)

An interesting collection. I like to read SF stories from yesteryear. Here we have tales from women writers of the 70s, giving a nice view of SF of the decade. Very entertaining and educational at the same time.

I love a good sci-fi short story collection and nothing makes me happier than reading science fiction by female authors. So The Future is Female! is a collection series that I have deeply enjoyed. Volume 2 carries the torch from the first and brings together a diverse collection of stories on a wide variety of topics. This took me on so many fascinating journeys! The thing I love about these collections is that they do such a great job of introducing me to new-to-me authors and therefore add whole stacks to my TBR list.

I highly recommend picking this one up for your collection.

A wonderfully interesting and eclectic collection of stories from writers that we should hear more from!

this book has everything I love, women science fiction and vintage, I absolutely loved it!! I also really appreciated the size of each stories, not too long, so perfect to read if you have trouble staying focusing

Short stories are perfect for reading when you're busy and struggling to focus, so this was the perfect book for this moment. Although the stories are from the 70s, they weren't dated. Rather, it felt like the dilemmas and issues in them are only more pressing now.

I can't review every story, so I'll mention a couple I especially liked. There was a James Tiptree story (note: James Tiptree was a female author writing under a pseudonym) about a young woman who is, essentially, an instagram operator. The internet didn't exist at the time of writing, but somehow Tiptree predicted we would have influencers, that they'd be glamorous for a living and make their money promoting products. But in this story, the influencer is a cloned body remotely piloted by a woman not nearly so beautiful or glamorous. Without explicitly saying so, Tiptree brings our attention to how different it is to be beautiful or ugly, especially as a woman. How almost everyone sees the body as the person, and the real person behind it as the "thing."

Another that hit me hard was about a change in human psychology that makes men violent against women. Nobody can figure out what's going on, but as it spreads and more and more women are gruesomely murdered . . . we find that men largely don't care. It's hard to argue it wouldn't be like that.

Many of the stories end on a somber note; as short stories tend to, they give us a premise, make us care, and then wrap up. Still, they left me thinking.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

This is an excellent and impressive anthology of 70s feminist science fiction. The stories in it demonstrate the breadth of ideas and subgenres explored by female writers during this decade, as well as their preoccupations with feminist ideals. Additionally, the introduction provides a fascinating overview of the genre and the writers within it. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in speculative fiction or second wave feminism.

Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for an early copy of this book.

This anthology is awesome! I’ve always enjoyed old sci-fi stories, and it never really occurred to me that the vast majority of them were by men. It’s great to read a book exclusively by women.