Points of Departure is a collection of short stories tinged with barbed humor that won the 1991 Philip K. Dick Award. Alternating between hope and despair, Pat Murphy's stories range from "Rachel in Love," which portrays a chimpanzee whose brain is implanted with the personality of a young girl who has died to "His Vegetable Wife," the story of a farmer who grows a spouse from a packet of seed only to find that she is more quiet than docile. All but one of the 19 stories in this collection have been published previously in magazines and anthologies.

From Publishers Weekly
Although infused with a gentle sort of magic, the stories in Murphy's ( The City, Not Long After ) enjoyable collection are also tinged with barbed humor, alternating between hope and despair. Nebula Award-winner "Rachel in Love" portrays a chimpanzee whose brain is implanted with the personality of a young girl who has died. When the researcher who cared for the chimp dies, the hybrid draws on her mingled primate and human knowledge to make her way in a world that can be at once hostile and kind. In "Prescience," a fortune-teller learns that there's a difference between seeing the future and changing it. Conversely, in "Orange Blossom Time," a woman who travels through time cannot change the past or the present as she watches the city and the man she loves suffer painful deaths from rampant disease and the exhaustion of resources. Unappreciated wives get the last word in two stories: a wife's spirit escapes her abusive husband to join the "Women in the Trees," and a farmer who grows a spouse from a packet of seeds finds that "His Vegetable Wife" is more quiet than docile. All but one of these 19 stories have been published previously in SF magazines and book anthologies. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Publishers Weekly
Infused with a gentle sort of magic . . .