Status
Available
Genres
Collection
Publication
Nan A. Talese (2011), Edition: First Edition, 272 pages
Description
At a time when speculative fiction seems less and less far-fetched, Margaret Atwood lends her distinctive voice and singular point of view to the genre in a series of essays that brilliantly illuminates the essential truths about the modern world. This is an exploration of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as "science fiction," a relationship that 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 ancestor of the form, and continuing as a writer and reviewer. This book brings together her three heretofore unpublished Ellmann Lectures from 2010: "Flying Rabbits," which begins with Atwood's early rabbit superhero creations and goes on to speculate about masks, capes, weakling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 Utopias and Dystopias. In Other Worlds also includes some of Atwood's key reviews and thoughts about the form. Among those writers discussed are Marge Piercy, Rider Haggard, Ursula Le Guin, Ishiguro, Bryher, Huxley, and Jonathan Swift. She elucidates the differences (as she sees them) between "science fiction" proper and "speculative fiction," as well as between "sword and sorcery/fantasy" and "slipstream fiction." For all readers who have loved The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood, In Other Worlds is a must.… (more)
Media reviews
What we don’t ever really get, though, is what the title promised us: an argument about SF and the human imagination.
Library Journal
A clever, thoughtful investigation that will appeal to science fiction readers and Atwood's loyal fans.
User reviews
LibraryThing member Esquiress
In Other Worlds was my first true foray into Atwood's non-fiction. I've browsed some of her essays that I've come across, but not an entire book. I was very impressed at the level of academic knowledge Atwood has, and how uniquely she views the terms "science fiction," "speculative fiction,"
Ursula K. le Guin once said that Atwood didn't want any of her work labeled "science fiction," but that isn't entirely true. The two women later had a discussion and realized their working definitions of "science fiction" and "speculative fiction" were sort of overlapping. I think that's why Atwood uses "SF" in the title rather than something written out. She talks extensively about the use of the terminology in one section of the book.
Another term that Atwood uses when talking about utopias/dystopias is "ustopia." Each utopia or dystopia contains the seeds of its opposite, therefore necessitating a combined term, in Atwood's opinion. She talked a lot about the terms and what they mean and evoke, and how they've been viewed in various novels, including hers.
A portion of the book is book reviews or essays about various books that seem to fall into the SF category in one way or the other. She discusses these books at length and their ramifications.
I this book to be fascinating and intellectually rewarding. Some of the essays I did not find relevant to me, however, hence not having five stars.
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"fantasy," etc.Ursula K. le Guin once said that Atwood didn't want any of her work labeled "science fiction," but that isn't entirely true. The two women later had a discussion and realized their working definitions of "science fiction" and "speculative fiction" were sort of overlapping. I think that's why Atwood uses "SF" in the title rather than something written out. She talks extensively about the use of the terminology in one section of the book.
Another term that Atwood uses when talking about utopias/dystopias is "ustopia." Each utopia or dystopia contains the seeds of its opposite, therefore necessitating a combined term, in Atwood's opinion. She talked a lot about the terms and what they mean and evoke, and how they've been viewed in various novels, including hers.
A portion of the book is book reviews or essays about various books that seem to fall into the SF category in one way or the other. She discusses these books at length and their ramifications.
I this book to be fascinating and intellectually rewarding. Some of the essays I did not find relevant to me, however, hence not having five stars.
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LibraryThing member jlparent
I am an avid SF reader and a huge fan of Atwood - this was a book I delighted in. I read it slowly and truly enjoyed pondering each essay. Shout out to Wes for getting me the ARC of it! :)
LibraryThing member gbelik
Some pretty good essays on science fiction and "genre" vs literary fiction in general.
