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| SFReader Forums > The Real World > Non-Fiction Books > The History of Science-Fiction | Forum Quick Jump
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Holly Watt
Stablehand
      
Date Joined May 2004
Total Posts : 7
| Posted 6/5/2004 6:15 AM (GMT -5) |   | I was wondering if anyone knew of a good book that covers the history of science-fiction?
I'm interested to know its roots and how it has changed over time. When I searched my local library, all I found were kinda boring essays by old-time writers like Issac Asimov. [:(]
There were many books covering mystery/crime novels but not many non-fiction about science-fiction. Why? | | Back to Top | | |
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Jim Rudnick
Stablehand
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 3
| Posted 6/5/2004 6:46 AM (GMT -5) | | Yipes!
"boring old-time writer"
I had the privilige of attending a reading where Isaac Asimov was to read part of his Foundation Trilogy. I lined up early with the hundreds of others in NYC and made it to a seat near the podium. I sat there throughout, enthralled, mystified and content that yes, I had actually heard one of the 3 writers who're generally considered the triumverate that started scifi on it's way (Clarke and Heinlein being the other 2!)
To call such a writer, such a raconteur, such a commentator on everyday life "old time" speaks to me that you've not really done your homework on him -- nor really on any of the writers to whom we all owe gratitude in making our genre what it is today.
This is not to impugn your opinion -- but let me assure you, that those "boring essays" were most likely the best written history of scifi that you'll ever encounter. Sure there are new writers who have done their own take on our genre's history, but no one and I mean no one can do it the justice that it deserves better than one of those "old time" writers.
Read. Read lots. Read till you can't do anything else but read. Book sick at work. Don't do any chores or listen to the kids -- whatever else you used to do -- forget it. Read the masters of scifi and you will see that they truly do speak for a genre in a way that no one else will ever be able to touch. Read their essays on the craft of same and then read their own works...and sit as amazed as the rest of us!
Once you understand then where we all came from, then maybe you'll find a voice with which to lead your own way into the genre...
My own .02 but I ferverantly believe in Isaac and Arthur and Robert as being the 3 only reasons I love scifi!
;-)
Jim
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Dave
Master of the Domain
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 686
| Posted 6/6/2004 7:52 AM (GMT -5) | | Well Jim, I'll have to hair-split here.
To some extent I agree with you. The three you mention mainstreamed SF in the sense that they greatly expanded it's readership, but they can't be considered it's source.
Perhaps the first popular SF series was the John Carter of Mars books, by Burroughs. Tarzan can easily be considered fantasy, and Burroughs also wrote the Journey to the Center of the Earth books, also SF, all of this many years before your three picked up a pen.
Frankenstein was arguable SF, though maybe SF and H, also way before your triumvate, and lets not forget H.G. Wells, with The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and others. Those are just the few I can think of from my own limited reading.
Dave
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Edward Knight
Jack of all Trades and Master of None
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1039
| Posted 6/6/2004 8:56 AM (GMT -5) | | You guys don't go back far enough. You have forgotten Jules Verne (God's gift to science fiction in my opinion), Robert Louis Stevenson (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), Bram Stoker (Dracula), Henry Rider Haggard (Allen Quartermain), William Henry Hudson (A Crystal Age), James Fennimore Cooper (The Monokins), Edward Hale (The Brick Moon - possibly one of the oldest sci-fi works), Louis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland). Even Edgar Allen Poe had ties to speculative fiction too. The list goes on and on.
I'll agree with Wells, Burroughs, and Shelly having an impact also.
If we're talking about a more modern history of sci-fi you can't even start without the names Lester Del Ray and John W. Campbell.
Holly,
Here are a few Non-fiction titles about the history of Science Fiction. They can be easily found on the net at reasonable prices.
Transformations: Understanding World History Through Science Fiction
SCIENCE FICTION: WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT (History of Science Fiction )
Lundwall, Sam J.
Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction
Aldiss,Brian Wilson
The science fiction book : an illustrated history (ISBN:0816491690)
Franz Rottensteiner
World of Science Fiction the History Of (ISBN:034525452X)
Del Rey, Lester
Alternate Worlds, The Illustrated History of Science Fiction
Gunn, James
Science Fiction: History, Science, Vision (ISBN:0195021746)
Scholes, Robert & Eric S. Rabkin
A Pictorial History of Science Fiction Films (ISBN:0806505370)
Rovin, Jeff
Edward Knight
Editor
Journey Books Publishing
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Jim Rudnick
Stablehand
Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 3
| Posted 6/6/2004 10:32 AM (GMT -5) | | <grin>
I agree wholeheartedly with you both, Dave and Ed.
My thinking here tho, was to consider ONLY the big three in the sense that with Campbells (and others like Gold too) pushing that they really are responsible for the current state of the genre. They brought sf into the forefront of genre writing and IMHO they are the ones we should thank for what we have today.
But, while I didn't mention Verne or Burroughs, Cooper or the rest, I've read them all...they too broke new ground that led to the 3 I did mention and I'd dare to say that those 3 read them all too.
And while my opinion of Burroughs is that he was a master of the forumla writing school -- it didn't lessen the impact of John Carter and Tars and the Princess and those airships and -- well, you know...god how I loved lining up my set of the Mars books, and I added Pellucidar later and then the Venus ones...
Suffice it to say, that I think overall, we've the best roots of any writing genre -- our early pioneers were giants and the ones that followed while they did stand on those shoulders have taken us to new heights.
Now? I read Bear, Niven still, Pournelle when I can find him, Baxter and Richard Morgan (a new star in my opinion) and Zelzany and Aldiss are still sought out by me each trip to the huge bookmart in town. I love still Joe Haldeman and when Card is spinning a new society, I'm riveted to the book.
So...in closing let me just add, that while whom I love and admire is subjective, all that I ask is that we all search for our own models to write from....
;-)
Jim
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Holly Watt
Stablehand
Date Joined May 2004
Total Posts : 7
| Posted 6/7/2004 5:46 AM (GMT -5) | | Thank you for the tips! I didn't mean to offend anybody by my comments. I thought if I knew something about the history of science-fiction it might be easier to create something new. Most of the books I found were musty and dusty but that could just be my local library [:)]
I did try to read some non-fiction and fiction by Asimov but to me the words seemed stiff and the characters were hard to feel anything for.
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Dave
Master of the Domain
Date Joined Aug 2003
Total Posts : 686
| Posted 6/7/2004 7:06 AM (GMT -5) | | Bleh.
I never much cared for Asimov, some of Heinlien was OK and some was BAD, and I've never read a Clark book.
I guess I'm an SF philistine.
Dave
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Edward Knight
Jack of all Trades and Master of None
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1039
| Posted 6/7/2004 3:50 PM (GMT -5) | | It depends on your taste and mood at the time I think. I find Asimov more cerebral than a lot of science fiction readers want to deal with. Personally, I like his work, though I admit I've never read any of his non-fiction. I kind of hate to see Hollywood messing with I Robot. The trailers I have seen didn't look at all like the book I read. I think the only connection will be the title. The Foundation Triligy is still my favorite Asimov work. It's best read on cold winter days in a guiet place with no distractions. I think younger readers will have trouble reading classics like this, just as I have trouble reading Jules Verne, not that I don't like it; it's just hard to read. The language keeps changing. Slang changes, word use changes, culture changes... The same will happen with Card, Bradbury, King etc. As they come down off the bestseller lists and start making the school required reading lists their fans will get older, and younger readers will wonder, "What is all this dribble the english teacher is making us read?" It all has to do with perspective and perception. What was a hot book will become a classic, and then a stale relic from a by-gone era.
Edward Knight
Editor
Journey Books Publishing
Amazing Journeys Magazine
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Holly Watt
Stablehand
Date Joined May 2004
Total Posts : 7
| Posted 7/10/2004 10:54 AM (GMT -5) | | So, that's like the same as saying science-fiction ages a little faster than some other kinds of fiction? I'd agree with that about TV sci-fiction and old movies too.
