Post by auntym on Jan 28, 2018 18:24:06 GMT -6
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21 Books That Changed Science Fiction And Fantasy Forever
by Ryan Plummer and Madeleine Monson-Rosen
7-25-14
Speculative fiction is the literature of change and discovery. But every now and then, a book comes along that changes the rules of science fiction and fantasy for everybody. Certain great books inspire scores of authors to create something new. Here are 21 of the most influential science fiction and fantasy books.
These are books which clearly inspired a generation of authors, and made a huge splash either in publishing success or critical acclaim. Or both. And these are in no particular order.
1) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Top image: Magrathea from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, art by Microbot 23 on Deviant Art.
The first (maybe only) science-fiction-comedy-multimedia phenomenon, Hitchhiker's was a radio drama before it was a book, and the book sold 250,000 copies in its first three months.The Guardian named it one of the 1000 novels everyone must read, and a BBC poll ranked it fourth, out of 200, in their Big Read poll.
Ted Gioia comments on Adams' hilarious book about the trials and tribulations of Arthur Dent, the survivor of a destroyed Earth, across the universe:
No book better epitomizes the post-heroic tone of sci-fi than Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As the name indicates, a certain louche bohemianism permeates its pages. This is star-hopping on the cheap, pursued by those aiming not to conquer the universe, but merely sample its richeson fewer than thirty Altairian dollars per day. You can trace the lineage of many later science fictions books, with their hip and irreverent tone, back to this influential and much beloved predecessor.
2) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Verne's whole career is full of works that have inspired generations of authors — but this tale of the underwater adventure of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus has also had a profound effect on science, and inspired real scientific advancement.
In the introduction to William Butcher's book Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Self Ray Bradbury wrote that, "We are all, in one way, children of Jules Verne. His name never stops. At aerospace or NASA gatherings, Verne is the verb that moves us to space."
Verne translator and scholar F.P. Walter added:
For many, then, this book has been a source of fascination, surely one of the most influential novels ever written, an inspiration for such scientists and discoverers as engineer Simon Lake, oceanographer William Beebe, polar traveler Sir Ernest Shackleton. Likewise Dr. Robert D. Ballard, finder of the sunken Titanic, confesses that this was his favorite book as a teenager, and Cousteau himself, most renowned of marine explorers, called it his shipboard bible.
5) War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Image by My Reckless Creation
In his book about The War of the Worlds, a seminal look at an invasion of Earth by Martians, author bob Holmsten states:
Since 1898 the War of the Worlds has been translated into countless languages, adapted by comic books, radio, film, stage, and even computer games, and has inspired a wide range of alien invasion tales in every medium. Few ideas have captured the imagination of so many people all over the world in the last century so well. It is a tribute to H.G. Wells that his story of alien conquest was not only the first of its kind, but remains one of the best.
The 1927 American reprint, it can be argued, was one of the touching-off points for the Golden Age of science fiction. It inspired John W. Campbell to write and commission invasion stories — which also prompted authors like Arthur C. Clarke, Clifford Simak, Robert A. Heinlein and John Wyndham to do the same.
7) Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
Cover art by James Warhola
The first science-fiction work to enter the New York Times Book Review's bestseller list, Stranger sold 100,000 copies in hardcover and over five million in paperback. Kurt Vonnegut gloated on Heinlein's behalf, on the occasion of the novel's 30th "birthday," calling it "a wonderfully humanizing artifact for those who can enjoy thinking about the place of human beings not at a dinner table but in the universe."
And this book's influence (and that of Heinlein's other books) can't be overstated. Arthur D. Hlavaty refers to Heinlein as a prototypical science-fiction author, saying:
One of the ways human beings organize the world is by prototypes. We define a set as a typical example and a bunch of other things that are like it. For instance, when I was growing up, the prototype Writer was Shakespeare, the Artist was Rembrandt, and the Composer was Beethoven.In that way, Robert A. Heinlein has been often been taken as the prototype Science Fiction Writer, and as changes and new paradigms shake the field, he still sometimes represents the science fiction of the past.
Writer Ted Gioia looks at Stranger in a Strange Land's main character as a prototype for other similar characters in SF, saying: "Smith is more than a character. He is prototype of an alternative personality structure. The question of whether we can remake the human personality from the ground up." To date, there have been 28 editions of this book.
