The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake in Context

Abstract

I'm not a science fiction expert. Nor am i an academic, although i used to be one, sort of. Although I'm a writer, I'm not primarily a writer of science fiction. In this genre I'm a dilettante and a dabbler, an amateur—which last word, rightly translated, means “lover.” I got into hot water recently on a radio talk show in Britain: the radio person said she'd just been to a sci-fi conference there, and some people were really, really mad at me. Why? said I, mystified. For being mean to science fiction, said she. In what way had I been mean? I asked. For saying you didn't write it, she replied. And I having had the nerve to win the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction.