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The Origins of Science Fiction
'Few travelled in these days, for, thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over. Rapid intercourse, from which the previous civilization had hoped so much, had ended by defeating itself. What was the good of going to Peking when it was just like Shrewsbury?' , The Machine Stops , E. M. Forster.
This anthology provides a selection of science-fiction tales from the close of the 'Romantic' period to the end of the First World War. It gathers together classic short stories, from Edgar Allan Poe's playful hoaxes to Gertrude Barrows Bennett's feminist fantasy. In this way, the book shows the vitality and literary diversity of the field, and also expresses something of the potent appeal of the visionary, the fascination with science, and the allure of an imagined future that characterised this period. An excellent resource for those interested in science fiction, and also an essential
volume for understanding the development of the genre. In his introduction, Michael Newton draws together literary influences from Jonathan Swift to Mary Shelley, the interest in the irrational and dreaming mind, and the relation of the tales to the fact of Empire and the discoveries made by anthropology. He also considers how the figure of the alien and non-human 'other' complicated contemporary definitions of the human being.
This anthology provides a selection of science-fiction tales from the close of the 'Romantic' period to the end of the First World War. It gathers together classic short stories, from Edgar Allan Poe's playful hoaxes to Gertrude Barrows Bennett's feminist fantasy. In this way, the book shows the vitality and literary diversity of the field, and also expresses something of the potent appeal of the visionary, the fascination with science, and the allure of an imagined future that characterised this period. An excellent resource for those interested in science fiction, and also an essential
volume for understanding the development of the genre. In his introduction, Michael Newton draws together literary influences from Jonathan Swift to Mary Shelley, the interest in the irrational and dreaming mind, and the relation of the tales to the fact of Empire and the discoveries made by anthropology. He also considers how the figure of the alien and non-human 'other' complicated contemporary definitions of the human being.
464 pages, Paperback
Published December 14, 2023
5 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
Michael Newton
469 books104 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
From Wikipedia:
"Michael Newton (born 1951) is an American author best known for his work on Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan series. Newton first began work on the Executioner series by co-writing "The Executioner's War Book" with Don Pendleton in 1977. Since then he has been a steady writer for the series with almost 90 entries to his credit, which triples the amount written by creator Don Pendleton. His skills and knowledge of the series have allowed him to be picked by the publishers to write the milestone novels such as #100, #200, and #300.
Writing under the pseudonym Lyle Brandt, Michael Newton has also become a popular writer of Western novels. He has written a number of successful non-fiction titles as well, including a book on genre writing (How to Write Action Adventure Novels). His book Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Florida won the Florida Historical Society's 2002 Rembert Patrick Award for Best Book in Florida History. Newton's "Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology" won the American Library Association's award for Outstanding Reference Work in 2006."
Pen names: Lyle Brandt, Don Pendleton, Jack Buchanan
Bibiliography available here.
From Wikipedia:
"Michael Newton (born 1951) is an American author best known for his work on Don Pendleton's Mack Bolan series. Newton first began work on the Executioner series by co-writing "The Executioner's War Book" with Don Pendleton in 1977. Since then he has been a steady writer for the series with almost 90 entries to his credit, which triples the amount written by creator Don Pendleton. His skills and knowledge of the series have allowed him to be picked by the publishers to write the milestone novels such as #100, #200, and #300.
Writing under the pseudonym Lyle Brandt, Michael Newton has also become a popular writer of Western novels. He has written a number of successful non-fiction titles as well, including a book on genre writing (How to Write Action Adventure Novels). His book Invisible Empire: The Ku Klux Klan in Florida won the Florida Historical Society's 2002 Rembert Patrick Award for Best Book in Florida History. Newton's "Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology" won the American Library Association's award for Outstanding Reference Work in 2006."
