Please read this book! - Rated 
Woman on the Edge of Time
Please do read this book, I wasn't sure what to expect but I loved it so much. I read this book about 10 years ago and it still stays with me because it's so well written and really different. This is a stay up all night read. I hope you love it as much as I did, and I know you'll want Connie to win through. x
Speculative politics and patriarchy - Rated 
An important (if flawed) example of feminist SF, Women On The Edge Of Time escapes that old cliche that nothing dates so quickly as visions of the future, which really speak only to the time of their imagining. But this might have more to do with the persistence (or resurgence) of the patriarchy which it critiques than with any quality of the book itself. The alternation between worlds is nicely imagined and thankfully free from a certain kind of technical obsession that we think of as 'masculinist'. The future citizens manage to take on a life of their own but lack the contradictions that make a work like LeGuin's The Dispossessed superior in so many ways. The language is itself a little pedestrian and reads a little too much like a morality tale - despite her incarceration in a mental institution and her outbreaks of violence and drug-taking, Connie is not quite complicated (or multivalent) enough to break cover into believable autonomy. Many of Piercy's central concerns, and more than a few features of her utopian future, are reminiscent of Joanna Russ's The Female Man. That is a much better place to go for the pleasures of feminist speculative fictions. Nevertheless, this has something going for it, even if that says more about politics and patriarchy than about literature.
A 1970s vision of the future still fresh and relevant today - Rated
When I started reading Woman on the Edge of Time, I had forgotten that it was supposed to be sci-fi and I was really rather disappointed to be reading about the depressing plight of a socially and economically disadvantage woman caught in an insane asylum, seemingly innocent (at least this time). As Luciente started appearing and slowly coaxed her into her future world, however, I became much more interested.
Initially, the future world that Marge Piercy paints is at odds with our - and indeed Connie's - vision of the future. Instead of gleaming towers and hovercars, Luciente and her "mems" live in squat mud huts and seem to be farmers, "peasants" in Connie's disappointed words. Nevertheless, I'd contend that this future world is not wholly original, especially when considering that this novel was written in 1976. At the time, there were many who considered an agrarian, communal life with ultimate respect for the individual utopia.
Into this utopia enters the world of the "multies" - those who have not adopted the idyllic peacefulness of communities like Mattapoisett. For sure (or "fasure" as Luciente would say), this heavily contrasted world is an extrapolation of the readers' own and a warning of what we may become if we don't change our ways and become a little bit more like Luciente and her "sweetfriends".
While these thoughts are typical of the 1970s, they are not entirely unmodern and, throughout the book, I never felt as if I was reading a book as old as I am! Connie's present and Luciente's future seem equally fresh and relevant in today's world. For example, mobile phones and the internet aren't noticeably absent (and in the future the "kenner" is like portable, talking Wikipedia).
The only lingering doubt that the book leaves me with is this: is the future experienced by Connie real or is it all a figment of her, clinically diagnosed schizophrenia?
An Important Historical Feminist Vision of the Future. - Rated 
While, yes, certainly Piercy's work is dated, its theories of a feminist utopia are firmly set in the perhaps more `idealistic' 70's, this is still by no means a worthless read. In fact there is much to celebrate in her feminist, cum social critique, cum science fiction drama. The story of Connie's abuse at the hands of a pimp, the state and the resultant removal of her daughter, Angelina, into care creates an insight into a world of forced hysterectomies, unequal sexual relationships and discrimination of the poor and ethnic minorities. These are issues still affecting many women in American (where the book is set) and the rest of the world, today, and are therefore still relevant and worthy of analysis. Connie's resultant decent into so called `insanity' forces the reader to question just how mad Connie really is. Is she deserving of a lobotomy that will ultimately erase her memory and her ability to do what she believes is time travel into the future, or is the state interrupting and enforcing control over what they classify as a `dissident', a `rebel'? For insight into the plight of the poor and the often despicable treatment of the mentally ill this book stands alone as an extremely important late 20th century novel, up there with `The Bell Jar', `Girl, Interrupted' and `Prozac Nation.' The sub-plot, set in the future world of a so-called feminist `utopia' equally calls the reader to question just how utopian and improved the conditions really are. Certainly in comparison to Connie's existence in a sexist, discriminatory America were gender and class are definers of social standing, the future Connie finds herself exploring offers many improvements. Ultimately however, in a society today, were we are so forcefully defined by gender and sexuality (and not always in a belittling or derogatory manner - why shouldn't women after all celebrate what they believe is their innate womanliness - what ever that may be?), Piercy's utopia will certainly be found to be wanting by many of its readers. The sexless society she creates has its pros and its cons. It forces the inhabitants to define one another as human beings rather than as men and women. The birthing machine certainly frees women from the pains of childbirth, but ultimately robs them of the sometimes innate desire to bear children in a similar way to Connie's forced hysterectomy. Furthermore for want of a better expression the `free-love' community of the utopian future is problematic. In the 70's this concept represented to some the possibility of freedom from so-called `Compulsory Heterosexuality' i.e. man and wife partnerships, thus allowing women more sexual freedom and opportunities to explore their sexualities. However in practice these concepts are proved to not be without their flaws, as they are certainly no barrier to falling in love with someone who ultimately one cannot have a life long relationship with in a community where everyone belongs to everyone else. The guide Luciente painfully expresses this to Connie on one of her latter visits. Not without its flaws, but perhaps more thought provoking for them, Marge Piercy's novel will not leave you untouched, or unshaken, and there is much to think about in her richly dense analysis of society, feminism, gender, mental illness and technology.
