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lmcox's review
5.0
This is a wonderfully informative set of essays on science fiction writing (with some mention of film and television). I've gotten a lot of book and movie suggestions in addition to an understanding of sci fi as a critical genre.
morgandhu's review
4.0
Every once in a while, I get a hankering to read some literary history/criticism that takes as its subject my favourite genre, science fiction. This time around, I picked up The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, edited by Edward James and Farah Mendelsohn. The essays in this volume cover a range of topics relevant to the study and understanding of science fiction. As Mendelsohn notes in the introduction,
The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction is intended to provide readers with an introduction to the genre and to its study. To this end, we have divided this book into three parts: an historical overview of the field which discusses the major authors and editors, the people and market forces which have shaped the literary structures of the field; a section on critical approaches to science fiction (sf); and finally a collection of essays exploring some of the issues and concerns which have been considered by both critics and writers to be intrinsic to the genre.
I was a bit disappointed at first - the volume begins with a "chronology" that starts off in 1516 with Thomas More's Utopia, but neglects Margaret Cavendish's 1666 publication of The Blazing World. At least Mary Shelley was included. (Though I must acknowledge that Cavendish and several other women who wrote utopias and scientific romances in the time before science fiction became a recognised genre are mentioned in the book's first essay, "Science Fiction before the Genre" by Brian Stableford.) However, things improved from there, for the most part.
After Stableford's quick survey of early science-fictional works, from Francis Bacon and Cavendish to H. G. Wells, Brian Attebery' contribution discusses the era of the pulp magazines, beginning with Hugo Gernsbach's Amazing Stories. Attebery reminds us that for over 30 years, magazines were the primary venue for science fiction. Short stories, novelettes, and novellas dominated the field, and most novels were first serialised in magazines before they were published as complete works.
The next chapter in the "history section," Damien Broderick's "New Wave and backwash: 1960-1980 addresses the excitement of the New Wave of the 1960s and its influences on science fiction. John Clute's essay on the development of science fiction between 1980 and 2000 was somewhat of a disappointment, virtually ignoring the contributions of women writers during that era, and leaving out altogether the beginnings of a more inclusive understanding of science fiction.
Mark Bould provides a quick trip through the history of science fiction in film and television, beginning with the sfnal short films of such pioneers as the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès (best known for Le Voyage dans la lune), early feature-length film director Fritz Lang, and sf serials such as Flash Gordon. After discussing the "boom" in sf films in the 50s, Bould looks at the beginnings of science fiction in television before moving on to a summary of the trends in recent decades in film and TV.
In the final essay in the history section, Gary K. Wolfe offers an interesting look at the editors and publishers who have helped to shape science fiction in a way not seen in other genres. As Wolfe notes: "While relatively few readers of other genres such as mystery and romance are even aware of the names of the magazine and book editors who select and sometimes shape the texts that collectively define those fields, sf editors have from the beginning played a more visible and sometimes even celebrated role; it is perhaps indicative of this that the leading American mystery award is named the Edgar, after Edgar Allan Poe, while the most publicized sf award, the Hugo, is named after an editor and publisher, Hugo Gernsback."
Following these essays on the history of science fiction, the next section of the book focuses on a survey of various critical approaches to science fiction. In these essays, critical theories are applied to key science fictional texts, demonstrating how these theories contribute to a deeper understanding of science fiction as a genre, its history, development and themes. Specific approaches examined in this section include Marxist analysis, feminist analysis, postmodernism, and queer theory.
The final section is devoted to an overview of subgenres and common themes in science fiction. Gwyneth Jones introduces the section with an overview of the "icons of Science fiction" - as Jones defines it, "the signs which announce the genre, which warn the reader that this is a different world; and at the same time constitute that difference." These include rockets and other self-contained space habitats, and virtual environments; non-human sentiences from robots and androids to aliens; imagined ecologies; and heroes with a knowledge of science.
Also included in this section are essays examining the wide range of themes taken up by science fiction writers:
The use of life sciences from genetics to reproductive biology to ecology and the environment;
The exploration of the utopian society;
Politics, or the variety of ways in which societies may be organised, regulated and governed;
The exploration of sociocultural understandings of gender;
Examination of issues surrounding race and ethnicity; and
Exploration of religion and its place in society.
This section also includes several essays on what may be identified as subgenres of science fiction, such as "hard science fiction" and its stepchild cyberpunk, space opera, and alternative history.
