https://io9.gizmodo.com/rip-doris-lessing-one-of-science-fictions-most-indis-1466329614
The beginning:
“Doris Lessing, who died today aged 94, wasn’t just a Nobel Prize-winning literary author — she was also a major hero of science fiction. She was one of the first authors with mainstream acclaim to embrace, and her fiction is worth more than a hundred writing workshops, for aspiring SF authors.
Image via OzSo
Seriously, if you want to write science fiction or fantasy, and you’re interested in learning how to capture the difficult niggly bits of people’s inner lives and their interactions with other people — then you absolutely must read Lessing, both her science fiction and her other stuff. We talk a lot about the importance of worldbuilding in making readers believe in the setting of your story — and Lessing was a master of drawing you into a world and making it feel urgent and real.
Lessing’s writing meant a ton to me, personally — I read her 1962 classic The Golden Notebook for a class when I was 18, and its trippy, intense take on subjects ranging from body-image anxiety to weird social interactions made a huge impression. The Golden Notebook is an astonishingly beautiful book, but it’s also intensely strange and jarring — Lessing takes the “novel of self-discovery” subgenre and twists it into strange, fascinating shapes.”
How my heart sings 