Future Females, The Next Generation

Reviews / Votes

Future Females is THE final word on feminist science fiction and edited superbly by the premiere feminist in the field. The collection is wide-ranging and engaging, and entertains as it educates. It does everything that popular culture and feminist scholarship should do, and is a model for future outstanding work. -- Emily Toth, author of Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia An important critical work in and of itself. The two books called Future Females together mark the beginning and the latest point of the entire feminist enterprise in the serious consideration of science fiction. Barr's most audacious utopian reading is surely that of 'all the president's penises', that is to say, her treatment of the Leader of the Free World, here celebrated as 'the president who makes love not war' and as one who 'is almost synonymous with his nonphallic penis.'. . . The only politically decent defense of Bill Clinton yet attempted . . . Barr offers not political journalism but a theoretical fiction. Extending Woolf's trope we might hope that this same extraterrestrial visitor would find time to pursue not only the dailynewspaper but also the new Future Females; if so, she-or he? or it?-would learn that patriarchy, while not yet overthrown, is under creative attack in more ways that even the far-seeing Woolf herself could possibly have imagined. -- Carl Freedman, professor and director of graduate studies, Louisiana State University * Science Fiction Studies * The content is quite valuable. Excellent for feminist and science-fiction collections serving upper-division undergraduates and above. * Choice Reviews * Bears evidence to the innovative impact of feminism on science fiction and of feminist theory on science fiction criticism. The bravura displayed in the choice of subject matter, the range of topics and the wittily adapted terminology owe a great deal to the earlier pioneering efforts in the field, also collected by Barr. This collection points out how much that was formerly merely imagined has become a social reality even as its authors must continue to engage in writing toward utopia. Their essays are an exercise in cultural studies of the future. -- Brigitte Scheer-Schaezler, University of Innsbruck An important critical work in and of itself. The two books called Future Females together mark the beginning and the latest point of the entire feminist enterprise in the serious consideration of science fiction. Barr's most audacious utopian reading is surely that of 'all the president's penises', that is to say, her treatment of the Leader of the Free World, here celebrated as 'the president who makes love not war' and as one who 'is almost synonymous with his nonphallic penis.'. . . The only politically decent defense of Bill Clinton yet attempted . . . Barr offers not political journalism but a theoretical fiction. Extending Woolf's trope we might hope that this same extraterrestrial visitor would find time to pursue not only the daily newspaper but also the new Future Females; if so, she-or he? or it?-would learn that patriarchy, while not yet overthrown, is under creative attack in more ways that even the far-seeing Woolf herself could possibly have imagined. -- Carl Freedman, professor and director of graduate studies, Louisiana State University * Science Fiction Studies *