* by Mr Andy Sawyer in September 2003
* I received this handout as my course began
General Guides / Articles
"**" means that this book is virtually essential
Brian W. Aldiss, The Detached Retina
** Brian W. Aldiss & David Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction
** Michael Ashley, The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950
** Damien Broderick, Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction
Algis Budrys, "Literature of Milieux" (Foundation, 31, pp 5-17)
Thomas D. Clareson, ed., SF: The Other Side of Realism
Samuel R. Delany, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction
** Carl Freedman, Critical Theory and Science Fiction
Colin Greenland, The Entropy Exhibition
Gwyneth Jones, Deconstructing the Starships: Science, Fiction and Reality
Paul Kincaid, A Very British Genre: A Short History of British Fantasy and Science Fiction
Paul Kincaid, "What Is It We Do When We Read Science Fiction" (Foundation, 78, pp 72-81)
Patrick Parrinder, Science Fiction: A Critical Guide
John J. Pierce, Great Themes of Science Fiction: A Study in Imagination and Evolution
Adam Roberts, Science Fiction
Nicholas Ruddick, Ultimate Island: On the Nature of British Science Fiction
Joanna Russ, To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction
Robert Scholes, Structural Fabulation
** Tom Shippey, "Learning to Read Science Fiction" in Fictional Space: Essays in Contemporary Science Fiction, pp 1-33 (also see Shippey's introduction to The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories)
Norman Spinrad, Science Fiction in the Real World
Brian Stableford, "Creators of Science Fiction, 10: Hugo Gernsback" (Interzone, Dec 1997, pp 47-50)
** Brian Stableford, Scientific Romance in Britain, 1890-1950
Peter Stockwell, The Poetics of Science Fiction
** Darko Suvin, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction
** Gary Westfahl, The Mechanics of Wonder: The Creation of the Idea of Science Fiction (perhaps the best book in recent years on the history (or one of the histories) of sf.)
Gary Westfahl, Cosmic Engineers: A Study of Hard Science Fiction
Gary Westfahl, "Cremators of Science Fiction, 1 & 2: Brian Stableford & John Clute" (Interzone, Apr 1998, pp 51-53)
Gary Westfahl, "Wanted: A Symbol for Science Fiction" (Science-Fiction Studies, Mar 1995, 22(65): 1-21)
** David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's anthology The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF contains a couple of interesting prefaces, particularly that by author Gregory Benford.
* You can gain considerable knowledge and "feel" for sf by browsing through John Clute & Peter Nicholls, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Clute has also edited (with John Grant) The Encyclopedia of Fantasy and his Look at the Evidence: Essays and Reviews will give you a good idea of the excitement of and rigour of sf criticism.
* The essential journals of sf review and criticism are Extrapolation, Foundation, The New York Review of Science Fiction and Science Fiction Studies. The British Science Fiction Association's Vector also contains informative articles and interviews.
All of these are in the Science Fiction Foundation Collection. A number of the books can also be borrowed from the normal Syndey Jones Library shelves.
General Works of Literary Theory
SF, of course, is only part of the wider web of literature. If you have not read much in the way of literary theory, an excellent, painless, and relatively cheap introduction is Peter Barry's Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (Manchester University Press). You can also try Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction. Particularly relevant to science fiction are considerations of postmodernism, intertextuality and thoeries of the Fantastic. Carl Freedman's Critical Theory and Science Fiction (listed above) is one of the few books on theory which is written from an informed knowledge of both fields. Christine Brooke-Rose's A Rhetoric of the Unreal is dense but rewarding, and Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic and Rosemary Jackson's Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion are significant studies which, in the opinion of many, are unable to construct theoretical models which account for sf. It might be interesting to consider if this is so, and why.
THEMES: (Another such list will appear later on in the session)
John W. Campbell and Hard Science Fiction
Gregory Benford, "Effing the Ineffable" in Foundation 38 (Winter 1986/7), pp 49-57.