Pen names: Lyle Brandt, Don Pendleton, Jack Buchanan
Bibiliography available here.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
March 16, 2024
The Origins of Science Fiction was another choice from the library's new acquisitions shelf and one that I subsequently chatted with a librarian about. It is of course a matter of contention when the 'first' science fiction was written, as the introduction to this excellent collection acknowledges. Both librarian and introduction mentioned Lucian of Samoasta's 2nd century account of a trip to the moon. However the editor here, Michael Newton, chose the stories on the basis that science fiction in the form we understand it today depends upon the existence of science. Until the enlightenment conception of science as a systematic means of investigating and understanding the world came into existence, narratives of exploring space and strange other words were more along the lines of fantastical, supernatural, or allegorical fiction. I tend to distinguish between weird fiction that is predominantly sci-fi (a term I hyphenate or not inconsistently, sorry) or fantasy or supernatural based on the underlying vibes. To determine whether fiction is sci-fi ask questions like, is the narrative interested in how the weird things are happening? Is the weirdness grounded in physical limitations and rules? Is it extrapolated from scientific understanding at the time of writing?
The excellent introduction and copious endnotes to The Origins of Science Fiction primes you to read the stories synoptically, so I did. The otherwise undistinguished tale by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 'The Terror of Blue John Gap', demonstrates most succinctly and effectively how to differentiate a sci-fi narrative from other genres. Its plot has been classic for thousands of years: man goes into a cave and encounters a weird monster. If the protagonist had deemed the weird monster a demon, the story would be supernatural or fantastical. In Conan Doyle's version, there is instead an explanation based on underground lakes and evolved cave bears - this is what makes it science fiction. It isn't usually so easy to spot the line between genres, so I presume the story was included for precisely that reason (as it is otherwise uninteresting).
I had previously read only two of these stories, despite nearly all the authors being very familiar. The collection is very suitable for those who already have read a lot of sci-fi and have opinions about it. I found myself reading primarily in synoptic mode, looking for the ways the stories were in dialogue with each other and commonalities that demonstrated the genre's formation. The desire for scientific explanations for seemingly supernatural events is present and correct across varied examples of the uncanny: aliens, psychic powers, immortality, parallel worlds, and contact with the dead. Several stories are apocalyptic, although only one is set in the future. There is a striking contrast between Jack London's 'The Red One', which has a very racist narrator, and W. E. B. Du Bois's thoughtful examination of US racism in 'The Comet', which I'd previously come across in Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora.
Aside from genre analysis, the collection offers simpler reading pleasures as well. Frank R. Stockton's 'The Water-Devil: A Marine Tale' is really funny and Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Rappaccini's Daughter' includes a delightfully vivid proto-Poison Ivy. 'The Machine Stops' had every bit of the same impact upon rereading. It was an ideal choice for the sole story set in the future, given its extraordinary foresight. One wonders whether E. M. Forster inadvertently glanced through a wormhole and observed 21st century social media, as he predicts it earlier (1909!) and more accurately than anyone else. I recommend The Origins of Science Fiction to anyone keen on the genre and/or developments in 19th and early 20th century literature. I found it thought-provoking and a great complement to Science Fiction: A Literary History. Two years ago in my review of the latter I gave a rather different definition of sci-fi, in response to its differing focus. Dialectics in action!
The excellent introduction and copious endnotes to The Origins of Science Fiction primes you to read the stories synoptically, so I did. The otherwise undistinguished tale by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 'The Terror of Blue John Gap', demonstrates most succinctly and effectively how to differentiate a sci-fi narrative from other genres. Its plot has been classic for thousands of years: man goes into a cave and encounters a weird monster. If the protagonist had deemed the weird monster a demon, the story would be supernatural or fantastical. In Conan Doyle's version, there is instead an explanation based on underground lakes and evolved cave bears - this is what makes it science fiction. It isn't usually so easy to spot the line between genres, so I presume the story was included for precisely that reason (as it is otherwise uninteresting).
I had previously read only two of these stories, despite nearly all the authors being very familiar. The collection is very suitable for those who already have read a lot of sci-fi and have opinions about it. I found myself reading primarily in synoptic mode, looking for the ways the stories were in dialogue with each other and commonalities that demonstrated the genre's formation. The desire for scientific explanations for seemingly supernatural events is present and correct across varied examples of the uncanny: aliens, psychic powers, immortality, parallel worlds, and contact with the dead. Several stories are apocalyptic, although only one is set in the future. There is a striking contrast between Jack London's 'The Red One', which has a very racist narrator, and W. E. B. Du Bois's thoughtful examination of US racism in 'The Comet', which I'd previously come across in Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora.
