Geek's Grand Dame
No one would accuse Margaret Atwood of having a warm-and-fuzzy worldview, but she was the first author to present a novel to the Future Library, which will publish 100 books one century from now on paper culled from Norway spruce. If this was an indication of optimism percolating in the mother-brain of dystopian futures, or merely an exercise of her mordant wit, we may never know. But at 75, Atwood has nothing to prove. She can coolly appreciate that U.S. schools both ban and require The Handmaid’s Tale, and enjoy the rarified attention of MaddAddam supergeeks. She can happily consent to illustrate an autobiographical cartoon for the Kickstarter-funded anthology Secret Loves of Geek Girls while publishing The Heart Goes Last, a new major work of speculative fiction about a couple who, in the face of large-scale economic collapse, agrees to take part in social experiment run by a private prison company. Our world is her fodder. And, while she has long threatened to implement her patented LongPen technology for remotely signing books, for now she still can hold us in the palm of her hand.
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