How do women writers use science fiction to challenge assumptions about the genre and its representations of women?To what extent is the increasing number of women writing science fiction reformulating the expectations of readers and critics?What has been the effect of this phenomenon upon the academic establishment and the publishing industry?These are just some of the questions addressed by this collection of original essays by women writers, readers and critics of the genre. But the undoubted existence of a recent surge of women's interest in science fiction is by no