ABSTRACT
Science fiction (sf) invokes and invites a particular readerly experience built around a distinctive "sense of wonder", a quality that has long been part of the sf community's self-understanding, as can be seen in Damon Knight's 1956 volume of sf criticism entitled In Search of Wonder. As with "When It Changed", James Tiptree's story both calls forth sf reading practices from its readers and recapitulates them in its unfolding plot and developing characters. It also works within the oppositional political and cultural ambience of the 1970s. Tiptree's "Houston, Houston" exemplifies the sf feedback loops of what Darko Suvin calls "cognitive estrangement" in his 1972 essay. In "Houston, Houston" the reader must cognitively accept the scientific premise of the solar time slip and seriously appreciate the new society of women to make any sense of the story and its outcome.
