AboutGeoff Expertise I have read most of the short stories and books produced by the Top 80-100 authors in the SF field, as well as more obscure authors such as Robert Sheckley, and can answer any queries regarding author, title or theme of a science fiction short story(or novel). I can also answer questions on the history and influence of Science Fiction past to present, as well as on specific SF genres such as Cyberpunk,Golden Age SF, H G Wells-style scientific romances etc. I do not answer questions about books/stories set in the Science-Fantasy or Fantasy genres.
Experience Am currently doing a writing course for writing Science Fiction Books, with the Writer's Bureau in the UK.<
Education/Credentials Am considering becoming an amateur writer of Science Fiction. Other than that, no academic credentials, I simply have read a multitude of SF books and stories, with an emphasis on stories from H G Wells to the 1980s.
Question I need to find out as much as I can about science fiction, for example, how it started, great authors and different types. Can you help me?
Answer I'll assume, for now, that you are a total beginner as far as Science Fiction is concerned, and so just first
give you a basic outline re examples of vitally important SF authors to read. If you want more data, re writing an essay rather than just finding great SF authors, feel free to ask another question re all this, of course.
SF actually started out with ancient classical mythology. For example, the first robot is mentioned in Ancient Greek mythology,namely "Talos" the Man of Bronze.
Voltaire and a few others, like Jonathan Swift, wrote "joke" stories re Science Fiction, such as "Gulliver's Travels" etc. This was around the 18th century.
"Genuine" SF however started with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein novel, as the monster is broguht to life by electricity.
There then came a period of "scientific romances". Edgar Allan Poe wrote a number of those, and there's an anthology of his SF short stories, though he was never an exclusive SF author, more horror-oriented. Many other authors belong to this category. H G Well's books and short stories are an absolutely essential read as he is widely regarded as the Father of Science Fiction. He invented most of the SF themes of today, so read everything you can by him(of his SF work , that is). The British authors Aldous Huxley and John Wyndham were part of this movement - Huxley's book "Brave New World" is an essential read in order to understand SF.
Afert H G Wells, comes the SF magazine phase, namely the "Golden Age", starting c.1930, but mainly centring on the 1940-1950 period. This was heavily influenced by John
W Campbell, who encouraged authors such as Isaac Asimov, Murray Leinster, Jack Williamson etc. Another author of that period is Arthur C Clarke. In my humble opinion, Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov are highly overrated authors, as their stories/novels are often written for
young children in mind, and have poor plots etc.,
but they may be useful for beginners to SF - do read Isaac Asimov's Foudnation series, though.
The best SF short story of all time is routinely considered to be John W Campbell's "Who Goes There". It is an amazing read. Here below are the anthologies it's appeared in:-
Who Goes There?, Shasta 1948
Uberwindung Von Raum Und Zeit, ed. Gotthard Gunther, West Germany: Karl Rauch 1952
Who Goes There? and Other Stories, Dell 1955
Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume 2A, ed. Ben Bova, Doubleday 1973
The Best of John W. Campbell, Sidgwick & Jackson 1973
Science Fiction Hall of Fame: The Novellas, Book 1, ed. Ben Bova, Sphere 1975
The Science Fiction Roll of Honor, ed. Frederik Pohl, Random House 1975
The Best of John W. Campbell, Ballantine 1976
StarStreak: Stories of Space, ed. Betty M. Owen, Scholastic 1979
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Treasury, ed. Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg & Joseph D. Olander, Bonanza/Crown 1980
They Came from Outer Space, ed. Jim Wynorski, Doubleday 1980
The Future in Question, ed. Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg & Joseph D. Olander, Fawcett 1980
The above website is very useful for tracking down an author's complete works.
After c.1950, other non-Campbell SF magazines came into being, such as Galaxy, Fanatsy and Science Fiction. These centred less on hard SF(technology-driven SF), and more on soft SF(SF from a social or psychological context. The latter genre had greater flexibility than hard Sf in the Campbell era. For example, Campbell used to state that any SF work offered to him, must always have the humans winning in the end, not the aliens. Campbell also used to frown on religion, whereas the editors of Galaxy etc. were happy to include religion-based Sf works, such as Phlip Jose Farmer's "RiverWorld" series of novels.
And SF humorists such as Robert Sheckley(read his brilliant short stories, not his dire novels!) and William Tenn(read his novella "Of Men and Monsters", are worth reading,in particular). Other authors of that period include Fred Pohl(better SF short stories than SF books), Frank Herbert(who wrote the best SF book of all time, "Dune") , C M Kornbluth, Kate Wilhelm, Katherine Maclean. For a really quirky read, try reading the SF books/stories by Cordwainer Smith - it's really eccentric stuff, and well-liked by SF readers in general. Phlip K Dick is also extremely quirky - to be honest, his short stories are better than his novels, though.
The SF magazine period pretty much died out in the 70s. Since then SF authors worth reading are Bruce Sterling(his "Schismatrix" book is outstanding), William Gibson's Neuromancer, Iain M Bank's Culture series of books etc. The first two writers were the pioneers of the Cyberpunk movement of SF, which usually described a world gone mad due to vast increases in technology altering the human population, with vast corporations controlling people instead of governments(usually Japan figures prominently in this genre). Another great modern author is David Brin- his"Uplift" series is a must-read.
Here are a couple of websites which go into detail re the various stages of SF:-
