In the latest wave of science fiction, authors of color take space to imagine multiple new societies Salon 2 hrs ago The female engine, woman as a machine Getty Stock Photo
The year 1968 was one of racial progress and retreat: the year athletes raised their fists in a Black power salute at the Olympics, the year Martin Luther King Jr. was slain. In the world of science fiction – far ahead in an invented future – the period brought more progress. Star Trek aired the first kiss between two characters of different races on television. And in literature, Ursula Le Guin launched the Earthsea Cycle, a series whose protagonist had red-brown skin, Le Guin s attempt to correct a canon populated by pale heroes.