Deconstructing the Starships

These essays and reviews have been selected from work by a practising Science Fiction (SF) writer produced during a decade in which the stuff of SF became part of everyday life. The subject matter of this collection is varied, but displays from Jones' stance as a practising SF writer and a feminist - the writing is imbued by both an incisive engagement with the texts and a refusal to dress that engagement in jargon.

In the first section, "All Science is Description", Jones begins with "Deconstructing the Starships", in which she examines some of the relationships between the features of the SF genre and modern literary theory. Other essays in this section look at the function of realism and language in SF, and examine the work of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.

The second section, entitled "Science, Fiction and Reality" opens with a look at post-cyberpunk and the experience of consciousness with special reference to Pat Cadigan. Jones also illuminates her own fiction through her reading of a biology textbook on sexual differnetiation.

The third section comprises long reviews which examine the work of, among others, Sarah Lefanu, Ursula Le Guin, Wiliam Gibson and Nancy Kress.