Aside from genre analysis, the collection offers simpler reading pleasures as well. Frank R. Stockton's 'The Water-Devil: A Marine Tale' is really funny and Nathaniel Hawthorne's 'Rappaccini's Daughter' includes a delightfully vivid proto-Poison Ivy. 'The Machine Stops' had every bit of the same impact upon rereading. It was an ideal choice for the sole story set in the future, given its extraordinary foresight. One wonders whether E. M. Forster inadvertently glanced through a wormhole and observed 21st century social media, as he predicts it earlier (1909!) and more accurately than anyone else. I recommend The Origins of Science Fiction to anyone keen on the genre and/or developments in 19th and early 20th century literature. I found it thought-provoking and a great complement to Science Fiction: A Literary History. Two years ago in my review of the latter I gave a rather different definition of sci-fi, in response to its differing focus. Dialectics in action!
January 21, 2025
I spotted this little collection of very early sci fi short stories in the "Boekhandel Dominicanen" in Maastricht several months ago. My wife kindly bought it as a birthday present and I've since gradually worked my way through.
One overall theme that jumped out at me is the prevalence of "mad scientist" archetype, the impact of that person's character on their family and acquaintances, and the ultimate folly/futility of their obsession. This is also seen in many other stories by these authors, e.g. A Thousand Deaths and Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. I feel like this theme greatly fell out of popularity from the mid-20th Century, perhaps as sci fi authors changed from being literary novelists to science geeks that liked to write.
"The Mortal Immortal" - Mary Shelley
A lovesick alchemy student accidentally drinks a longevity potion then contends with the psycho-social consequences of out-living his peers and lover. I find explorations of the psychological aspect of longevity fascinating: e.g. the film "The Man From Earth" or the race of "Nonmen" in R. Scott Bakker's "Second Apocalypse" series.
3/5
"The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" - Edgar Allan Poe
A dialogue in theatre-script format between two inhabitants of the afterlife. The more recent arrival describes the destruction of Earth by a meteor. My first time reading Poe. It wasn't very interesting and I am probably missing some humour or religious/classical references.
2/5
"Rappaccini's Daughter" - Nathanial Hawthorne
A young medical student named Giovanni, rails against the advice of his mentor and falls in love with the Beatrice, the daughter of sociopath-genius scientist Rappaccini. Beatrice tends Rappaccini's garden of poisonous plants and in doing so becomes poisonous to other humans. Blinded by passion, Giovanni's attempts to woo Beatrice results in him contracting her condition and unwittingly killing her. A nice take on the dangers of following one's passions too quickly, and on treating humans as experiments. Searching for "Rappaccinni" on Google only produces this particular character (or characters influenced by him), so I'm guessing it's a pretty unique name. Aptly, it sounds like the word "rapacious".
4/5
"The facts in the case of M. Valdemar" - Edgar Allan Poe
I liked it more than the first Poe, but perhaps that's just me coming around to his style of writing. This is what you might call pseudo-science fiction. It describes a fictitious experiment to determine the behaviour of the theory of mesmerism at the point of death. The story is not explicit about its fictional status, and many people at the time interpreted it as an actual case study. It seems surreal to imagine that people took the likes of phrenology and mesmerism seriously back then, though less so when you think about how popular homeopathy, reiki, acupuncture etc... are to this day.
3/5
"The Diamond Lens" - Fitz-James O'Brien
A microscopy afficionado goes to extreme lengths to build a perfect instrument. He gazes into unseen microscopic worlds within a drop of liquid, and discovers a beautiful tiny creature whom he promptly falls in love with. Eventually, the liquid evaporates and he is left to confront the mundane world. Neat take on the dangers of scientific obsession.
