1st Galaxy Book Reviews Rough Draft

Past, Present and Future Perfect:  A Text Anthology of Speculative and Science Fiction edited by Jack C. Wolf and Gregory Fitz Gerald.

     This was a 544 page book that was edited for an audience of captive college students who were forced by their instructors to buy and read it.  It is composed of excerpts from the works of authors most of whose works were even then in the public domain.  These authors include Ambrose Bierce, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, Mark Twain, Jules Verne & H.G. Wells.  It also had excerpts from the works of more current writers including Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Graham Greene, B.F. Skinner & Kurt Vonnegut.  The book's introduction tells how it should be used in the classroom, but the teachers should have been able to figure that out for themselves.

     This was a volume that was good for introducing students to science fiction and was useful even to those with some familiarity with the genre.


H.G. Wells, Critic of Progress by Jack Williamson

     This was an attempt at academic scholarship in a study of H.G. Wells as social critic.  Specifically, this book focused on Wells's attitude towards human freedom and whether or not it was compatible with a technology oriented society.  Williamson seemed to think that Wells believed that freedom and advanced technology were incompatible.  He did not present his case well and the reader is left unsatisfied.


Science Fiction Today and Tomorrow edited by Reginald Bretnor

     Reginald Bretnor aka Grendel Briarton was best known as the author of short short stories about Ferdinand Feghoot.  Bretnor was a decent author, however, this book of essays does not have much going for it.  The best essays in this book were "Science Fiction as the Imaginary Experiment," by Thomas N. Scortia & "Science Fiction and Man's Adaptation to Change," by Alan E. Nourse.  The essays by the better known writers, such as Alexei and Cory Panshin as well as James Gunn,  were surprisingly flat.