Wednesday, August 24, 2022

Brief Essays on Genre, Part 17: On Female Action Heroes

 .


 

On Female Action Heroes

 

Long before I published my first story, one of my ambitions was to write an adventure story with a female protagonist. Joanna Russ beat everyone to it with her Alyx stories and novel. But, she admitted afterward, it was hard, hard, hard.

 

Today, it seems the easiest thing in the world. Just do it. But only because Joanna was there first.

 

Nothing that hasn’t been done before is easy until it’s been done before.

 

--Michael Swanwick

 

2 comments:

Kevin said...

I loved Picnic on Paradise. I've never read any of her other Alyx stories. Are they assembled into a single volume?

Michael Swanwick said...

Yes, THE ADVENTURES OF ALYX contains the four stories and the novel.