I've just had an arrival by post today of some Christopher Priest books. You recommended him to me before and I listened. I have "Inverted world" and "Fugue of a darkening island" in an omnibus edition to get me started.
As always a thoroughly enjoyable review of some great old science fiction. I love the commentary, and I think I’m going to grab a copy of “Fury“ for the TBR. Thank you!
With Folded Hands has so far been the only (short) story I've read of Williamson, but in my case it's in the 1,000 pages collection "We, Robots" edited by Simon Ings. I do have the first 3 Legion stories at the ready to read some time as I recently added the hardback edition "Three From The Legion" to my collection that contains the first 3 novels of the Legion series.
Another excellent module at the University of SF. I need to get on the case with the dynamic duo K&M. Just finished my first Williamson (Legion of Space), it was rather good. 👍
Hi Jon, good to hear from you, thanks mate- and isn't your Space Opera video doing well!!!!!???? - I like Williamson for the good old vintage Space Opera, you'll love 'Legion of Time' if you can find one. Kuttner and Moore? It doesn't come any better in that period! We must have a catch up after Christmas....
@@outlawbookselleroriginal hi Steve, yes it has done very well indeed, although tailing off somewhat now. Time for the next installment... Hope you had plenty of Ballardian fun yesterday!
Interested in your opinion dating and naming eras in science fiction. Pulp for the 20s and 30s. Golden Age for the 40s, 50s and 60s. New Wave for the late 60s and 70s. Then?
When it comes to SF, it's NOT like comics fandom, where people have codified successive periods with beginnings and ends. It's not about dating and naming eras, but pinpointing when evolutionary/revolutionary moments appeared, so there are not firm epochs comparable to (for example) geological periods- it's not that neat. The closest you can get to codifying a taxonomic, evolutionary, periodic and tabular look at SF is as follows: (1) Proto SF - which is everything prior to Mary Shelley (though you could argue Proto SF lasts until Wells), as 'Frankenstein' ties in with the Romantic reaction against the Enlightenment (which is the most necessary Cultural event for real SF based on Scientific method and thinking coming to dominance). (2) Scientific Romance - which is Poe, Verne, Wells and contemporaries writing during the Industrial Revolution into the early 20th Century (3) Genre SF - which emerges out of Scientific Romance with pulp models like Edgar Rice Burroughs, but is finally codified and named as a publishing/marketing category by Hugo Gernsback and named as 'Scientifiction'/'Science Fiction' in 1925/6...but of course before and after this (and still now), there was SF published that was NOT labelled/marketed as SF. (4) 'The Golden Age ' has the firmest agreed consensus as a boundaried period - it begins in July 1939 - tied to a specific issue of 'Astounding'- and it wanes in the late forties, some say as early as 1946. (5) 1950 onwards is the age of satirical and social SF, marked by the emergence of both 'Galaxy' and 'The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction' in that year, which is when Dystopia becomes the background condition of most Genre SF. The 'New Wave' (6) really begins when Moorcock takes on editorship of 'New Worlds' and its experimentalism merges with the mainstream of Genre SF in the early 1970s. No sooner than SF embraces Modernism via the New Wave, it begins to break down into Postmodernism in the 1980s with Cyberpunk, which is met with a Humanist SF reaction, then the full force of the Grand Narrative breaking down is confirmed with the Space Opera Renaissance which begins in 1986. Posthumanist narratives also begin to become common at this point There are NO significant evolutionary/revolutionary moments after the late 80s/early 90s, as the Postmodern condition of culture means that there is an endless play of surfaces and symbols- Space Opera in particular confirming this breakdown of evolution in SF. The 'emergence' of women in SF, 'translated SF' and gender/race in the contemporary period - which is often now argued as how SF is currently evolving is of course a fallacy, since all of these things were significant in Genre SF from the mid 1960s onwards: it's just that the contemporary Postmodern narrative focuses on these things in its questioning of Western Enlightenment epistemes. For a full understanding of where SF has been in the last 30 years, an understanding of French Poststructuralism is necessary. However, because of the emphasis on Subjectivity in this narrative and the necessity of recognising the Enlightenment as an essential historical event needed to 'trigger' the emergence of pure SF from Fiction per se, Postmodernism actually undermines SF as it seeks to deconstruct objectivity, rationality and the primacy of knowledge confirmed by the scientific method to allow for alternative, subjective 'knowledge'.
As I say in my reply to Richard (Vintage SF), SF is not borken down into definite 'periods' by any serious authorities on the genre: instead, evolutionary/revolutionary moments are identified.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Wow. Hope some of this was cut and paste. If not, wow. Thank you! I’ve copied and created a note to reference in the future. Appreciate the detailed answer. It just so happens that the July 1939 Astounding magazine features prominently in the UA-cam video I’m posting tomorrow. Thus the question today. I think I’m on safe grounds with what I recorded.
Spot on . And i must add my first Williamson ... "Darker Than You Think" Kuttner is a other of my very early finds along with Brackett and Merritt . Too Moore. No doubt you heard the rumor that he was also Vance .Lol
'Darker Than You Think' was the first Williamson I read, over forty years ago. Yeah, that Vance rumour is something I heard about. Good to hear from you as ever, Sylvan!
