Lady Business

Longtime followers of my personal journal may remember that I complained a lot about the lack of women on NPR best of SF/F books list when it was released 10 years ago. Now I feel that I should give credit where it's due: as Petra Mayer of NPR Books compiled a new list focused on the best SF/F in the last ten years, she also acknowledged some of the limitations of the old list and released an addendum. The biggest blind spot was the lack of a single author of color on the original list -- which I confess is also not something I focused on in my posts about it, either -- with Octavia Butler mentioned as a particularly egregious omission (hard to argue with that). The addendum is short (only 7 books/series), but it's a good one, covering a variety of genres and authors in a small space. It could probably have been a lot longer, but I appreciate that they made the effort.

The newer list also improves on several procedural errors made in 2011. They've done away with ranking (books are organized by mood and theme instead), the results of the reader poll were curated by a named jury whose members clearly chosen with an eye to diversity and inclusion (and all four of whom had a book on the final list -- given who they are, this should not be a surprised), and no author is allowed to be listed more than once. I'm a little iffier about YA being once again excluded (at least this time they didn't leave out romance and horror, although I'm not sure how well represented either of those subgenres are). The stated reason is the same as last time: they're doing an updated YA list in 2022, so those books will have their chance later. Which, fine, as long as they don't double dip like they did last time.

I'm not going to count up numbers and run percentages like I have in the past. I've started to feel like that's a fairly reductionist way to engage with book lists, for several reasons (it starts to feel like ranking different axes of identity, forcing authors to self-disclose their marginalization if they want to "count" toward diversity, binary notions of race and gender). More important, I think, is to look at the intentions of the list maker and get a sense of the balance of the list. I definitely feel that NPR's heart was in the right place this time. Did they get it right? It's probably not for me to make a definitive statement. But it's a distinct improvement, and in that respect, I'll take it.

Instead, I'll engage with the list by pointing to some of the great stuff on it. I voted in the reader poll, and several of my choices made it on (The Goblin Emperor! Murderbot!) and others that I might not have expected to see but am thrilled are there -- The Green Bone Trilogy and A Memory Called Empire are two that come to mind. What do you think of the list? Did you vote in the poll? (I know it got posted in Sidetracks at least twice!) Any additions to the ever-expanding TBR? Let us know about it in the comments.