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Reviewed by:
  • Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women's Science Fiction
  • Jane Donawerth (bio)
Galactic Suburbia: Recovering Women's Science Fiction, by Lisa Yaszek. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2008. 234 pp. $22.95.

In Galactic Suburbia, Lisa Yaszek studies post-World War II science fiction by women, thus providing a much-needed bridge between studies of pulp science fiction by women in the Golden Age (1920s to 1940s) and the large body of scholarship on late-twentieth-century feminist utopias and science fiction.

In her introduction, Yaszek sets up a rich historical context of Cold War politics and rapid technological development that propelled U.S. women (and the female characters of 1950s science fiction) into the role of household management and "high-tech domestic citizen" (p. 8), and in her conclusion, "Progenitors," Yaszek links the accomplishments of 1950s women's science fiction to the conventions, gender roles, and story possibilities of contemporary science fiction. Her first chapter, "Writers," lays out the range of women writers in 1950s science fiction, explores the commercial magazine and fan culture that they are entering, and offers case studies of Judith Merril, Eleanor Jones, and Shirley Jackson, suggesting that the writers complicate the domestic setting by deploying the female scientist explorer and the housewife heroine to interrogate patriarchal structures. In chapter two, "Homemakers," Yaszek examines the 1950s expectation that housewives represent American political and scientific progress and, in studies of stories by Carol Emshwiller, Zenna Henderson, Margaret St. Clair, and others, suggests that these writers help rethink women's agency to create new modes of domesticity and new forms of families. Chapter three, "Activists," studies the involvement of 1950s women in the civil rights and peace movements and explores stories such as those by Kay Rogers, Cornelia Jessey, and Mildred Clingerman that address women's concerns about nuclear war and adapt the racial conversion narrative to the figure of the alien to assess the chances for growth of racial tolerance. Finally, in "Scientists," the last chapter, Yaszek explores the ways that women writers, of both science fiction (such as Marion Zimmer Bradley and Merril) and nonfiction popularizations of science (such as Rachel Carson and Kathleen Downe), help shape new views of women in scientific and technological roles. One striking example is Alma McCormick's letter to the editor of If science fiction magazine, which questions Philip K. Dick's story based on the assumption that mutants would compete with humans for evolutionary dominance; McCormick, a special education teacher, proffers a different social model where institutional support for difference creates community.

I heartily recommend this book to all students and scholars interested in the history of science fiction, in science fiction and utopias by women, [End Page 179] in mid-twentieth-century fiction, in history of women and science, and in women's studies more generally. It is meticulous, exhaustively researched, deftly written, and framed by a rich history of postwar American culture and its effects on gender roles. This study uncovers a fascinating literature by women science fiction writers who adapted narrative devices from women's magazines, civil rights conversion narratives, Cold War fiction, and science fiction itself to worm their way into the predominantly masculine genre of 1950s science fiction and make it their own. Yaszek enters an ongoing conversation about science fiction by women, and she is thoughtful in connecting her work to previous scholarship. In some places, Yaszek, I think, misleads readers by referring to these 1950s, realistic, mainstream science fiction stories (albeit on women's subjects) as "postmodern." However, Yaszek is one of the few critics of women's science fiction to give science its due place, and her readings are consequently exceptionally informed and enlightening. And the index is satisfyingly thorough—always a test of a real scholar. Her study is a model for such historical readings.

Jane Donawerth
University of Maryland
Jane Donawerth

Jane Donawerth, Professor of English and affiliate in Women's Studies at the University of Maryland, has coedited with Carol Kolmerten Utopian and Science Fiction by Women: Worlds of Difference (1994), and authored Frankenstein's Daughters: Women Writing Science Fiction (1997). She was awarded the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts Scholarship Award for her...

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