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The Road to Science Fiction #1
钻石透镜：从吉尔伽美什到威尔斯
Although science fiction ought to be created after Industrial Revolution,the literature resourse exist earlier. Diamond Lens is such a science fiction before 19th century,which will help you kown the trajectory of science fiction.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1977
13 people are currently reading
268 people want to read
About the author
James E. Gunn
267 books117 followersAmerican science fiction author, editor, scholar, and anthologist. His work from the 1960s and 70s is considered his most significant fiction, and his Road to Science Fiction collections are considered his most important scholarly books. He won a Hugo Award for a non-fiction book in 1983 for Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction. He was named the 2007 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Gunn served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, after which he attended the University of Kansas, earning a Bachelor of Science in Journalism in 1947 and a Masters of Arts in English in 1951. Gunn went on to become a faculty member of the University of Kansas, where he served as the university's director of public relations and as a professor of English, specializing in science fiction and fiction writing. He is now a professor emeritus and director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction, which awards the annual John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award at the Campbell Conference in Lawrence, Kansas, every July.
He served as President of the Science Fiction Writers of America from 1971–72, was President of the Science Fiction Research Association from 1980-82, and currently is Director of The Center for the Study of
Science Fiction. SFWA honored him as a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 2007.
Gunn began his career as a science fiction author in 1948. He has had almost 100 stories published in magazines and anthologies and has authored 26 books and edited 10. Many of his stories and books have been reprinted around the world.
In 1996, Gunn wrote a novelization of the unproduced Star Trek episode "The Joy Machine" by Theodore Sturgeon.
His stories also have been adapted into radioplays and teleplays:
* NBC radio's X Minus One
* Desilu Playhouse's 1959 "Man in Orbit", based on Gunn's "The Cave of Night"
* ABC-TV's Movie of the Week "The Immortal" (1969) and an hour-long television series in 1970, based on Gunn's The Immortals
* An episode of the USSR science fiction TV series This Fantastic World, filmed in 1989 and entitled "Psychodynamics of the Witchcraft" was based on James Gunn's 1953 story "Wherever You May Be".
Gunn served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, after which he attended the University of Kansas, earning a Bachelor of Science in Journalism in 1947 and a Masters of Arts in English in 1951. Gunn went on to become a faculty member of the University of Kansas, where he served as the university's director of public relations and as a professor of English, specializing in science fiction and fiction writing. He is now a professor emeritus and director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction, which awards the annual John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award at the Campbell Conference in Lawrence, Kansas, every July.
He served as President of the Science Fiction Writers of America from 1971–72, was President of the Science Fiction Research Association from 1980-82, and currently is Director of The Center for the Study of
Science Fiction. SFWA honored him as a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 2007.
Gunn began his career as a science fiction author in 1948. He has had almost 100 stories published in magazines and anthologies and has authored 26 books and edited 10. Many of his stories and books have been reprinted around the world.
In 1996, Gunn wrote a novelization of the unproduced Star Trek episode "The Joy Machine" by Theodore Sturgeon.
His stories also have been adapted into radioplays and teleplays:
* NBC radio's X Minus One
* Desilu Playhouse's 1959 "Man in Orbit", based on Gunn's "The Cave of Night"
* ABC-TV's Movie of the Week "The Immortal" (1969) and an hour-long television series in 1970, based on Gunn's The Immortals
* An episode of the USSR science fiction TV series This Fantastic World, filmed in 1989 and entitled "Psychodynamics of the Witchcraft" was based on James Gunn's 1953 story "Wherever You May Be".
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 5, 2020
A selection of exceprts of stories from before 1900 that somewhat resemble and possibly influenced the development of the Science Fiction genre. Gunn does not claim that these all are science fiction, just that they are relevant to tracing the history of ideas leading to it. Each excerpt is preceded by a little introductory essay which also talks about other works not included in the book.
From A True Story; Lucian of Samosata. People point to this story and say "Look! A Sci Fi from way back when! (around AD 170)" But it isn't. It is a silly satire of tall tales, not meant to be taken in any way seriously. The moon is populated only by men. "Moonmen have artificial penises, generally of ivory but, in the case of the poor, of wood; these enable them to have intercourse when they mount their mates. ... They have no rectal orifice so, instead of the anus, boys offer for intercourse the hollow of the knee above the calf, since there's an opening there. ... Above the rump grows a cabbage which hangs down like a tail; it's always ripe and doesn't break off even when they fall on their backs."