LibraryThing member MaryinHB
This is a collection of short stories, thoughts on other writers, and a few thoughts on her life mixed together in several essays. I was a closet sci fi geek growing up and Margaret Atwood was one of the authors I loved to read. You can find her influences on many young adult authors today, whether
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they want to admit it or not. This read gives a bit more insight to her writing and her uneasy relationship with the science fiction community at large. This is one of those books that you can easily pick up, read a chapter and come back for more later. It would make a wonderful gift for any Atwood fan. Show Less
LibraryThing member WoodsieGirl
In Other Worlds is a collection of Margaret Atwood’s writings on and around the subject of science fiction, focusing particularly on dystopias. Atwood has of course written a few dystopian sci fi novels herself – The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood, although she
What comes across most clearly in this book is her genuine love for the genre, in all its forms. In the first section, Atwood outlines her early experiences with sci fi and fantasy – covering everything from superhero comics and the lurid tales of bug-eyed monsters in sci fi magazines, to the tales of HG Wells and Ray Bradbury, to classics like Pilgrim’s Process and Beowulf. She describes herself as an indiscriminate reader, devouring in her early years everything she could get her hands on, with a healthy disregard for the adult distinctions of high- middle- and low-brow. Her breadth of knowledge is evident: she discusses Batman in the same breath as Shakespeare, and treats all of her subjects with the same level of respect due to any good story.
She goes on to discuss her experiences at university, studying literature with a focus on utopian and dystopian writing. This section is fascinating: Atwood discusses the motivations and psychology behind these types of writing, highlighting some more and less familiar examples of each. If you’re a fan of Margaret Atwood’s books, this section by itself is worth the price of the book for the insight it gives to the influences and inspiration for her novels.
The middle part of the book is a series of previously published essays on individual sci fi titles, including 1984, Brave New World, Never Let Me Go, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Gulliver’s Travels – some written as reviews, some as introductions to the books, etc. I found these essays equally illuminating for the books I’d actually read as for those I hadn’t – and the latter lead to quite a few additions to my to-read list! My only small criticism of the book come from this section – as these are all previously published, there is some repetition of ideas and themes, including some that had already been discussed in greater detail in the first section. This is to be expected really, but it did mean that it started to feel a bit familiar by the time I got to the end of this section.
The final section contains a series of Atwood’s own examples of sci fi writing – short stories, and extracts from some of her non-sci fi books (e.g. one of the stories told by the male protagonist in The Blind Assassin, “The Peach Women of A’Aa”, is included). Coming at the end of the book, these are fascinating to read as examples of how Atwood has used her extensive knowledge of sci fi to inform her own writing.
In Other Worlds is a thoughtful, intelligent exploration of the science fiction genre, from a writer who has extensive knowledge and a genuine love of her topic. Highly recommended for either fans of Margaret Atwood, science fiction, or both.
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prefers the term “speculative fiction” to describe these. Her apparent rejection of the sci fi label has caused a bit of controversy in the past, as it was construed as literary snobbishness, and she addresses this in the introduction to In Other Worlds. Her explanation of the disparate forms of fiction that are grouped together under the umbrella term of science fiction, and her preference for using more specific terms to describe sub-genres, such as speculative fiction, dispelled (for me, at least) any suggestion that she has any disdain for sci fi as a genre.What comes across most clearly in this book is her genuine love for the genre, in all its forms. In the first section, Atwood outlines her early experiences with sci fi and fantasy – covering everything from superhero comics and the lurid tales of bug-eyed monsters in sci fi magazines, to the tales of HG Wells and Ray Bradbury, to classics like Pilgrim’s Process and Beowulf. She describes herself as an indiscriminate reader, devouring in her early years everything she could get her hands on, with a healthy disregard for the adult distinctions of high- middle- and low-brow. Her breadth of knowledge is evident: she discusses Batman in the same breath as Shakespeare, and treats all of her subjects with the same level of respect due to any good story.
She goes on to discuss her experiences at university, studying literature with a focus on utopian and dystopian writing. This section is fascinating: Atwood discusses the motivations and psychology behind these types of writing, highlighting some more and less familiar examples of each. If you’re a fan of Margaret Atwood’s books, this section by itself is worth the price of the book for the insight it gives to the influences and inspiration for her novels.
