In Other Worlds : SF and the Human Imagination

From the author of The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace* Rabbit superheroes. A theory of masks and capes. Victorian otherlands.

From her 1940s childhood to her time at Harvard, Margaret Atwood has always been fascinated with SF. In 2010, she delivered a lecture series at Emory University called ‘In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination.’ This book is the result of those lectures. It includes essays on Ursula Le Guin and H G Wells, her interesting distinction between ‘science fiction proper’ and ‘speculative fiction’, and the letter which she wrote to the school which tried to ban The Handmaid’s Tale.

*’Spooky . . .

wild’ – Telegraph ‘Elegant and witty’ – Guardian’Eminently readable and accessible . . .

The lectures are insightful and cogently argued with a neat comic turn of phrase . . .

Her enthusiasm and level of intellectual engagement are second to none’ – Financial Times