From The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville; Anonymous. A travel to a strange land with strange inhabitants. (Some of the least interesting Science Fiction stories are like that.)
From Utopia; Thomas More. Some dude imagines how to build a perfect society. Yay! Finally we have the secret!
From The City of the Sun; Tommaso Campanella. A description of another perfect society. Told as a dialog of the form: "What did you see?". "I saw xxx". "Fascinating! What else did you see." "I saw yyy". "Wow! What else did you see?". Repeat ad nauseum.
From The New Atlantis; Francis Bacon. Starts as an adventure story on a ship. When it lands on an uncharted island, the rest is Bacon's description of the society there which is basically what would later be called a modern research university, where scientists are given freedom to study all topics just for the sake of knowledge. Very similar to real universities that came later, but with more focus on Jesus and absolutely non man-on-man love.
From Somnium, or Lunar Astronomy; Johannes Kepler. Describes in detail what the motion of the sun and planets would look like from the moon. Interesting if you care about that sort of thing. The framing device where this is a second hand story told to Kepler in a dream seems to be there just in case Kepler needed to say to the inquisition that of course he didn't really believe any of this heresy.
From A Voyage to the Moon; Cyrano de Bergerac. Another trip to the moon. This time with more emphasis on the adventure, though no more plausible in how the voyage takes place. (Bone marrow is involved. The moon sucks up bone marrow.)
From A Voyage to Laputa, from Gulliver's Travels; Jonathon Swift. Basically a satire on how scientists were beginning to study things which seemed pointless to ordinary people. Perhaps the first use of the trope of absent-minded scientists. Mildly funny, but dry at the same time.
From The Journey to the World Underground; Ludvig Holberg. An example of a journey into a world inside the Earth. This was almost still scientifically plausible when written.
From Frankenstein; Mary Shelley. Shelley's story questions whether scientists maybe are going too far in investigating living things.
Rappacini's Daughter; Nathaniel Hawthorne. Basically the story of a mad scientist causing problems.
Mellonta Tauta; Edgar Allan Poe. Among Poe's final writings. Short and funny story of someone in the year 2848 looking back at 1848 and totally misunderstanding what 1848 was like. Partly mocking the Communist Manifesto, it imagines that individual humans no longer matter, only the people as a whole, so wars and pestilence are seen as good things for keeping the population down.
The Diamond Lens; Fitz-James O'Brien. An evil, mad scientist discovers a tiny world beneath his microscope.
From 20,000 Leagues Under the Seas, and Around the Moon; Jules Verne. Adventure stories involving new scientific instruments and vehicles, and discoveries of new lands and creatures.
From She; H. Rider Haggard. An example of a "lost world" story. Central Africa was even more unknown to Europe then as Mars is to us today. Maybe it could hide a 2000 year old super-woman. "She" was an immensely popular book; still among the best-sellers of all time.
From Looking Backward; Edward Bellamy. The main character is cryogenically frozen and wakes up in a far future Utopia. Ok, not cryogenically frozen, but suspended in a trance by "animal magnetism". Same difference. The first few chapters are pretty enjoyable, making me think I'd like to read more. But Gunn tells us that after the beginning, it is mostly just exposition of Bellamy's ideal society. Basically Socialism, but not called that.
The Damned Thing; Ambrose Bierce. A story of a supernatural creature, but given a scientific explanation at the end.
With the Night Mail; Rudyard Kipling. An adventure story where a routine air-mail mission encounters danger. Kipling, like Wells later, imagines that the creation of air ships would lead to world peace because who could fight back against air ships?
The Star; H.G. Wells. Finally a story that is truly Science Fiction as we know it. A rogue star passes nearby and causes Neptune to plunge into the sun. It passes near Earth causing much destruction.
Worth your time if you are interested in the roots of Science Fiction. Not so much if you are just interested in fun stories.
