In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination [Hardcover]

I remember reading a very negative piece somewhere that claimed Margaret Atwood didn't want to be labelled as a science fiction writer and thought `that's a bit snobby' but this was taken out of context. Then came the Ursula K. Le Guin review of Atwood's last novel `The Year of the Flood' in which she quoted from (are you keeping up) Atwood's essays `Moving Targets', which I now really want to read, saying that Atwood didn't believe her books were science fiction because the things in them were possible and may be happening, therefore they are speculative. Longer story shorter, `In Other Worlds' is Margaret Atwood's response to this and is even dedicated to Le Guin. It is so much more than a simple SFF vs. the rest of the literary world book though.

The book is set into three sections. In the first `In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination' we are treated to three long essays. The first of which Margaret Atwood discusses her love of science fiction, based on the fact that growing up in rural Canada she would read anything and everything and this meant a lot of her father's science fiction, comic books, pulp, noir, you name it. She went on to draw and create stories of her own superhero's... flying rabbits, and looks at the myth of the superhero and compares it to science fiction. The second looks at the myths and religions that make up science fiction in varying ways and the third how Margaret Atwood created `ustopia's' based on merging utopias and dystopias. I loved this section, in part because the way Atwood writes makes it feel like you are sat having a conversation about these things with her (if only), there is a humour and knowingness as you go along, secondly because it shows the forming of a writer which I always find fascinating and thirdly because it made me think. A lot. This isn't writing you can rush, you need to read it, pause, think a bit, make some mental notes, read on, have a bigger pause, think more. I loved that this was the effect it had on me.

The second section entitled `Other Deliberations' is a selection of reviews and essays about novels or writing that people see is either definitely science fiction, definitely literary fiction with a science fiction twist or seen as speculative fiction. One of the books she covers is `Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro (another book I love) and it's here I think she shows that really does it matter what genre or pigeon hole books are pushed, good and thought provoking writing is what matters. "Ishiguro isn't much interested in the practicalities of cloning and organ donation... Nor is this a novel about future horrors: it's set not in a Britain-yet-to-come but a Britain-off-to-the-side." Not only did I want to rush and read that again, I found all the books she discussed which i hadn't read such as H. Rider Haggard's `She' and `Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley are going to be racing up the TBR and being borrowed from the library.

The final main section of the book 'Five Tributes' are works of Atwoood's which she believes are truly SF works of fiction, they are all slight but all wonderful, I loved everyone of these. I also thought it was particularly clever of her to choose `The Peach Women of Aa'A' from `The Blind Assassin' as the final one. This is a fictional tale written inside her fictional tale at the heart of `The Blind Assassin' and not only reminded me of what an incredible writer she is but how diverse, I smiled to myself that a book which won the Booker does indeed have a science fictional twist in it's heart and then felt a little cross people forget that. It also reminds the reader that reading shouldn't be about boundaries people confine them to, in fact all literature should celebrate the fact that the boundaries are endless full stop, so why are we so obsessed with defining it?

I hope that you come away from this long ramble that forms a `review' or set of `book thoughts' with an inclination to pick up this book when you can. It's a book for book lovers in the fact that it's overall theme is the celebration of writing, and then looking at the way we take writing in and pass on our thoughts. It also shows once again what a wonderful writer Margaret Atwood is regardless of whatever genre of writer you might feel the need to put her in. `In Other Worlds' is certainly one of my books of the year without a doubt.

Rather like some of Atwood's own literary creations, Science Fiction is quite hard to pin down. Is it techno-fantasy, reinvented myth or legend, crystal ball gazing or all of these combined? There is no short answer.

In this remarkable, sometimes autobiographical work, Atwood takes the reader on an anthropological journey , a history of science fiction if you like, delving as far back as the time of cave paintings before turning, reluctantly perhaps, towards our present era. And taking in - as you will - Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and the Industrial Revolution along the way.

Were the Mayans there too, with their alleged end-of-the-world apocalypse (or five thousand year hoax) or did I just imagine that bit?

By the time the phrase was coined (sometime between the world wars) the fiction that now is preceded with the word 'science', was already many millennia old. Woven into this fascinating story are the modern era pioneers: Wells, Huxley, Haggard, Swift, McKibben and of course Le Guin. Piercy (Woman on the Edge of Time) gets a deserved mention too.

And to this list, we must now add Atwood herself, taking SF into a new realm that she terms Speculative Fiction: fiction that might turn out to be true. Or at least, some bits of it.

Having read the blurb for the book, with its mention of childhood superhero rabbits and other odd creatures, I wasn't quite sure what to expect (superhero bunnies not really being my thing). But then, I didn't think 'science fiction' was my bag either, before I read Le Guin and Piercy and leaned they also belonged to this eclectic gang.

As it turned out, I couldn't put the book down. Thanks to Atwood, the superhero bobtails have their place too (even, yes really, if their fur is green and they glow in the dark).

Pure genius as ever by Margaret Atwood. I read in one sitting. It also has inspired me to get into Ursula k Le Guin. Many casual readers of Margaret atwood may have missed the science Fiction elements. I for one am delighted that the medium of Science Fiction is beginning to be acknowledged as the potentially valueable literary form it can be. Margaret highlights the various differences within the genre very convincingly. If you want 'hard' sci-fi with guns and ship, go for it. However the genre contains many more genuinely questioning authors with serious thought about society and the nature of reality. You can not go wrong if nervous about entering the worls of sci-fi, than read this extremely readeable work.