Melissa Scott writes science fiction and fantasy that is informed by her educational background in history and by her identity as a lesbian. She uses her stories to contemplate such issues as the impact of technology on society, the role of gender in the formation of identity, and the consequences of creating boundaries among societies with different ideologies. Reviewers have consistently praised Scott's ability to create comprehensive, believable worlds.

After her initial foray into the genre with The Game Beyond, in which people compete in a gaming tournament to decide who will rule a planetary community, Scott wrote Five-Twelfths of Heaven. The story became the first in a trilogy featuring spaceship pilot Silence Leigh, a woman who struggles against the male-dominated society of which she is a part. In the first story, financial hardship causes her to lose ownership of a spaceship left to her by her grandfather...