The middle part of the book is a series of previously published essays on individual sci fi titles, including 1984, Brave New World, Never Let Me Go, The Island of Doctor Moreau, Gulliver’s Travels – some written as reviews, some as introductions to the books, etc. I found these essays equally illuminating for the books I’d actually read as for those I hadn’t – and the latter lead to quite a few additions to my to-read list! My only small criticism of the book come from this section – as these are all previously published, there is some repetition of ideas and themes, including some that had already been discussed in greater detail in the first section. This is to be expected really, but it did mean that it started to feel a bit familiar by the time I got to the end of this section.
The final section contains a series of Atwood’s own examples of sci fi writing – short stories, and extracts from some of her non-sci fi books (e.g. one of the stories told by the male protagonist in The Blind Assassin, “The Peach Women of A’Aa”, is included). Coming at the end of the book, these are fascinating to read as examples of how Atwood has used her extensive knowledge of sci fi to inform her own writing.
In Other Worlds is a thoughtful, intelligent exploration of the science fiction genre, from a writer who has extensive knowledge and a genuine love of her topic. Highly recommended for either fans of Margaret Atwood, science fiction, or both.
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LibraryThing member KarenIrelandPhillips
It’s easy to dismiss Margaret Atwood as the science fiction writer who disses science fiction. But the reality is far more complex, signaled by the highly ironic (and sad) opening quote by Octavia Butler: “I’m a fifty-three-year old writer who can remember being a ten-year-old writer and who
Ms. Atwood eschews any characterization as a “fan”, but she has an impressive grounding in the classics of the field, and an obvious appreciation for current anthropological and speculative fiction writers.
However, she sets the conflict out squarely in her introduction as she discusses an Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood review by Ursula K. LeGuin, that “caused a certain amount of uproar in the skin-tight clothing and other-planetary communities” (p.5).
One of the most skillful writers in the world today didn’t include this belittling reference to people who love speculative fiction, myself included, by accident. Reading on was a bit of a chore after that, but worth it.
In this sometimes contradictory collection of essays, Atwood discusses her complex relationship, as a reader and as a writer, with science fiction. She defines science fiction as limited to “things that could not possibly happen” - rockets and rayguns, War of the World-type sf. Since her own speculative fiction does not fit into this category, it isn’t science fiction.
Atwood believes she writes speculative fiction, which she defines as “things that really could happen but just hadn’t completely happened when the author wrote the book” p6.
But of course, definitions of science fiction and fantasy are far more mutable. She acknowledges this even while continuing to distance her own work from the science fiction “label”.
These essays informed me, made me angry, amused me, and set me stalking around verbalizing counter-arguments for days. I may not agree with Margaret Atwood, but I always love reading her work.
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expects someday to be an eighty-year-old writer.”Ms. Atwood eschews any characterization as a “fan”, but she has an impressive grounding in the classics of the field, and an obvious appreciation for current anthropological and speculative fiction writers.
However, she sets the conflict out squarely in her introduction as she discusses an Oryx and Crake and Year of the Flood review by Ursula K. LeGuin, that “caused a certain amount of uproar in the skin-tight clothing and other-planetary communities” (p.5).
One of the most skillful writers in the world today didn’t include this belittling reference to people who love speculative fiction, myself included, by accident. Reading on was a bit of a chore after that, but worth it.
In this sometimes contradictory collection of essays, Atwood discusses her complex relationship, as a reader and as a writer, with science fiction. She defines science fiction as limited to “things that could not possibly happen” - rockets and rayguns, War of the World-type sf. Since her own speculative fiction does not fit into this category, it isn’t science fiction.
Atwood believes she writes speculative fiction, which she defines as “things that really could happen but just hadn’t completely happened when the author wrote the book” p6.
But of course, definitions of science fiction and fantasy are far more mutable. She acknowledges this even while continuing to distance her own work from the science fiction “label”.
