ReFuture at Troynovant - History of Science Fiction, Progress of Fantasy

ReFuture at Troynovant:
Reflections on the History of Science Fiction
and the Progress of Fantasy;
listed by Title

Our concept of the History of Science Fiction will not perhaps match closely to anyone else's view. We do want especially to convey that it is a rich and complex history, a self-conscious creation of the modern, creative, pro-individual, technological and forward-looking West. And that science fiction is precisely the literature which helps us to look forward and to manage our potential futures.

Our related concept of the Progress of Fantasy is that works of myth and fancy and dream which are most thoughtful and noblest in intention, must inherently and inevitably seek — through evocation of the timeless — to shape the real futures before us.


Amazing Stories, 1926-1995 An Obituary, with an Aside on Buck Rogers		DL Franson
Argonauts of the Air, The	H. G. Wells	RW Franson
Atlas Shrugged as Science Fiction Two Reviews in Astounding, 1958		RW Franson

Carl Barks and the Art of the Comic Book	Michael Barrier	RW Franson
Charles Fort: Prophet of the Unexplained	Damon Knight	RW Franson

Explorers of the Infinite Shapers of Science Fiction	Sam Moskowitz	RW Franson

Federation of the Hub, The Self-Maintaining Science Fiction Universe		JH Schmitz
Finding Serenity Anti-Heroes, Lost Shepherds and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly	Jane Espenson	RW Franson
For Us, the Living	Robert A. Heinlein	RW Franson
For Us, the Living	Robert A. Heinlein	WH Stoddard
Future History series	Robert A. Heinlein	RW Franson

Goldfish Bowl	Robert A. Heinlein	RW Franson
Harlan Ellison's Watching	Harlan Ellison	RW Franson
Heinlein's Missed Bestsellers		RW Franson
Hobbyist	Eric Frank Russell	RW Franson
Horatius at Khazad-dum		WH Stoddard

Immortal Storm, The A History of Science Fiction Fandom	Sam Moskowitz	RW Franson
In Search of Wonder Essays on Modern Science Fiction	Damon Knight	RW Franson
Is Atlas Shrugging?	Ayn Rand	RW Franson

Let There Be Light	Robert A. Heinlein	RW Franson

Martian Odyssey, A	Stanley G. Weinbaum	RW Franson

Pictorial History of Science Fiction	David Kyle	RW Franson

Robert A. Heinlein A Reader's Companion	James Gifford	RW Franson
Robert Heinlein Interview, The and Other Heinleiniana	J. Neil Schulman	RW Franson
Rocket Belts' Slow Liftoff		RW Franson

Science Fiction Ideas & Dreams	David Kyle	RW Franson
Serenity	Joss Whedon	WH Stoddard
Sinister Barrier	Eric Frank Russell	RW Franson

Tolkien and the Great War The Threshold of Middle Earth	John Garth	WH Stoddard

Variable Star	Robert A. Heinlein & Spider Robinson	WH Stoddard

[Inverness, Macbeth's castle.]

Lady Macbeth {to Macbeth}:

Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.

William Shakespeare
Macbeth, 1.5.54-56

Photo of Robert A. Heinlein,
L. Sprague de Camp, & Isaac Asimov
at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, 1944

The oldest national science-fiction club,
founded by Damon Knight in 1941:
National Fantasy Fan Federation
(NFFF, or more familiarly, N3F)

LitCrit at Troynovant
critiques in and around literary criticism

Aerospace at Troynovant
air & space travel & development

Science fiction & fantasy series

Yesterday's science fiction is today's headlines. What does this mean, particularly to writers?

First, it means the reading public has been shocked into awareness of outer space. Americans are interested now in its possibilities. They no longer scoff at moon probes or expeditions to Mars. Pulps covered with pictures of bug-eyed-monsters or of sweater girls in the strong arms of Rube Goldberg machines, have suddenly become respectable — even worthy of veneration. They have printed the outpourings of prophets. ...

This indicates that science fiction is the thing to write, if you can do it. At this point many writers, anxious to cash in on trends, will stifle cries of despair. ...

To these people I come with a bright message of hope. Science fiction can at present be written without benefit of advanced mathematics, or of charts giving the chemical composition of planetary atmospheres. For current events have caught up with physicists' conceptions. Rockets to explore space are on actual launching pads. The science fictioneer, whose profession is to keep one jump ahead, has to think of something else again, something as new as space rockets were in the forties.

One excellent way of writing science fiction — or s.f. as it is called in the trade — is to follow the scientists' own rule of working from the known to the unknown. ...

Doris Pitkin Buck
"Put Your Story on the Moon"
Author & Journalist, February 1959



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