I occasionally listen to old podcasts in an effort to be a completist and one SF podcast was discussing in 2015 the state of the British SF scene. Among various things covered was the lack of women getting mainstream SF publishing deals. I also found out Ian Sales once wrote about how circa 10 years ago no women at all got a major SF publishing contact

Ha! Said I as a negotiated the roundabouts of Liverpool at least that’s got better….then I tried to name who I knew was published in 2022.

I review and read a lot - the market is geared towards fantasy but still I should be able to come up with a few names….

Most of who jumped up in my mind were fantasy authors…

But still…erm…gentle reader I got to 5 out of 180 odd books so far this year

I asked some bloggers who also read a lot and we still didn’t get into double figures….

So as I got an uncomfortable feeling about this I thought I’d ask the Twitter Hive Mind. Every Sunday I like to ask people what they read and get a fair degree of responses from a good selection of regular readers. I tweaked the question as

A) not very one reads new releases

B) I thought more useful to cover a wider period (2020-22) and this also reflects the pandemic and supply issues that are ongoing and publication dates have shifted a lot and still are.

Behold the responses! If you see # that reflects that other people came up with the same choice

I have removed children’s fiction but kept YA and decided ultimately steampunk comes out

Any mistakes in the list are down to my own fault

Across the period

Louise Carey – Inscape and Outcast (2021 and 2022) - Gollancz ##

Rachel Harrison – Various Warhammer (stories over the period) - Black Library

Laura Lam and Elizabeth May– Seven Devils and Seven Mercies – (2020-21) - Gollancz ########

Una McCormack – Time Lord Victorious (2020) - BBC Books plus Star Trek and many more over the whole period #####

Dr Fiona Moore – various short fiction over the period

Danie Ware – Various novellas and short stories over the period ####

2022

Theo Clare aka Mo Hyder - The Book of Sand (2022) - Blackstone Publishing

Anne E Currie – Panopticon series (latest 2022) - self-published

Kate Dylan - Mindwalker (2022) - Hodder

EM Faulds - Under the Moon (short stories) - (2022) Ghost Moth Press

SJ Groenewegan –Lethbridge-Stewart: A Most Haunted Man - (2022) - Candy Jar Books #

Jo Harkin - Tell Me An Ending (2022) - Hutchinson Heinemann

Lucy Kissick - Plutoshine (2022) - Gollancz

Temi Oh – Overwatch 2 - Sojourn (November 2022) - Titan ##

Catriona Silvey - Meet me In Another Life – (2022) - HarperVoyager ###

Anna Stephens - Gothghull Hollow -(2022) - Black Library- Warhammer

E J Swift – The Coral Bones (2022) - Unsung Stories

Joma West - Face (2022) - tordorcom

Susannah Wise - This Fragile Earth (2022) Gollancz

2021

Nina Allen - The Art of Space Travel and Other Stories (2021) - Titan ###

Malorie Blackman - Endgame - (2021) - Penguin

Joanna Corrance - John’s Eyes - (2021) - Luna Press Publishing

Sarah Hall – Burntcoat – (2021) - Faber & Faber #

Caroline Hardaker - Composite Creatures – (2021) - Angry Robot

Victoria Hayward – Warhammer short stories – Sanction and Sin –(2021) - Black Library

Polly Ho-Yen – Dark Lullaby - (2021)– Titan

Stark Holborn – Ten Low – (2021) - Titan and also short stories ####

Ida Keough – Fish! -(2021) - (NewCon) #

Eli Lee - A Strange and Brilliant Light - (2021) - Jo Fletcher Books

Everina Maxwell – Winter’s Orbit – (2021) - Orbit and Ocean’s Echo this November

Claire North – Notes From The Burning Age – (2021) - Orbit ########

Natasha Pulley – The Kingdoms - (2021) Bloomsbury #

Jacqueline Rayner & Alex Kingston – The Ruby’s Curse – (2021) - BBC Books

Jude Reid – Warhammer short stories – Sanction and Sin –(2021) - Black Library #

Ren Waron – Deep Learning – (2021) Newcon

Aliya Whiteley – Skyward Inn – (2021) - Solaris #######

Lorraine Wilson – This Is Our Undoing – 2021 – Luna Press Publishing ##

Marian Womack – The Swimmers - (2021) - Titan

2020

Anne Charnock – Bridge 108 – (2020) - 47North ##

Ee Leen Lee – 2020 – Liquid Crystal Nightingale – Abaddon - also various short stories

Lesley Kelly – Murder at the Music Factory (2020) - Sandstone Press

Kit Mallory – Blackout and also Spark (2020)– self-published

Justina Robson – Paper Hearts - (2020) - NewCon #

Jo M Thomas – Aurora – (2020) - Black Shuck Books

Womble’s thoughts

Let’s be clear this is not being scientific and I’m not sure fair with every book published every year. This is more a small poll of what people remember reading.

Well I am glad we got a lot more names. I don’t think the numbers though gives me a huge degree of confidence that we have moved on from the discussion as in 2015 in SF that great a deal.

• A lot of the choices are small press and there are quite a lot of tie-ins and short fiction in the options bulking up those numbers. All valid but original novels are less common. One important thing to note this does highlight small and indie presses do contribute a lot

• B) 2020 saw many stories move a year for obvious reasons and so that may explain why 2021 looks so busy. 2022 though looks quiet - a toughening market or something else?

• C) Women of colour are even less frequent. We know already that this is a huge problem in publishing and I’m not yet seeing signs of improvement.

• D) I do knew SF is still the smaller slice of the SF&F pie so I should it be expecting a mammoth list but it’s curious.

• I think this is something that I’ll be looking to improve my own reading choices on over the next twelve months and pay a little more attention to. Will this change in 2023? Let’s find out but for now I think this is raising with me some questions and perhaps some uncomfortable answers?