Science fiction: A collection of critical essays

20th Century Views

by Mark Rose (Editor)

In this volume, Mark Rose examines science fiction's affinities with the romance tradition, while Kingsley Amis Identifies the forerunners of today's science fiction in Shakespeare's The Tempest, Voltaire's Micromegas and Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

Reminding readers that reading poetry was once considered a trivial occupation, Robert Conquest presents convincing arguments for science fiction's respectability. Science-fiction author Stanislaw Lem discusses some of the logical impliclations of time-travel stories as emploed by Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Frederic Brown, and others, while C.S. Lewis considers the various categories of science fiction. Darko Suvin presents a comprehensive discussion of how SF works.

Including among other fascinating articles, Susan Sontag's classic discussion of SF films of cosmic invasion and apocalyptic catastrophe, this collection provides an ideal introduction to the science fiction genre.

Among the essays :
Starting Point - Kingsley Amis
The Roots of Science Fiction - Robert Scholes
On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre - Darko Suvin
On Science Fiction - C.S. Lewis
The Imagination of Disaster - Susan Sontag
The Time-Travel Story and Related Matters of SF Structuring - Stanislaw Lem

Genres: Literary Criticism, Reference, Science Fiction

174 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1976

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See:

Mark Rose
Mark Rose
Mark Rose, Medical

Reviews

[Karl Bunker · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the field of science fiction studies, many books are collections of essays by various authors. These books may be a compilation of papers that were presented at some symposium, or an anthology of essays solicited by an editor about some subtopic within SF studies. This particular book is rather unusual (the only one of its kind I can think of, in fact), in that it brings together essays that have all been previously published at different times and in various venues. The first selection, for example, is the opening chapter of Kingsley Amis's 1960 book New Maps of Hell.

Here is the table of contents:

PART ONE: Backgrounds
Starting Points: by Kingsley Amis
Science Fiction and Literature: by Robert Conquest
The Roots of Science Fiction: by Robert Scholes

PART TWO: Theory
On the Poetics of the Science Fiction Genre: by Darko Suvin
The Time-Travel Story and Related Matters of SF Structuring: by Stanislaw Lem
Genre Criticism: Science Fiction and the Fantastic: by Eric S. Rabkin

PART THREE: Approaches
On Science Fiction: by C. S. Lewis
The Imagination of Disaster: by Susan Sontag
How to Play Utopia: Some Brief Notes on the Distinctiveness of Utopian Fiction: by Michael Holquist
The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, and American Literature: by David Ketterer
Science Fiction and the Future: by John Huntington

As you can see, some of the articles are by notable authors, a couple of them primarily recognized for their work outside of science fiction. Personally, I found the pieces by Robert Conquest, Robert Scholes, C.S. Lewis, and Stanislaw Lem particularly interesting and enjoyable. This book was compiled in 1976, so it's hardly up-to-date, but it's definitely worth the read for anyone interested in SF studies.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Published in 1976, this book anthologies several previously published articles about science fiction. These essays, which date from 1960 through and early 70s are variously written by academic scholars (Darko Suvin and Eric Rabkin), sci-fi authors (Stanislaw Lem), writers who have dabbled with the genre (Kingsley Amis, C.S. Lewis), and by those who haven't (Susan Sontag). There's also an introduction by the editor. The substance and style of articles varies quite a bit, ranging from the easily approachable descriptive and evaluative essays by Amis & Lewis), to Suvin's abstractly philosophical theory of sci-fi aesthetics being based on the principle of congnitive estragement.

At the time this book came out, it was surely useful to those interested in bringing a more literary-critical, rather than fannish, approach to discussions of science fiction. To read it today, though, it seems a bit dated. Several of the essays have a defensive character (i.e. feeling that they need to demonstrate why science ficiton should be taken seriously in the first place, or arguing against straw men who supposedly look down on all writing that isn't realistic or primarily concerned with presenting psychologically deep characters) that no longer seems quite so relevant. Also, a lot of the essays-- such as the one on the origins of science fiction, as well as the theoretical works by Suvin and Rabkin, have been been superseded by more detailed and rigorous explorations of the same topic (in some cases by the same authors!)

Still, the essays here aren't bad by any means, and they can be an enjoyable read, especially for someone who is curious about the nascent state of science fiction scholarship 40 years ago, from the perspective of some important writers and critics.