As you say "Spot on"! 😁 And, as our resident skiffy expert himself said in a recent video, Moore & Brackett weren't simply princesses or even queens they were empresses - nay, goddesses! And not just retrospectively: like Judith Merril Zenna Henderson they were revered in their day...
Nice walk as well. Inspired me to go back to my local bookstore; I thought I saw some Williamson there yesterday. If it was, it isn't now, but there *was* a Kuttner: Got "The Time Axis."
Jack Williamson is nostalgia reading for me, his early novels have a naivety that mirrors the time at which they were written. He got better and better as he got older, which is unusual. Haffner Press published a multi-volume complete shorter works, beautiful books and worth buying if you can find them. Kutter and Moore I won't hear a word against. Genius individually, genius together. Again, Haffner Pres did a number of joint and solo volumes, including two collections by Kuttner which predate their joint work.
Yes, I like Williamson for the same reason - and like you, I worship Henry and Catherine Lucille. I've neglected later Williamson but do have a plan to catch up.
OB, I've always suspected Kuttner's "The Salem Horror" was spawned by Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" although it's just a gut feeling. Loved your jaunt in the countryside. Vintage Outlaw Bookseller! Cheers.
Out of curiosity, would Robert Silverberg be the very very last of the authors who could be considered Golden Age just because he got his start in the mid '50s?
No, Golden Age is over by the end of the 1940s, since John W Campbell's 'Astounding' was overtaken by new magazines 'Galaxy' and 'The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction', which had different flavours and brought many new writers into the Genre.
Nice video. Two new authors for me to check out :) FYI - For anyone interested. The Humanoids and Darker Than You Think are in the Audible Plus catalog for free currently.
I've just had an arrival by post today of some Christopher Priest books. You recommended him to me before and I listened. I have "Inverted world" and "Fugue of a darkening island" in an omnibus edition to get me started.
Good for you. Prepare to have your mind bent and your expectations overturned!
As always a thoroughly enjoyable review of some great old science fiction. I love the commentary, and I think I’m going to grab a copy of “Fury“ for the TBR. Thank you!
Thanks again, my friend. 'Fury' is central to understanding that literary ambition was rising in Genre SF prior to Bester.
With Folded Hands has so far been the only (short) story I've read of Williamson, but in my case it's in the 1,000 pages collection "We, Robots" edited by Simon Ings. I do have the first 3 Legion stories at the ready to read some time as I recently added the hardback edition "Three From The Legion" to my collection that contains the first 3 novels of the Legion series.
That's a great anthology: Ings knows his stuff!
Another excellent module at the University of SF. I need to get on the case with the dynamic duo K&M. Just finished my first Williamson (Legion of Space), it was rather good. 👍
Hi Jon, good to hear from you, thanks mate- and isn't your Space Opera video doing well!!!!!???? - I like Williamson for the good old vintage Space Opera, you'll love 'Legion of Time' if you can find one. Kuttner and Moore? It doesn't come any better in that period! We must have a catch up after Christmas....
@@outlawbookselleroriginal hi Steve, yes it has done very well indeed, although tailing off somewhat now. Time for the next installment... Hope you had plenty of Ballardian fun yesterday!
@@SciFiScavenger Certainly did, my friend, video up in a week or so!
Interested in your opinion dating and naming eras in science fiction. Pulp for the 20s and 30s. Golden Age for the 40s, 50s and 60s. New Wave for the late 60s and 70s. Then?
Me, I would say the '80s equalled Cyberpunk, '90s & '00s Space Opera Renaissance and, the last ten years, Asian SF and other translated languages.
When it comes to SF, it's NOT like comics fandom, where people have codified successive periods with beginnings and ends. It's not about dating and naming eras, but pinpointing when evolutionary/revolutionary moments appeared, so there are not firm epochs comparable to (for example) geological periods- it's not that neat.
The closest you can get to codifying a taxonomic, evolutionary, periodic and tabular look at SF is as follows:
(1) Proto SF - which is everything prior to Mary Shelley (though you could argue Proto SF lasts until Wells), as 'Frankenstein' ties in with the Romantic reaction against the Enlightenment (which is the most necessary Cultural event for real SF based on Scientific method and thinking coming to dominance).
(2) Scientific Romance - which is Poe, Verne, Wells and contemporaries writing during the Industrial Revolution into the early 20th Century
(3) Genre SF - which emerges out of Scientific Romance with pulp models like Edgar Rice Burroughs, but is finally codified and named as a publishing/marketing category by Hugo Gernsback and named as 'Scientifiction'/'Science Fiction' in 1925/6...but of course before and after this (and still now), there was SF published that was NOT labelled/marketed as SF.
(4) 'The Golden Age ' has the firmest agreed consensus as a boundaried period - it begins in July 1939 - tied to a specific issue of 'Astounding'- and it wanes in the late forties, some say as early as 1946.