3/5
"The Lifted Veil" - George Eliot
A young man suddenly and unexpectedly suffers visions of the future and insights into the thoughts of others. He falls in love with Bertha, the only person whose mind is closed to him, but soon experiences futuristic visions of their unhappy marriage, despite her current engagement to his brother. The protagonist does in fact marry Bertha, and soon afterwards he sees into her mind and is disgusted by its shallowness, which in his prior ignorance he had interpreted as archness. They then fulfill his vision of an unhappy marriage. I suppose the moral is that it is not always in our emotional interests to lift the veil of reality and quench our curiosity.
3/5
"Pausodyne - A Great Chemical Discovery" - Grant Allen
While researching a promising anaesthetic, a scientist accidentally preserves his body for a hundred years. He awakens and is fortunate enough to discover a relative whom he convinces of his story. When the police track him down, he commits suicide rather than be sent to the madhouse. His relative then attempts to resurrect the research. Entertaining but has not much depth to it. As a Londoner myself I did enjoy the old-timey London feel.
2/5
"The Water-Devil - A Marine Tail" - Frank R Stockton
A journeyman and former sea-soldier relates a tale of adventure to an audience of villagers. His fantastical experiences turn out to have a completely rational explanation.
2/5
"The Crystal Egg" - H. G. Wells
Another London-based story. An antiques dealer comes across a crystal that appears to give a direct line of sight to somewhere on Mars, where an entire civilisation and other such crystals can be observed. The dealer dies and the crystal is sold off before any great investigations can be made. Interesting to see what early writers thought advanced spying technology might look like.
3/5
"Wireless" - Rudyard Kipling
While a chemist conducts an experiment with an early prototype of wireless radio, the narrator observes the man's assistant slip into a sort of fugue state and apparently connect psychically to the (long dead) poet John Keats. The editorial footnotes were crucial for this story; without them I would have had no idea of the significance of much of the assistant's utterances. This was fun(-ish) as a sort of literary exploration of the parallels between wireless technology and poetic inspiration, but ultimately I found the sheer density of niche references to be off-putting.
2/5
"The Hall Bedroom" - Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
A landlady relates the contents of a tenant's journal, who has recently disappeared. The latest entries talk of waking up overnight in vast spaces relating to each of his senses in strange ways. More ghost story than sci fi, but for vague allusions to unseen dimensions.
2/5
"The Country of the Blind" - H. G. Wells
Mountaineer falls into a hidden valley and discovers a tribe of blind people with odd customs and beliefs. They have been isolated for a few generations and speak a quaint form of Spanish, so he can communicate and get by. His initial arrogant ambitions of becoming a king are gradually worn down when it becomes apparent that he possesses no great advantages in this society, and is unable to influence their worldview. They think him mad for ranting about abilities that he seemingly cannot demonstrate and they cannot understand. Eventually he makes good his escape, confident that they cannot comprehend where he has gone. A nice story and an insightful exploration of the cultural relativity of ability, though I'm not convinced at how unremarkable the power of sight would have been.
4/5
"The machine stops" - E.M. Forster
Best story in the collection so far! A remarkably prescient dystopian novel in which the bulk of humanity idles away its days in underground cells overseen by a powerful machine, generating endless pablum to entertain each other via a vast communication network. Critical faculties and curiosity diminish over time, so that when the machine begins to break down they can neither comprehend nor reverse the process. This was first published in 1909 but has precursor ideas of the internet, social media, and the attention economy. Makes me reflect on the recent rise of LLMs - will they remove some of the drive and ability to discover new more efficient ways to do things?
4.5/5
"The terror of Blue John gap" - Arthur Conan Doyle
Decent but unremarkable tale of a sighting of a great monster that emerges from a cave some nights. Some of the themes of The Lost World are detectable.
2.5/5
"The red one" - Jack London
An explorer attempts to track down the source of an intermittent heavenly sound on a remote tropic island. He is captured by an indigenous tribe that practises head-shrinking and worships an alien artifact that turns out to be the source of the sounds. I liked the contrast of three stages of civilisation, but I found the characters (inc protagonist) cartoonish and unrelatable.
