Decoding Gender in Science Fiction
Decoding Genderaddresses [Science Fiction] issues in powerful ways through its nuanced exploration of both masculine and feminine SF writing traditions. Attebery's wide-ranging but judicious use of feminist theory balances especially nicely with his detailed analyses of individual SF texts; both, in turn, provide fresh perspectives on SF history--or, more accurately, on SF's multiple histories. The concluding chapters convincingly demonstrate why these multiple histories matter...he has given us a way to see them more clearly. Highly recommended. -- Lisa Yaszek,ExtrapolationDecoding Gender'sgreatest strength is its methodology. Attebery uses cultural theory to play the kind of what if game so near and dear to the collective heart of the SF community. This framing technique is more than just a useful device for decoding gender and genre; it's also quite fun. The what if game also enables Attebery to tell dynamic SF histories that complicate their smooth evolutionary predecessors. Elsewhere, feminist theory provides Attebery with the means to generate new histories across conventional SF periodization. Rather than giving readers a Darwinian tale of the triumph of a single literary species, Attebery depicts the development of SF as a series of complex and sometimes contradictory processes. -- Lisa Yaszek,ExtrapolationThis is a thorough examination of the good, the bad, and the ugly in the history of gender representations in science fiction. --  Regina Cross, Journal of the Fantastic of the ArtsDecoding Gender in Science Fiction is a commendable work, a pleasure to read and a source of new insights into the political minefield that gender studies have become over the years. -- Donna Spalding Andreolle, Utopian StudiesBrian Atterby's Decoding Gender in Science Fiction is a welcome addition tot he list of key texts...that address science fiction's problematic relationship with gender. [I]t is vital precisely because it theorizes gender as a dual system rather than conflating the study of gender with the study of the female. -- Science Fiction StudiesGender and Science FictionAttebury approaches science fiction as a literary scholar; his book reads like a series of lectures, and it would make an excellent course book. -- Robin Roberts,Modern Fiction StudiesWriting Women into MythI heartily recommend the entire book both to experienced sf readers and to those for whom fantasy and science fiction are a huge, hostile terra incognital. -- Susanna J. Sturgis,Women Review ofBooksOverall,Decoding Genderis a pleasure to read, not least because of Attebery's wide-ranging samplings of sf.  One of the book's greatest virtues is its exploration of the fringes of sf without neglecting the center. -- Joe Milicia,The New York Review of Science FictionDecoding Gender in Science Fictionis vital precisely because it theorizes gender as a dual system rather than conflating the study of gender with the study of the female. -- Sherryl Vint, St. Francis Xavier University,Science Fiction StudiesWriting Women into MythI heartily recommend the entire book. -- Susanna J. Sturgis,Women Review ofBooksGender and Science FictionAttebury approaches science fiction as a literary scholar...it would make an excellent course book. -- Robin Roberts,Modern FictionStudiesThe presentation is so clearly written and expertly researched, belying the breadth and depth of knowledge of a true master of the subject, that it is often easy to forget that Attebery has presented us with quite a complex argument for the role and use of gender in science fiction. This is the book we all should have written, but I'm glad we didn't because he did it better. -- J. Jason Smith,