31.12: In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination, by Margaret Atwood (iBook edition, original release 2011)

I earned a MA in literature, and my field of interest was primarily contemporary North American feminist authors. I also have what a librarian friend not-so-jokingly refers to as "the largest comic and graphic novel collection in northern California." As you may suspect, it is not too often that these two reading passions intersect, so it was with great joy that I scanned the 2012 Comic Con schedule and found a session entitled "Inside the Shadow Show: Ray Bradbury's Lasting Impact  on Literature, Comics, and Beyond," featuring Margaret Atwood--three of whose novels formed the basis of my thesis.

I wasn't so far astray from my early roots to have missed the Atwood's recent novels and poetry, of course, but I hadn't been keeping up on her nonfiction. The closest I'd come in this regard was following her on Twitter, where she has plenty to say on a wide range of political and social topics. (Note: unlike plenty of other well-known folks, Atwood is responsible for all her own tweets.) Before I saw my idol in person, I searched to see what I had missed. In addition to a few recent digital story releases, I found I had overlooked In Other Worlds, published in 2011. I uploaded the iBook in the Portland airport, happy that Atwood is an important enough author that her non-fiction is available quickly in eFormat.

Without a doubt, this is the fastest I have read a work of non-fiction in memory. I read plenty of fiction, but non-fiction volumes usually end up piled next to the bed, waiting until I decide to pick them up and read a chapter between novels; Non-fiction on my iPad usually faces an even less active fate, but I found myself reading right through Atwood's reflection. That's really what it is, too: Atwood's musings on what she refers to as Speculative Fiction (what others generally categorize as Science Fiction)--a distinction she has been criticized for, but which holds up well in her telling of it. The book is a collection of material, loosely divided into three sections: the first in which Atwood discusses SF by way of Beowulf, Twilight, and everything in between, illustrated with drawings she made as a nine-year old (and not included in the print version of the book); the second in which she republishes reviews and analyses she wrote about SF works from recent centuries--from folks such as Swift, Huxley, Wells, Piercy, LeGuin, and Ishiguro; and the third in which she includes five short SF pieces she authored over the years.

All in all, the book was interesting and thought-provoking, as I was able to tell Atwood myself during the signing session after the panel ended. She smiled kindly in response. Either that, or she was smiling at the fact that I had purchased both the eBook and hardcover editions, recognizing that readers like me who want signatures from authors like her are one reason that print books may not be altogether obsolete in a double-profit future she imagines.