WHAT.

I didn’t know this book existed until this year. It was published in 1985.

The list of contributors is just… I mean:

Joanna Russ (the only reprint)

Gwyneth Jones

Tanith Lee

Pamela Zoline

Mary Gentle

Lisa Tuttle

Raccoona Sheldon! …

and that’s just the names that I immediately recognised.

It’s nearly 40 years old, so some of the stories have aged, I guess? But honestly the general issues in discussion still feel pretty real. Zoline’s “Instructions for Exiting this Building in Case of Fire” – children kidnapped and swapped to stop a nuclear apocalypse – still feels like a chillingly appropriate concept. Josephine Saxton’s view of advertising is hideous and, again, not as laughably far-fetched as I might like (it is ridiculous, but also… ads…). Beverley Ireland’s “Long Shift” is remarkable for its focus on a single woman, just doing her job; I wouldn’t have been surprised to see this published today. Pearlie McNeill is (was?) Australian, and I’ve never heard of her! Apparently this was her only piece of fiction? – SF, anyway. And this is where Raccoona Sheldon’s “Morality Meat” was first published, which is… a moment.

There are very few poor stories here. This is an amazing anthology.