Book Review: Other Half of the Sky, edited by Athena Andreadis

In the introduction for The Other Half of the Sky, the book's editor Athena Andreadis describes space opera in less than glowing terms: "Likewise, most SF aficionados conflate space opera with galactic empires, messianic anti/heroes (invariably white men) and gizmos up the wazoo, from death stars to individually customized viruses. And therein lies a tale of an immense, systemic failure of imagination."

They’re harsh words for an incredibly popular genre: after all, when you lump in television and film, you’re essentially describing what most people think of as science fiction. But, they’re necessary words, because she’s completely right: space opera, and most of the Golden Age of SF, has often been described as being the age of 12. Andreadis’s anthology seeks to put together a group of stories that paints a picture of the other half of the sky’s occupants, and this book succeeds at its task in grand fashion.

The Other Half of the Sky is an impressive anthology of 16 stories, with an equally impressive group of authors. Well known authors such as Vandana Singh, Joan Slonczewski, Aliette de Bodard, Ken Liu, Martha Wells, and Jack McDevitt are all included in this book, as well as several authors who were new to me: Christine Lucas, Kelly Jennings, Sue Lange, Nisi Shawl, and a couple of others. I first came across this anthology at the 2012 ReaderCon, where several authors held a reading of their works in the book. Then, it sounded interesting. In my hands, the book is an impressive group of stories. The space opera of the 1950s contains a certain formula of characters and plot types: frequently, we’d have stories of plucky scientists discovering something extraordinary, heroes finding themselves in situations from which they had to extracate themselves, and some sort of logical puzzle that was solved through the protagonist’s wits and bluster. That’s an overly simplifed version, to be sure, but after a while, it gets boring. The Other Half of the Sky opens up a range of stories that aren’t necessarily new, but they’re not seen nearly as often.

Political and sociological intentions aside, this is a hell of an anthology. Ken Liu’s story, ‘Shape of Thought’ is an interesting take on family dynamics, while ‘Mimesis’, by Martha Wells, puts together a really cool alien world and society. One of my absolute favorite stories, however, is ‘Velocity’s Ghost’, by Kelly Jennings, following a bounty hunter in deep space. There’s certain value in a book that has positioned itself to make a statement, but there’s a greater value when the focus falls equally on the quality of the stories: this anthology focuses on the latter.

There’s a pointed message in this book: we can do that too, and in light of an entire range of conversations brewing around the SF community as of late, this book should be considered required reading. Far too often, it seems that there’s an attitude that women can’t or simply don’t write the sort of hard SF and space opera that’s traditionally been published. This book utterly crushes that assumption with its incredible range of stories and superior level of writing that’s consistent throughout the entire anthology. The Other Half of the Sky is an anthology that’s long overdue, and I hope that it’ll serve as a good example for future authors and readers in the genre.