In Other Worlds

August 15, 2011
Atwood has a long and complex relationship with science fiction, and this mix of essays and short fiction represents her most sustained examination of the genre to date. Famously having refused the label “science fiction” for such novels as The Handmaid’s Tale, she prefers to call her work “speculative fiction,” though she here reveals herself to be both friendly to and well-read in genre SF. The book opens with three personal essays on her relationship with the fantastic, beginning with a delicious piece on her childhood obsession with rabbit superheroes, followed by a look at the connections between mythology and modern SF, and a useful discussion of her own work as dystopian fiction. Although there is little for scholars of the fantastic per se, these pieces do give significant insight into Atwood’s formative influences. Following are 10 more tightly focused essays, on Wells’s The Island of Doctor Moreau, H. Rider Haggard’s She, and other works. The six short stories are all minor but enjoyable satires on standard SF tropes such as alien invasion and cryogenics. This enjoyable volume, tellingly dedicated to Ursula K. Le Guin, reveals a writer with strong, often fascinating, if idiosyncratic opinions about genre SF.

Starred review from September 1, 2011

A witty, astute collection of essays and lectures on science fiction by the acclaimed novelist.

The motivation for this book is a review of Atwood's 2009 novel, The Year of the Flood, in which Ursula K. Le Guin accused Atwood of rejecting the term "science fiction" in connection to her own work, lest it trap her in a populist ghetto. In the three new lectures that anchor this collection, Atwood shows that such claims are unfounded. She's just careful about terminology, and her close studies of H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley and Le Guin herself prove she's not just playing semantic games. In one lecture, she recalls her obsession with sci-fi tales as a child and studies the ways that the genre's tropes have been the bedrock of storytelling since antiquity. In another, she discusses "ustopia," the term she uses for her own forays into science fiction, The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and Oryx and Crake (2003), in addition to The Year of the Flood. "Ustopia" reflects her belief that every dystopian tale has a utopian one embedded in it, and vice versa; for instance, George Orwell's 1984 concludes with a faux postscript that suggests that the grim authoritarian society it depicts ultimately faded. The individual reviews read like rehearsals for the themes she covers in the longer lectures, but they're worth reading in their own right: Atwood is a stellar reviewer who deftly exposes the ironies and ideas embedded in books by Rider Haggard, Kazuo Ishiguro and Jonathan Swift, and her tone easily shifts from rigorous academic to wisecracking feminist. A handful of fictional excerpts prove that she can walk it like she talks it: Whatever name she applies to the work, it's clear that her affection for the genre is deep and genuine.

Wholly satisfying, with plenty of insights for Atwood and sci-fi fans alike.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

May 15, 2011

From The Handmaid's Tale to The Year of the Flood, award-winning author Atwood has purveyed her own special brand of literate and arresting sf. In this volume, which collects her 2010 Richard Ellmann Lectures in Modern Literature at Emory University, she explores her relationship with the genre. Atwood is loved (she has over 100,000 twitter followers), so there will be interest.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2011
Atwood archly and profoundly delves into her lifelong relationship with science fiction in a collection of glimmering essays. She begins with a portrait of herself as a young child in rustic familial isolation in the Canadian north woods, where they had no electrical appliances but many books. There Atwood began her writing life by composing tales of the flying rabbit superheroes of Mischiefland. Sharing her formative reading list and laughing about superhero outfits, Atwood, casually elegant in her erudition, draws on many fields of study and her own passions in her encompassing answer to the question, Where do other worlds and alien beings come from? As she reflects on her undergraduate immersion in mythology and her postgraduate inquiry into supernatural female characters, Atwood deepens her discerning, many-tentacled analysis of the resonance of stories about imaginary realms and beings and possible futures, dystopian and otherwise. A selection of her keen reviews and essays about sf authors, including George Orwell and Ursula K. Le Guin, follows. In closing, Atwood presents five of her own droll short SF stories to savor.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

October 1, 2011

Atwood is well known to sf readers for such novels as The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood. In this collection of essays and short fiction, she further explores the genre, beginning with her three previously unpublished Richard Ellman Lectures in Modern Literature, which she delivered at Emory University in 2010. These personal pieces include the delightful "Flying Rabbits," about her childhood interest in rabbit superheroes; "Burning Bushes," which explains her attention to Victorian nonrealists; and "Dire Cartographies," a discussion of utopias and dystopias. In addition, this book includes essays on sf works by H.G. Wells, Marge Piercy, Rider Haggard, Aldous Huxley, Ursula Le Guin, Jonathan Swift, and others. Four of Atwood's own previously published short stories are included here, plus an excerpt from The Blind Assassin, revealing her satiric abilities as she tackles cryogenics and alien invasions. Besides providing insight into her early influences, Atwood explains the distinction she makes between science fiction and speculative fiction as she presents her opinions on the genre. VERDICT A clever, thoughtful investigation that will appeal to science fiction readers and Atwood's loyal fans. [See Prepub Alert, 4/11/11.]--Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.