One of the best aspects of this Companion, for me, was how the various contributors made extensive use of examples in their work, thus reminding the reader of books and shorter fiction read in the past, and introducing the reader to works similar in some fashion that they may not have read or even known about before.
The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction is intended to provide readers with an introduction to the genre and to its study. To this end, we have divided this book into three parts: an historical overview of the field which discusses the major authors and editors, the people and market forces which have shaped the literary structures of the field; a section on critical approaches to science fiction (sf); and finally a collection of essays exploring some of the issues and concerns which have been considered by both critics and writers to be intrinsic to the genre.
I was a bit disappointed at first - the volume begins with a "chronology" that starts off in 1516 with Thomas More's Utopia, but neglects Margaret Cavendish's 1666 publication of The Blazing World. At least Mary Shelley was included. (Though I must acknowledge that Cavendish and several other women who wrote utopias and scientific romances in the time before science fiction became a recognised genre are mentioned in the book's first essay, "Science Fiction before the Genre" by Brian Stableford.) However, things improved from there, for the most part.
After Stableford's quick survey of early science-fictional works, from Francis Bacon and Cavendish to H. G. Wells, Brian Attebery' contribution discusses the era of the pulp magazines, beginning with Hugo Gernsbach's Amazing Stories. Attebery reminds us that for over 30 years, magazines were the primary venue for science fiction. Short stories, novelettes, and novellas dominated the field, and most novels were first serialised in magazines before they were published as complete works.
The next chapter in the "history section," Damien Broderick's "New Wave and backwash: 1960-1980 addresses the excitement of the New Wave of the 1960s and its influences on science fiction. John Clute's essay on the development of science fiction between 1980 and 2000 was somewhat of a disappointment, virtually ignoring the contributions of women writers during that era, and leaving out altogether the beginnings of a more inclusive understanding of science fiction.
Mark Bould provides a quick trip through the history of science fiction in film and television, beginning with the sfnal short films of such pioneers as the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès (best known for Le Voyage dans la lune), early feature-length film director Fritz Lang, and sf serials such as Flash Gordon. After discussing the "boom" in sf films in the 50s, Bould looks at the beginnings of science fiction in television before moving on to a summary of the trends in recent decades in film and TV.
In the final essay in the history section, Gary K. Wolfe offers an interesting look at the editors and publishers who have helped to shape science fiction in a way not seen in other genres. As Wolfe notes: "While relatively few readers of other genres such as mystery and romance are even aware of the names of the magazine and book editors who select and sometimes shape the texts that collectively define those fields, sf editors have from the beginning played a more visible and sometimes even celebrated role; it is perhaps indicative of this that the leading American mystery award is named the Edgar, after Edgar Allan Poe, while the most publicized sf award, the Hugo, is named after an editor and publisher, Hugo Gernsback."
Following these essays on the history of science fiction, the next section of the book focuses on a survey of various critical approaches to science fiction. In these essays, critical theories are applied to key science fictional texts, demonstrating how these theories contribute to a deeper understanding of science fiction as a genre, its history, development and themes. Specific approaches examined in this section include Marxist analysis, feminist analysis, postmodernism, and queer theory.
The final section is devoted to an overview of subgenres and common themes in science fiction. Gwyneth Jones introduces the section with an overview of the "icons of Science fiction" - as Jones defines it, "the signs which announce the genre, which warn the reader that this is a different world; and at the same time constitute that difference." These include rockets and other self-contained space habitats, and virtual environments; non-human sentiences from robots and androids to aliens; imagined ecologies; and heroes with a knowledge of science.
Also included in this section are essays examining the wide range of themes taken up by science fiction writers:
The use of life sciences from genetics to reproductive biology to ecology and the environment;
The exploration of the utopian society;
Politics, or the variety of ways in which societies may be organised, regulated and governed;
The exploration of sociocultural understandings of gender;
Examination of issues surrounding race and ethnicity; and
Exploration of religion and its place in society.
This section also includes several essays on what may be identified as subgenres of science fiction, such as "hard science fiction" and its stepchild cyberpunk, space opera, and alternative history.
One of the best aspects of this Companion, for me, was how the various contributors made extensive use of examples in their work, thus reminding the reader of books and shorter fiction read in the past, and introducing the reader to works similar in some fashion that they may not have read or even known about before.
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