3.5/5
"Friend island" - Gertrude Barrows Bennett
Another "ancient mariner" tale with a twist: the world is dominated by women and islands can have a consciousness all of their own. It was thought-provoking, but I found that author transcended some social gender norms only to fall into others.
3/5
"The Comet" - W. E. B. Du Bois
A short but compelling study of racism in a post-apocalyptic setting. A poor black man and wealthy white woman are forced to band together in a devastated New York, until they are again forced apart by rescue parties from out of city. From Wikipedia I see that the author (a person of colour) was an advocate of pan-African rights, and viewed capitalism as a primary cause of racism. The entry also suggests parallels with Earth Abides, which is understandable as it also explores how racism breaks down by necessity in communal survival situations.
4/5
One overall theme that jumped out at me is the prevalence of "mad scientist" archetype, the impact of that person's character on their family and acquaintances, and the ultimate folly/futility of their obsession. This is also seen in many other stories by these authors, e.g. A Thousand Deaths and Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus. I feel like this theme greatly fell out of popularity from the mid-20th Century, perhaps as sci fi authors changed from being literary novelists to science geeks that liked to write.
"The Mortal Immortal" - Mary Shelley
A lovesick alchemy student accidentally drinks a longevity potion then contends with the psycho-social consequences of out-living his peers and lover. I find explorations of the psychological aspect of longevity fascinating: e.g. the film "The Man From Earth" or the race of "Nonmen" in R. Scott Bakker's "Second Apocalypse" series.
3/5
"The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion" - Edgar Allan Poe
A dialogue in theatre-script format between two inhabitants of the afterlife. The more recent arrival describes the destruction of Earth by a meteor. My first time reading Poe. It wasn't very interesting and I am probably missing some humour or religious/classical references.
2/5
"Rappaccini's Daughter" - Nathanial Hawthorne
A young medical student named Giovanni, rails against the advice of his mentor and falls in love with the Beatrice, the daughter of sociopath-genius scientist Rappaccini. Beatrice tends Rappaccini's garden of poisonous plants and in doing so becomes poisonous to other humans. Blinded by passion, Giovanni's attempts to woo Beatrice results in him contracting her condition and unwittingly killing her. A nice take on the dangers of following one's passions too quickly, and on treating humans as experiments. Searching for "Rappaccinni" on Google only produces this particular character (or characters influenced by him), so I'm guessing it's a pretty unique name. Aptly, it sounds like the word "rapacious".
4/5
"The facts in the case of M. Valdemar" - Edgar Allan Poe
I liked it more than the first Poe, but perhaps that's just me coming around to his style of writing. This is what you might call pseudo-science fiction. It describes a fictitious experiment to determine the behaviour of the theory of mesmerism at the point of death. The story is not explicit about its fictional status, and many people at the time interpreted it as an actual case study. It seems surreal to imagine that people took the likes of phrenology and mesmerism seriously back then, though less so when you think about how popular homeopathy, reiki, acupuncture etc... are to this day.
3/5
"The Diamond Lens" - Fitz-James O'Brien
A microscopy afficionado goes to extreme lengths to build a perfect instrument. He gazes into unseen microscopic worlds within a drop of liquid, and discovers a beautiful tiny creature whom he promptly falls in love with. Eventually, the liquid evaporates and he is left to confront the mundane world. Neat take on the dangers of scientific obsession.
3/5
"The Lifted Veil" - George Eliot
A young man suddenly and unexpectedly suffers visions of the future and insights into the thoughts of others. He falls in love with Bertha, the only person whose mind is closed to him, but soon experiences futuristic visions of their unhappy marriage, despite her current engagement to his brother. The protagonist does in fact marry Bertha, and soon afterwards he sees into her mind and is disgusted by its shallowness, which in his prior ignorance he had interpreted as archness. They then fulfill his vision of an unhappy marriage. I suppose the moral is that it is not always in our emotional interests to lift the veil of reality and quench our curiosity.