May 25, 2017
Having been disappointed by Kingsley Amis’ New Maps of Hell, I looked for a more organized and comprehensive history of science fiction and started reading Adam Roberts’ History of Science Fiction on Christmas Eve. Roberts begins with “Science Fiction and the Ancient Novel” and includes chapters on the 17th and 18th century. I decided that I needed to supplement his book with some primary texts, and so began reading Gunn’s historical anthology.
Though Gunn quotes from Gilgamesh in his introduction, the first excerpt proper is from Lucian’s True History, concerning a trip to the moon via sailing ship, and a battle between the armies of the moon and the sun. This is an amusing piece, but I imagine that the SF classification is due entirely to its nominally lunar setting; it could with equal or greater justification be considered an early example of fantasy writing.
The following excerpts take us through the centuries fairly rapidly with passages from Mandeville’s Travels, More’s Utopia, Kepler’s Sommnium, Tommaso Campanella, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Francis Bacon. Most of these pieces are fairly dry and, though I usually avoid collections of excerpts, I have to admit that I would probably read few if any of these works in their entirety. Adam Roberts refers to many of these works unequivocally as “science fiction”, whereas Gunn offers them as precursors of the genre but not necessarily the thing itself. For me Kepler shows the most rigorous example of what I am coming to think of as the “SF imagination”. He describes a trip to the moon accomplished with the aid of “demons”, which, like most of the earlier examples of space flight, seems pure fantasy rather than SF; but once his protagonist is on the moon, he carefully considers how things would appear and what the experience of an actual lunar occupant would be, based on contemporary scientific knowledge.
Once the eighteenth century is reached, with excerpts from Swift and Holberg, the reading becomes considerably more pleasurable, as writers take pains not just to flesh out their visions in prose, but also to entertain the reader. At this point an Anglophone bias becomes evident in the collection; after Holberg’s Niels Klim’s Journey Underground, the only author presented in translation is “the essential Frenchman” Jules Verne. The other authors included are Mary Shelley, Hawthorne, Poe, Fitz-James O’Brien (a new writer to me, represented by the interesting tale, “The Diamond Lens”), Bellamy, Bierce, Kipling, and, of course, Wells. A strange inclusion to me was a 20 page extract from H. Rider Haggard’s She, which I don’t consider SF, though it is a possible precursor to The Lost World, which is SF; I think the space should have been devoted to more relevant works, such as Samuel Butler’s Erewhon or something from E. T. A. Hoffmann.
One thing that amused me in the various Utopias portrayed here, from More through Bellamy, is how nicely things work out on paper once private property is eliminated. It is almost enough to make one want to write an ironic Utopia in which everything is abolished except private property, if only Ayn Rand hadn’t already written it, without, alas, the irony.
Though Gunn quotes from Gilgamesh in his introduction, the first excerpt proper is from Lucian’s True History, concerning a trip to the moon via sailing ship, and a battle between the armies of the moon and the sun. This is an amusing piece, but I imagine that the SF classification is due entirely to its nominally lunar setting; it could with equal or greater justification be considered an early example of fantasy writing.
The following excerpts take us through the centuries fairly rapidly with passages from Mandeville’s Travels, More’s Utopia, Kepler’s Sommnium, Tommaso Campanella, Cyrano de Bergerac, and Francis Bacon. Most of these pieces are fairly dry and, though I usually avoid collections of excerpts, I have to admit that I would probably read few if any of these works in their entirety. Adam Roberts refers to many of these works unequivocally as “science fiction”, whereas Gunn offers them as precursors of the genre but not necessarily the thing itself. For me Kepler shows the most rigorous example of what I am coming to think of as the “SF imagination”. He describes a trip to the moon accomplished with the aid of “demons”, which, like most of the earlier examples of space flight, seems pure fantasy rather than SF; but once his protagonist is on the moon, he carefully considers how things would appear and what the experience of an actual lunar occupant would be, based on contemporary scientific knowledge.
