Barry N. Malzberg reflects back over four decades of writing science fiction, giving an insiderAs view of the field during that time which few can match, both for its authority and for the sharp and witty way he describes the highs and lows of one science fiction writerAs career. He also writes vivid profiles of writers and editors, ranging from the titans who transformed the field, such as John W. Campbell, to once popular writers who are now all but forgotten, such as Hugo Award-winner Mark Clifton. AIf there is any particular cachet to my perspective, A he writes, Ait comes because my career is, perhaps more than some, metaphoric.A The original, shorter version of the book was widely praised, as by the "San Francisco Chronicle": AContains literary criticism ranging over the whole history of the field. . . . this is a mordant, brilliant book, A and by "The Washington Post Book World: " AMalzberg makes persuasively clear that the best of science fiction should be valued as literature and nothing else.A "Breakfast in the Ruins" is an indispensable book for every science fiction reader.
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19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Essential Book on How the Sci-Fi Publishing Industry Really Works,
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This review is from: Breakfast in the Ruins (Paperback)
This is basically two books in one: ENGINES OF THE NIGHT and BREAKFAST IN THE RUINS, which are a collection of short essays Malzberg published over the years about both publishing and the science fiction field. If you're just a consumer of sf or fantasy and all you know is what appears on the stand (or in magazines), what you're missing are the stories of egos, desperation, the vagaries of the marketplace, the rise and fall of the pulps and other magazines that used to be so vital in getting science fiction to the public. Malzberg details the horrible truth about being a writer in the sf field; how _hard_ it is; how easy it is to slip into a crack and disappear; how books get published but don't get distributed (or how distributers come and go). In LOCUS Magazine you find all this happy news about who is publishing with whom. What you don't see that Malzberg provides is what goes on behind the scenes. You see how when magazines die, only the safest science fiction gets published; only the "known" authors get published. He lays on the line the absolutely conservative nature of publishing. How books that advocate literary asperations (and perhaps unhappy endings) never get published in the sf field and he lists names and books long since gone from us that will never be reprinted. You think a book like ON THE BEACH could be published today? Think again. (Even when ON THE BEACH was published in the mid-Fifties, it had to be published in Australia where the author lived.) You think Thomas Disch's THE GENOCIDES could be published today if it were submitted by an unknown writer? Nope. This book is an eye-opener. It shows the human side to a genre that might be coming to an end. He says it himself. Nothing new is being published or if it is, it's mostly dazzle and flash. The publishing field as it exists now is very, very conservative and is only interested in authors who can deliver books that are easy to market and sell well. For writers who want to do something different, Malzberg says this might not be the field you want to work in. This is a book that is at once cranky, witty, angry and sad. It echoes my own experience in the field and it's reassuring to see that someone is out there (and has been out there for over forty years) who has already articulated what's come and gone and what's yet to unfold. After reading this book, I'm convinced that the science fiction being published now is a creature totally different from the science fiction that John W. Campbell Jr. advocated and I don't think men like Heinlein, Sturgeon, Kuttner and Van Vogt would recognize it today. I give the field another ten years. Then it'll become just so much mechanical fantasy and the main novelistic conceit will be the alternate history novel. Malzberg is only slightly more optimistic. Get this book if you're interested in what's _really_ been happening in the science fiction field since the 1950s. It'll surprise you. Thanks, Barry
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding . . .,
By Badicecream (Southern California) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Breakfast in the Ruins (Paperback)
This book is simply a must: for those interested in the inimitable Barry N. Malzberg, the history of sf, or what really goes on behind the scenes in publishing. A brutally honest, poetic, and generous book, "Breakfast in the Ruins" is, easily, the finest non-fiction sf volume ever published. "Tripping With the Alchemist" alone is worth the price of admission. Very highly recommended (along with almost anything else by Malzberg).
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It's a pick for any avid science fiction or fantasy fan,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Breakfast in the Ruins (Paperback)
Barry N. Malzberg's BREAKFAST IN THE RUINS is a nonfiction series of essays offering hard-hitting assessments of the evolution of cutting-edge science fiction over the decades. It's a pick for any avid science fiction or fantasy fan and offers some uniquely compelling viewpoints of science fiction's influence and progress as a genre.
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