These essays informed me, made me angry, amused me, and set me stalking around verbalizing counter-arguments for days. I may not agree with Margaret Atwood, but I always love reading her work.
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LibraryThing member TheBentley
Margaret Atwood's non-fiction--much like Stephen Kind's non-fiction--always benefits immensely from her wonderful, conversational voice. The pieces included here are charming and interesting--especially, I'm sure, for fans of classic 40's and 50's science fiction. Atwood is capable, however, of
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much more involved and complex analysis. For the most part, these pieces are short (many of them were talks she gave) and very accessible. A gem of a book if you're a fan of Atwood or of the genre, but there's not much new here otherwise. Show Less
LibraryThing member HadriantheBlind
Charming look at a foremost author's influences, what drives her to write what she does. Science Fiction, despite being sneered down upon by too many people in the past, is gaining traction as something of Literary Merit. Science fiction novels, when done right, are Novels of Ideas, and can
Good for fans of Atwood, or fans of scifi, or whichever.
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transmit as much as any other form of literary fiction.Good for fans of Atwood, or fans of scifi, or whichever.
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LibraryThing member BobVTReader
I find there are two camps-those who cannot stand Margret Atwood and those who are rabid supporters. I kinda fall in the latter group. She is both though provoking and funny though often her humor is very dry. This book is a mishmash of essays that cover a wide variety of topics and is a must read.
LibraryThing member edwinbcn
At times, part of the work of Margaret Atwood, notably The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood are classified as belonging to the genre of science fiction. However, Atwood maintains that her novels are not science fiction. In her essay collection Moving Targets: Writing with
In In other worlds. SF and the human imagination explores her "relationship with the SF world, or world" (p. 5). The essays collected in this volume are grouped in three main sections. First, there are three essays which explore various forms of what Atwood would consider science fiction and the related genre or sub genre, fantasy. These essays (with footnotes) offer an historical overview of the development on the genre. The first essay, "Flying Rabbits" also contains an interesting discussion about the origins of the "outfits", i.e. the special costumes and regalia of some fantasy novel figures, such as superman, and batman, such as a mask, and cape or cloak. The essays are not a systematic history of the genre but offer a collection of tit-bit pieces of information about defining features of science fiction and fantasy fiction, including both literary fiction, graphic novels and other media. Ideas for this essay are based on Atwood’s own reading experience of novels belonging to this genre, when she was a child. Another such feature is, for example, the double identity. The double-identity pairs often represent good versus bad, in early novels, such as Robert Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Edgar Alan Poe's William Wilson. Atwood suggests that the archetype for such figures might be found in Jonathan Wild, who was a constable in daily life, but secretly as mastermind of crime. Jonathan Wild was a real historical person, an appears as a character in Jonathan Wild by Henry Fielding and Jack Sheppard by William Harrison Ainsworth.
Incidentally, Atwood also explains that the brand name Bovril, the base for beef broth, that sustained troops at the World War I front, cf Not So Quiet... Stepdaughters of War (1930) by Helen Zenna Smith, invented in 1870, comes from Bovine + Vril, from "vril", an electromagnetic substance which was harnessed by the super human race populating Edward Bulwer-Lytton science fiction novel, The Coming Race (1870).
The second essay, contains an exploration of the mythical in relation to science fiction, and religious overtones. This essays is inspired by Atwood's college experience taking classes with her Professors Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan during her student days at the University of Toronto. The last, and third essay, describes Atwood's view on Ustopias a word she coined, to capture the sense of continuity between utopias and dystopias. Ideas for this essay come from Margaret Atwood’s unfinished PhD dissertations “The English Metaphysical Romance” in which she describes the world of fairies, and other-than-human beings, and themes which in origin and subtext were of theological nature (p. 79).
The next part consists of essays and articles about science fiction and fantasy novels that were written between 1965 and 2010. Most essays cover literature and novels, that are classics or very well-known, such as George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World or H.G Well’s The Island of Dr. Moreau, but there are also less obvious selections, such as Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. Although in the short, interleaved introduction on page 99, the author writes that the essays have been edited for overlap, there is still quite a lot of overlap between the essays and all the other parts in the book. This degree of overlap also suggests a strong mutual interest between Ursula Le Guin and Margaret Atwood.