Albert I. Berger, The Magic That Works: John W. Campbell and the American Response to Technology
Perry Chapdelaine and George Hay (eds.), The John W. Campbell Letters
James Gunn, "The Readers of Hard Science Fiction" in George Slusser and Eric Rabkin (eds.), Hard Science Fiction (cited below)
Donald M. Hassler, Hal Clement (Starmont Reader's Guide)
John Huntington, "Hard-core Science Fiction and the Illusion of Science" in George Slusser and Eric Rabkin (eds.), Hard Science Fiction (cited below)
George Slusser and Eric Rabkin (eds.), Hard Science Fiction
Sam Moskowitz, Seekers of Tomorrow
Gary Westfahl, "'The Closely Reasoned Technological Story': The Critical History of Hard Science Fiction" in Science-Fiction Studies, Jul 1993, 20(60): 157-175
Gary Westfahl, "'A Convenient Analog System': John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Theory of Science Fiction" in Foundation 54, Spring 1992, pp. 52-70
Gary Westfahl, Cosmic Engineers: A Study of Hard Science Fiction (Greenwood Press)
David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's anthology The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard Sf brings together a sometimes idiosyncratic collection of stories under the term. See Gregory Benford's introduction, "Real Science, Imaginary Worlds".
Hugo Gernsback and the Beginning of Sf
Mike Ashley, The History of the Science Fiction Magazine, vol. 1, 1926-1935
Brian Stableford, "Creators of Science Fiction, 10: Hugo Gernsback" in Interzone, Dec 1997, pp. 47-50
Gary Westfahl, "Cremators of Science Fiction, 1 & 2: Brian Stableford & John Clute" in Interzone, Apr 1998, pp 51-53
Gary Westfahl, "Evolution of Modern Science Fiction: The Textual History of Hugo Gernsback's Ralph 124C 41+" in Science-Fiction Studies, Mar 1996, 23(68): 37-82.
Gary Westfahl, "'An Idea of Significant Import': Hugo Gernsback's Theory of Science Fiction" in Foundation 48, Spring 1990, pp 26-50.
*Gary Westfahl, "'This Unique Document': Hugo Gernsback's Ralph 124C 41+ and the Genres of Science Fiction" in Extrapolation, Summer 1994, 35 (2), pp 95-119
Gary Westfahl, "Wanted: A Symbol for Science Fiction" in Science-Fiction Studies, Mar 1995, 22(65), pp 1-21
Several of the Westfahl essays cited above were revised for The Mechanics of Wonder (Liverpool University Press)
Huxley & Utopias/Dystopias
Keith M. May, Aldous Huxley (Elek, 1972), pp 84-117
Robert S. Baker, Brave New World: History, Science and Dystopia
Krishan Kumar, Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times
For a more general survey of sf utopias try
Tom Moylan, Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and Utopian Imagination
Ursula K. Le Guin
Dena C. Bain, "The Tao Te Ching as Background to the Novels of Ursula K. Le Guin" in Extrapolation 21, no 3 (Fall 1980)
James W. Bittner, Approaches to the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin
Barbara Brown, "The Left Hand of Darkness: Androgeny, Future, Present, Past" in Extrapolation 21, no 3 (Fall 1980)
Joe DeBolt (ed.), Ursula K. Le Guin: Voyager to Inner Lands and to Outer Space
John Huntington, "Public and Private Imperatives in Le Guin's Novels" in Science-Fiction Studies 7 (Nov 1975)
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night (essays, including the important "Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown", "Is Gender Necessary?" and the 1976 introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness)
Eric S. Rabkin, "Determinism, Free Will and Point of View in Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness" in Extrapolation 20 (Spring 1979)
Bernard Selinger, Le Guin and Identity in Contemporary Fiction
Joan Vinge, "Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness" in The New York Review of Science Fiction 43 (Mar 1992)
Robots and Androids
Merrit Abrash, "R.U.R. restored and reconsidered" in Extrapolation Vol 32 no 2 (Summer 1991) pp 184-192
Barbara Bengels, "'Read History': Dehumanization in Karel Capek's R.U.R." in Thomas P. Dunn and Richard D. Erlich (eds.), The Mechanical God: Machines in Science Fiction
Philip K. Dick, "The Android and the Human" in Bruce Gillespie, Philip K. Dick, Electric Shepherd and elsewhere
Stanislaw Lem, "Robots in Science Fiction" in Thomas D. Clareson (ed.), SF: The Other Side of Realism (and Lem's own "robot" stories in The Cyberiad (1965, trans. 1974) etc.)
