Science Fiction: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides for the Perplexed) by Sherryl Vint

Science Fiction: A Guide for the Perplexed (Guides for the Perplexed) Reviews

• 
  Paul Bryant

  BEST SF STORIES (PART ONE) : MY CHOICE
  
  Just a little list for all the SF fans out there. This is the first 100 and just goes up to 1968, I’ll do the next 100 later. If you have your own list or if you see some blatant omissions please let me know.
  A very useful place to check where these stories can be found is here:
  
  
  http://www.philsp.com/homeville/ISFAC...
  
  
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  1845
  The Facts in the Case of M Valdemar : Edgar Allen Poe
  
  1939
  The Gnarly Man : L Sprague de Camp
  Note : compare "Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo?" by Gerald Kersh – exactly the same idea
  
  1941
  Prescience : Nelson
  Nightfall : Isaac Asimov
  The Portable Phonograph : Walter van Tillburg Clark
  
  1943
  Mimsy were the Borogoves : Henry Kuttner & C L Moore
  
  1948
  Brooklyn Project : William Tenn
  
  1949
  Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius : Jorge Luis Borges
  The Lottery in Babylon : Jorge Luis Borges
  The Library of Babel : Jorge Luis Borges
  Funes the Memorious : Jorge Luis Borges
  
  Note : did Borges write science fiction? Not all the time, but I would say these four stories are SF
  
  The Sound Machine : Roald Dahl
  The Forgotten Enemy : Arthur C Clarke
  
  1950
  Build Up Logically : Howard Schoenfeld
  Skirmish : Clifford D Simak
  The Mindworm : C M Kornbluth
  Coming Attraction : Fritz Leiber
  
  1951
  The Earth Men : Ray Bradbury
  The Third Expedition (also known as Mars is Heaven) : Ray Bradbury
  There will Come Soft Rains : Ray Bradbury
  The Monkey Wrench : Gordon R Dickson
  Protected Species : HB Fyfe
  The Fun they Had : Isaac Asimov
  
  1952
  Zero Hour : Ray Bradbury
  The Long Rain : Ray Bradbury
  What's it Like Out There? : Edmund Hamilton
  Command Performance : Walter M Miller
  Dumb Waiter : Walter M Miller
  The Snowball Effect : Katherine Maclean
  Note : this story allegedly invented pyramid selling
  
  1953
  Lot : Ward Moore
  The Liberation of Earth : William Tenn
  Sky Lift : Robert Heinlein
  It's a GOOD Life : Jerome Bixby
  
  1954
  I Made You : Walter M Miller
  Whatever Happened to Corporal Cuckoo? : Gerald Kersh
  Note : cf The Gnarly Man above
  Foster, You're Dead : Philip K Dick
  Pyramid : Robert Abernathy
  
  1955
  The [Widget], the [Wadget] and Boff : Theodore Sturgeon
  The Game of Rat and Dragon : Cordwainer Smith
  Pottage : Zenna Henderson
  The Star : Arthur C Clarke*
  Grandpa : Howard Schmidt
  
  1956
  The Traveller : Ray Bradbury
  The Man Upstairs : Ray Bradbury
  Born of Man and Woman : Richard Matheson
  Jokester : Isaac Asimov
  The Country of the Kind : Damon Knight
  
  1957
  Our Feathered Friends : Philip Macdonald
  Our Kind of Knowledge : Brian Aldiss
  The Failed Men : Brian W Aldiss
  The Other Celia : Theodore Sturgeon
  
  1958
  To Marry Medusa : Theodore Sturgeon
  But who can replace a man? : Brian W Aldiss
  When you're Smiling : Theodore Sturgeon
  The Nine Billion Names of God : Arthur C Clarke
  The Cold Equations : Tom Godwin
  Space-Time for Springers : Fritz Leiber
  The Advent on Channel 12 : C M Kornbluth
  Or all the Seas with Oysters : Avram Davidson
  Unhuman Sacrifice : Katherine Maclean
  
  1959
  A Planet named Shayol : Cordwainer Smith
  Flowers for Algernon : Daniel Keyes*
  
  note : probably the most beloved story in all of SF
  
  The Big Front Yard : Clifford Simak*
  For Love : Algis Budrys
  The Store of the Worlds : Robert Sheckley
  "All you Zombies…" : Robert Heinlein
  
  1960
  The Handler : Damon Knight
  Old Hundredth : Brian W Aldiss
  The Martyr : Poul Anderson
  The First Men : Howard Fast
  Common Time : James Blish
  The Certificate : Avram Davidson
  Build-Up : J G Ballard
  The Voices of Time : J G Ballard
  The Sound Sweep : J G Ballard
  
