We Who Are About To: Joanna Russ (Penguin Worlds) - Softcover

Penguin reissues a work of classic science fiction from the revolutionary author of The Female Man - with a new introduction by Hari Kunzru

An explosion in space, a starship stranded at the end of the universe, a group of strangers alone in a barren, alien wilderness. Facing almost certain death, the human survivors of a deep-space crash are determined to ignore the odds and colonize an inhospitable planet, recreating a civilization like the one they have lost forever. Only one woman rejects this path, choosing instead a daring and desperate alternative: to practice the art of dying. But her fellow passengers require her reproductive skills for their survival plan, and they are prepared to impose their regime by force if necessary...

Joanna Russ offers an electrifying, original and challenging exploration of individual freedom, power, and our most primitive will to live.

We Who Are About To is part of the Penguin Worlds classic science fiction series

'In the event of mechanical dysfunction, the ship's computer goes for the nearest "tagged" planet, ie where human life is supposed to be possible, then ejects the passenger compartment separately. Lays an egg you might say . . .'

After an accident destroys their starship and leaves them stranded on an uncharted but apparently hospitable planet - crewless, with few supplies and without tools - the five female and three male passengers debate how to survive. When it is decided that it is their human duty to colonize and populate their new home, one woman resists. But on an alien world where survival dictates conformity, her rebellion is seen as the worst kind of betrayal . . .

'We Who Are About To . . . does what the best SF ought to do, using speculation to unsettle and challenge, to strip away tired preconceptions and ask us to see our own world anew' Hari Kunzru