On the title page is the subtitle "The Science Fiction Research Association Anthology", and on the jacket front is "a new, definitive anthology of contemporary speculative fiction endorsed by the science fiction research association". From the Introduction by its editors: "This is the third anthology of science fiction to bear the imprimatur of the Science Fiction Research Association (SFRA), the international organization of teachers and scholars devoted to science fiction. The first two, in the 1970s and the 1980s, each used by a generation of teachers, reflected the current concerns of SF and the SF field in those decades. Now, in the 1990s, a new book is needed, this time mixing fantasy and science fiction and using essays to illuminate the fiction. If there is one point we wish to make with this book, it is that SF is a living literature still in the 1990s, and a lively one to boot"