(5) 1950 onwards is the age of satirical and social SF, marked by the emergence of both 'Galaxy' and 'The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction' in that year, which is when Dystopia becomes the background condition of most Genre SF.
The 'New Wave' (6) really begins when Moorcock takes on editorship of 'New Worlds' and its experimentalism merges with the mainstream of Genre SF in the early 1970s.
No sooner than SF embraces Modernism via the New Wave, it begins to break down into Postmodernism in the 1980s with Cyberpunk, which is met with a Humanist SF reaction, then the full force of the Grand Narrative breaking down is confirmed with the Space Opera Renaissance which begins in 1986. Posthumanist narratives also begin to become common at this point
There are NO significant evolutionary/revolutionary moments after the late 80s/early 90s, as the Postmodern condition of culture means that there is an endless play of surfaces and symbols- Space Opera in particular confirming this breakdown of evolution in SF. The 'emergence' of women in SF, 'translated SF' and gender/race in the contemporary period - which is often now argued as how SF is currently evolving is of course a fallacy, since all of these things were significant in Genre SF from the mid 1960s onwards: it's just that the contemporary Postmodern narrative focuses on these things in its questioning of Western Enlightenment epistemes.
For a full understanding of where SF has been in the last 30 years, an understanding of French Poststructuralism is necessary. However, because of the emphasis on Subjectivity in this narrative and the necessity of recognising the Enlightenment as an essential historical event needed to 'trigger' the emergence of pure SF from Fiction per se, Postmodernism actually undermines SF as it seeks to deconstruct objectivity, rationality and the primacy of knowledge confirmed by the scientific method to allow for alternative, subjective 'knowledge'.
As I say in my reply to Richard (Vintage SF), SF is not borken down into definite 'periods' by any serious authorities on the genre: instead, evolutionary/revolutionary moments are identified.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Wow. Hope some of this was cut and paste. If not, wow. Thank you! I’ve copied and created a note to reference in the future. Appreciate the detailed answer. It just so happens that the July 1939 Astounding magazine features prominently in the UA-cam video I’m posting tomorrow. Thus the question today. I think I’m on safe grounds with what I recorded.
@@outlawbookselleroriginal Well, this is just GOLD.
Spot on . And i must add my first Williamson ... "Darker Than You Think" Kuttner is a other of my very early finds along with Brackett and Merritt . Too Moore. No doubt you heard the rumor that he was also Vance .Lol
'Darker Than You Think' was the first Williamson I read, over forty years ago. Yeah, that Vance rumour is something I heard about. Good to hear from you as ever, Sylvan!
As you say "Spot on"! 😁 And, as our resident skiffy expert himself said in a recent video, Moore & Brackett weren't simply princesses or even queens they were empresses - nay, goddesses! And not just retrospectively: like Judith Merril Zenna Henderson they were revered in their day...
Nice walk as well.
Inspired me to go back to my local bookstore; I thought I saw some Williamson there yesterday.
If it was, it isn't now, but there *was* a Kuttner: Got "The Time Axis."
That's a good one. My personal favorite is "The Valley of the Flame." Pick it up if you spot a copy!
@@liberationtheurgywithdr.na831 Cool. Thanks!
Jack Williamson is nostalgia reading for me, his early novels have a naivety that mirrors the time at which they were written. He got better and better as he got older, which is unusual. Haffner Press published a multi-volume complete shorter works, beautiful books and worth buying if you can find them.
Kutter and Moore I won't hear a word against. Genius individually, genius together. Again, Haffner Pres did a number of joint and solo volumes, including two collections by Kuttner which predate their joint work.
Yes, I like Williamson for the same reason - and like you, I worship Henry and Catherine Lucille. I've neglected later Williamson but do have a plan to catch up.
Is there a book that collects Disch's essays?
Have you already told us the name in a previous video?
_The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World_ (2000) and _On SF_ (2005) are Disch's two major non-fiction volumes.
See Paul's response. He cites the correct book, a great read.
@@paulcampbell6003 + @outlawbookselleroriginal Thank you!
OB, I've always suspected Kuttner's "The Salem Horror" was spawned by Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror" although it's just a gut feeling. Loved your jaunt in the countryside. Vintage Outlaw Bookseller! Cheers.
Well, Kuttner was a weird taler himself...he was influenced by HPL, no doubt.
The Humanoids remains simply outstanding. And bleak.
Yep, it's thoughtful stuff, despite some simplicity in execution - the intensity and intention are there.
Great video Stephen 🎉like the AI links
Cheers Marc.
Out of curiosity, would Robert Silverberg be the very very last of the authors who could be considered Golden Age just because he got his start in the mid '50s?
No, Golden Age is over by the end of the 1940s, since John W Campbell's 'Astounding' was overtaken by new magazines 'Galaxy' and 'The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction', which had different flavours and brought many new writers into the Genre.
Nice video. Two new authors for me to check out :) FYI - For anyone interested. The Humanoids and Darker Than You Think are in the Audible Plus catalog for free currently.
'Darker Than You Think' was the first Williamson I read forty years ago!