E. E. "Doc" Smith & Pulp Sf
Mike Ashley, Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950
Bruce A. Beattie, "Smith, E. E." in Twentieth Century Science Fiction Writers (third edition)
S. R. L. Clark, "Alien Dreams: Kipling" in David Seed (ed.), Anticipations: Essays on Early Science Fiction and Its Precursors
Joseph Sanders, E. E. "Doc" Smith (Starmont Reader's Guide 24)
Brian Stableford, "The Lensman Series" in Frank Magill (ed.), Survey of Science Fiction Literature, vol. 3
Olaf Stapledon
Brian Aldiss, "The Immanent Will Returns -- 2" in The Detached Retina
K. V. Bailey, "Time Scales and Culture Cycles in Olaf Stapledon" in Foundation 46 (Winter 1989)
Robert Crossley, Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future
Walter Gillings, "Dr Olaf Stapledon Interviewed" in Scientifiction (June 1937)
Stanislaw Lem, "On Stapledon's Last and First Men" in Science-Fiction Studies 40 (Nov 1986)
Patrick A. McCarthy, Olaf Stapledon
Patrick A. McCarthy, Charles Elkins, Martin Harry Greenberg (eds.), The Legacy of Olaf Stapledon
Sam Moskowitz, "Olaf Stapledon, Cosmic Philosopher" in Explorers of the Infinite
H. G. Wells
Patrick Parrinder, Shadows of the Future: H. G. Wells, Science Fiction and Prophecy
See Foundation 65, special issue on The Time Machine, which includes Stephen Baxter on sequels
* I received this handout as my course began
General Guides / Articles
"**" means that this book is virtually essential
Brian W. Aldiss, The Detached Retina
** Brian W. Aldiss & David Wingrove, Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction
** Michael Ashley, The Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950
** Damien Broderick, Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction
Algis Budrys, "Literature of Milieux" (Foundation, 31, pp 5-17)
Thomas D. Clareson, ed., SF: The Other Side of Realism
Samuel R. Delany, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw: Notes on the Language of Science Fiction
** Carl Freedman, Critical Theory and Science Fiction
Colin Greenland, The Entropy Exhibition
Gwyneth Jones, Deconstructing the Starships: Science, Fiction and Reality
Paul Kincaid, A Very British Genre: A Short History of British Fantasy and Science Fiction
Paul Kincaid, "What Is It We Do When We Read Science Fiction" (Foundation, 78, pp 72-81)
Patrick Parrinder, Science Fiction: A Critical Guide
John J. Pierce, Great Themes of Science Fiction: A Study in Imagination and Evolution
Adam Roberts, Science Fiction
Nicholas Ruddick, Ultimate Island: On the Nature of British Science Fiction
Joanna Russ, To Write Like a Woman: Essays in Feminism and Science Fiction
Robert Scholes, Structural Fabulation
** Tom Shippey, "Learning to Read Science Fiction" in Fictional Space: Essays in Contemporary Science Fiction, pp 1-33 (also see Shippey's introduction to The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories)
Norman Spinrad, Science Fiction in the Real World
Brian Stableford, "Creators of Science Fiction, 10: Hugo Gernsback" (Interzone, Dec 1997, pp 47-50)
** Brian Stableford, Scientific Romance in Britain, 1890-1950
Peter Stockwell, The Poetics of Science Fiction
** Darko Suvin, Metamorphoses of Science Fiction
** Gary Westfahl, The Mechanics of Wonder: The Creation of the Idea of Science Fiction (perhaps the best book in recent years on the history (or one of the histories) of sf.)
