"It's always seemed to me that there is more lasting truth in fantasy than in fiction," futuristic writer H. M. Hoover notes in Top of the News. "Legend or myth, fairy tale or fable, all contain truth we sometimes can't articulate, but intuitively understand. We have all lived or worked on Animal Farm and know pigs who feel 'some animals are more equal than others.' We can see the great Oz in any humbugging politician.... The Dark Lord of Mordor is still with us and orcs do stalk suburban malls." M. Jean Greenlaw in Twentieth-Century Children's Writers praises Hoover's "detailed descriptions of the lanscape of any world she has created" in her many books of science fiction for young adults, including her futuristic vision of planet Earth.

Growing up in Rural Ohio

Hoover was born in the northeastern corner of Ohio in 1935, in the same house where...