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