Once the eighteenth century is reached, with excerpts from Swift and Holberg, the reading becomes considerably more pleasurable, as writers take pains not just to flesh out their visions in prose, but also to entertain the reader. At this point an Anglophone bias becomes evident in the collection; after Holberg’s Niels Klim’s Journey Underground, the only author presented in translation is “the essential Frenchman” Jules Verne. The other authors included are Mary Shelley, Hawthorne, Poe, Fitz-James O’Brien (a new writer to me, represented by the interesting tale, “The Diamond Lens”), Bellamy, Bierce, Kipling, and, of course, Wells. A strange inclusion to me was a 20 page extract from H. Rider Haggard’s She, which I don’t consider SF, though it is a possible precursor to The Lost World, which is SF; I think the space should have been devoted to more relevant works, such as Samuel Butler’s Erewhon or something from E. T. A. Hoffmann.
One thing that amused me in the various Utopias portrayed here, from More through Bellamy, is how nicely things work out on paper once private property is eliminated. It is almost enough to make one want to write an ironic Utopia in which everything is abolished except private property, if only Ayn Rand hadn’t already written it, without, alas, the irony.
April 30, 2022
Pierwszy tom kultowej serii, aż żal, że do dziś w Polsce niewznawianej a nawet nie zakończonej (dwa, chyba z perspektywy poznawczej, najciekawsze tomy - "The British Way" i "Around the World" - nie ukazały się w języku polskim.
Pierwszy etap drogi do science-fiction, w jaką zabiera nas amerykański znawca i krytyk literatury gatunku, prowadzi przez prehistorię fantastyki, reprezentowaną tu przez fragmenty utworów między innymi Lukiana z Samosaty, Tomasza More'a, Tommaso Campanella, Francisa Bacona, poprzez bliżej nam znaną i zdecydowanie lepiej wpisującą się w nowożytną definicję science-fiction, twórczość Jonathana Swifta, Mary W. Shelley, Nathaniela Hawthorne'a (znakomite opowiadanie "Córka Rappacciniego"), Edgara Allana Poego (reprezentowany tu przez wyborne, zaskakująco świeże, również pod kątem formy, choć szerzej nieznane opowiadanie "Mellonta Tauta") i Rudyarda Kiplinga, aż po próbki z dorobku przedstawicieli żelaznego kanonu literatury spekulatywnej, czyli Julesa Verne’a, H. Ridera Haggarda i ojca nowożytnej fantastyki naukowej - Herberta George'a Wellsa (niesamowite opowiadanie "Gwiazda").
Ważnym dodatkiem są eseje Jamesa Gunna, poprzedzające każde z opowiadań i cytowanych fragmentów, w których autor wyraziście i arcyciekawie nakreśla tło, sylwetki twórców i prądy literackie odnoszące się do gatunku.
"Droga do science-fiction" to cykl, który każdy miłośnik fantasy i fantastyki naukowej winien przeczytać. Wiadomym jest, że cześć z zawartych tu treści może wzbudzić pobłażliwy uśmieszek a wiele wizji praojców gatunku to oniryczne fantasmagorie, ale mimo wszystko, warto po nie sięgnąć, by przekonać się, że na dobrą sprawę science-fiction towarzyszyło człowiekowi odkąd pojawiło się pismo... Polecam gorąco i liczę, że kiedyś ktoś wyda ponownie ten -dostępny obecnie jedynie na portalach aukcyjnych - cykl...
Pierwszy etap drogi do science-fiction, w jaką zabiera nas amerykański znawca i krytyk literatury gatunku, prowadzi przez prehistorię fantastyki, reprezentowaną tu przez fragmenty utworów między innymi Lukiana z Samosaty, Tomasza More'a, Tommaso Campanella, Francisa Bacona, poprzez bliżej nam znaną i zdecydowanie lepiej wpisującą się w nowożytną definicję science-fiction, twórczość Jonathana Swifta, Mary W. Shelley, Nathaniela Hawthorne'a (znakomite opowiadanie "Córka Rappacciniego"), Edgara Allana Poego (reprezentowany tu przez wyborne, zaskakująco świeże, również pod kątem formy, choć szerzej nieznane opowiadanie "Mellonta Tauta") i Rudyarda Kiplinga, aż po próbki z dorobku przedstawicieli żelaznego kanonu literatury spekulatywnej, czyli Julesa Verne’a, H. Ridera Haggarda i ojca nowożytnej fantastyki naukowej - Herberta George'a Wellsa (niesamowite opowiadanie "Gwiazda").