Gary Westfahl, Cosmic Engineers: A Study of Hard Science Fiction
Gary Westfahl, "Cremators of Science Fiction, 1 & 2: Brian Stableford & John Clute" (Interzone, Apr 1998, pp 51-53)
Gary Westfahl, "Wanted: A Symbol for Science Fiction" (Science-Fiction Studies, Mar 1995, 22(65): 1-21)
** David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's anthology The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF contains a couple of interesting prefaces, particularly that by author Gregory Benford.
* You can gain considerable knowledge and "feel" for sf by browsing through John Clute & Peter Nicholls, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Clute has also edited (with John Grant) The Encyclopedia of Fantasy and his Look at the Evidence: Essays and Reviews will give you a good idea of the excitement of and rigour of sf criticism.
* The essential journals of sf review and criticism are Extrapolation, Foundation, The New York Review of Science Fiction and Science Fiction Studies. The British Science Fiction Association's Vector also contains informative articles and interviews.
All of these are in the Science Fiction Foundation Collection. A number of the books can also be borrowed from the normal Syndey Jones Library shelves.
General Works of Literary Theory
SF, of course, is only part of the wider web of literature. If you have not read much in the way of literary theory, an excellent, painless, and relatively cheap introduction is Peter Barry's Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (Manchester University Press). You can also try Terry Eagleton, Literary Theory: An Introduction. Particularly relevant to science fiction are considerations of postmodernism, intertextuality and thoeries of the Fantastic. Carl Freedman's Critical Theory and Science Fiction (listed above) is one of the few books on theory which is written from an informed knowledge of both fields. Christine Brooke-Rose's A Rhetoric of the Unreal is dense but rewarding, and Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic and Rosemary Jackson's Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion are significant studies which, in the opinion of many, are unable to construct theoretical models which account for sf. It might be interesting to consider if this is so, and why.
THEMES: (Another such list will appear later on in the session)
John W. Campbell and Hard Science Fiction
Gregory Benford, "Effing the Ineffable" in Foundation 38 (Winter 1986/7), pp 49-57.
Albert I. Berger, The Magic That Works: John W. Campbell and the American Response to Technology
Perry Chapdelaine and George Hay (eds.), The John W. Campbell Letters
James Gunn, "The Readers of Hard Science Fiction" in George Slusser and Eric Rabkin (eds.), Hard Science Fiction (cited below)
Donald M. Hassler, Hal Clement (Starmont Reader's Guide)
John Huntington, "Hard-core Science Fiction and the Illusion of Science" in George Slusser and Eric Rabkin (eds.), Hard Science Fiction (cited below)
George Slusser and Eric Rabkin (eds.), Hard Science Fiction
Sam Moskowitz, Seekers of Tomorrow
Gary Westfahl, "'The Closely Reasoned Technological Story': The Critical History of Hard Science Fiction" in Science-Fiction Studies, Jul 1993, 20(60): 157-175
Gary Westfahl, "'A Convenient Analog System': John W. Campbell, Jr.'s Theory of Science Fiction" in Foundation 54, Spring 1992, pp. 52-70
Gary Westfahl, Cosmic Engineers: A Study of Hard Science Fiction (Greenwood Press)
David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer's anthology The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard Sf brings together a sometimes idiosyncratic collection of stories under the term. See Gregory Benford's introduction, "Real Science, Imaginary Worlds".
Hugo Gernsback and the Beginning of Sf
Mike Ashley, The History of the Science Fiction Magazine, vol. 1, 1926-1935
Brian Stableford, "Creators of Science Fiction, 10: Hugo Gernsback" in Interzone, Dec 1997, pp. 47-50
Gary Westfahl, "Cremators of Science Fiction, 1 & 2: Brian Stableford & John Clute" in Interzone, Apr 1998, pp 51-53
Gary Westfahl, "Evolution of Modern Science Fiction: The Textual History of Hugo Gernsback's Ralph 124C 41+" in Science-Fiction Studies, Mar 1996, 23(68): 37-82.
Gary Westfahl, "'An Idea of Significant Import': Hugo Gernsback's Theory of Science Fiction" in Foundation 48, Spring 1990, pp 26-50.
