The Savage Humanists

As librarian and critic Kelleghan observes in her introduction, the authors of these nine “savage” classics are angry. Gregory Frost's “Madonna of Maquiladora” tells of a poor neighborhood's “miracle” that may just be a corporate trick to prevent unionizing. Kim Stanley Robinson mercilessly details the pervasive nature of wartime imagery in “A History of the Twentieth Century, with Illustrations.” The aliens in James Patrick Kelly's “Think Like a Dinosaur,” coldly debating humanity's right to interstellar travel, satirize the SF field's own sexism. A few stories never rise above the literary version of street protests, but most entertain and satisfy as they view age-old problems from sharp new angles. Speculative and mainstream readers alike will both enjoy and be unsettled by this bounty of opinions and rage. (Nov.)