She had come to life, but she was not human. Leigh Brackett was the undisputed Queen of Space Opera and the first women to be nominated for the coveted Hugo Award. She wrote short stories, novels, and scripts for Hollywood. She wrote the first draft of the Empire Strikes Back shortly before her death in 1978.

Xelena Xutu's family are moon people who fled Ganymede when she was young. From a young age, her dream was to design spaceships. As she grows up in the palace of Galactic X, the planetary superpower Ganymede orbits, her traditionalist mother tries to teach her Ganymedeni cultural values. While the king of Galactic X is fond of Xelena and her family, the other royals see moon people as lesser beings that threaten the planet's security. When Xelena is thirteen years old, she is kidnapped by Ganymede's ruler and subjected to a ritual that fuses her soul with the spirit of an ancient Ganymedeni overlord known only to her as the Voice. After this tragic incident and increased hatred from Galactic X's royals, Xelena's father smuggles the family to Divercity, a rival planetary superpower known for its advanced technology and acceptance of different races, so that she may live out her dreams. Eight years later, Xelena has abandoned her dream of shipbuilding in order to provide for her aging, sickly mother while living up to her cultural expectations in Divercity's fast-paced climate. She attracts the lustful eye of Romeo Caesarean, a powerful member of Divercity's elites whose advances drag her into Divercity's political sphere. As Xelena navigates Divercity's social classes in search of medical treatment for her mother, she discovers that Divercity isn't as welcoming as it seems. A moon girl from Ganymede struggles to succeed in Divercity. Making matters worse, the Voice has manifested as a split personality disorder within Xelena, causing a mental tug-of-war on who she is. Now Xelena must decide how far she is willing to push the limits of her own identity, culture, and dreams to save her mother's life.

She had come to life but she was not human. If Harrah had seen her before he would not have forgotten. He thought that no man could ever forget her.

Teaching Science Fiction is the first text in thirty years to explore the pedagogic potential of that most intellectually stimulating and provocative form of popular literature: science fiction. Innovative and academically lively, it offers valuable insights into how SF can be taught historically, culturally and practically at university level.

Just fifty years ago Julian Huxley, the biologist grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, published a book which easily could be seen to represent the prevail ing outlook among young scientists of the day: If I were a Dictator (1934). The outlook is optimistic, the tone playfully rational, the intent clear - allow science a free hand and through rational planning it could bring order out of the surrounding social chaos. He complained, however: At the moment, science is for most part either an intellectual luxury or the paid servant of capitalist industry or the nationalist state. When it and its results cannot be fitted into the existing framework, it and they are ignored; and furthermore the structure of scientific research is grossly lopsided, with over-emphasis on some kinds of science and partial or entire neglect of others. (pp. 83-84) All this the scientist dictator would set right. A new era of scientific human ism would provide alternative visions to the traditional religions with their Gods and the civic religions such as Nazism and fascism. Science in Huxley's version carries in it the twin impulses of the utopian imagination - Power and Order. Of course, it was exactly this vision of science which led that other grand son of Thomas Henry Huxley, the writer Aldous Huxley, to portray scientific discovery as potentially subversive and scientific practice as ultimately en slaving.

Winner of a 2008 Hugo Award, this new paperback takes readers on spectacular tour of the language created by science fiction. From "Stargate" to "Force Field," this dictionary opens a fascinating window into an entire genre, through the words invented by science fiction's most talented writers, critics, and fans. Each entry includes numerous citations of the word's usage, from the earliest known appearance forward. Drawn not only from science fiction novels and stories, citations also come from fanzines, screenplays, comics, songs, and the Internet.

How women and feminism helped to shape science fiction in America. Runner-up for the Hugo Best Related Book Award (2003) The Battle of the Sexes in Science Fiction is a lively account of the role of women and feminism in the development of American science fiction during its formative years, the mid-20th century. Beginning in 1926, with the publication of the first issue of Amazing Stories, Justine Larbalestier examines science fiction's engagement with questions of femininity, masculinity, sex and sexuality. She traces the debates over the place of women and feminism in science fiction as it emerged in stories, letters and articles in science fiction magazines and fanzines. The book culminates in the story of James Tiptree, Jr. and the eponymous Award. Tiptree was a successful science fiction writer of the 1970s who was later discovered to be a woman. Tiptree's easy acceptance by the male-dominated publishing arena of the time proved that there was no necessary difference in the way men and women wrote, but that there was a real difference in the way they were read.