scifi-history – The Aardwyrm's Nest

October 12, 2026

Begum Rokeya and “Sultana’s Dream”

Today’s warnings: Gender essentialism, and for once that’s it! I should have found a way out of the whiteness of this series much earlier for a lot of good reasons, but not having to warn for every prejudice an upper middle class white lady from the first half of the 20th century might have is…

Dorothy Gertrude Quick and “Strange Orchids”

Today’s warnings: Weird old timey racism (no slurs, just stupidity), wild classism, transphobia weirdly enough. I’ve decided to just tag all these at the beginning because, as I’ll touch on a bit more later, yeah, none of these so far have been without some shitty elements. The thirties: Tada! Sometimes I’m reading spec-fic of the…

Clare Winger Harris and “The Evolutionary Monstrosity”

I’ve found myself missing longform blogging from the weird old days of the internet. I hate my own recorded voice and don’t really bother to look like anything other than a tired gremlin on the regular, so despite the hours I spend cheerfully consuming weird informative junk on Youtube (I am too old to have…