The Science of Herself
by Karen Joy Fowler
The title essay of this slender volume — purchased as signed at Readercon but, as far as I can see not signed — is a pleasant-enough piece about Mary Anning, an impoverished little girl who learned to hunt fossils and who became a prominent, if unschooled, paleontologist and who also opened the world’s first rock shop. The great centerpiece of the book is a nifty short story, “The Pelican Bar,” which does a wonderful job of exploring and exploding punitive schools for difficult kids. A fine interview, too, with the author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.