A Little Light Shed on: Into Darkness Peering, Femspec Issue 1.1

Bogstad's review of Elizabeth Ann Leonard's collection Into Darkness Peering: Race and Color in the Fantastic, Number 74, Contributions to the Study of Science Fiction and Fantasy (Westport, CT: Greenwood 1997, 95 pp) commends the volume for remarkable feats in the history of science fiction criticism. In particular, Bogstad finds most notable the discussions that attempt to "fore ground, overturn or invert the preoccupations and stereotypes in America that are associated with race” (116). African Americans, Creole, Hispanic, Caribbean and Native American characters are discussed, in the works of such disparate writers as Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany. Philip K. Dick, Robert Heinlein, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Elizabeth Lynn, Pamela Sargent, Lewis Shiner, Robert Silverberg and Leslie F. Stone.