Ważnym dodatkiem są eseje Jamesa Gunna, poprzedzające każde z opowiadań i cytowanych fragmentów, w których autor wyraziście i arcyciekawie nakreśla tło, sylwetki twórców i prądy literackie odnoszące się do gatunku.
"Droga do science-fiction" to cykl, który każdy miłośnik fantasy i fantastyki naukowej winien przeczytać. Wiadomym jest, że cześć z zawartych tu treści może wzbudzić pobłażliwy uśmieszek a wiele wizji praojców gatunku to oniryczne fantasmagorie, ale mimo wszystko, warto po nie sięgnąć, by przekonać się, że na dobrą sprawę science-fiction towarzyszyło człowiekowi odkąd pojawiło się pismo... Polecam gorąco i liczę, że kiedyś ktoś wyda ponownie ten -dostępny obecnie jedynie na portalach aukcyjnych - cykl...
February 11, 2019
OK so I do have the complete run of this series and, and yes I do have to hold my hand up to say that I actually started with Volume 2 as I thought the earlier material might be a little dull, but I finally took the plunge with Volume 1.
I did find some problems, but not those I had expected. One annoyance was that the limited selection available from that date range meant that the editor had very few short stories to draw on that are key to the development of the genre and thus he had to frequently rely on extracted chapters from longer books. This meant that I found myself reading sections of books I had read already, and the occasions when I had not it read the book just made me feel guilty that I had not read the whole original book (yes sorry long departed Jules Verne I do have 20,000 Leagues on my book shelves and I will get round to it someday, honest, really).
Actually I found very few clunkers and some surprises. In particular Ambrose Bierce’s ‘The Damned Thing’ predates but reeks of Lovecraft. Lastly I can’t find much fault with a collection that includes one of my favourite Kipling stories – ‘With the Night Mail’. However, again for completeness, I recommend readers to seek out a version that collects together this text with its companion piece ‘Easy As A.B.C’ and Kipling’s accompanying faux future newspaper advertisements.
I did find some problems, but not those I had expected. One annoyance was that the limited selection available from that date range meant that the editor had very few short stories to draw on that are key to the development of the genre and thus he had to frequently rely on extracted chapters from longer books. This meant that I found myself reading sections of books I had read already, and the occasions when I had not it read the book just made me feel guilty that I had not read the whole original book (yes sorry long departed Jules Verne I do have 20,000 Leagues on my book shelves and I will get round to it someday, honest, really).
Actually I found very few clunkers and some surprises. In particular Ambrose Bierce’s ‘The Damned Thing’ predates but reeks of Lovecraft. Lastly I can’t find much fault with a collection that includes one of my favourite Kipling stories – ‘With the Night Mail’. However, again for completeness, I recommend readers to seek out a version that collects together this text with its companion piece ‘Easy As A.B.C’ and Kipling’s accompanying faux future newspaper advertisements.
December 2, 2020
Apontamos para Verne e Wells, e essencialmente para Gernsback, o início da ficção científica como género literário. Mas quais são as suas origens? Que textos do passado poderão ser lidos como uma espécie de proto-FC? É de notar que nunca os autores da antologia se referem aos textos que coligem como ficção científica, apenas nos apontam leituras que, ao longo do tempo, iniciaram a exploração de temas que hoje fazem parte do domínio da FC.
O livro, apesar de curto, é enciclopédico, passando por textos tão díspares como fragmentos do Épico de Gilgamesh, Luciano de Samosata, Kepler, Rostand, ou Swift, até culminar em Mary Shelley. O livro advoga Frankenstein como o texto fundador da FC, e segue mostrando-nos autores que, entre histórias de aventuras e contos fantásticos, começaram a incorporar a especulação científica. Aqui, Poe, Hamilton, e os incontornáveis Wells e Verne, mas também incluindo nomes mais discretos como Hawthorne e Bierce, são os escolhidos para mostrar como a incorporação de ideias de futuro, ciência e tecnologia foi evoluindo até se tornar um género literário próprio.
Livro clássico, parte de uma série em que James Gunn (o autor clássico de FC, não confundir com o realizador) explora as raízes da ficção científica.
