Women Science Fiction Writers as Probing Pathfinders
Author Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time was written in 1976, and it has received critical acclaim for the science fiction future it depicts, but it was likely given literary wings by a bizarre science fiction tale written in 1818, according to a scholarly essay in Critique: Studies in contemporary Fiction (Seabury, 2001). The science fiction tale Seabury alludes to is in fact "often called the first work of science fiction," and that is the classic story of Frankenstein.
Additionally, Seabury uses a quote to tip the cap to Frankenstein's author, Mary Shelley, who, in penning Frankenstein, has written "perhaps the single most influential work of science fiction by a woman." And so, in the genre of feminist science fiction, even though Frankenstein is quite the opposite of feminine, to say the least, the author was clearly a pathfinder of tremendous significance for future female authors.
Meanwhile, one of the main differences between Piercy's work and Shelley's classic is that in Frankenstein, "the fantastic is reached through potentially credible science," while Piercy's novel "emerged from...the Computer Revolution, which has catalyzed us to see anew the radical changes we might anticipate." Seabury goes on to allude to Piercy's novel's alternative 2137 futures, which are "clearly possible outgrowths of our own science and technology" in a world where "medical technology gives us the power to alter behavior and manipulate genes." That power is quite a few light years away from Shelley's science fiction in Frankenstein, but no less entertaining for its jolt value in the 19th Century than was Piercy's in the 1970s.
To continue the theme that Piercy has plucked style and pointers from Shelly, Piercy's "Connie" certainly has some similarities at least in literary tone to Shelly's famous monster; to wit, on page 285, after Connie and Skip have had their brain operations, the great each other with "Hello monster." And a bit earlier, when Connie is drugged, and her speech is slurred and later she has a plate implanted - affixed with "sharp metal pins" (281) - her character is beginning to resemble a creature with bolts and...
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