Lessing's switch to science fiction was not well received by readers and critics. By the late 1970s Lessing was considered "one of the most honest, intelligent and engaged writers of the day", and Western readers unfamiliar with Sufism were dismayed that Lessing had abandoned her "rational worldview". George Stade of "The New York Times" complained that "our Grand Mistress of lumpen realism has gone religious on us". Reaction to the first two books in the series, "Shikasta" and "The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five", prompted Lessing to write in the Preface to the third book in the series, "The Sirian Experiments" (1980):