O livro, apesar de curto, é enciclopédico, passando por textos tão díspares como fragmentos do Épico de Gilgamesh, Luciano de Samosata, Kepler, Rostand, ou Swift, até culminar em Mary Shelley. O livro advoga Frankenstein como o texto fundador da FC, e segue mostrando-nos autores que, entre histórias de aventuras e contos fantásticos, começaram a incorporar a especulação científica. Aqui, Poe, Hamilton, e os incontornáveis Wells e Verne, mas também incluindo nomes mais discretos como Hawthorne e Bierce, são os escolhidos para mostrar como a incorporação de ideias de futuro, ciência e tecnologia foi evoluindo até se tornar um género literário próprio.
Livro clássico, parte de uma série em que James Gunn (o autor clássico de FC, não confundir com o realizador) explora as raízes da ficção científica.
January 1, 2016
As the title aptly suggests, this anthology traces the prehistory of science fiction from ancient fantasies like Lucian’s A True History to prescient Gothic tales like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It contains a mix of short stories and extracts from longer pieces. While I enjoyed this collection, I’d only recommend it to academics investigating sci-fi history or die-hard fans.
A True History – Lucian of Samosata
Now I think of this author as the ancient Greek version of Douglas Adams. Mainly known for writing comedic science-fiction with a tendency to mock religion… Lucian certainly does fit the bill!
A True History parodies the improbable events that are common in ancient mythology, such as everything that occurred in the Odyssey, The main difference is that Lucian admits he lies. The story describes how Lucian, wishing to explore the world, rides a sailing boat over a blow-hole and is blown to the moon! There him and his crew are embroiled in a Hellenic space opera between the king of moon and the king of the sun over the rights to colonise a distant star. The war involves ant-soldiers, a Buzzard Cavalry, and “elephantine radishes”. The fearsome Cloud Centaurs are too late to join in the fighting.
Gunn offers only an extract of the first part. You can read the whole thing at Project Gutenberg.
Somnium – Johannes Kepler
The son of a witch travels abroad to learn astronomy at a prestigious university, before returning to his homeland to learn the truth of his mother’s career and being taught by a daemon about precisely what goes on at the moon. Counter-intuitively, the story is at its most interesting before we leave the planet. The protagonist’s world, with its contrast between his primitive superstition and the newborn science he discovers overseas, is completely fascinating. Once we’re dealing with the moon it’s just a barrage of facts and figures which I do not doubt are as accurate as Kepler could make them, but are nonetheless unengaging. The whole thing ends with Kepler waking up to realise that the whole thing was a dream.
Still, the protagonist’s story prior to thinking about the moon could be expanded into a great novel. The co-existence of the rigorously-researched moon and the fanciful demons are just the icing on the cake.
Rappacini’s Daughter – Nathanial Hawthorne
Italian dude falls in love with a toxic woman. Literally!
So this student moves next door to a mad scientist called Rappacini and his beautiful daughter, and their funky garden. The scientist is a pro at poison, the student’s academic mentor makes this explicitly clear. Rappacini’s daughter has spent her life her father’s dubious garden, resulting her the air she exhales and likely most of her bodily fluids fatal to the common man.
I don’t really like Nathanial Hawthorne, but he gets points from me for explicitly referencing the Alexander Romances at one point in the story.
The classic Old Time Radio show Weird Circle did a great rendition of this story. I can still remember it while playing Spyro…
The Diamond Lens – Fitz James O’Brien
This story creeped me out, and not in the good way.
It started out with the author bio written by Gunn. Apparently the author died fighting for the South in the American Civil War. I could overlook that, plenty of old writers were dodgy like that.
The story is about an obsessive microscopist who falls in love with a miniature woman, who is surprisingly enough hauntingly beautiful. The only way he can see her is with the lens made from a diamond he stole from his Jewish neighbour, who he killed. The protagonist is later driven insane when the tiny woman he spies on dies of old age, which really serves him right. Also, the protagonist is completely fine with slavery!
As unpleasant as I found the main character, I think this story could be adapted into a decent film if the screenplay focused on the protagonist’s voyeurism and antisemitism. Make him into Norman Bates with a microscope. Make it seem that his unfortunate end is what he deserves. This would work as a black and white Vincent Price kinda film.