*Gary Westfahl, "'This Unique Document': Hugo Gernsback's Ralph 124C 41+ and the Genres of Science Fiction" in Extrapolation, Summer 1994, 35 (2), pp 95-119
Gary Westfahl, "Wanted: A Symbol for Science Fiction" in Science-Fiction Studies, Mar 1995, 22(65), pp 1-21
Several of the Westfahl essays cited above were revised for The Mechanics of Wonder (Liverpool University Press)
Huxley & Utopias/Dystopias
Keith M. May, Aldous Huxley (Elek, 1972), pp 84-117
Robert S. Baker, Brave New World: History, Science and Dystopia
Krishan Kumar, Utopia and Anti-Utopia in Modern Times
For a more general survey of sf utopias try
Tom Moylan, Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and Utopian Imagination
Ursula K. Le Guin
Dena C. Bain, "The Tao Te Ching as Background to the Novels of Ursula K. Le Guin" in Extrapolation 21, no 3 (Fall 1980)
James W. Bittner, Approaches to the Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin
Barbara Brown, "The Left Hand of Darkness: Androgeny, Future, Present, Past" in Extrapolation 21, no 3 (Fall 1980)
Joe DeBolt (ed.), Ursula K. Le Guin: Voyager to Inner Lands and to Outer Space
John Huntington, "Public and Private Imperatives in Le Guin's Novels" in Science-Fiction Studies 7 (Nov 1975)
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night (essays, including the important "Science Fiction and Mrs. Brown", "Is Gender Necessary?" and the 1976 introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness)
Eric S. Rabkin, "Determinism, Free Will and Point of View in Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness" in Extrapolation 20 (Spring 1979)
Bernard Selinger, Le Guin and Identity in Contemporary Fiction
Joan Vinge, "Introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness" in The New York Review of Science Fiction 43 (Mar 1992)
Robots and Androids
Merrit Abrash, "R.U.R. restored and reconsidered" in Extrapolation Vol 32 no 2 (Summer 1991) pp 184-192
Barbara Bengels, "'Read History': Dehumanization in Karel Capek's R.U.R." in Thomas P. Dunn and Richard D. Erlich (eds.), The Mechanical God: Machines in Science Fiction
Philip K. Dick, "The Android and the Human" in Bruce Gillespie, Philip K. Dick, Electric Shepherd and elsewhere
Stanislaw Lem, "Robots in Science Fiction" in Thomas D. Clareson (ed.), SF: The Other Side of Realism (and Lem's own "robot" stories in The Cyberiad (1965, trans. 1974) etc.)
E. E. "Doc" Smith & Pulp Sf
Mike Ashley, Time Machines: The Story of the Science-Fiction Pulp Magazines from the Beginning to 1950
Bruce A. Beattie, "Smith, E. E." in Twentieth Century Science Fiction Writers (third edition)
S. R. L. Clark, "Alien Dreams: Kipling" in David Seed (ed.), Anticipations: Essays on Early Science Fiction and Its Precursors
Joseph Sanders, E. E. "Doc" Smith (Starmont Reader's Guide 24)
Brian Stableford, "The Lensman Series" in Frank Magill (ed.), Survey of Science Fiction Literature, vol. 3
Olaf Stapledon
Brian Aldiss, "The Immanent Will Returns -- 2" in The Detached Retina
K. V. Bailey, "Time Scales and Culture Cycles in Olaf Stapledon" in Foundation 46 (Winter 1989)
Robert Crossley, Olaf Stapledon: Speaking for the Future
Walter Gillings, "Dr Olaf Stapledon Interviewed" in Scientifiction (June 1937)
Stanislaw Lem, "On Stapledon's Last and First Men" in Science-Fiction Studies 40 (Nov 1986)
Patrick A. McCarthy, Olaf Stapledon
Patrick A. McCarthy, Charles Elkins, Martin Harry Greenberg (eds.), The Legacy of Olaf Stapledon
Sam Moskowitz, "Olaf Stapledon, Cosmic Philosopher" in Explorers of the Infinite
H. G. Wells
Patrick Parrinder, Shadows of the Future: H. G. Wells, Science Fiction and Prophecy
See Foundation 65, special issue on The Time Machine, which includes Stephen Baxter on sequels
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