Have to agree with you that the list seems heavily slanted in the way you described, but I suspect that's likely because many of the respondents are indeed older white guys, and they vote for what they remember. Many of these are books I read in my teens and early 20's, so that's a whole four+ decades ago!
That being said, even in that time of my life there were a number of excellent female SF/fantasy writers, including those you mentioned-- James Tiptree Jr., Joan D. Vinge, CJ Cherryh, Octavia Butler. Sadly, it was still a boy's club then, there's no doubt.
Ursula LeGuin did get two mentions, for her most famous works, but IMO they should be far higher on this list.
On the guy side, I was also baffled by the omission of Philip Jose Farmer's brilliant Riverworld trilogy, or pretty much anything by Robert Silverberg and--- no Harlan Ellison works??? Seriously? Yes, he was a wild and crazy dude, but good grief, could he write!
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2019-09-09 10:02 pm (UTC)That being said, even in that time of my life there were a number of excellent female SF/fantasy writers, including those you mentioned-- James Tiptree Jr., Joan D. Vinge, CJ Cherryh, Octavia Butler. Sadly, it was still a boy's club then, there's no doubt.
Ursula LeGuin did get two mentions, for her most famous works, but IMO they should be far higher on this list.
On the guy side, I was also baffled by the omission of Philip Jose Farmer's brilliant Riverworld trilogy, or pretty much anything by Robert Silverberg and--- no Harlan Ellison works??? Seriously? Yes, he was a wild and crazy dude, but good grief, could he write!