GENERAL REFERENCE WORKS, CRITICISM, AND HISTORY
At the time of the initial drafting of this book, I was a completist in the SF field in the nonfiction area. As of 1979, I owned and had read or skimmed every book published on SF or related topics, and had furthermore skimmed every article in all the journals, and had read most of the book reviews for the previous twenty years. By the early 1990s I was still reading book reviews, skimming some of the journals but skipping most critical works and reading only the literary histories and bibliographies. I had also become a consultant on many of the reference volumes. The question is not, then, one of listing my sources but of listing for your benefit those works that you should know about to investigate SF further.
A. Two outstanding general reference works:
1. Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction, second edition. Neil Barron, ed. New York and London: Bowker, 1981.
This is the essential one-volume guide to books in the SF field. The third edition, 1994, is updated in the contemporary section (it covers some newer books) but is inferior in some other respects—it is otherwise shorter, eliminating for instance all international information.
2. The Science Fiction Encyclopedia. Peter Nichols, general ed. New York: Doubleday, 1979. In 1993 a rewritten second edition appeared in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (New York: St. Martin’s), twice as long and twice as good, edited by Nichols and John Clute. This is the essential one-volume guide to people, events, books, etc. For the initiated, this is the best book to own. But you have to know what you are looking for and who wrote what before you can use it easily. A CD-Rom version is available from Grolier.
B. Criticism and History:
1. In Search of Wonder, second edition. Damon Knight. Chicago: Advent, 1967. All informed discussion of the SF field begins here.
2. Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction. Brian W. Aldiss. New York: Doubleday, 1973. Witty, ironic, iconoclastic, knowledgeable “history” of the field that promulgates the theory that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, rather than the works of Poe or Verne, is the first true work of SF, in part because it in particular leads up to him and his friends. The revised and expanded edition (Trillion Year Spree) is augmented by many plot summaries but drops the ironic subtitle and is otherwise not superior to the original.
3. Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction. James E. Gunn. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1975. The general facts of what the science fiction field has always seen as its history, along with loads of good pictures. The best introductory history.
4. Survey of Science Fiction Literature. 5 vols. Frank N. Magill, ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Salem Press, 1979. This massive work contains 500 essays by 133 contributors on every book through the 1970s that anyone has ever called a major (or even moderately important) SF work. A gold mine of plot summaries and uneven criticism. A new and updated edition has been announced for the late 1990s.
5. Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: A Checklist, 1700–1991. 3 vols. Robert Reginald, compiler. Detroit: Gale, 1979, 1992. These oversize volumes list every book of SF or fantasy in the period covered. The second volume gives short biographies for every author listed about whom information can be found. For every reference library.
These reference and critical works contain the sum of what we know about SF. They also deliver what they promise and tell you how to find out more if you need to. The international literary history of the development of SF is only partly written even now, and much other work remains to be done. Almost every nonspecialized work on SF is merely half-good; these are among the exceptions.