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Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
As an "insider" history written by an sf practitioner, this volume lacks the detail of Brian Aldiss's Trillion Year Spree (LJ 11/15/86) and the provocative insight of Thomas M. Disch's The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (LJ 4/15/98). It compensates by means of lapidary graphic design and a galaxy of prismatic magazine covers, book jackets, and film posters. In this respect, though, it faces competition from John Clute's more useful Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia (DK, 1995). Over half of Robinson's history is devoted to U.S. genre magazines, supplemented by a brief chapter on their British counterparts. A mere two chapters encapsulate the history of genre book publishing, and the concluding chapter attempts to relate the history of genre films. Surprisingly, there are no television images. Robinson's accompanying prose is knowledgeable but freighted with a lifelong fan's nostalgia for yesteryear. A stellar gift for enthusiasts, but libraries should consider the other titles mentioned above.
-Neal Baker, Earlham Coll., Richmond, IN
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The best thing about this sf history? It looks like a million bucks. Almost every page sports vintage magazine or paperback cover art (in later chapters, movie posters and stills) in eye-popping color that visually punches through page-filling stark white, deep black, or purple backdrops, some of which resemble construction blueprints--very astrodynamic. Robinson's text is less impressive. Instead of tracing the genre's literary developments, he recounts its commercial publishing history, from its beginnings in the fabled pulp magazines of the 1920s to its growth spurt in the digests of the 1950s to the rise of the paperback sf novel in the 1960s to the current state of affairs, in which movie and TV spin-offs account for a growing number of sf books. The chronicle's leading players are editors, such as Hugo Gernsback, Ray Palmer, John W. Campbell, and Donald A. Wollheim, and, later, filmmakers. Ironically, Robinson's workaday prose could have been further edited to reduce repetition and solecisms. When it gets tedious, go back to ogling the pictures. Ray Olson
See all Editorial Reviews
As an "insider" history written by an sf practitioner, this volume lacks the detail of Brian Aldiss's Trillion Year Spree (LJ 11/15/86) and the provocative insight of Thomas M. Disch's The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of (LJ 4/15/98). It compensates by means of lapidary graphic design and a galaxy of prismatic magazine covers, book jackets, and film posters. In this respect, though, it faces competition from John Clute's more useful Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia (DK, 1995). Over half of Robinson's history is devoted to U.S. genre magazines, supplemented by a brief chapter on their British counterparts. A mere two chapters encapsulate the history of genre book publishing, and the concluding chapter attempts to relate the history of genre films. Surprisingly, there are no television images. Robinson's accompanying prose is knowledgeable but freighted with a lifelong fan's nostalgia for yesteryear. A stellar gift for enthusiasts, but libraries should consider the other titles mentioned above.
-Neal Baker, Earlham Coll., Richmond, IN
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
The best thing about this sf history? It looks like a million bucks. Almost every page sports vintage magazine or paperback cover art (in later chapters, movie posters and stills) in eye-popping color that visually punches through page-filling stark white, deep black, or purple backdrops, some of which resemble construction blueprints--very astrodynamic. Robinson's text is less impressive. Instead of tracing the genre's literary developments, he recounts its commercial publishing history, from its beginnings in the fabled pulp magazines of the 1920s to its growth spurt in the digests of the 1950s to the rise of the paperback sf novel in the 1960s to the current state of affairs, in which movie and TV spin-offs account for a growing number of sf books. The chronicle's leading players are editors, such as Hugo Gernsback, Ray Palmer, John W. Campbell, and Donald A. Wollheim, and, later, filmmakers. Ironically, Robinson's workaday prose could have been further edited to reduce repetition and solecisms. When it gets tedious, go back to ogling the pictures. Ray Olson
See all Editorial Reviews
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