Rosel George Brown (author)

(1926-1967)

Right now, there is some debate in the science fiction field about the role of women in current science fiction. It’s indisputable that SF has had more male writers than females over the years, but even from the very beginning, women did try their hand at the genre.*  Many are overlooked today, and one that needs to be rediscovered is Rosel George Brown.

Brown was born in New Orleans and lived there most of her life, after getting an MA in Greek from the University of Minnesota. Biographical information is scarce; I believe her birth name was Rosel George, since her husband’s last name was Brown.

Her first sale was “From an Unseen Censor,” which appeared in Galaxy in September 1958.  Most of her short stories appeared there and in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. She was praised both by critics and readers of the time.

I first encountered her with her anthology A Handful of Time, which included most of her best short stories.  It was a book I kept rereading for years, but I seem to have lost my copy in the interim. 

Brown switched over to novels with Sybil Sue Blue, about a female detective of the future.  Sybil was strong and competent, a single mother who has to juggle both her work life and dealing with her teen daughter. 

She collaborated on the novel Earthblood with Keith Laumer.

In this time frame, of course, a lot of the sexist assumptions of the 50s and earlier fit among the more feminist concepts. You can’t blame Brown for that, though. Feminism started gaining mainstream attention in the mid-60s, but Brown’s last story short story came out in 1964, with Earthblood out two years later.    She was diagnosed with lymphoma and died in 1967 at age 41.

That left her to be just a minor footnote in the history of SF.  However, if she hadn’t died so young, she may have been recognized as one of the major names of the genre.

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*John W. Campbell published a story by Amelia Reynolds Long in the third issue of Astounding SF in 1937, and Long had been publishing regularly since 1928.