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The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction

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This is what you'll find:

Table of Contents

Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Rappaccini's Daughter" (1844)

Jules Verne, excerpt from Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)

H. G. Wells, "The Star" (1897)

E. M. Forster, "The Machine Stops" (1909)

Edmond Hamilton, "The Man Who Evolved" (1931)

Leslie F. Stone, "The Conquest of Gola" (1931)

C. L. Moore, "Shambleau" (1933)

Stanley Weinbaum, "A Martian Odyssey" (1934)

Isaac Asimov, "Reason" (1941)

Clifford Simak, "Desertion" (1944)

Theodore Sturgeon, "Thunder and Roses" (1947)

Judith Merril, "That Only a Mother" (1948)

Fritz Leiber, "Coming Attraction" (1950)

Ray Bradbury, "There Will Come Soft Rains" (1950)

Arthur C. Clarke, "The Sentinel" (1951)

Robert Sheckley, "Specialist" (1953)

William Tenn, "The Liberation of Earth" (1953)

Alfred Bester, "Fondly Fahrenheit" (1954)

Avram Davidson, "The Golem" (1955)

Cordwainer Smith, "The Game of Rat and Dragon" (1955)

Robert Heinlein, "All You Zombies--" (1959)

J.G. Ballard, "The Cage of Sand" (1962)

R. A. Lafferty, "Slow Tuesday Night" (1965)

Harlan Ellison, "`Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman" (1965)

Frederik Pohl, "Day Million" (1966)

Philip K. Dick, "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" (1966)

Samuel R. Delany, "Aye, and Gomorrah..." (1967)

Pamela Zoline, "The Heat Death of the Universe" (1967)

Robert Silverberg, "Passengers" (1968)

Brian Aldiss, "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" (1969)

Ursula K. Le Guin, "Nine Lives" (1969)

Frank Herbert, "Seed Stock" (1970)

Stanislaw Lem, "The Seventh Voyage" from The Star Diaries (1971)

Joanna Russ, "When It Changed" (1972)

James Tiptree, Jr., "And I Awoke and Found Me Here On the Cold Hill's Side" (1973)

John Varley, "Air Raid" (1977)

Carol Emshwiller, "Abominable" (1980)

William Gibson, "Burning Chrome" (1981)

Octavia Butler, "Speech Sounds" (1983)

Nancy Kress, "Out of All Them Bright Stars" (1985)

Pat Cadigan, "Pretty Boy Crossover" (1986)

Kate Wilhelm, "Forever Yours, Anna" (1987)

Bruce Sterling, "We See Things Differently" (1989)

Misha Nogha, "Chippoke Na Gomi" (1989)

Eileen Gunn, "Computer Friendly" (1989)

John Kessel, "Invaders" (1990)

Gene Wolfe, "Useful Phrases" (1992)

Greg Egan, "Closer" (1992)

James Patrick Kelly, "Think Like a Dinosaur" (1995)

Geoff Ryman, "Everywhere" (1999)

Charles Stross, "Rogue Farm" (2003)

Ted Chiang, "Exhalation" (2008)

As you can see, this anthology takes examples from science fiction's earliest beginnings up to the present day and provides classic examples of every major movement since then. You can't go wrong with this.

I'm using this book for my American Literature class in college. It is a thoroughly enjoyable read and I would recommend it to just about anyone.

I bought this book as a text for University, however I think that The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction will become an integral part of my collection. It contains many worthy stories of fantasy and speculative fiction including stories written by H.G Wells, Ursula K. Le Guin and Jules Verne. I am looking forward to delving into some apocalyptic and virtual reality narratives from the best science-fiction writers of the past and present. I recommend this book to lovers of science-fiction and to those readers who just like the idea of escaping into another world.

