L. Timmel Duchamp

A collection of essays on narrative by Samuel R. Delany, Lance Olsen, Nicola Griffith, Lesley A. Hall, Alan DeNiro, Carolyn Ives Gilman, and others. . . . Is narrative inherently dangerous? Empowering? Or even liberating? A mix of established and new writers join several scholars in considering the politics of narrative manifested in fiction, history, and science.

From the Publisher: What does our favorite science fiction tell us about the culture of science? What do stories of cyborg women and genetic engineering show us about how science and values interact and how science and politics affect each other? In SciFi in the Mind's Eye, leading scholars look at the way science fiction informs and inspires contemporary research in science and technology, and how scientific breakthroughs spur authors on to yet more creative science fiction narratives. Alongside investigations into the meaning of science fiction, SciFi in the Mind's Eye gives us previously unpublished 'interventions' by acclaimed science fiction authors L. Timmel Duchamp, Nicola Griffith, Nancy Kress, Terry Bisson, and Stanislaw Lem.

"Humans have been struggling to live on Frogmore for almost five centuries, adapting themselves to punishing gravity and the deadly mistflowers that dominate its ecology. Financier Inez Gauthier, patron of the arts and daughter of the general commanding the planet's occupation forces, dreams of eliminating the mistflowers that make exploitation of the planet's natural wealth so difficult and impede her father's efforts to crush the native insurgency. Fascinated by the new art-form of waterdancing created by Solstice Balalzalar celebrating the planet's indigenous lifeforms, Inez assumes that patronage will be enough to sustain Solstice's art even as she ruthlessly pursues windfall profits at the expense of all that has made waterdancing possible."--

Trained since the age of three to be Daughter of the People, sixteen-year-old Evelyn Winters believes her underwater world of Elysium is perfect until Gavin Hunter, a surface Dweller, stumbles into Elysium and she realizes that everything she knows is a lie perpetrated by "Mother".

"They named the planet La Femme and called it a paradise and refused to leave it. Now Julia 9561 is heading up the mission to retrieve the errant crew and establish meaningful Contact with the inhabitants. Are the inhabitants really all female, as the first crew claimed? Why don't the men want to return to Earth? What happened to the women on the crew? And why did Paul 22423 warn the First Council to send only male crew members?"--Amazon.com.