We Who Are About To... (Paperback)

by Joanna Russ (Author), Samuel R. Delany (Contributor)
Key Phrases: John Ude, Victor Graham, The Smile (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"This is an important science fiction novel." --The New York Times Book Review

"One of the pioneers and luminaries of women's science fiction!"--MS. Magazine

"If this were a film it could be one of Peckinpah's, violent, self-indulgent, obsessively contemptuous of humanity, nihilistic and fascinating."--Publisher's Weekly

"Wesleyan University Press, fortunately, has seen fit to reissue [We Who Are About To...] in a handsome trade-paperback edition. ...This is an important book. Read it afresh and let it speak to you." --New York Review of Science Fiction

Review
"Perhaps the most subtle, complex, and exciting science fiction novel ever written about the attempt to survive a hostile alien environment. It is characteristic of Russ's genius that her most sheerly readable novel is also one of her most intellectually intricate." (Carl Freedman, author of Critical Theory and Science Fiction )

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Wesleyan (March 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819567590
• ISBN-13: 978-0819567598
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #400,644 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For those who believe in survival of none, February 25, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: We Who Are About to (The Gregg Press Science Fiction Series) (Hardcover)

I was young when I first read "We who are about to..." Too young, really, to grasp the full concept of life and death, the two main currents that lie within the book.

A cruise vessel of the future manages to miss the point in space that it was attempting to fold to, spinning amazingly far off course and crashing into a planet that is in no way guaranteed not to kill the survivors. A politician, an upper class family, a "jock", a young sex object, a washed up waitress, a supposed tactical expert, and a musician (our heroine) all help make an ensemble from Hell. Nothing goes according to protocol, and chaos ensues as the musician experiments liberally with her psychoactive drugs.

While in a science-fiction setting, Ms. Russ manages to maintain a surprising lack of the technological; the underlying concept of the story being Gilligan's Island on Acid. As Social Darwinism takes its course, the value of life itself is called into question.

This is not a book for those who are set in their ideas of God and living; this is for those who remain unsure as to what lies in store for them, and what may be the meaning of life.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderfully subversive, July 7, 2002

By	anna genoese (brooklyn, nyc, usa) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: We Who Are About to (Paperback)

If I had read this book when I was fifteen, I do believe my life would have been entirely different. This is wonderfully subversive stuff, addressing all the problems any science fiction fan has with the "starship separated from civilization" plot, with a protagonist you will love to be appalled by.

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best SF novels I have ever read., June 9, 2005

By	Patrick Nielsen Hayden - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

John W. Campbell's formula for great science fiction was, famously, "ask the <em>next</em> question." That's exactly what this bracing, challenging, bleak, funny, deeply subversive novel does, elegantly undercutting decades of unexamined science-fiction adventure cliches.

Recommended for anyone who ever wanted to lay into Compulsory Optimism with a meat ax. "The human race is fine. We're just not there."