While many of the stories in the Wesleyan Anthology are classics, the editors have unconscionably left out many of the most recognizably classic stories. Missing are true classics: "The Colour Out of Space" by H.P. Lovecraft, "The Weapon Shop" by A. E. Van Vogt, "Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov, "Mimsy Were the Borogroves" by Lewis Padgett, "It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby, "The Cold Equations" by Tom Godwin, "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes, and "Blood Music" by Greg Bear. Any anthology that does not contain these stories is already flawed.

But the biggest mistake the editors make is in each introduction. Each story is headed by a long biographical entry followed by one or two paragraphs that tell the student what's in the story as well as how to interpret it. These are "spoilers" and absolutely deprive the reader from making his or her own discoveries (or having their own pleasures) with the story first. Moreover, as an academic anthology these interpretive glosses are the only critical apparatus in the book and not really useful outside of a cloistered academic setting. There are no Suggestions for Discussion; no paper topics; no novel reading lists. The editors do all the interpreting for the student and give it to them before they even begin reading the story.

Let me quote in their entirety two such glosses. From: The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction (page 211): "Desertion" - Clifford D. Simak (1944): ... [Desertion] deepens the exploration of human-animal relationships and our relationship to anyone identified as the other. The movement of the story's plot also changes our expectations, at first suggesting the heroism of brave men battling alien forces and sacrificing themselves for science, but changing when one of the men, and his dog, become part of the alien landscape themselves. As long as the human beings are alien to Jupiter, they see it as a howling wilderness, but when they are transformed into natives it seems Edenic, providing its inhabitants with beauty, health, and vast knowledge both scientific and philosophical . . . it is a consummation devoutly to be wished . . ."

Even before the student has read the story, it tells her immediately that both the dog and his master are going to be transformed into the natives of Jupiter--which is the whole mystery of what's happening to explorers on Jupiter in the first place. This gloss also tells us how to interpret the ending: that the scientists (and their dog) are now in a better place and that to truly understand "the other" is to become one of them. John Campbell didn't provide such an interpretive gloss when he published the story in 1944 in Astounding Science Fiction. He never did such a thing, ever. (Such academic intrusions in anthologies such as these presume that the student is too obtuse to "get" the story on first reading without the help of seasoned academics who have the analytical better tools.) There is no thrill of discovery here for the student (barricaded in the dorm on a snowy night). All the fun is leeched from the story by the introduction. Clearly, the editors really want to make sure that the student who reads their introductions fully understand the stories in the "correct" manner.

Here's another example for the story, "When It Changed" - Joanna Russ (1972). This is from page 507: (Remember, this is in the actual introduction which the student reads _before_ reading the story.) "When It Changed," which won a Nebula Award for best short story, is set [on] the planet Whileaway, a lost earth colony populated exclusively by women-all the men having perished in a shadowy plague. Whileaway is probably the most famous all-female utopia in contemporary sf, and second only to Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915) in the history of the genre. As Russ shows, women are quite capable of running a complex society, raising well-grounded children, and engaging in loving relationships in the absence of men-though these facts are unbelievable to the male explorers in the story, who rediscover Whileaway after six centuries of women-only rule. Russ cleverly deploys the atmospherics of classic first-contact narratives to depict the resulting clash of cultures and perspectives: though of the same species, the men seem like aliens to the Whileawayans-curiously exotic to some, grotesquely repulsive to others. For their part, the men operate with the patronizing assumption that their re-colonization of the planet will be welcomed by the grateful natives . . ."

Is there any part of this that a) doesn't give away the story? and b) tell us how to interpret it? (And of course every student has read Charlotte Perkins Gilman before reading Joanna Russ.) This is a great story to read and to talk about with students in an undergraduate setting. Yet, the folks at Wesleyan have done all the work for the student.

Every story in this book has this kind of an introduction. All the fun of the stories-all of the sense of discovery readers read science fiction for-is undercut by these introductions. Science fiction should be read in the dorm at night or in a park on a summer's day (perfect for reading Ray Bradbury!) or read in study hall in high school. And no reader of sf needs to turn to an academic _before_ reading a story to prepare them for it. Yet that is the pedagogical assumption of this anthology. Please avoid.