The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories [Paperback]

These 30 SF tales, arranged chronologically from 1903 to 1990, cover a typically wide and uneven range in the genre. The omission of some authors might raise eyebrows--notably Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, and Robert A. Heinlein, all known for their short fiction. Only three women are represented: C. L. Moore (whose The Piper's Son is written under the collaborative pseudonym Lewis Padgett), Ursula K. Le Guin and Racoona Sheldon (Alice Sheldon, better known under the James Tiptree Jr. pseudonym). Only Sheldon's The Screwfly Solution, a devastatingly scary story about misogyny gone mad, dates from the past 20 years, during which women have made serious progress in the genre; thus, the final third of the book is less representative than it might be. Standouts include Le Guin's 0. Henry-esque The Dowry of the Angyar, Gene Wolfe's frightening How the Whip Came Back, H. G. Wells's anticipation of modern weapons in The Land Ironclads, Thomas M. Disch's insightful Problems of Creativeness, George R.R. Martin's fascinating religious study The Way of Cross and Dragon and Frederik Pohl's The Tunnel Under the World, which opens with the now-classic line, On the morning of June 15th, Guy Burckhardt woke up screaming out of a dream.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From H.G. Wells's "The Land Ironclads" (1903) to David Brin's "Piecework" (1990), this collection of 30 sf stories gives a chronological sampling of 20th-century speculative fiction.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review from previous edition: "both authoritative and audacious, up-to-date and historically wise, the best yet introduction to a bewildering field" --Greg Benford

"travels through ninety years' development from mechanical to fantastical ... first rate" --Daily Telegraph

"ideal ... even contains much to convert the sceptics, with its survey of highlights from Wells to Kipling, via Arthur C. Clarke and J.G. Ballard, to David Brin" --Independent on Sunday

"[Tom Shippey's] new anthology not only is useful and important, it illuminates the field with the editor's insights and selections." --James Gunn

'As good an introduction to SF as you can buy.' Iain Banks The definitive collection of the twentieth-century's most characteristic genre-from H.G. Wells's prophetic vision of technological warfare to contemporary cyberspace, and up-to-the-minute myths of genetic engineering.

Tom Shippey inherited J. R. R. Tolkien's Chair of Medieval English Language at the University of Leeds, where he taught the syllabus Tolkien had set up. He now holds the Walter J. Ong Chair of Humanities at St Louis University, Missouri, specializing in Medieval Literature, Old English Arthurian and Romance Literature, Fantasy, and Science Fiction. He has written and edited numerous books, including J. R. R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (2001), The Road to Middle-earth (second edition,1992), The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories (reissue, 2003), and Fiction 2000: Cyberpunk and the Future of Narrative (co-edited with George Slusser, 1993).