3/5
"Pausodyne - A Great Chemical Discovery" - Grant Allen
While researching a promising anaesthetic, a scientist accidentally preserves his body for a hundred years. He awakens and is fortunate enough to discover a relative whom he convinces of his story. When the police track him down, he commits suicide rather than be sent to the madhouse. His relative then attempts to resurrect the research. Entertaining but has not much depth to it. As a Londoner myself I did enjoy the old-timey London feel.
2/5
"The Water-Devil - A Marine Tail" - Frank R Stockton
A journeyman and former sea-soldier relates a tale of adventure to an audience of villagers. His fantastical experiences turn out to have a completely rational explanation.
2/5
"The Crystal Egg" - H. G. Wells
Another London-based story. An antiques dealer comes across a crystal that appears to give a direct line of sight to somewhere on Mars, where an entire civilisation and other such crystals can be observed. The dealer dies and the crystal is sold off before any great investigations can be made. Interesting to see what early writers thought advanced spying technology might look like.
3/5
"Wireless" - Rudyard Kipling
While a chemist conducts an experiment with an early prototype of wireless radio, the narrator observes the man's assistant slip into a sort of fugue state and apparently connect psychically to the (long dead) poet John Keats. The editorial footnotes were crucial for this story; without them I would have had no idea of the significance of much of the assistant's utterances. This was fun(-ish) as a sort of literary exploration of the parallels between wireless technology and poetic inspiration, but ultimately I found the sheer density of niche references to be off-putting.
2/5
"The Hall Bedroom" - Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
A landlady relates the contents of a tenant's journal, who has recently disappeared. The latest entries talk of waking up overnight in vast spaces relating to each of his senses in strange ways. More ghost story than sci fi, but for vague allusions to unseen dimensions.
2/5
"The Country of the Blind" - H. G. Wells
Mountaineer falls into a hidden valley and discovers a tribe of blind people with odd customs and beliefs. They have been isolated for a few generations and speak a quaint form of Spanish, so he can communicate and get by. His initial arrogant ambitions of becoming a king are gradually worn down when it becomes apparent that he possesses no great advantages in this society, and is unable to influence their worldview. They think him mad for ranting about abilities that he seemingly cannot demonstrate and they cannot understand. Eventually he makes good his escape, confident that they cannot comprehend where he has gone. A nice story and an insightful exploration of the cultural relativity of ability, though I'm not convinced at how unremarkable the power of sight would have been.
4/5
"The machine stops" - E.M. Forster
Best story in the collection so far! A remarkably prescient dystopian novel in which the bulk of humanity idles away its days in underground cells overseen by a powerful machine, generating endless pablum to entertain each other via a vast communication network. Critical faculties and curiosity diminish over time, so that when the machine begins to break down they can neither comprehend nor reverse the process. This was first published in 1909 but has precursor ideas of the internet, social media, and the attention economy. Makes me reflect on the recent rise of LLMs - will they remove some of the drive and ability to discover new more efficient ways to do things?
4.5/5
"The terror of Blue John gap" - Arthur Conan Doyle
Decent but unremarkable tale of a sighting of a great monster that emerges from a cave some nights. Some of the themes of The Lost World are detectable.
2.5/5
"The red one" - Jack London
An explorer attempts to track down the source of an intermittent heavenly sound on a remote tropic island. He is captured by an indigenous tribe that practises head-shrinking and worships an alien artifact that turns out to be the source of the sounds. I liked the contrast of three stages of civilisation, but I found the characters (inc protagonist) cartoonish and unrelatable.
3.5/5
"Friend island" - Gertrude Barrows Bennett
Another "ancient mariner" tale with a twist: the world is dominated by women and islands can have a consciousness all of their own. It was thought-provoking, but I found that author transcended some social gender norms only to fall into others.
3/5
"The Comet" - W. E. B. Du Bois
A short but compelling study of racism in a post-apocalyptic setting. A poor black man and wealthy white woman are forced to band together in a devastated New York, until they are again forced apart by rescue parties from out of city. From Wikipedia I see that the author (a person of colour) was an advocate of pan-African rights, and viewed capitalism as a primary cause of racism. The entry also suggests parallels with Earth Abides, which is understandable as it also explores how racism breaks down by necessity in communal survival situations.
