Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction

As a reviewer and a rabid reader of speculative fiction, I am continually astonished when I see complaints about women finding success with fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Seriously. There’s a contingent of readers out there (and writers as well, I suspect) that believe sci-fi and spec-fic should remain the domain of white male writers.

And that’s the stupidest thing in the world because without women, the genre couldn’t exist. Monster, She Wrote carries the subtitle “The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction” and the keyword there is pioneered. They’ve been part of the genre from the beginning, and it’s about bleeping time these names got the spotlight they have long deserved.

You’ll recognize plenty of the names in this book — Du Maurier, Shelley, Jackson, Lee, Rice — but it’s the names you don’t recognize that make the book a devastatingly fascinating read. Whether you like your stories with chills, thrills, or kills — ghosts, psychological horror, or monsters — you are covered here. Best of all, you’ll end up with a terrific reading list to follow up on when you’re done.

Monster, She Wrote celebrates and educates in equal measure, enriching the reading lists of modern genre buffs while reminding us just how key women have been to the genre as a whole. Wonderful stuff.