CONTINUE READING: io9.gizmodo.com/21-books-that-changed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-forev-1610590701?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_twitter&utm_source=io9_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
21 Books That Changed Science Fiction And Fantasy Forever
by Ryan Plummer and Madeleine Monson-Rosen
7-25-14
Speculative fiction is the literature of change and discovery. But every now and then, a book comes along that changes the rules of science fiction and fantasy for everybody. Certain great books inspire scores of authors to create something new. Here are 21 of the most influential science fiction and fantasy books.
These are books which clearly inspired a generation of authors, and made a huge splash either in publishing success or critical acclaim. Or both. And these are in no particular order.
1) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Top image: Magrathea from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, art by Microbot 23 on Deviant Art.
The first (maybe only) science-fiction-comedy-multimedia phenomenon, Hitchhiker's was a radio drama before it was a book, and the book sold 250,000 copies in its first three months.The Guardian named it one of the 1000 novels everyone must read, and a BBC poll ranked it fourth, out of 200, in their Big Read poll.
Ted Gioia comments on Adams' hilarious book about the trials and tribulations of Arthur Dent, the survivor of a destroyed Earth, across the universe:
No book better epitomizes the post-heroic tone of sci-fi than Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. As the name indicates, a certain louche bohemianism permeates its pages. This is star-hopping on the cheap, pursued by those aiming not to conquer the universe, but merely sample its richeson fewer than thirty Altairian dollars per day. You can trace the lineage of many later science fictions books, with their hip and irreverent tone, back to this influential and much beloved predecessor.
2) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Verne's whole career is full of works that have inspired generations of authors — but this tale of the underwater adventure of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus has also had a profound effect on science, and inspired real scientific advancement.
In the introduction to William Butcher's book Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Self Ray Bradbury wrote that, "We are all, in one way, children of Jules Verne. His name never stops. At aerospace or NASA gatherings, Verne is the verb that moves us to space."
Verne translator and scholar F.P. Walter added:
For many, then, this book has been a source of fascination, surely one of the most influential novels ever written, an inspiration for such scientists and discoverers as engineer Simon Lake, oceanographer William Beebe, polar traveler Sir Ernest Shackleton. Likewise Dr. Robert D. Ballard, finder of the sunken Titanic, confesses that this was his favorite book as a teenager, and Cousteau himself, most renowned of marine explorers, called it his shipboard bible.
5) War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Image by My Reckless Creation
In his book about The War of the Worlds, a seminal look at an invasion of Earth by Martians, author bob Holmsten states:
Since 1898 the War of the Worlds has been translated into countless languages, adapted by comic books, radio, film, stage, and even computer games, and has inspired a wide range of alien invasion tales in every medium. Few ideas have captured the imagination of so many people all over the world in the last century so well. It is a tribute to H.G. Wells that his story of alien conquest was not only the first of its kind, but remains one of the best.
The 1927 American reprint, it can be argued, was one of the touching-off points for the Golden Age of science fiction. It inspired John W. Campbell to write and commission invasion stories — which also prompted authors like Arthur C. Clarke, Clifford Simak, Robert A. Heinlein and John Wyndham to do the same.
7) Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
Cover art by James Warhola
The first science-fiction work to enter the New York Times Book Review's bestseller list, Stranger sold 100,000 copies in hardcover and over five million in paperback. Kurt Vonnegut gloated on Heinlein's behalf, on the occasion of the novel's 30th "birthday," calling it "a wonderfully humanizing artifact for those who can enjoy thinking about the place of human beings not at a dinner table but in the universe."
And this book's influence (and that of Heinlein's other books) can't be overstated. Arthur D. Hlavaty refers to Heinlein as a prototypical science-fiction author, saying:
One of the ways human beings organize the world is by prototypes. We define a set as a typical example and a bunch of other things that are like it. For instance, when I was growing up, the prototype Writer was Shakespeare, the Artist was Rembrandt, and the Composer was Beethoven.In that way, Robert A. Heinlein has been often been taken as the prototype Science Fiction Writer, and as changes and new paradigms shake the field, he still sometimes represents the science fiction of the past.
Writer Ted Gioia looks at Stranger in a Strange Land's main character as a prototype for other similar characters in SF, saying: "Smith is more than a character. He is prototype of an alternative personality structure. The question of whether we can remake the human personality from the ground up." To date, there have been 28 editions of this book.
CONTINUE READING: io9.gizmodo.com/21-books-that-changed-science-fiction-and-fantasy-forev-1610590701?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_twitter&utm_source=io9_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow