the concluding instalment of Poul Anderson's multi-volume future history series, the Technic History;
Volume I of CS Lewis' Ransom Trilogy;
two instalments of Brian Aldiss' single-volume future history, Galaxies Like Grains Of Sand, which forms a trilogy with the same author's Starswarm (an inhabited galaxy) and Non-Stop (a Heinleinian generation ship) -
- major milestones of twentieth century sf.
Anderson and Aldiss follow Wells, Stapledon and Heinlein whereas Lewis replies to Wells and Stapledon. Both Aldiss' Galaxies... and Anderson's Genesis synthesize the Wellsian-Stapledonian and Heinleinian future history models. Both Aldiss' Frankenstein Unbound and Anderson's Genesis re-address the theme of the first modern science fiction novel, Frankenstein. Genesis, appropriately published in the concluding year of the twentieth century, is a culmination of future historical and Frankensteinian themes.
SM Stirling continues the theme of time travel for which we can again refer to all the authors already mentioned with the single exception of Mary Shelley.
(If a representative sample of Western literature were to include at least two sf titles, then I think that they would have to be Frankenstein and The Time Machine. We value these works both for themselves and for what came after them.)
10 comments:
That cover isn't literally accurate -- the time machine isn't a 'portal' type. OTOH, you can't -represent- a non-portal type of time machine in a single picture! It does get across the essentials -- nuclear war in the background, location in Europe, transition to Roman times.
That's me above, btw.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: I might have included some mention of Jules Verne, because he represented the beginning of that strain of science fiction we call "hard SF." Science fiction springing from what is actually known by science or reasonably plausible extrapolations from it. Here I mean works of Verne like 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA and FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON.
Mr. Stirling: True, but the cover for TO TURN THE TIDE was far better than what so many other SF writers had to put up with. Just think of the ghastly cover somebody at Baen Books on the Flandry volumes of THE SAGA OF TECHNIC CIVILIZATION.
Ad astra! Sean
Corrections: "...the ghastly covers somebody at Baen Books inflicted on the Flandry volumes..."
Sean
Yeah, they were apparently aiming at a 14-year-old boy.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And what adult would want to be seen in public with books having such ghastly covers???
Ad astra! Sean
I had to explain to a bookseller that there had been complaints about the covers.
Kaor, Paul!
I hope the powers that be at Baen Books will pick better covers for any reprinting of the Flandry books.
Ad astra! Sean
Bad to the point of active embarrassment. Someone was asleep at the wheel...
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Even worse, he was in a coma! (Snorts!)
Ad astra! Sean
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