Woman on the Edge of Time

Rating:
Summary: Good intentions, but missed the point
Review: I read this book recently, and believe it has its demographics picked well. If you are a feminist who sees no value whatsoever in the male gender, as well as no principles or regard for rules, you will like it. If you have any respect or love for god, think families are essential to everyone's well being (apart from the genetically identical type), you will find this book pretty offensive. I applaud piercy's attempt at creativity, but principally she is way off base. She draws exactly the same parallels of men as Adolf Hitler did of Jews in Mein Kampf. I just can't buy into her future world being a better place for anyone.

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read!
Review: I read this in a Women's Lit course while in college. Almost 10 years later, this remains one of my favorite books. In fact, one year I bought it for everyone I knew, because I think that it is that relevant a story and that well-written. Piercy weaves futuristic sci-fi elements and a feminist perspective into a beautiful. yet chilling story. This text exists on so many different levels and it works well on all of them. It's a great story as a stand-alone text. On a philosophical level, it begs the reader to comprehend what truth is, and its subjectivity. It is empowering as a novel about a strong woman who is able to transcend race, gender and class inequalities. Every time I read this book, I close the back cover and think how important the decisions I make in my own life are, no matter how minimal they seem to appear. The world that Piercy creates in the perspective futures of our world makes me think "how wonderful that would be" and then, conversely, with the alternate, "oh my god." Read it.

Rating:
Summary: Edge of Insanity
Review: I think that Connie is definitely crazy. She obviously wanted to believe in a utopian society. She like others in the 70s wanted to live in a world without violence. This story obviously takes place near the Vietnam War, time. She is influenced indirectly by the cries for peace that the people of the 70s tried to instill in us all.

I believe in time travel in certain situations. It would be good to see our accomplishments in the future. It would be good to see our self in the future to know what went wrong or right. Maybe the future is bad, or maybe it's happy. This story shows both sides of the spectrum. I would travel time, but not in the same way Connie did.

Connie is fighting for the future she has yet to comprehend. Either future destination is her choice. I think that she is a murderer from an outsider's point of view. I think that most people would say she did it in self defense. She was crazy, that's all I have to say to that.

If I was given a choice I would probably live in Luciente's world. They have clean water, places to just sit around for days on end, forests to explore. I like the fact that there is freedom to do whatever. I would not ever go to work, I would probably only hunt for my meals. It seems that any animal can be hunted and eaten. This is definitely my idea of a perfect Utopia.

I think Connie is disconnected from Luciente's world like she is from the present world. She is clinically insane and probably created these people and events as a means of escape from the mental institution. This is can be easily explained as she has a very vivid imagination. It is quite remarkable that she can picture a world complete with quirky characters. They seem to have a connection to Connie. She is the center of their universe. When she came back to the real world and killed, she had carried out her plan to get revenge on the doctors who tested people, including Connie herself.



Rating:
Summary: Great bleepin book
Review: I was assigned this book for a class 7 years ago. Didn't read it until 5 years ago, have since reread it frequently and have purchased copies for every single one of my nearest and dearest. Piercy's worlds are both foreseeable realities: do we succumb to the apathy that technology affords us and become its tools or do we use it as but one of our tools and take a proactive approach to making this world a better place to be. Critics may claim that this text is "anti-male" out of a pure allegiance to a patriarchal culture. We have become accustomed to this system which is quickly killing both our environment and our individuality. To suggest that men can be equal to women and vice versa is most definitely not anti-male. It is pro-human. Piercy taps the rage that most people internalize, especially women who live in a society which still subjugates them, makes them live in fear, and comes out with the best conclusion: one person can make a difference.

Rating:
Summary: Woman On the Edge Of Time
Review: I was saddened to read negative reviews of this wonderful novel. Especially as most the negative reviews were based on how "feminist" this book is. If you consider feminism females being superior to males then no, you won't like this book. However if you feel that people should be judged on their abilities and achievements and that equality for all is a goal this is a book for you. Connie a poor woman in the 1970's is our hero. Able to recieve a sort of psychic impression of the future she travels back and forth seeing how events in her time affect the future. Labeled insane and put away in an asylum she reaches to the future to keep hold of her sanity. This book is a testament to how society's labels can steer your life's course.

Also found in this book are examples of possible futures, one to strive for and one to fear. The "utopian" future is especially wonderful to me for it shows a society that is not perfect but strives to overcome its imperfections, a world dealing with its problems not a world without problems. If you enjoy time travel and social issues in science fiction you may very well enjoy this book.

Rating:
Summary: Woman On the Edge Of Time
Review: I was saddened to read negative reviews of this wonderful novel. Especially as most the negative reviews were based on how "feminist" this book is. If you consider feminism females being superior to males then no, you won't like this book. However if you feel that people should be judged on their abilities and achievements and that equality for all is a goal this is a book for you. Connie a poor woman in the 1970's is our hero. Able to recieve a sort of psychic impression of the future she travels back and forth seeing how events in her time affect the future. Labeled insane and put away in an asylum she reaches to the future to keep hold of her sanity. This book is a testament to how society's labels can steer your life's course.

