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The same thing I’d like, I bet, said Boyd.

A great big grilled steak, rare, dripping with blood. A big stack of French fries. And a nice cold beer.

Ditto. And then a rip-roaring dogfight with those scaly sons of guns from Xenor.

You got the idea.

They decided to go exploring. Despite having been told that Aa’A was the same in every direction, and that they would only find more trees and more bowers and more birds and butterflies and more luscious women, they set out toward the west. After a long time and no adventures whatsoever, they came up against an invisible wall. It was slippery, like glass, but soft and yielding when you pushed on it. Then it would spring back into shape. It was higher than they could possibly reach or climb. It was like a huge crystal bubble.

I think we’re trapped inside a big transparent tit, said Boyd.

They sat down at the foot of the wall, overcome by a profound despair.

This joint is peace and plenty, said Will. It’s a soft bed at night and sweet dreams, it’s tulips on the sunny breakfast table, it’s the little woman making coffee. It’s all the loving you ever dreamed of, in every shape and form. It’s everything men think they want when they’re out there, fighting in another dimension of space. It’s what other men have given their lives for. Am I right?

You said a mouthful, said Boyd.

But it’s too good to be true, said Will. It must be a trap. It may even be some devilish mind-device of the Xenorians, to keep us from being in the war. It’s Paradise, but we can’t get out of it. And anything you can’t get out of is Hell.

But this isn’t Hell. It’s happiness, said one of the Peach Women who was materializing from the branch of a nearby tree. There’s nowhere to go from here. Relax. Enjoy yourselves. You’ll get used to it.

And that’s the end of the story.

That’s it? she says. You’re going to keep those two men cooped up in there forever?

I did what you wanted. You wanted happiness. But I can keep them in or let them out, depending how you want it.

Let them out, then.

Outside is death. Remember?

Oh. I see. She turns on her side, pulls the fur coat over her, slides her arm around him. You’re wrong about the Peach Women though. They aren’t the way you think.

Wrong how?

You’re just wrong.

The Lizard Man of Xenor by Margaret Atwood:

An Open Letter from

Margaret Atwood to the

Judson Independent

School District

First, I would like to thank those who have dedicated themselves so energetically to the banning of my novel The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s encouraging to know that the written word is still taken so seriously.

That thought aside, I would like to congratulate the students, parents, and teachers who have supported the use of my book in advanced placement courses. They have aligned themselves against the censurers, book-banners, and book-burners throughout the ages, and have stood up for open discussion and a free expression of opinion—which, last time I looked, was still the American way, though that way is under pressure.

I would also like to comment on the objections to the book that have been made. The remark “offensive to Christians” amazes me—why are some Christians so quick to see themselves in this mirror? Nowhere in the book is the regime identified as Christian. It puts into literal practise some passages from the Bible, but these passages are not from the New Testament. In fact, the regime is busily exterminating nuns, Baptists, Quakers, and so forth, in the same way that the Bolsheviks exterminated the Mensheviks. The only person who says anything Christian is the heroine herself. You will find her own version of The Lord’s Prayer at the end of Chapter 30.

As for sexual explicitness, The Handmaid’s Tale is a good deal less interested in sex than is much of the Bible. Leaving aside the Song of Solomon, there’s quite a bit of sex—rape, incest of various kinds, seduction, lust, prostitution, public intercourse on a rooftop with one’s father’s concubines, and more. One of the things that makes the Bible such