Episode #178 – (SF Hall of Fame #12) That Only A Mother by Judith Merril w/ Patrick B Sharp & Audrey Taylor

In 1970, Avon Books published a landmark anthology, “Science
Fiction Hall of Fame,” featuring 26 classic short stories that
represent landmark tales of the genre. The stories were voted on
by the members of the new (at the time, in the late 1960s)
organization Science Fiction Writers of America. In this series,
I will be joined by a panel of guests to break down these stories
and talk about the authors in the book.


In this episode, I am joined by Patrick B. Sharp Professor of
Liberal Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. He
is the Faculty Director of EagleCon, SFAM conference Cal State
LA's convention devoted to exploring and advocating for diversity
in SF across media. He is the author of Darwinian Feminism and
Early Science Fiction: Angels, Amazons, and Women (New Dimensions
in Science Fiction) and co-editor of Sisters of Tomorrow (with
Lisa Yaszek) and Audrey Taylor is an Assistant Professor of
English at Colorado State-Pueblo. She received her PhD from
Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England. Her specialty is
genre fiction, particularly fantasy, and science fiction. Her
first book, Patricia A. McKillip and the Art of Fantasy
World-Building, came out in 2017 and she is at work on a second
monograph on SF author Anne McCaffrey.


We talk about Judith Merrill and her 1948 classic “Only a
Mother.” We go deep into the author’s history, the origin and the
meaning of the story, Did Merrill intentionally write this story
to needle John W. Campbell, and more.