The Road To Science Fiction 5: The British Way | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
James Gunn | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
White Wolf Books, 622 pages | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A review by Steven H Silver
In his introduction, Gunn is careful to delineate the major differences between British and American science fiction. Until
the 1960s, British science fiction was the fiction of pessimism while the US generally produced more optimistic
writings. There were several reasons for this, one of the major ones being the American influence of Hugo Gernsback
which Gunn seems to feel was missing for British authors. Britain was also more introspective and retrospective, perhaps
due to their decline as a world power, particularly after the Second World War. Gunn quotes Brian Stableford as
pointing out that although one of Britain's allies created the atomic bomb, it was still someone other than the
British. Conversely, American science fiction authors were looking to the future as their nation rose in prominence.
Gunn also makes the point that Michael Moorcock's New Worlds-style of science fiction was not particularly successful
in the short term, but did influence several science fiction authors in both the US and the UK whose careers took off
following the heyday of Moorcock's experiment.
Gunn's selection of stories is generally pretty good and gives a nice taste of the literature coming out of England
throughout the past century. For the early years, Gunn presents excerpts from a variety of novels which dealt with
SF themes, eventually giving way to short stories as that market grew. Although the general perception is that
British SF began with Wells, Gunn has included five works which pre-date Wells.
In an anthology of this sort, publication date is important. While most anthologies frequently hide the date of
original publication on copyright pages, if it is included at all, Gunn has included the original publication date
on the table of contents, making it clear to the reader what the world situation was when the work was originally published.
Before each story, Gunn provides a short biography of the author with a brief description of their work. These
introductions are interesting and, in many cases, too brief, leaving the reader wanting more information about the
author they are about to read. Perhaps a way of satisfying the reader's curiosity would have been to include a
bibliography of the authors represented so the reader could track down more of their literature when they've finished
reading the anthology.
Perhaps the major fault of the book is a sin of omission. Gunn admits that the book was compiled some time ago and
therefore it only publishes stories which had seen print prior to 1986. Unfortunately, a new generation of British
science fiction authors have arisen since then who have added an important chapter to the history of British SF. While
many of these tend to write at the novel length, such as Terry Pratchett, Peter F. Hamilton and Douglas Adams, others
consistently publish quality short fiction. Names such as Stephen Baxter, Mary Gentle, Nicola Griffith, Kim Newman and
Paul McAuley all spring to mind. Nevertheless, none are mentioned. Neither does Gunn mention Interzone, which
got its start in 1982.
Steven H Silver is one of the founders and judges for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History. He sits on concoms for Windycon, Chicon 2000 and Clavius in 2001 and is co-chair of Picnicon 1998. Steven will be serving as the Programming Chairman for Chicon 2000. In addition to maintaining several bibliographies and the Harry Turtledove website, Steven is trying to get his short stories published and has recently finished his first novel. He lives at home with his wife and 3200 books. He is available for convention panels. |
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