Fiction. In this startling and long-awaited collection, Carol Emshwiller uses tongue-in-cheek realism to explore the psychological make-up of contemporary women. Her characters face a range of circumstances from rollicking satire as in "Mental Heath and Its Alternative" to philosophical meditation as in "Slowly Bumbling in the Void" to surreal adventure as in "Queen Kong." Not afraid to stick their necks out, these stories force us to look at the ordinary domestic world and see it as truly skewed, odd, metaphorically, allegorical, satirical, and fantastic.