20 female masters of science fiction to add to your reading list
Portrait of Mary Shelley by Richard Rothwell (Image via Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
20. Mary Shelley
While this list as a whole isn’t meant to act as a chronology or ranking, we might as well start with the grandmama of all modern science fiction. No, I didn’t just say sci-fi by women. I meant the entire genre.
Like practically anything, this is up for debate. If you really want to get down to the nitty-gritty, there’s some merit to arguing that ancient works like the Epic of Gilgamesh have elements of sci-fi to them.
Still, Shelley’s 1818 novel, Frankenstein, is one of the earliest works of literature that can be labeled “science fiction”. No matter how often you find it filed away with “horror”, you’ll find elements of sci-fi raising its head throughout her first novel. There’s speculative science, artificially created beings, and plenty of musing on the human condition that would fit right in with the genre.
Frankenstein follows young Victor Frankenstein, a mad scientist who creates life via discarded criminal body parts and galvanism. His unnamed monster is even a kind of alien, thus observing and critiquing human society and generally causing havoc in Frankenstein’s life.
The Last Man and Valperga
Though Frankenstein is by far her most famous work, Shelley would go on to write quite a few more novels. These include The Last Man, a post-apocalyptic tale published in 1826, and a more traditional gothic work, Valperga (which features a character named Countess Euthanasia).
Shelley herself had an interesting life story worthy of any author of the fantastic. She was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft, herself a pioneering philosopher and feminist despite the handicap of living in 18th century Europe. Alas, she died giving birth to her daughter, Mary, in 1797. Though Mary Shelley never met her own mother, it’s easy to think that she was somehow haunted by Wollstonecraft throughout her life. After all, in Frankenstein, life, death, birth and the oftentimes grotesque mixing of the three are a major and often heartbreaking theme.