I was more familiar with Le Guin's and McIntyre's work, so I picked up this old collection of stories to learn more about Kate Wilhelm's legacy. Recently we lost three pioneering women SF writers from the Pacific Northwest in the period from January 2018 to April of this year: Ursula Le Guin, Kate Wilhelm and Vonda McIntyre.

Some of the attitudes and behaviors of that time may grate on the reader (all that smoking and drinking!), and the characters are mostly all middle- and upper-class white people (WASPs, in the jargon of the day), we should be careful about imposing current awareness upon stories set almost fifty years ago. The loosening of obscenity laws at the time is also played for humorous effect. But things don't go as he planned, of course. The funniest story might be вЂњThe Time PieceвЂќ, where a man uses his watch to wind back time so that he can change the choices his family members made. This method is most effective with вЂњThe VillageвЂќ, which literally brings home that feeling of horror when recalling the atrocities committed during the Vietnam war. Kate Wilhelm often used a style that jumped quickly (sometimes paragraph by paragraph) between characters or scenes with no warning, challenging the reader to put the pieces together and make the connections. It fits neatly into the work that James Tiptree Jr. Vietnam looms over the story вЂњThe VillageвЂќ, while вЂњThe FuneralвЂќ reads like a 1972 precursor to Atwood's 1985 book вЂњThe Handmaid's TaleвЂќ. Immortality and life extension were big themes at the time, and are represented by вЂњApril Fools' Day ForeverвЂќ. In this collection, stories like вЂњThe Infinity BoxвЂќ and вЂњThe Fusion BombвЂќ deal with different possible forms of mind control. It was no accident that the drug and consciousness experiments of that time led SF authors to speculate on what could be done. Vietnam looms ov SF in the 60s and 70s often dealt with aspects of the mind вЂ“ telepathy, ESP, projection, mind control of various sorts.

SF in the 60s and 70s often dealt with aspects of the mind вЂ“ telepathy, ESP, projection, mind control of various sorts.

Infinity box