4/5
October 25, 2024
The title's claim is rather lofty. For all that I like Grant Allen more than Edgar Allen Poe, I'm more convinced that the two Poe pieces here are part of the Origins of SF than the Grant Allen story. The W.E.B. DuBois (!) story that closes prefigures the kind of work a lot of minority creators have done in the genre but I think positing it as an origin-point if anything discounts later innovations. Is this more than nitpicking, I don't know; 'Ninety Years of Interventions in the Nascent or Ante-Natal Genre of SF Before it was Codified or Named' would not be a better name for an anthology. I think there's probably a five hundred page version that would make room for Edgar Rice Burroughs and some dime novel stuff and Hugo Gernsback, even if you were to stop before the probably already sufficiently anthologised early Amazing Stories / Astounding stuff: that would answer the claim of the title a little better and make this serve better as a teaching anthology; on the other hand that would mean bringing the average Literary Value Level down somewhat and including excerpts of serials rather than work complete in itself and would be more expensive to print, and I'm frankly impressed OUP manage to have this out at £8.99 for a shade under 400 pages.
-
Contains: Shelley, 'This Mortal Immortal': she had to be in here and this is a nice twist on a theme but obviously Frankenstein is going to set you up better; the two Poe stories Thoams Disch specifically fingered as SF's most embarrassing antecedents; Hawthorne's 'Rappaccini's Daughter', which sure; Eliot's 'The Lifted Veil', much-available but remarkably good anywhere; three stories which make good snapshots of how the Stuff of science fiction works in the not-quite genteel Victorian magazine fiction context, by Fitz-James O'Brien, the aforementioned Grant Allen, and Frank R. Stockton; H.G. Wells's 'The Crystal Egg', a pretty limp story that incidentally Gernsback reprinted in the second issue of Amazing; Rudyard Kipling's 'Wireless', quite remarkable; Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, 'The Hall Bedroom', a rather dull story of the domestic fantastic apparently here because of a cursory mention of the fourth dimension, the invocation of the popularity of which at the fin du siecle is my least-favorite academic shibboleth; Wells again, 'The Country of the Blind', a much better story that points to some of the lines of contact with late-colonial adventure fiction; E.M. Forster's 'The Machine Stops', probably the most inevitable thing here but inarguable (and very, like, post-internet); Arthur Conan Doyle's deeply mid 'The Terror of Blue John Gap' (as with Shelley one feels it's standing in for a novel); Jack London's deeply racist but also honestly visionary 'The Red One'; Gertrude Barrows Bennett's 'Friend Island', reading which brought about the same feeling as when I read Ellen Willis wonder if dungaree-wearing lesbian singer-songwriters might actually be as compelling as Jim Morrison; and W.E.B. DuBois's 'The Comet', which is definitely a non-fiction-writer's essay in fiction, but has an odd power in that, and oddly feels perhaps more like a 20s-30s 'straight' science fiction story than any of the other putative ancestors here.
-
The layout is as ugly as any other OUP book (someone should really buy them some post-Apple II software) but Michael Newton's annotations thankfully don't feel as swollen as most. His introduction points as six or seven different ways of reconciling the disparate directions of the writing anthologised here without ever entirely convincing, but does a good job of pointing the reader to texts and contexts they might want to engage with; without it I wouldn't have learned that Anthony Trollope wrote a septuagenarian Logan's Run set in far-future 1980 New Zealand that features a mechanical cricket match, and if you are incapable of understanding how exciting that possibility that is you can frankly discount anything I have ever said about any book.
