And Chaos Died

Inner space is about the ways that the mind encompasses the world, shapes the world and is shaped by it. The protagonist of Joanna Russ's second novel, And Chaos Died, feels a vacancy inside himself because he feels a vacancy in the social organisation of the overcrowded Earth where he lives. He is transported to a utopian planet where life is in balance with nature and where he learns a sort of telepathy. Then he returns to Earth and, newly cured, sees its oppression, its violence, its cruelty. It's not an easy book to read, there's an almost psychedelic quality to it as we are overwhelmed with sensory impressions whose meanings we are left to sort out ourselves. The whole novel is an intentional challenge to the reader, forcing us to see anew. But that is exactly what the best science fiction is supposed to do. Why it's on the list: There are modern critics who argue that the book has not aged well, and certainly it is very much of its time. Yet it is a vitally important work, not least because it is one of the springboards by which feminist science fiction took off from the new wave.