Edward James (1)Reseñas

Absolutely brilliant.

A set of essays that vary in quality and subject matter. Some emphasize history of a genre or subdivision, others are more based on literary theory.

Quite heavy reading. Extremely informative and well researched as is expected of a Cambridge Companion. However there is some confusion regarding Urban fantasy and paranormal romance.

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2591385.html#cutid2

It's a jolly good and fairly short read, looking at Bujold's sf and fantasy work (arguing in passing that the Sharing Knife books are really sf rather than fantasy), and also looking at her treatment of culture, characterisation, disability / genetic modification, women / sexuality and war, leadership, and honor. It's a text in dialogue with a lot of other work, including The Vorkosigan Companion, A Reader's Companion to A Civil Campaign, Jo Walton and the author herself. It's always nice when an author you like writes a book you like about a subject you like.

This collection was informative about the history of science fiction. Like most collections the essays are unequal. I most enjoyed the Space Opera (chapter 14) and the life sciences chapter (chapter 12). Following is the chapter list. Great resource for learning and reviewing the historical progress if Science Fiction in the 20th Century. The collection was mostly European and American centric, which was appropriate for me, since matches my reading experiences.

1 Science fiction before the genre 15
brian stableford
2 The magazine era: 1926–1960 32
brian attebery
3 New Wave and backwash: 1960–1980 48
damien broderick
4 Science fiction from 1980 to the present 64
john clute
5 Film and television 79
mark bould
6 Science fiction and its editors 96
gary k. wolfe
7 Marxist theory and science fiction 113
istvan csicsery-ronay, jr
8 Feminist theory and science fiction 125
veronica hollinger
9 Postmodernism and science fiction 137
andrew m. butler
10 Science fiction and queer theory 149
wendy pearson
Part 3. Sub-genres and themes
11 The icons of science fiction 163
gwyneth jones
12 Science fiction and the life sciences 174
joan slonczewski and michael levy
13 Hard science fiction 186
kathryn cramer
14 Space opera 197
gary westfahl
15 Alternate history 209
andy duncan
16 Utopias and anti-utopias 219
edward james
17 Politics and science fiction 230
ken macleod
18 Gender in science fiction 241
helen merrick
19 Race and ethnicity in science fiction 253
elisabeth anne leonard
20 Religion and science fiction 264
farah mendlesohn

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2125825.html

an excellent set of essays on various aspects of the fantasy literature, with a very strong historical introduction (apart from a bizarre chapter on children's fantasy), a middle section on various literary approaches to the genre, and a concluding section on various subgenres or "clusters", with a much better chapter on children's fantasy. When I read books like this I want i) a better understanding of books I have already read and ii) suggestions of books I might read in the future which may appeal to me, and I was fully satisfied on both points. In particular I note that many chapters referenced Rosemary Jackson's Fantasy: The Literature of Subversion, which I must now look out for. (Other individuals with more than ten references in the index: King Arthur, Jorge Luis Borges, John Clute, Sigmund Freud, Neil Gaiman, Alan Garner, Elizabeth Hand, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Ursula K. Le Guin, C.S. Lewis, H.P. Lovecraft, George MacDonald, Farah Mendlesohn, China Miéville, Edgar Allan Poe, Philip Pullman, and way in the lead J.R.R. Tolkien.) Strongly recommended.

This issue of Foundation includes a long letter from me on sf in the media.

This collection of essays spans Pratchett's career from the 1971 publication of _The Carpet People_ to his the second Tiffany Aching book, _Hat Full of Sky_ in 2004. The various authors focus on themes, such as coming of age, the development of the geography of Discworld, and the treatment of the academic world; or on characters, such as Death and Sam Vines. Some of the essays are clearly aimed at an academic audience, others may be appreciated by any reader interested in in-depth discussion of the works. This work, is not, however, essential to a fan library.

http://ritasreviewsandruminations.blogspot.com/

Interessant en goed geschreven overzicht, met nogal zwaar accent op archeologische gegevens. Rijk geïllustreerd.
Beperking : alleen periode van 4de tot begin 7de eeuw goed uitgewerkt, daarna synopsis.½

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1398365.html

This book is precisely what it says on the tin, with a first chapter taking the genre to 1900, a second taking it to 1950, and then individual chapters for each subsequent decade, with two extra chapters for a) J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and b) Philip Pullman, J.K. Rowling and Terry Pratchett, the whole text weighing in at less than 220 pages (plus index and lists). It doesn't interrogate the nature of fantasy literature in depth (one of the authors has done that elsewhere) but does define the genre clearly and convincingly, and also looks at when and why particular sub-genres (cute animal fantasies, paranormal romance, Big Commercial Fantasy) have become popular at different times. The authors integrate children's literature and also genre films and television into the narrative; this is not just about fantasy for grownups. It would be rather a good (and inexpensive) gateway text for the reader of fantasy (and/or sf) who wanted to dip their toe into criticism.

I know I always say this, but when I read books like this I want i) a better understanding of books I have already read and ii) suggestions of books I might read in the future which may appeal to me, and I got plenty of both here; I also was provoked to start thinking (though not sufficiently to complete the thought) about the books which received popular and/or literary acclaim which I just didn't like (including Little, Big, Light, and The Sword of Shannara). Mostly I found myself nodding in agreement or realisation with just the occasional raised eyebrow - Diana Wynne Jones surely wrote more than four books in the 1970s (p.139)?

A quick and easy read. Tim raced through this right after we obtained a copy, found many interesting tidbits, and a has a new list of authors he wants to read. There are lots of lists in the appendices, which we'll be returning to again and again. All in all, a very useful summary of fantasy writing in the English-speaking world.

I had a few reasons for choosing this book as my critical text for this term. For starters, many previous students discuss it as useful, and since my crit partner was reading it this term as well, I figured it'd be a good choice, since we'd have a chance to discuss it. I was particularly excited when the book arrived and I noticed the various essays listed. This looked like a great choice.

Unfortunately, this book was very difficult to get through. I spent a lot of time thinking about why too, because I enjoy the whole scholarly aspect of the genre and enjoy reading such essays, whereas many genre writers (and readers) do not. Instead, this book sucked my brain dry.

Part of the problem stemmed from the first part of the book, which focused on the genre's history. While I did learn some new tidbits, I found the essays very dry and very laborious, especially in comparison to David Hartwell's Age of Wonders. It's odd I had problems, because Hartwell wrote his entire book, whereas The Cambridge Companion is penned by many different authors. I expected a variety of styles and tones, and yet nearly every essay was very academic, whereas Hartwell's essays spoke in laymen's terms. In both cases, I hadn't read most of the books being discussed, but only in the case of Hartwell's book did I feel that I could understand the point of the essay.

Part one, "The History," left me hungry for parts two and three, "Critical Approaches" and "Sub-Genres and Themes" respectively. And I did find some solace in the various essays in these sections. The essays "Feminist theory and Science Fiction" and "Science fiction and queer theory" really grabbed my interest, as did the essays "Science fiction and the life sciences," "Hard science fiction" (this one surprised me), "Alternate history," "Utopias and anti-utopias," and "Politics and science fiction" also caught my eye. Actually, most every essay in parts two and three offered some interesting insight and angles to the genre and its sub-genres, though in almost every case, I found the essays to be dry and brittle in tone.

Other critical theory and history books, such as Hartwell's, do a good job articulating the content of the examples it pulls from. Since I'm a relative newbie to the SF genre, there's a lot of turf I haven't covered, and when an author of an essay expounds on a story or novel I haven't read yet to make his or her point, I'm very grateful. Here, such explanation was either missing or didn't quite hit the mark, and I think the reason said explanation didn't hit the mark was because in the cases where I had read the material, I didn't see eye-to-eye with the author of the essay, or I felt the author had sidestepped his/her original point.

It's not a bad book by any means, and I don't regret reading it at all. I find that this book would make for a great companion (I mean that literally) in a classroom where the texts discussed are being read in parallel to lectures on the various subjects. In other words, this would make for an interesting textbook. Outside of the classroom, I find this to be a good jumping point, with every essay summarizing its points rather than digging for any depth (which isn't a bad thing: a book with a variety of essays must summarize to an extent, expecting readers to seek out additional material to satisfy their curiosity). The reading list provided is going to be most useful in the future, and there's plenty of resources listed as well, so The Cambridge Companion will likely be the first book I use for a reference when I'm looking for a particular title or essay about a particular subject.

I don't think this is the kind of book meant to be read in one go. It's an essay-by-essay kind of book, something to read a little bit of, then one should read something else before coming back for another essay. I think the individual essays in parts two and three are very beneficial to writers, but some writers may simply want to focus on these individual essays rather than reading the book as a whole.

http://www.nicholaswhyte.info/sf/camb.htm

We are all waiting for the third edition of the Clute/Nicholls Encyclopedia of Science Fiction to appear. In the meantime, this volume of 21 essays on various aspects of sf fulfills the two things I really want from a critical survey: it helps me better understand the sf I have already read, and gives me pointers to writers and books that I might enjoy.

Highlights for me: the sequence of five historical essays about the development of science fiction; the three essays basically about sf and sex (dressed up as "feminist theory", "queer theory" and "gender"); and Ken MacLeod's broad survey of sf and politics. I also felt that Andrew Butler's essay on "post-modernism and science fiction" succeeded by critically examining postmodernism as a concept, so that I felt I had learnt something at the end of it. Mark Bould's essay on sf in films and TV is also very good but runs out of steam in about 1970.

Two assertions that made me think: Ken MacLeod - a writer with things to say about religion? Alien - like "Bloodchild", a pregnant man story?

Low points: Istvan Csicsery-Ronay's essay on Marxist theory and science fiction is without redeeming features. The only interesting bit, his discussion of Jameson, is covered much better by Butler two chapters on. Several of the other chapters spurred me to think that had I the time and library resources I would have liked to try and do a better job.

General bias: Well, one can quibble about the omissions (graphic novels; Christopher Priest) but the top four names in the index, ranked by numbers of cross-references, are Heinlein, Le Guin, Wells and Asimov, which seems to me pretty fair. Given the collection's emphasis on issues of sex and sexuality, it's not so very surprising to find Joanna Russ in fifth place, but she is followed by the firmly traditional choices of John W. Campbell, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick, and E.E. "Doc" Smith. I would have thought that fans who want to read more broadly about sf, but feel alienated by the Clute lit-crit stuff (as I saw it referred to somewhere; I am not among this number), will find enough in this book to make them feel they got their money's worth.½

Read and digested carefully: short-format summary of major trends in genre.