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Very nice review for Mark from Analog:
C. M. Kornbluth: The Life and Works of
a Science Fiction Visionary
Mark Rich
McFarland (www.mcfarlandpub.com),
451 pages, $39.95 (trade paperback)
ISBN: 978-0-7864-4393-2
Genre: Nonfiction
Cyril (C. M.) Kornbluth was one of the pivotal figures of American science fiction. He was there at the beginning, those late-1930s days that marked the launch of Amazing Stories, the foundation of the Futurians, and the start of so many careers: Isaac Asimov, David A. Kyle, Sam Moskowitz, Frederik Pohl, Richard Wilson, Donald A. Wollheim. Kornbluth would easily take his place among those hallowed names. Two of his solo stories, “The Little Black Bag” (Astounding, 1950) and “The Marching Morons” (1951), are classics and as popular today as when they were written. His collaborations with Frederik Pohl, most notably The Space Merchants (1952) and Gladiator-At-Law (1954), are equally well regarded, as is his solo novel The Syndic (1953).
When Kornbluth died in March 1958, at the age of 35, his loss was felt throughout the science fiction community. If he had lived, he would undoubtedly have been hailed as one of the superstars of the field.
Mark Rich has written a very detailed yet highly readable biography of this exceptional writer, which is itself a mini-history of the early decades of science fiction. Along the way, he includes commentary on just about every short story, novelette, and novel that Kornbluth produced, alone or in collaboration, under a variety of pseudonyms. A scholarly text (with the requisite 40 pages of notes) that reads like a novel, Rich’s book is nothing short of a delight.
If you remember anything of that time, this will be a nostalgic journey for you; those of us who had the misfortune to be born after Kornbluth died can only marvel at this now-gone world and the geniuses who inhabited it. The book is a bit pricey, but no fan of the history of science fiction (you know who you are) can afford to be without it.
Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science fiction. Show all posts
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Science fiction and foresight
I happened to be quite sick earlier this week and ended up spending quite a bit of time lolling about with little energy to do anything. Sleep eluded be because of congestion and aching body and so I tried reading a book. Some might gasp at such audacity in this age of instant information in the micro-doses of tweets, but, in fear of stating the obvious, I am a blogger, not a tweeter, and so I relish the long form.
I actually ended up rampaging through two huge (1,000+ pages) books while actually ill, and two smaller books while improving. Three of these happened to be books I had read before, and recent conversations or events prompted me to take them up again after many years. Retreading old territory might have been helped by the fact that I was in no shape or mood to go peruse the offerings at the local used book stores.
At the time, especially which actively sick, I viewed these as a fun romp that diverted my mind, but now I am interested in how the three re-reads treated the issue of communication, particularly in today's world of e-mail, Facebook, and those giant brains lurking behind the internet where all of our missives are saved in perpetuity.
The first book, Battlefield Earth
, by L. Ron Hubbard (no Scientology in this tome), is set in the year 3000 with an alien race that has taken over Earth and the story follows how the remnants of humans quest to take back their own led by one incredibly smart dude. What interested me in hindsight, and I think highlighted by a re-read of Asimov's Foundation
immediately following Battlefield Earth, is the total reliance in Battlefield Earth on physical forms of communication. Communications between worlds were printed, sensor readouts were printed, little messages rolling out on long strips of tape. Shredders were a means of controlling the passing of information into unfriendly hands. Given the publication date of 1982, the context of the writing is clear because the first Macintosh computer wasn't introduced until 1984, fax machines didn't become really affordable until the mid-1980's, and e-mail and the internet weren't widely available until the 1990's. Even when these machines and services came available, they used dot matrix printers rolling reams of perforated papers or heat sensitive tape.
The book is filled with other wonderful gizmos and technology and I'm stuck on the means of communication. But then, like I said, I read Asimov's Foundation immediately following Battlefield Earth, and what do I find? Little ticker tape communications coiling out of little capsules that were delivered physically. The echo through four decades from Asimov to Hubbard was remarkable but the question in my mind is whether these major authors in the world of science fiction were constrained by the methods of communication in their respective experiences or were they actually so foresightful as to know that we may want to be able to control our personal information a bit more discreetly?
I actually ended up rampaging through two huge (1,000+ pages) books while actually ill, and two smaller books while improving. Three of these happened to be books I had read before, and recent conversations or events prompted me to take them up again after many years. Retreading old territory might have been helped by the fact that I was in no shape or mood to go peruse the offerings at the local used book stores.
At the time, especially which actively sick, I viewed these as a fun romp that diverted my mind, but now I am interested in how the three re-reads treated the issue of communication, particularly in today's world of e-mail, Facebook, and those giant brains lurking behind the internet where all of our missives are saved in perpetuity.
The first book, Battlefield Earth
, by L. Ron Hubbard (no Scientology in this tome), is set in the year 3000 with an alien race that has taken over Earth and the story follows how the remnants of humans quest to take back their own led by one incredibly smart dude. What interested me in hindsight, and I think highlighted by a re-read of Asimov's Foundation immediately following Battlefield Earth, is the total reliance in Battlefield Earth on physical forms of communication. Communications between worlds were printed, sensor readouts were printed, little messages rolling out on long strips of tape. Shredders were a means of controlling the passing of information into unfriendly hands. Given the publication date of 1982, the context of the writing is clear because the first Macintosh computer wasn't introduced until 1984, fax machines didn't become really affordable until the mid-1980's, and e-mail and the internet weren't widely available until the 1990's. Even when these machines and services came available, they used dot matrix printers rolling reams of perforated papers or heat sensitive tape.The book is filled with other wonderful gizmos and technology and I'm stuck on the means of communication. But then, like I said, I read Asimov's Foundation immediately following Battlefield Earth, and what do I find? Little ticker tape communications coiling out of little capsules that were delivered physically. The echo through four decades from Asimov to Hubbard was remarkable but the question in my mind is whether these major authors in the world of science fiction were constrained by the methods of communication in their respective experiences or were they actually so foresightful as to know that we may want to be able to control our personal information a bit more discreetly?
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