[?] | | Back to Top | | |
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ragemachine
Neophyte
Date Joined May 2005
Total Posts : 73
| Posted 5/25/2005 5:17 AM (GMT -5) | | GW Thomas butting in. As for SF aging, yes and no. If you read a golden oldie like Stanley G. Weinbaum's "A Martian Odyessy" you can tell it was written a while ago (1935?) but that doesn't really stop you from enjoying it because it such a good story based on good ideas. The tech side becomes dated but the thinking stuff doesn't. That story has space travellers but no computers. Other classics like Fredric Brown's "Arena" written in 1944 can be seen as a statement about WWII or it can remembered for being the basis of a Star Trek episode with the Gorn or it can be taken as is. The discussion of whether it is possible to have peace between two violent/intelligent races does age. James Blish's A CASE OF CONSCIENCE is another good example. Technology isn't really important other than space travel. When we meet aliens for the first time, what happens to religion? The only way that is going to date is if we get visited by aliens...
GW
G. W. Thomas has appeared in over 350 different books, magazines and ezines including Black October Magazine, Writer's Digest and The Armchair Detective.
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erazmus
Master
Date Joined Jul 2005
Total Posts : 4546
| Posted 7/14/2005 10:53 AM (GMT -5) | | I'll keep to the original question.
One book I found very helpful is David Kyle's A Pictorial History of Science Fiction, ISBN0 600 38193 5
It should be available through inter library loan. Its not new, covering only from before the ninteenth century to the early seventies but what it covers it covers well enough for a begining. I got involved in SF and Fandom about the time this book came out so naturally enough for me it filled in some holes.
Mike
Michael D. Turner
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Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 629
| Posted 1/2/2006 12:34 PM (GMT -5) | | Unfortunately most books covering the history of science fiction speak of and illustrate SF as a whole, meaning they also cover film & television, radio, magazines, etc. Few titles on this subject focus strictly on SF literature. If you don't mind getting your SF history by reading brief articles on individual authors, then I will recommend John Clute's Encyclopedia of Science Fiction complied with help from Peter Nicholls in the 1970's (expanded second and third editions published in the 1990's). You most likely won't find a more informative book without having to sift through a mountain of crap.
If you have the time you can read the introductions to all the major SF short story anthologies published between 1939 and now and that'll give you a great wealth of information and a good feeling for what SF meant to different important editors through the years. I always found Barry Maltzberg a good comentator on the subject.
For the record the earliest true science fiction story was written by Cerano de Bergerac who, in the late sixteenth century, wrote a story about several groups of men who travel to the moon by various methods, including using rockets fueled with massive amounts of gun powder. I guess that would be considered a short story by today's standards, which makes Mary Shelley's Frankenstein the first SF novel (published in 1818). | | Back to Top | | |
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Frank
Adept
Date Joined Aug 2005
Total Posts : 629
| Posted 1/2/2006 12:47 PM (GMT -5) | | If what you're looking for is advice on writing new and original SF, the only solution to that is to read every SF book ever published. Or you can read just about every "how to" book on this subject (like I tried to do). Few of these books were truely helpful but Orson Scott Card had some useful things to say in his 'How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy' and Steven King's 'On Writing' was surprisingly fun to read and he also had good advice on writing for a living in general.
Stanley Kubrick told Jack Nicholson on the set of The Shining that every scene you can think of has already been done many times over and our job is simply to do it better. The same can be said of every art form. Just be yourself on the page and write the best you can at the time of writing. Six months later you'll look back at it and say to yourself "that was crap" and you'll write something better. | | Back to Top | | |
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ragemachine
Neophyte
Date Joined May 2005
Total Posts : 73
| Posted 1/13/2006 2:45 PM (GMT -5) | | My favorite non-fiction book on SF is Lester Del Rey's THE WORLD OF SCIENCE FICTION 1926-1976. I read it cover to cover about every six months. I just love hearing about the early days.
GW
G. W. Thomas has appeared in over 350 different books, magazines and ezines including Black October Magazine, Writer's Digest and The Armchair Detective.
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