This book followed the Oxford anthology by a year, with a higher-profile co-editor. The subtitle describes its scope: "North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990". (Karen Joy Fowler is acknowledged as a consultant, on the title page.) There is a long introduction by Le Guin, though no individual story introductions. The emphasis is on a variety of authors and themes, sometimes at the expense of story length; most stories are relatively short, and not always their authors' best or best-known works.