During the 1970s science fiction discovered gender issues. Under the influence of the women's movement, novels were published featuring androgynous races, matriarchal societies, all-female worlds, and many other arrangements. Most of these were serious attempts to examine aspects of sex roles that formerly had been viewed, even in science fiction, as at least "natural" if not inevitable. The imaginary society might be a dystopia, a Utopia, or something in between, depending on the writer's own beliefs.

A World Between is Spinrad's entry in this fray. Many male science fiction writers picked up on the trend only indirectly, by putting female characters into formerly male occupations. Spinrad is one of the few to tackle the "gender wars" directly in a novel; it makes fascinating reading for this reason alone. However, in A World Between he has also accomplished several other things. He has created a high-tech world...