Contents:
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. Hardcover , pages. Published December by Prentice Hall first published June 1st To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
To ask other readers questions about Science Fiction , please sign up. Lists with This Book.
Jan 04, Karl Bunker rated it really liked it. 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 In the field of science fiction studies, many books are collections of essays by various authors.
The first selection, for example, is the opening chapter of Kingsley Amis's book New Maps of Hell. Here is the table of contents: Science Fiction and the Fantastic: Approaches On Science Fiction: Lewis The Imagination of Disaster: Lewis, and Stanislaw Lem particularly interesting and enjoyable. This book was compiled in , so it's hardly up-to-date, but it's definitely worth the read for anyone interested in SF studies.
Feb 19, Jim rated it it was ok. Published in , this book anthologies several previously published articles about science fiction. These essays, which date from 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. Lewis , and by those who haven't Susan Sontag. A super-oxygenated blood supplement. A grendel can, on demand, release a chemical supercharger into its blood that does to it what nitrous oxide does to internal combustion engines — enable short bursts of speed in excess of miles per hour.
This trait makes the grendels devastating, but is also the key to their destruction. The supercharger, when used, generates large amounts of waste heat that warm up grendel bodies so rapidly they will die after using it if they do not immediately return to water to cool off. With this knowledge and their technology and tactics, the colonists are able to wipe out the grendel population within several months, making Cadmann a hero to the people who previously turned on him.
However, the colonists make a disturbing discovery: Their life cycle is similar to that of terrestrial frogs — the herbivorous samlon are in fact the juvenile form of the carnivorous grendels.
Like certain species of frogs, they change gender over the course of their lifetimes. The juvenile samlon are male. The adult grendels are female. Interaction is unnecessary as the grendels continually lay their unfertilized eggs in the water for the samlon to fertilize. And like many species of frogs, they are cannibalistic — if no other prey is present, they will eat their own young. At some point in the recent past, most of the prey animals on the island were destroyed by an unknown cataclysmic event. It is left to the reader to draw conclusions as to what actually happened.
Over-predation by the grendels is subtly suggested.
Here are our favorite science fiction and fantasy collections (the work of a single author) and anthologies (collecting work by multiple authors). Comprising over volumes, the Science Fiction Collection consists largely of twentieth-century trade paperbacks, magazines, fanzines, and prozines. Begun.
Among the few surviving species on the island were the samlon, and thus the grendels. Cannibalism became the rule instead of the exception. Only the fastest juvenile samlon survived predation by grendel females to become adult grendels themselves, and this drove the species to evolve at an immensely accelerated rate.
This resulted in the incredible predatory abilities of the grendels.
When the colonists introduced terrestrial fish into the ecosystem, they provided the grendels with an additional food source, leading to a spike in adult grendel population, making it strong enough to initiate the attacks. The colonists have just exterminated the adult grendels. But as there is now no check at all on the samlon population, they all become grendels, meaning that instead of a few dozen grendels, there are now thousands.
Cadmann again asserts control. The grendels cannot hunt away from water, so the colony's pregnant women, children and essential specialists are evacuated to the Geographic. At first, the colonists' technology and tactics serve them well. The laser-based welding tools and plasma-based drilling equipment are used as weapons. Whatever liquid hydrogen can be spared from the shuttles is used to fight the grendels as well. Cadmann observes mass grendel behavior and discovers that packs of grendels can be sent into a shark -like feeding frenzy by spraying them with blood taken from dead grendels, especially if it is laced with traces of the "supercharger" chemical extracted from the organ that secretes it, as this chemical triggers an immediate "fight" instinct.
Tracer bullets are also used to ignite the supercharger gland in their bodies. The colonists ultimately discover and utilize a new tactic — they harvest supercharger from dead grendels and spray it over the grendel horde with crop dusting equipment, driving hundreds of them into a frenzy and killing many of those remaining. This will provide a list of all the material specifically in the Science Fiction Collection, but not all material by some science fiction authors in author collections.
For this reason, it is often preferable to search by author or title. The collection also contains collections of fanzines and prozine: Many items in the collection were printed on low-quality woodpulp paper, and are brittle.
Readers are asked to consult other copies at Harvard; permission to use restricted material must be obtained from the Modern Books and Manuscripts department. Additionally, some manuscript material is uncataloged and requires permission from the department of Modern Books and Manuscripts before access is possible. Bookmark the current page Bookmark a different page paste the URL below. Select a bookmark to update its title and URL.
Nice to see a positive Internet success story the author for a change! It is left to the reader to draw conclusions as to what actually happened. This year's volume includes Ian R. This trait makes the grendels devastating, but is also the key to their destruction. Lewis, and Stanislaw Lem particularly interesting and enjoyable. Oct 22, Michelle rated it really liked it Shelves: This was a very good compilation of science fiction short stories.
To delete one of your bookmarks, click its delete button. Alphabetize your bookmarks Or click and drag bookmarks to set them in the order of your preference.
You have no bookmarks yet.