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Science Fiction from Wells to Heinlein | 
 enlarge | Author: Leon Stover
Publisher: McFarland
Category: Book
Buy New: $35.00
New (13) Used (2) from $35.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 2064518
Media: Paperback
Edition: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 216
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 10 x 6.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 0786438924
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780786438921
ASIN: 0786438924
Publication Date: July 1, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
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Product Description
As a publisher's category, science fiction began in the American pulp magazine industry in 1926. But its origins lay in the British tradition of the scientific romance, whose mastery by H.G. Wells in his Victorian youth (1895-1901) makes him the "father of modern SF" (Jules Verne is a more distant ancestor). Wells's most self-conscious descendant is Robert Heinlein, whose rapid rise to fame during the magazine era made him "the dean of American SF." He so succeeded in winning literary recognition for the genre that it all but vanished into the mainstream, save for a lingering identity in classified paperbacks and in television programming (Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, for example, was marketed as general fiction and not science fiction).
The present work, by a man who taught the subject at the university level for decades, is a critical examination of the literary trajectory of science fiction from the scientific romances of H.G. Wells to the era of Robert Heinlein. Such luminaries as Isaac Asimov (I, Robot), Arthur C. Clarke (2001), A.E. van Vogt (Slan), L. Sprague de Camp (Lest Darkness Fall), Harry Harrison (Stars and Stripes Forever trilogy), Kurt Vonnegut (The Sirens of Titan), Brian Aldiss (Greybeard), Edgar Rice Burroughs (Barsoom series, Pellucidar series), Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles), Fritz Leiber (The Wanderer), C.S. Lewis (Perelandra), and Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost World) are discussed along the way. The roles of various magazines in establishing the genre, an area of the author's special expertise, are fully examined (Hugo Gernsback's Science and Invention, Amazing Stories, and Weird Tales, among others).
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| Customer Reviews:
An amazing overview of a genre during its classic era April 12, 2002
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Science Fiction From Wells To Heinlein by Leon Stover (Professor Emeritus, Illinois Institute of Technology and editor of "The Annotated H.G. Wells", an eight-volume literary series) is an impressive survey dedicated to presenting the evolution of the science fiction genre during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Focusing heavily on the contributions of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, John Campbell and Robert Heinlein, Science Fiction From Wells To Heinlein also examines closely the common themes of period sci-fi such as rebellious robots, dinosaurs, and utopia/dystopia as well as scrutinizing the differences and cross-influences of British vs. American sci-fi. Science Fiction From Wells To Heinlein is an amazing overview of a genre during its classic era, and highly recommended to science fiction enthusiasts wanting to find out more about the history of their favorite literature.
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