-
Contains: Shelley, 'This Mortal Immortal': she had to be in here and this is a nice twist on a theme but obviously Frankenstein is going to set you up better; the two Poe stories Thoams Disch specifically fingered as SF's most embarrassing antecedents; Hawthorne's 'Rappaccini's Daughter', which sure; Eliot's 'The Lifted Veil', much-available but remarkably good anywhere; three stories which make good snapshots of how the Stuff of science fiction works in the not-quite genteel Victorian magazine fiction context, by Fitz-James O'Brien, the aforementioned Grant Allen, and Frank R. Stockton; H.G. Wells's 'The Crystal Egg', a pretty limp story that incidentally Gernsback reprinted in the second issue of Amazing; Rudyard Kipling's 'Wireless', quite remarkable; Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, 'The Hall Bedroom', a rather dull story of the domestic fantastic apparently here because of a cursory mention of the fourth dimension, the invocation of the popularity of which at the fin du siecle is my least-favorite academic shibboleth; Wells again, 'The Country of the Blind', a much better story that points to some of the lines of contact with late-colonial adventure fiction; E.M. Forster's 'The Machine Stops', probably the most inevitable thing here but inarguable (and very, like, post-internet); Arthur Conan Doyle's deeply mid 'The Terror of Blue John Gap' (as with Shelley one feels it's standing in for a novel); Jack London's deeply racist but also honestly visionary 'The Red One'; Gertrude Barrows Bennett's 'Friend Island', reading which brought about the same feeling as when I read Ellen Willis wonder if dungaree-wearing lesbian singer-songwriters might actually be as compelling as Jim Morrison; and W.E.B. DuBois's 'The Comet', which is definitely a non-fiction-writer's essay in fiction, but has an odd power in that, and oddly feels perhaps more like a 20s-30s 'straight' science fiction story than any of the other putative ancestors here.
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The layout is as ugly as any other OUP book (someone should really buy them some post-Apple II software) but Michael Newton's annotations thankfully don't feel as swollen as most. His introduction points as six or seven different ways of reconciling the disparate directions of the writing anthologised here without ever entirely convincing, but does a good job of pointing the reader to texts and contexts they might want to engage with; without it I wouldn't have learned that Anthony Trollope wrote a septuagenarian Logan's Run set in far-future 1980 New Zealand that features a mechanical cricket match, and if you are incapable of understanding how exciting that possibility that is you can frankly discount anything I have ever said about any book.
March 18, 2024
A great stocking-filler for anyone interested in the origins of the SF genre. Some stories are better than others but the overall effect is great, and the bibliographical lists are thorough. My full review can be found here.
January 16, 2025
A collection of short stories covering both early science fiction, and those that undoubtedly had an influence on the development of the genre. Perhaps all of the stories can be called sci-fi, that's down to personal interpretation, but speculative fictional they all certainly are.
The stories herein are from a range of authors, some of whom we associate with sci-fi: Mary Shelley, Jack London and HG Wells, for instance. Others we rarely associate with the genre, such as George Eliot and Conan Doyle. It's an eclectic mix, in the authors and subject matter, and from various time periods in the last couple of hundred years or so.
The diverse range of tales does mean that although there's perhaps something for every type of sci-fi fan, there's also going to be something that's not for them. The stories by George Eliot (being far too wordy) and WEB du Bois didn't do much for me, but Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" and EM Forster's "The Machine Stops" stood out. The latter has a very Black Mirror feel about it, despite having been written in 1909.
Despite the parts that didn't quite hit right, it's a good insight into how the genre started, and to a degree developed. And not a bad way to find a few new authors you might not have heard of.
The stories herein are from a range of authors, some of whom we associate with sci-fi: Mary Shelley, Jack London and HG Wells, for instance. Others we rarely associate with the genre, such as George Eliot and Conan Doyle. It's an eclectic mix, in the authors and subject matter, and from various time periods in the last couple of hundred years or so.
The diverse range of tales does mean that although there's perhaps something for every type of sci-fi fan, there's also going to be something that's not for them. The stories by George Eliot (being far too wordy) and WEB du Bois didn't do much for me, but Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Rappaccini's Daughter" and EM Forster's "The Machine Stops" stood out. The latter has a very Black Mirror feel about it, despite having been written in 1909.
Despite the parts that didn't quite hit right, it's a good insight into how the genre started, and to a degree developed. And not a bad way to find a few new authors you might not have heard of.
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