About
In Other Worlds SF and the Human Imagination Synopsis
IN OTHER WORLDS: SF AND THE HUMAN IMAGINATION is Margaret Atwood's account of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as 'science fiction'. This relationship has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader in the 1940s, through her time as a graduate student at Harvard, where she worked on the Victorian ancestors of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer. This book brings together her three Ellman Lectures on 2010 - 'Flying Rabbits', which begins with Atwood's early rabbit superhero creations, and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling alter egos, and Things with Wings; 'Burning Bushes', which follows her into Victorian otherlands and beyond; and 'Dire Cartographies', which investigates Ustopias -Utopia/Dystopia - including her own ventures into those constructions. IN OTHER WORLDS also reprints some of Atwood's key reviews and speculations about the form, or forms - for she also elucidates the differences - as she sees them - between 'science fiction' proper, and 'speculative fiction', not to mention 'sword and sorcery/fantasy' and 'slipstream fiction'.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781844087556 |
| Publication date: |
4th October 2012 |
| Author: |
Margaret Atwood |
| Publisher: |
"Virago Press Ltd an imprint of Little, Brown Book Group" |
| Format: |
Hardback |
| Pagination: |
272 pages |
| Primary Genre |
Shorter Reads
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| Recommendations: |
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Press Reviews
Margaret Atwood Press Reviews
'A witty, astute collection of essays and lectures on science fiction . . . It's clear that [Atwood's] affection for the genre is deep and genuine . . . Wholly satisfying, with plenty of insights for Atwood and sci-fi fans alike.' -- Kirkus Reviews
'Atwood archly and profoundly delves into her 'lifelong relationship with science fiction in a collection of glimmering essays' -- Booklist
'A speculative-fiction visionary . . . Atwood has an uncanny knack for tapping into humanity's uncertain future and predicting mankind's cultural, scientific and sociopolitical falls from glory . . . Her fiction has peeled back the skin of our disturbing subcutaneous nightmares.' -- Wired
'One of the most intelligent and talented writers to set herself the task of deciphering life in the late twentieth century.' -- Vogue
Author
About Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario and Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.
She is the author of more than twenty-five volumes of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman, The Handmaid's Tale, The Robber Bride and Alias Grace. Her novel, The Blind Assassin, won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000.
Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson.
Author photo © George Whiteside
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