The novel “Memoirs of a Spacewoman” by Naomi Mitchison was published for the first time in 1962.
Mary is a spacewoman expert in communications with alien species. Ther means that in the course of her travels through the cosmos and encounters with various sentient species she contributes to improving relationships between humans and the natives of the various planets visited. A cardinal rule prohibits any interference in other societies, but she can have personal relationships with aliens.
Scientific interest can mix with relationships that can also be sexual in nature, and Mary ends up having children not only from other human beings but also with a Martian. In relationships with aliens, differences can enrich, but can also lead to problems, especially when children are born.
Naomi Mitchison had a very long life, since she died at 101, and eventful as an activist engaged in various social causes. Despite that, she found the time to write many books of various, diverse, genres as they went from historicals to travelogues. Occasionally, she also wrote science fiction stories in which she expressed various of her ideas in a setting that in the case of “Memoirs of a Spacewoman” is in a distant future.
Spacewoman Mary tells about some missions around the universe in contact with sentient species very different from humans, both physically and psychologically. Naomi Mitchison was far ahead with regards to some ideas, and in the early 1960s developed themes that only years later became normal or at least widespread.
Human explorers of the distant but indefinite future of “Memoirs of a Spacewoman” observe a crucial rule of non-interference with alien societies and that came a few years before the First Directive of “Star Trek”. Some themes related to sexuality anticipated trends such as the new wave that grew in the following years influencing science fiction. These themes are included in several of the author’s stories that caused controversy and scandal, sometimes even leading to censorship.
In her stories, Mary talks about both her contacts with alien species and her work with them and her personal relationships with colleagues and friends, humans and aliens. Mary’s professional life is intertwined in various ways with her personal life. For that reason, she tells both professional problems related to the complexity of the relationships with aliens very different from humans and personal problems, sometimes related to motherhood, a very important theme in “Memoirs of a Spacewoman”.
Mary’s stories contain some scientific references, but already at the time when Naomi Mitchison wrote “Memoirs of a Spacewoman” concepts like human-alien hybrids she describes seemed unlikely. The author’s science fiction has very strong humanistic foundations, and they’re the really significant elements in reading the novel.
The diversity and complexity Mary finds in the alien species she encounters is a source of problems in inter-species relationships, but is also a source of enrichment. Mary’s job is difficult and she faces it by putting her emotions in it, not only her professionalism in a scientific field.
“Memoirs of a Spacewoman” is a novel in which space travel is an excuse to tell the encounter with the other with various facets. It’s definitely not an adventurous novel, and the structure in the form of Mary’s diaries basically eliminates the element of action focusing on the relationships between Mary, her colleagues and friends, her children’s fathers, and various aliens. Naomi Mitchison wasn’t a writer specializing in science fiction, so she interpreted the genre in her own way, with an introspective, serious story with moments of humor. For that reason, if you’re looking for stories that offer food for thought, you might like it.
