Feminist Science Fiction Fans discussion

I'm posting some biblio info and a content warning early for the benefit of those who need to plan the books they're going to read a few weeks in advance.

Some of you have already read some of this book.
It contains four of five (that I know of) stories which provide different viewpoints on a set of interlinked events. Some characters are recurring and others aren't but none are featured in all of the stories.
Some of these stories have been widely published and others haven't. One may have only been published once in a mag outside of this book: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg...
Since the fifth story was included in Birthday of the World, many of you must have read it.

While all of these stories shed some light on each other, I don't think you'd miss too much by skipping some.
The story relevant to this group is obviously A Woman's Liberation (about 25K words, and as political and didactic as it sounds). But I think you also ought to read Forgiveness Day (about 20K) if nothing else.
Both have been picked up in Dozois anthologies (and in other places of course - see isfdb link above) and should therefore be easily available to those who can't get their hands on February's book. So that's not an excuse to skip the group read this time. :-)

Those of you who've read the fifth story in Birthday can make a decent guess about much of the content of this book but I think a content warning for one of the other stories in particular is still in order: (view spoiler)[These stories deal with slavery and therefore feature oppression, terrorism and systematic exploitation, much of it of a sexual nature. As you might expect, children are not spared. In light of the MZB thread, I wanted to mention that in particular.
Now these are UKL stories so you won't find anything as stark, graphic or gratuitous as you might find in the works of many other writers such as Butler. But there is seriously heavy stuff going on in some of these stories, even if it's handled deftly or merely alluded to. (hide spoiler)] (these are very mild spoilers but there's no point in spoiling yourself if you have no use for warnings)

Finally, if anyone has never read any of the stories and intends to the book from cover to cover, don't give up if you think the first story is slow, uneventful or confusing. Don't get me wrong: it is a worldbuilding-heavy political book... only the other stories aren't that slow.

Loved these short stories and how they connected. I am trying to read all her stories and books, as I think her writing is phenomenal. I encourage everyone to read this!! Highly recommended.