Founding Mother

[supergee]

One of my great Corrupting Influences was Judith Merril. Every year she’d do a Year’s Best anthology on the basis that the sf she liked (which correlated with the sf I liked) was likely not to be labeled “Science Fiction.” In the mid-60s, when the field was going through important changes, she reviewed perceptively in F&SF. Now Aqueduct Press has done a collection of her writings about the field, which you should buy and read even though it’s called The Merril Theory of Lit’ry Criticism. I’ve written a review for NYRSF, and the astute Russell Letson appreciates it in Locus.