20 female masters of science fiction to add to your reading list
12. Kate Wilhelm
Kate Wilhelm may not have initially seemed like a budding science fiction writer. Born in 1928 in Toledo, Ohio, she first embarked on a series of jobs as a switchboard operator, sales clerk, and underwriter for an insurance company. When she first married in 1947, it may have seemed even to her (or at least the people around her) that Kate was destined to be another housewife and mother.
No disrespect to the hard work of parenting, but Kate Wilhelm clearly had a different plan. She first published a short story, “The Pint-Size Genie,” in the October 1956 issue of Fantastic. Since then, she’s published work in other major sci-fi magazines, including Locus, Amazing Stories, and Asimov’s Science Fiction. Along with her second husband, Wilhelm helped establish the Clarion Writers Workshop and the Milford Writer’s Workshop, both major incubators for sci-fi writers.
As her career progressed, Wilhelm also began to write a mystery and thriller novels, including standalone books and long-running series. However, we’re here to focus on her science fiction work, including her Locus Award-winning 1977 novel, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang.
How to survive the end of the world
Like so many sci-fi novels, this one begins with a post-apocalyptic setting. Pollution and environmental collapse have crippled humanity. However, survivors of the ongoing disasters soon learn that most, if not all, people are now infertile. One family resorts to cloning, in the hopes that future generations will be able to return to more traditional reproduction.
That would be all well and good if the clones themselves didn’t have other ideas. They’re not really into the idea of sexual reproduction and would much rather continue cloning one another.
Eventually, the clones begin to take over. They soon learn that groups of similarly cloned people are highly empathetic towards one another. If one is separated from their group for too long, they begin to experience intense psychological distress.
One clone, however, accidentally bucks this trend. Molly is separated from her clone-sisters while on a scavenging expedition. She learns to live as an individual but is kept apart from the rest of society for fear of her dangerous new ideas. When she conceives a child in the “traditional” way, she becomes even more of a divisive figure.
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang remains a fascinating take on gender and reproduction in a genre that, until recently, tended to ignore the subject.