Also found in this book are examples of possible futures, one to strive for and one to fear. The "utopian" future is especially wonderful to me for it shows a society that is not perfect but strives to overcome its imperfections, a world dealing with its problems not a world without problems. If you enjoy time travel and social issues in science fiction you may very well enjoy this book.

Rating:
Summary: Science fiction mixed with mental illness
Review: I'm not normally a fan of science fiction, but Marge Piercy manages to create life-like characters and not get lost in too many technical details. The book centers around a woman who is hospitalized for mental illness in the 1970's. She is able to communicate with people from the future and eventually time travel to see their world. She has no real friends and her own family wants to wash their hands of her. Her friends from the future become the only ones she can turn to, especially when she and some other mental patients become part of a dangerous new experiment. Piercy's view of the future is both fascinating and startling. It is part utopia and part hell-on-earth.

Rating:
Summary: Great sci-fi, more timely than ever...
Review: I'm surprised to read so many reviewers calling this a feminist novel. Why is a vision of the future where men and women are treated equally a feminist vision? Anyway, I loved this book, especially the way she illustrates how actions in the present will affect outcomes of the future.

Rating:
Summary: At the Cross Roads of Time
Review: Jonathan Thurston
At the Cross Roads of Time
Woman on the Edge of Time is a good Sci-Fi novel full of twists and turns that keep you close to the book until a bitter-sweet end. Connie, a poor Hispanic woman becomes the essential link to control how the future turns out. What she chooses will make one world live on and kill off the other.

Connie is held against her will in a mental institute under false charges. Her rights are not given to her and she is held without trial. These are the first steps of many that lead into the war of the futures.

Connie can time travel with the help of a woman of the future named Luciente. Luciente's world is one like a hippy commune. People study what they want and relax most of the days. Machines are there but are well hidden and do most of the manual labor. There is a constant war being fought but not very clear until the end.

Later in the novel Connie time travels to another world in the future. This world is the other crossroad of her decisions. She meets up with a woman there by the name of Guildina. Guildina is a contract hooker. This is a one of the many weird twists of the novel. Here is where Connie sees what she must do to preserve those who live in the world of Luciente.

Connie while in the mental institute is made to undergo a series of surgeries that she doesn't want or need but due to the false testimony she has no choice. The war in the present is gearing up and the final decisions are made to see what the future will bring to us. Will we become a world of machines or hippy lifestyles?

Connie fights at first without violence then later changes to a lethal fight that no one knows about except those of Luciente's world and herself. Connie becomes the hero of mattiposette. But a bigger question still lingers in the end. Is Connie a murderer or is she fighting a war or is she just acting in self defence?

After she "wins the war", why can she not talk to Luciente anymore? Could she have been used or was this whole series of events a figment in the insane mind? Just a few of the many twists you will see as you read Woman on the Edge of Time.


Rating:
Summary: Deptictions of Devine Intervision
Review: Leonard W. Caver Jr.
February 11, 2005
Lynn Hamilton
English 1102

Woman on The Edge of Time is a science fiction novel which navigates it audience through a mind boggling tunnel of mental twist and turns. The main character of the book, Connie Ramos, is a young Latina woman who has the ability to be contacted by individuals in her future. In Connie's "world" she treated horribly. She was molested by her older brother when she was a child, which may be a direct reflection of her multiple failing attempts to stay married. Her only daughter was taken from her because she could not afford to take care of her. She lived through immense poverty and in turn was a struggling member of her society. The novel depicts Connie's credibility as a woman, mother, and wife as one that was in shambles through their descriptions her past actions. After returning to the mental institution, for the second time, Connie begins to make contact from an individual who claims to be from the future. The ironic part about it all is that the only reason that she was in the asylum for a second time was because her closest family member Dolly, her niece, told authorities that she beat her up. Little did the police know was that Connie's niece was a prostitute who really just got beat up by her pimp.

Connie begins to travel to the "future" with her appointed guide, Luciente. In this futuristic world Connie is exposed to a completely human created utopia. I wouldn't even go as far as to say a utopia; I would say a half way decent attempt at equality. I would not want to live in Luciente's world because the freedoms that they enjoy all come at a price. Their entire society is revolved around thought, and not action. In her future world Connie is exposed to life where the "old meets the new". Old in the since that everyone lives in villages, grow their own food, and use non polluting forms of transportation to get around. Luciente's world is also "new" because they create children; there are few rules, and robots to a lot of the manual work that humans used to do. Luciente's world is also at war with an army of cyborg's and robots for the balance of the world. Connie is eventually told that the reason that they have allowed her to come to the future was because she was the deciding factor of their future war. I do believe that she was truly time traveling in her mind. When she time traveled she went into deep trances which would last for a couple hours. The ironic thing about it all was the time traveling only took place in her head; her physical body remained in her room at the mental hospital. While imprisoned in a New York mental facility, Connie is hand selected by famous doctors to be apart of a new medical breakthrough in science. In the novel, the major breakthrough has human mind control. This would eventually foreshadow the war against humans and cyborgs (mechanically advanced humans).