From Heinlein to Here

By James E. Gunn

Book Overview

Now in Paperback
Between an ancient Roman's trip to the moon and the fantastic tales of H.G. Wells lies a journey through time and space and an awesome evolution in scientific thinking. From Gilgamesh's search for immortality to Lucian's odyssey on the moon; from Jonathan Swift's hilarious satire on scientists in Gulliver's Travels to Mary Shelley's horrifying description of a scientist who has gone too far in Frankenstein from Edgar Allan Poe's balloon trip in the year 2848 to Jules Verne's prophesies of the impact of scientific inventions on future civilization; from Edward Bellamy's utopian escape from the industrial Revolution to H.G. Wells's magnificent story of Earth threatened by an inescapable menace-here are the chief ancestors of the modern science fiction story. For the first time, these and other key works are gathered together in one anthology, complete with revealing commentary on the authors, their eras, and the role each played in establishing what we today recognize as science fiction.

The Road to Science Fiction is a six-volume anthology of science fiction that covers the development of science fiction from its earliest prototypes in the Sumerian Gilgamesh and the Greek epics to approximately 1990.

Created originally to provide anthologies for use in classes, these volumes have become mass-market sellers as well, since they are not only a source of outstanding stories but also explain what constitutes science fiction, how it developed and the contribution the authors and the stories have made to the evolution of science fiction.

Volume 3, From Heinlein to Here, covers the period from 1940 to 1975, beginning in the Golden Age of Science Fiction and ending at a time when SF book publication was just beginning to explode and SF films (2001: A Space Odyssey; Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, E.T.) would soon dominate box offices.

Cloth edition previously published in 1979.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0810842459
• ISBN13: 9780810842458
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Scarecrow Press
• Length: 576 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Not Free SF Reader

Gunn's second volume in this series is concerned with the early twentieth century writers like Wells and Burroughs and the birth of the science fiction magazines from Amazing to Astounding. There is a reasonable length introduction and each story has a piece placing the work and the author in time, with an overview and some biography. This is all very readable, and probably more directed to include the general reader. There are some excerpts from novels, too, which will annoy some. Some good tales in these early stories, bit nothing outstanding. Road To Science Fiction 2 : The New Accelerator - H. G. Wells Road To Science Fiction 2 : The Machine Stops - E. M. Forster Road To Science Fiction 2 : The Chessmen of Mars [short story] - Edgar Rice Burroughs Road To Science Fiction 2 : The People of the Pit - A. Merritt Road To Science Fiction 2 : The Red One - Jack London Road To Science Fiction 2 : Dagon - H. P. Lovecraft Road To Science Fiction 2 : The Tissue-Culture King - Julian Huxley Road To Science Fiction 2 : The Revolt of the Pedestrians - David H. Keller Road To Science Fiction 2 : Last and First Men [short story] - Olaf Stapledon Road To Science Fiction 2 : Brave New World [short story]) - Aldous Huxley Road To Science Fiction 2 : A Martian Odyssey [short story] - Stanley G. Weinbaum Road To Science Fiction 2 : Twilight - John W. Campbell, Jr. Road To Science Fiction 2 : Proxima Centauri - Murray Leinster Road To Science Fiction 2 : What's It Like Out There? - Edmond Hamilton Road To Science Fiction 2 : With Folded Hands - Jack Williamson Road To Science Fiction 2 : Hyperpilosity - L. Sprague de Camp Road To Science Fiction 2 : The Faithful - Lester del Rey Road To Science Fiction 2 : Black Destroyer - A. E. van Vogt Road To Science Fiction 2 : Nightfall [short story] - Isaac Asimov Road To Science Fiction 2 : Requiem - Robert A. Heinlein Flash tonic. 3.5 out of 5 Can't do anything ourselves. 3 out of 5 ""You deserted us, Tara of Helium," said John Carter. "It is not what the guests of John Carter should expect."" 3 out of 5 Explorer gets horribly lost. 3.5 out of 5 "Possessed of more than a cursory knowledge of astronomy, he took a sick mans pleasure in speculating as to the dwellers on the unseen worlds of those incredibly remote suns, to haunt whose houses of light, life came forth, a shy visitant, from the rayless crypts of matter. He could no more apprehend limits to time than bounds to space. No subversive radium speculations had shaken his steady scientific faith in the conservation of energy and the indestructibility of matter. Always and forever must there have been stars. And surely, in that cosmic ferment, all must be comparatively alike, comparatively of the same substance, or substances, save for the freaks of the ferment. All must obey, or compose, the same laws that ran without infraction through the entire experience of man. Therefore, he argued and agreed, must worlds and life be appanages to all the suns

Essential

An essential anthology that cover the "golden age" of SF (1940-1975). Every true SF fans needs this.

Road to Science Fiction: From Heinlein to Here

After reading this as a text for a college course, I lost my copy. Then found one again and was amazed how still fresh and interesting these short stories are. I recommend this volume as a good start to reading Sci-Fi as the stories are some of the best ever and will only leave the reader hungry for more. The British Writer's version is a good one, too.

A Good Sci-Fi Collection

I bought this book after reading the Ray Bradbury story, and haven't regretted it. I recently started reading it again and discovered even more greats. Get this if you like Science Fiction at all.