  1961
  Harrison Bergeron : Kurt Vonnegut
  The First Days of May : Claude Veillot
  The Short Life : Francis Donovan
  Hobbyist : Eric Frank Russell
  Mr F is Mr F : J G Ballard
  
  1962
  Christmas Treason : James White
  Seven Day Terror : R A Lafferty
  An Alien Agony (aka The Streets of Ashkelon) : Harry Harrison
  The Garden of Time : J G Ballard
  
  1963
  Drunkboat : Cordwainer Smith
  The Small World of Lewis Stillman : William F Nolan
  1964
  Descending : Thomas Disch
  The Dead Lady of Clown Town : Cordwainer Smith
  The Illuminated Man : J G Ballard
  Billenium : J G Ballard
  
  1965
  Man Skin : M S Waddell
  Slow Tuesday Night : R A Lafferty
  
  Note : Notable 1965 omission : “Repent, Harlequin” Said the Ticktockman by Harlan Ellison – I think most of HE’s stuff has aged very badly and this one especially. Other notable omissions for the same reason : I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream and The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (Oh those titles)
  
  1966
  A Two Timer : David Masson
  The Squirrel Cage : Thomas M Disch
  Day Million : Frederick Pohl
  
  1967
  The Great Clock : Langdon Jones
  Light of Other Days : Bob Shaw
  The Jigsaw Man : Larry Niven
  
  1968
  Legends of Smith's Burst : Brian W Aldiss
  Kyrie : Poul Anderson
  
  
  *Hugo winner
• 
  Maggie Gordon

  My free reading time has been eaten by podcasts and trying to get through a truly terrifyingly large stack of books of an academic project (yea for signing up to learn two entirely new areas of theory that I have never touched on before!). I don't usually review my academic books, but this was such a great overview of science fiction literary theory and history that I felt it needed more boosting on Goodreads.
  
  Vint has popped up a few times in my research lately, and she's an expert on this particular field of interest. In this Guide, she walks readers through some of the basic theoretical foundations of science fiction, discussing the debates over its definition, the clashes over what topics it should include, and reviewing the work of several major academics on the subject. It's fairly accessible for an academic book, and manages to balance the brevity needed for an introductory text with information that is significantly in depth enough that readers can actually get something out of it. Despite being a long time reader of science fiction, I learned a lot from this short volume that will help shape my understanding of sf in the future. So if you're a fan of the genre, I highly recommend this informative jaunt through the field!
• 
  Dan Trefethen

  This short book is a survey course oriented to college (and perhaps senior high school) students to introduce them to the major topics of science fiction. It does not document lengthy lists of books, but rather discusses the broad themes that SF is taking up. As the author puts it, she is not so much interested in what SF has been, as in what it can do: the focus it puts on contemporary issues and speculation as to how we can work to improve things.
  
  The book's chapters feature seven main topics that SF has persistently dealt with: utopianism, futurology, colonialism, robots & AI, genomics, environmental change, and economics. That last topic may be a surprise, but a number of SF books have looked at how economies operate and how monetary systems are managed.
  
  This topic-based focus provides a good overview of the changing nature of SF through the decades, and includes examples of fiction that are quite contemporary. (The most recent reference dates from 2019.)
  
  The book's academic focus is made plain by the author's use of unusual words that she often does not define, but which need explanation to a student reader. For instance, do you know what 'constitutive' means? It's not defined but must be understood within the context of the text. Also, the list of further reading is weighted heavily towards academic analysis of science fiction and technological and sociological topics. For the names of SF fiction titles, a reader must peruse the text for examples related to the author's discussion of a theme. An improvement would have been a short list at the end of each chapter that cites fiction titles to illustrate the chapter's theme.
• 
  Jorun Bork

  An interesting literary guide to the science fiction genre.
• 
  Zachary

  Rated so high because there were a lot of great recommendations in the text for prominent sci fi works. I also liked the analysis and may come back in the future for insight into my own writing.
• 
  Jennifer

  This is an excellent text for students new to the sf genre(s). Vint covers major topics, authors, and terminology with an accessible, but not simplistic, style. Students already familiar with sf topics and themes can still benefit from her text's organization, though some may wish to seek additional sources to elaborate further.
• 
  Christopher Hellstrom

  A great academic overview of SF, the "literature of ideas." More accessible than Vint's Bodies of Tomorrow (which is also worth checking out)