While Armstrong’s work looks at the lessons of the past, Atwood extrapolates from the past to create visions of the future. One of Atwood’s best known novels is The Handmaid’s Tale, which imagines a future in which America has become a Christian fundamentalist theocracy.
Atwood says science fiction became necessary when the contradictions between objective reality and religious orthodoxy became too difficult to ignore.
“Those things that we used to just believe in all the time went to Planet X where they are alive and well,” Atwood says by way of explaining the alternate realities that populate the genre. “Angels with flaming swords, the burning bush that speaks, you know, all of those really quite science fiction things in the Bible.”
Oh for goodness’ sake!