The last part of the book is taken up by excerpts from Margaret Atwood’s own work that illustrate or underwrite her ideas about science fiction. This part is followed by appendices.
In other worlds. SF and the human imagination does not offer a systematic overview of the genre of science fiction and fantasy, but it does cover a great deal of ground. It should more be considered as a personal exploration of its author of the genre, and a life time of ideas to various aspects and features of the genre. Atwood’s style of writing essays is rather facile, that is to say, while the essays do contain interesting pieces of information, the spread is thin, both for each essay, as well as for the collection as a whole. In addition to that, there is quite a lot of overlap between the essays and articles. The main purpose of In other worlds. SF and the human imagination is to answer the question as to whether some of Margaret Atwoods novels should be regarded as science fiction. The answer to that question is “no”, which is clarified by Atwood by defining both the genre of science fiction and her own work, and providing examples. However, this division and the definition seem a bit arbitrary and idiosyncratic. Then, too, although Atwood did not finish her dissertation, it shows that she has a well-informed view on the issue.
In other worlds. SF and the human imagination seems particularly interesting for readers with a more than average interest in science fiction and / or Margaret Atwood as an author. The first 100 pages of the book are the best and most interesting, although for a quick answer one only needs to read the 11-page introduction.
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Intent, 1982-2004, Atwood wrote that her novels describe a world which is essentially possible now, which could already have happened or might come into existence in the future. Atwood's definition of science fiction is "fiction in which things happen that are not possible today". This discussion was started by Ursula Le Guin in 2009, and In other worlds. SF and the human imagination is Margaret Atwood's answer to that. Thus, the introductory essay to the book consists of a discussion on the definition of science fiction.In In other worlds. SF and the human imagination explores her "relationship with the SF world, or world" (p. 5). The essays collected in this volume are grouped in three main sections. First, there are three essays which explore various forms of what Atwood would consider science fiction and the related genre or sub genre, fantasy. These essays (with footnotes) offer an historical overview of the development on the genre. The first essay, "Flying Rabbits" also contains an interesting discussion about the origins of the "outfits", i.e. the special costumes and regalia of some fantasy novel figures, such as superman, and batman, such as a mask, and cape or cloak. The essays are not a systematic history of the genre but offer a collection of tit-bit pieces of information about defining features of science fiction and fantasy fiction, including both literary fiction, graphic novels and other media. Ideas for this essay are based on Atwood’s own reading experience of novels belonging to this genre, when she was a child. Another such feature is, for example, the double identity. The double-identity pairs often represent good versus bad, in early novels, such as Robert Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and Edgar Alan Poe's William Wilson. Atwood suggests that the archetype for such figures might be found in Jonathan Wild, who was a constable in daily life, but secretly as mastermind of crime. Jonathan Wild was a real historical person, an appears as a character in Jonathan Wild by Henry Fielding and Jack Sheppard by William Harrison Ainsworth.
Incidentally, Atwood also explains that the brand name Bovril, the base for beef broth, that sustained troops at the World War I front, cf Not So Quiet... Stepdaughters of War (1930) by Helen Zenna Smith, invented in 1870, comes from Bovine + Vril, from "vril", an electromagnetic substance which was harnessed by the super human race populating Edward Bulwer-Lytton science fiction novel, The Coming Race (1870).
The second essay, contains an exploration of the mythical in relation to science fiction, and religious overtones. This essays is inspired by Atwood's college experience taking classes with her Professors Northrop Frye and Marshall McLuhan during her student days at the University of Toronto. The last, and third essay, describes Atwood's view on Ustopias a word she coined, to capture the sense of continuity between utopias and dystopias. Ideas for this essay come from Margaret Atwood’s unfinished PhD dissertations “The English Metaphysical Romance” in which she describes the world of fairies, and other-than-human beings, and themes which in origin and subtext were of theological nature (p. 79).