What Might Be: A Worthwhile Fantasy in Time - Rated
I am a great fan of Marge Piercy's poetry - her skill at using simple and everyday language to capture everyday scenes and sensibilities in the inner and outer lives of strong women, and to shine upon them a sublime literary light - and so it was not difficult to convince me to break out of my usual reading, decidedly not science fiction, to spend time with this "time-traveling novel." That play on words, mind you, is quite intentional. I soon sensed, within the first pages, that this is the kind of story plotline (and the writing skill to make it succeed convincingly) that traverses time and retains meaning and interest, no matter the year. Some things change, some things never do.
Being familiar with Piercy's poetry and something of her own biography, I expected a feminist approach to the plot. Indeed, it was there, and this is why I was soon confident in my enjoyment of the novel, even if it did veer from my more typical reading choices. Whatever the genre, I like to read about strong and unique women. "Woman on the Edge of Time" has plenty, in the now and in the to be.
Consuelo (Connie) in the 1970s lives a life of poverty and abuse, when domestic violence is as common as air, and women survive all too often by selling themselves out as objectified beings, bodies without minds, without souls. A pimp beats up "his" women to maintain order, in this case, to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, and a scene of violence ensues, in which Connie is made the villain rather than the victim. She can say nothing to prevent herself from being institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital, called mad, whereas the male's voice, that of the pimp's, holds unquestioned weight. He has her out of his way to create more victims.
I couldn't help but draw parallels here with another literary classic, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey, and even some undertones of Margaret Atwood's "Handmaid's Tale," but Piercy succeeds in making this story her own. Connie strives to maintain her sanity by traveling in time to another life in 2137, assisted by future person (Piercy uses "per" as pronoun, thus avoiding gender designation of she or he in this future), Luciente, a kind of almost andrygenous being. In that future, she explores a life much more pleasing, if not utopian, and in series of trips, explores this future world in its treatment of relationships, the interchange of genders and generations, the workings of community and government, the balance between work and play, spiritual evolvement, and even the occasional war. For it is not utopia, but a constant work in progress, however more evolved than our current day, with humankind in an ongoing mode of self-improvement.
No less fascinating is a shorter description of a darker parallel of life in the future, when Connie misses her usual destination and lands instead in a future that could just as easily, one fears, evolve from our current time. In this future, women are even more objectified than they are today, creatures resembling comic book and Barbie doll fantasy proportions, created by plastic surgery, produced specifically and only for the erotic pleasures of men, becoming sexual slaves. Mind reading allows for no privacy, no chance of escape. A woman might only think of the possibility of escape, and already she is reined in and punished. It is a world of callousness and cruelty, domination of gender over gender, power and greed ruling all, happiness for none.
In the hospital, woven through the story, Connie struggles for her sanity, as the doctors in power rule out any possibility of what they cannot understand, puzzled by her episodes of "unconsciousness," and many in the ward are forced to undergo brain-altering surgery. Connie, too, undergoes repeated surgeries. Her attempts at escape, sometimes in mind but sometimes also in body, can be heartrending, as she comes so close, so close...
This is a story worth reading, if not for intriguing storyline, than as a philosophical treatise on what could be, what might be, what a future for humankind might hold if we approach it with understanding. Whether Connie truly travels in time or only in fantasy is perhaps least important of all. Those who pick it up as science fiction fans might be disappointed if seeking high tech descriptions and complex alien worlds; this is not Piercy's intent. She is far more interested in exploring the evolvement of humankind if all are allowed to pursue their best, towards a world of harmony and a caring community that works on all practical levels.
While I still prefer Piercy's poetry to this sampling of her prose (my first, but probably not my last), her skill and imagination to produce worlds that intrigue as well as enlighten is worthwhile reading.
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