From Library Journal
This anthology contains 45 short stories, mostly post-World War II and mostly American, representing the earliest writers in the genre (H.G. Wells, C.S. Lewis), Golden Age authors (Poul Anderson, A.E. Van Vogt), hard science and cyberpunk writers (William Gibson, Bruce Sterling), women authors (James Tiptree Jr., Connie Willis), and writers known outside science fiction (Michael Shaara, E.M. Forster). In his introduction, Hartwell places sf in the context of literary history and prefaces each story with a short biographical and bibliographical essay. While he purposely omits certain authors who have been heavily anthologized (Ray Bradbury, Ursula K. Le Guin), Hartwell has chosen excellent examples representing 100 years of science fiction. Highly recommended for sf and literature collections.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Science fiction's sibling genre, detective fiction, has thrived much more spectacularly in the past 100 years, but sf is the characteristic genre of the twentieth century for the simple reason that so many sf dreams have been realized during it. Sf seems predictive, and the relentless futurism of the twentieth century is indissolubly married to it. Experienced sf anthologist Hartwell combs the century and the world to amass a celebratory collection that rather resembles one of Norton's whopping anthologies for college lit courses. If some entries in it are overfamiliar (e.g., Forster's "The Machine Stops"), others by very influential figures--especially writers of languages other than English, such as the Belgian J.-H. Rosny aine(according to critic Damon Knight, the true father of sf in French) and the Russian Alexander Kuprin--are barely known, and not because they are not excellent. A superb survey for the uninitiated and a definitive sampler for confirmed fans.
Ray Olson