The next part consists of essays and articles about science fiction and fantasy novels that were written between 1965 and 2010. Most essays cover literature and novels, that are classics or very well-known, such as George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World or H.G Well’s The Island of Dr. Moreau, but there are also less obvious selections, such as Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy. Although in the short, interleaved introduction on page 99, the author writes that the essays have been edited for overlap, there is still quite a lot of overlap between the essays and all the other parts in the book. This degree of overlap also suggests a strong mutual interest between Ursula Le Guin and Margaret Atwood.
The last part of the book is taken up by excerpts from Margaret Atwood’s own work that illustrate or underwrite her ideas about science fiction. This part is followed by appendices.
In other worlds. SF and the human imagination does not offer a systematic overview of the genre of science fiction and fantasy, but it does cover a great deal of ground. It should more be considered as a personal exploration of its author of the genre, and a life time of ideas to various aspects and features of the genre. Atwood’s style of writing essays is rather facile, that is to say, while the essays do contain interesting pieces of information, the spread is thin, both for each essay, as well as for the collection as a whole. In addition to that, there is quite a lot of overlap between the essays and articles. The main purpose of In other worlds. SF and the human imagination is to answer the question as to whether some of Margaret Atwoods novels should be regarded as science fiction. The answer to that question is “no”, which is clarified by Atwood by defining both the genre of science fiction and her own work, and providing examples. However, this division and the definition seem a bit arbitrary and idiosyncratic. Then, too, although Atwood did not finish her dissertation, it shows that she has a well-informed view on the issue.
In other worlds. SF and the human imagination seems particularly interesting for readers with a more than average interest in science fiction and / or Margaret Atwood as an author. The first 100 pages of the book are the best and most interesting, although for a quick answer one only needs to read the 11-page introduction.
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LibraryThing member rivkat
A series of essays about Atwood’s own understanding of the sf-nal elements of her work as well as the work of others. I know it’s ridiculously fanboy of me, but I wish Atwood hadn’t repeatedly asserted that Wonder Woman loses her powers if she snogs a man. (As we all know, it’s if a man
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binds her!) The broader point about the links between sf and mythology is well taken, though. Atwood sees sf as a genre defined by its permeability. Atwood is very interested in what she calls ustopias, which she presents as a cross between dystopias and eutopias, though clearly the “us” is also in there because she considers these inventions diagnostic of the human temperature at a given time and place. (Each eutopia, she says, carries its dystopia within, and likewise for dystopias.) Essays include pieces on H.G. Wells, Huxley’s Brave New World, Orwell, Marge Piercy, and Jonathan Swift, all well-written and insightful. Show Less
LibraryThing member gayla.bassham
The essay about utopias and dystopias is really wonderful, and anything Margaret Atwood has to say about The Handmaid's Tale is worth the price of admission. Having said that, I would much rather read Ursula Le Guin on SF than Margaret Atwood on SF (Atwood does give Le Guin her due); and the five
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pieces of SF written by Atwood that close the book are decidedly weak and a disappointing way to end the book. Show Less
LibraryThing member chelseaknits
Four and a half.
Oh look, I still love Margaret Atwood and everything she stands for. Surprise!
Oh look, I still love Margaret Atwood and everything she stands for. Surprise!
LibraryThing member heggiep
There are some overlapping ideas and references but that is to be expected in any collection of related topic essays and non-fiction pieces. Altogether, an enjoyable dive into SF and it's antecedents.
LibraryThing member capewood
2021 book #43. 2011. Margaret Atwood ("The Handmaid's Tail") writes about science fiction and her life long love of the genre. I share that feeling and really liked this book. Her views, some SF reviews, and some of her (very) short fiction.
Awards
Locus Award (Finalist — Non-Fiction — 2012)
CBC Bookie Awards (Nominee — 2012)
Language
Original language
English