Walk to the End of the World
Walk to the End of the World is a novel by Suzy McKee Charnas, originally published in 1974. It is the first book in the Holdfast Chronicles. Set in a horrifically misogynist future where all women are enslaved (and known as "fems"), the book tells the story of Servan d'Layo, Eykar Bek, Captain Kelmz, and Alldera the Runner, travellingtogether across the blighted landscape of the Holdfast on Bek's patricidal quest.
The first four sections of the book cycle through the limited third person points of view of each main character, making clear how very different their perspectives are. When we at last reach the fem's section, the book is turned upside down. Like all enslaved people, the fem is much more aware of her masters' reality than they are of hers, and the utter depravity of Holdfast life is laid bare for the reader.
This and the other books in the Holdfast Chronicles are crucial feminist science fiction texts. Walk to the End of the World and Motherlines were (together) one of the three winners of the Retrospective Tiptree Award in 1996.
Editions and translations
- Feb 1974, New York: Ballantine/Del Rey, ISBN 0-345-23788-9. (paperback) cover by Gene Szafran
- May 1977, New York: Ballantine/Del Rey, ISBN 0-345-25661-1. (paperback) cover by Gene Szafran
- Oct 1978, New York: Putnam/Berkley, ISBN 0-425-04239-1. (reprint paperback coincident with publication of Motherlines) cover by Doug Beekman
- Aug 1979, London: Gollancz, ISBN 0-575-02707-X. (hardcover)
- Oct 1979, New York: Putnam/Berkley, ISBN 0-425-04239-1. (paperback)
- Oct 1981, London: Coronet, ISBN 0-340-26788-7. (paperback)
- 1983, München, Germany: Droemer/Knauer verlag, ISBN 34-2605-770-0. (German edition, translated by Thomas Ziegler as Tochter der Apokalypse)
- Aug 1989, London: The Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-4154-9. (Trade paperback, Omninbus together with Motherlines as Walk to the End of the World and Motherlines) cover by Barbara Lofthouse
- 1990, included in Radical Utopias from the Quality Paperback Book Club (with The Female Man by Joanna Russ and Triton by Samuel R. Delany (trade paperback) cover by Donald David
- Apr 1995, London: The Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-4154-9. (Trade paperback, Omninbus together with Motherlines as Walk to the End of the World and Motherlines) cover by Bobbie Russon
- May 1999, New York: Tor Books/Orb Books, ISBN 0-312-86912-6 (trade paperback, Omnibus together with Motherlines as The Slave and the Free) cover by Jon Sullivan