From pulp fiction to cyberpunk, science fiction writing has always abounded with vivid, powerful women - Amazonians, alien queens, slayers of monsters, brilliant scientists and ethereal beings. Ron Miller's portraits evoke a colourful pictorial history of these multi-faceted heroines, while Pamela Sargent's incisive text provides an absorbing analysis from the beginnings of the genre to the present day, from H G Well's Weena, to Edgar Rice Burrough's Dian the Beautiful and Isaac Asimov's Dr Susan Calvin.