Others
Gunn offers us an extract from Frankenstein that I skipped, because I read the entire novel twice during my final year of high school. I think that Victor Frankenstein was bipolar and probably gay. Here’s a link to the Gutenberg version. Watch out though: it’s recursive. I mean, really recursive. Really, really recursive. Really, really, really, recursive…
We also get the Laputa episode from Gulliver’s Travels, the bit where Gulliver hangs out on a floating island scowling at all the absurd things the native scientists do. This is probably my favorite classic of English literature.
The anthology closes with a H. G. Wells story called The Star. An apocalyptic story, it tells how a foreign body enters our solar system and collides with Neptune before traveling before the sun. Wells gives an account of how the diverse people of the world react to this spectacle in away that recalls Will Eisner’s comic Life on Another Planet.
The rest of the book’s content is written in that cramped, oblique style that I’ve come to expect from old English literature. The bright spots are the translated material, as they have been rewritten to be easily comprehended by the modern reader. For this reason I’d recommend this collection mainly for academic readers. After all, most of the truly great stories are available online.
A True History – Lucian of Samosata
Now I think of this author as the ancient Greek version of Douglas Adams. Mainly known for writing comedic science-fiction with a tendency to mock religion… Lucian certainly does fit the bill!
A True History parodies the improbable events that are common in ancient mythology, such as everything that occurred in the Odyssey, The main difference is that Lucian admits he lies. The story describes how Lucian, wishing to explore the world, rides a sailing boat over a blow-hole and is blown to the moon! There him and his crew are embroiled in a Hellenic space opera between the king of moon and the king of the sun over the rights to colonise a distant star. The war involves ant-soldiers, a Buzzard Cavalry, and “elephantine radishes”. The fearsome Cloud Centaurs are too late to join in the fighting.
Gunn offers only an extract of the first part. You can read the whole thing at Project Gutenberg.
Somnium – Johannes Kepler
The son of a witch travels abroad to learn astronomy at a prestigious university, before returning to his homeland to learn the truth of his mother’s career and being taught by a daemon about precisely what goes on at the moon. Counter-intuitively, the story is at its most interesting before we leave the planet. The protagonist’s world, with its contrast between his primitive superstition and the newborn science he discovers overseas, is completely fascinating. Once we’re dealing with the moon it’s just a barrage of facts and figures which I do not doubt are as accurate as Kepler could make them, but are nonetheless unengaging. The whole thing ends with Kepler waking up to realise that the whole thing was a dream.
Still, the protagonist’s story prior to thinking about the moon could be expanded into a great novel. The co-existence of the rigorously-researched moon and the fanciful demons are just the icing on the cake.
Rappacini’s Daughter – Nathanial Hawthorne
Italian dude falls in love with a toxic woman. Literally!
So this student moves next door to a mad scientist called Rappacini and his beautiful daughter, and their funky garden. The scientist is a pro at poison, the student’s academic mentor makes this explicitly clear. Rappacini’s daughter has spent her life her father’s dubious garden, resulting her the air she exhales and likely most of her bodily fluids fatal to the common man.
I don’t really like Nathanial Hawthorne, but he gets points from me for explicitly referencing the Alexander Romances at one point in the story.
The classic Old Time Radio show Weird Circle did a great rendition of this story. I can still remember it while playing Spyro…
The Diamond Lens – Fitz James O’Brien
This story creeped me out, and not in the good way.
It started out with the author bio written by Gunn. Apparently the author died fighting for the South in the American Civil War. I could overlook that, plenty of old writers were dodgy like that.
The story is about an obsessive microscopist who falls in love with a miniature woman, who is surprisingly enough hauntingly beautiful. The only way he can see her is with the lens made from a diamond he stole from his Jewish neighbour, who he killed. The protagonist is later driven insane when the tiny woman he spies on dies of old age, which really serves him right. Also, the protagonist is completely fine with slavery!
As unpleasant as I found the main character, I think this story could be adapted into a decent film if the screenplay focused on the protagonist’s voyeurism and antisemitism. Make him into Norman Bates with a microscope. Make it seem that his unfortunate end is what he deserves. This would work as a black and white Vincent Price kinda film.
