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During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women were prominent as fantasy writers, producing important fantasy works in Gothic and Arabian Nights' style. The most prolific was Lily Adams Beck, who specialized in magical tales set in far-off lands. One of the earliest Canadian fantasy novels was Flora MacDonald's Mary Melville the Psychic.
Women continue to be an important part of the Canadian fantasy and science-fiction scene. In French Canada, such writers as Anne Hébert and Marie-Claire Blais have been a central part of the development of Québécois Gothic and surreal novels.
In English Canada, women writers, such as Pauline Gedge and Tanya Huff, have concentrated on urban, high and dark fantasy. Karen Wehrstein and Shirley Meier have collaborated with Stephen Stirling in military science fiction. Monica Hughes, Francine Pelletier and Suzanne Martel have written numerous and very popular works for young people.
Critics have commented on the prominent role of women in Canadian literature from the pioneer days of Frances Moore and Susanna Moodie to the present. Women have also played a prominent role in the development of Canadian fantastic fiction.
The most important Canadian woman writer of science fiction is Phyllis Gotlieb, whose short stories began appearing in American pulp magazines in the 1950s.
Judith Merril ended her short-story writing career many years ago, but has become one of international science fiction's most important editors. Merril's fiction has not ceased to be influential--her collections Daughters of Earth and Survival Ship and the Shrine of Temptation continue to be popular.
Sunburst
Gotlieb, Phyllis
Dee Why West, N.S.W.: Eclipse Paperbacks, 1977.
The consequences of a nuclear explosion could be profound changes in societal values. Its members could also have mutated to develop different abilities and perceptions. Although the style and tone are very different, the theme is worth comparing with that of John Wyndham's The Chrysalids.
© Phyllis Gotlieb.
The Keeper of the Isis Light
Hughes, Monica
[London?]: Collins Educational, 1980.
As the keeper of the Isis rock in the sea of space, Olwen is content to live alone with her robot Guardian and her dog-like companion. It is not until Isis is colonized by humans that she learns how important appearance can be and how much the balance of her existence has been disturbed by the outsiders. (Juvenile novel)
Journey to Aprilioth
Kernaghan, Eileen
New York: Ace Books, 1980.
Along the way to the broken tower where the last answer lies, the seekers must overcome assorted hazards, including a waiting sorceress, a beast who bars their path and a star that never dies. Only then will they find the mythical and marvellous place on an island at the end of the world.
Mary Melville the Psychic
MacDonald, Flora
Toronto: Austin Publishing Company, 1900.
This novel masquerading as a biography of a psychic with extraordinary powers describes a woman who "attained a glorious immortality [because] during her earthly career she functioned in the sphere of the cosmic consciousness".
Courtesy of Austin Publishing.
Quatre Montréalais en l'an 3000
Martel, Suzanne
Montréal: Les Éditions du Jour, 1961.
In this post-nuclear holocaust city, hairless children eat pills instead of food and remain underground, safe from the outside world. But what happens when one boy discovers a door to the other world above ground? (Juvenile novel)
Courtesy of Suzanne Martel.
Daughters of Earth: Three Novels
Merril, Judith
Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, 1969.
These three novellas tell the history of women who push back the frontiers of space exploration. One finds freedom on an alien planet. Another sees her daughter leave on her first voyage to the stars. She, in turn, lives to see her granddaughter depart on the first flight into sub-space.
Tesseracts
Merril, Judith. editor
Victoria, B.C.: Press Porcépic, 1985.
The Tesseracts anthology brings together some of the finest Canadian science fiction writers, presenting fresh perceptions of the fourth dimension -- which might be time or space -- and a possible future, when we meet the aliens and find that they are ourselves.
Used by permission of Beach Holme Publishers, Victoria, B.C.
Le Crime de l'enchanteresse
Pelletier, Francine
Montréal: Éditions Paulines, 1989.
The Enchantress is a ten-year-old singer touring Arkadie with her flying house and her entire entourage: impresario, director, "decorist".... But suddenly a murder is committed in the workers' village where the Enchantress is to give a concert.
Le Crime de L'Enchanteresse. Francine Pelletier. Cover
illustration: Charles Vinh. Montréal: Éditions Paulines (now
MÉDIASPAUL), 1989.
Le Temps des migrations
Pelletier, Francine
Longueuil, Québec: Éditions du Préambule, 1987.
Asterman is an enormous space station orbiting Earth. It is the stepping-off point for a series of relay stations that lead out of the solar system. The reader travels along this route, in six different stories, learning about emigrating and migratory humans searching for a better life "somewhere else"; but space is not easily conquered.
Cover illustration: Mario Giguère.
Les Maisons de cristal
Perrot-Bishop, Annick
Montréal: Les Éditions Logiques, 1990.
"Les maisons de cristal" and the nine other stories in this book are about cultural clashes that take the form of conflicts between individuals, sexes and societies.
Les Maisons de cristal. Annick Perrot-Bishop. Montréal: Les Éditions Logiques, 1990.
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Copyright. The National Library of Canada. (Revised: 1995-06-17)