author
Sydney J. Van Scyoc
1939–2023
A thoughtful science fiction writer whose work ranged from sharp early short stories to ambitious novels like Saltflower and Darkchild. Her fiction often explored gender, society, and what it means to build a better world.
3 Audiobooks
Shatter the Wall
by Sydney J. Van Scyoc
Bimmie Says
by Sydney J. Van Scyoc
Pollony Undiverted
by Sydney J. Van Scyoc
About the author
Born Sydney Joyce Brown in Mount Vernon, Indiana, she published her first story, "Shatter the Wall," in Galaxy in 1962 and went on to write steadily across the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. She later settled in the San Francisco Bay Area, and her career grew from magazine fiction into a notable run of novels.
She is especially remembered for Saltflower (1971), with later books including Assignment Nor'Dyren and Darkchild. Reference sources on science fiction note that her work stood out for the way it used alien worlds and future societies to examine power, social structure, and the lives of women.
Sydney J. Van Scyoc died on June 17, 2023, at age 83. Late in life, after her last novel in 1992, she left writing and turned to making and selling jewelry.