Others
Gunn offers us an extract from Frankenstein that I skipped, because I read the entire novel twice during my final year of high school. I think that Victor Frankenstein was bipolar and probably gay. Here’s a link to the Gutenberg version. Watch out though: it’s recursive. I mean, really recursive. Really, really recursive. Really, really, really, recursive…
We also get the Laputa episode from Gulliver’s Travels, the bit where Gulliver hangs out on a floating island scowling at all the absurd things the native scientists do. This is probably my favorite classic of English literature.
The anthology closes with a H. G. Wells story called The Star. An apocalyptic story, it tells how a foreign body enters our solar system and collides with Neptune before traveling before the sun. Wells gives an account of how the diverse people of the world react to this spectacle in away that recalls Will Eisner’s comic Life on Another Planet.
The rest of the book’s content is written in that cramped, oblique style that I’ve come to expect from old English literature. The bright spots are the translated material, as they have been rewritten to be easily comprehended by the modern reader. For this reason I’d recommend this collection mainly for academic readers. After all, most of the truly great stories are available online.
April 2, 2021
A fascinating survey through the early days of science fiction. Many of the excerpts for books have made me want to read the full works they are extracted from. I look forward to reading part 2.
September 21, 2014
Interesting collection of proto-science-fiction stories; its subtitle is "From Gilgamesh to Wells" and it's part of a six volume chronological survey of the genre. I have some issues with the editor's definition of science fiction (way too broad), and with some of his choices (the discussion of Gilgamesh seems chosen just to be able to start with the first known epic of Western literature, and the excerpt from "SHE" is a great representation of the evolution of pulp adventures but not really of sf's strain of pulp), but overall there's good historical and literary context given for each tale's significance as a root of modern sf. Some of excerpts really only have value as evolutionary benchmarks, but a good number are excellent tales, too.
I especially enjoyed Voltaire's Vonnegut-like tale of two moon-sized aliens who visit Earth and are astonished that the microscopic vermin upon it (us) seem to hold some rudimentary reason, Poe's Mellonta Tauta, the surprisingly detailed world-building of Kipling's With the Night Mail, and H.G. Wells' The Star (a nice amount of near astronomical apocalypse packed into a very few pages). I will be reading the other volumes in the series.
(And, it's not true but somewhat amusing to imagine that this science-fiction editor James Gunn also the science-fiction film director (Sliter, Guardians of the Galaxy) James Gunn.)
I especially enjoyed Voltaire's Vonnegut-like tale of two moon-sized aliens who visit Earth and are astonished that the microscopic vermin upon it (us) seem to hold some rudimentary reason, Poe's Mellonta Tauta, the surprisingly detailed world-building of Kipling's With the Night Mail, and H.G. Wells' The Star (a nice amount of near astronomical apocalypse packed into a very few pages). I will be reading the other volumes in the series.
(And, it's not true but somewhat amusing to imagine that this science-fiction editor James Gunn also the science-fiction film director (Sliter, Guardians of the Galaxy) James Gunn.)
November 23, 2011
Gunn's 6 volume encyclopedic work on what is science fiction by tracing it's history from the legendary and mythological age of Gilgamesh right up to the 1990's opens well in this first volume.
The introduction is clear, simple, and carefully places these early stories in their proper context of being proto-science fiction ("exhibiting elements of science fiction and fantasy").
The sections of longer stories and short stories are proceeded by a short intro that places the author and the piece of literature in the evolving context of world literature in general.
An understated yet marvelously monumental accomplishment. I'm very excited to delve into the following 5 volumes
The introduction is clear, simple, and carefully places these early stories in their proper context of being proto-science fiction ("exhibiting elements of science fiction and fantasy").
The sections of longer stories and short stories are proceeded by a short intro that places the author and the piece of literature in the evolving context of world literature in general.
An understated yet marvelously monumental accomplishment. I'm very excited to delve into the following 5 volumes
January 27, 2013
Some good stories here - Gilgamesh, Well's - The Star, Verne's - 20,000 League's Under the Sea, Shelley's - Frankenstein. Unfortunately also a lot of dated, hard to read language. Didn't help that most of the stories in this volume were excerpts. Certainly worth it if you are interested in the history of Science Fiction and like to see how the genre evolved.
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September 23, 2013Doskonała książka dla każdego, kto ma ochotę poznać gdzie tak naprawdę zrodziło się science-fiction.
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