Classic 3-/5
Joanna, experiencing the alternate universes of her feminine counterparts, takes matters into her own hands to become a female man: a woman who challenges assumptions about what women can and can’t do and takes on the world with the mindset of a man. This book is an important work of science fiction, as well as an important work of feminism. I found the story hard to follow, though.
But only at the 3/4 mark, so I think the first draft will be a bit long. That’s okay–cutting will improve it!
Offred, having survived the apocalypse with her reproductive organs intact, is forced to be the handmaid to a high-placed bureaucrat and his wife—meaning she must bear a child for them to raise as their own. Not only is this novel conceptually amazing and prophetic, the tension on every page, from fraught mundanity, kept me on the edge of my seat. The coda at the end says it all.
I think I’m writing it a bit long, but I can cut on the second pass.
Classic 3/5
A series of short stories builds a world harbouring a nostalgically delicate civilization which morphs over time. The student of science fiction needs to read this book, but it is a product of its time.
