Breaking Barriers: A Collection of Science Fiction Shorts

She was the 'Grandmaster of Science Fiction'!

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Dark, satirical, laugh out loud funny, ridiculous and scathing. The book follows robot Tik Tok as he realises that he does not have to follow the Asimov laws when he kills a young innocent blind girl just for fun. He soon gets a taste for murder and gets very good at it. Farcical in places with a whole raft of ridiculous characters it draws parallels with the slave trade and the fight for equality. His murderous exploits and cool, calm cunning takes him although way to the top at the White House, his aim: The novel also takes swipes at celebrity culture, religion, mob mentality and pretty much everything else.

It's one of those goto books when a friend asks for a recommendation. A book that was way ahead of its time, predicting flying machines and total war. Plus it is a great read and adventure story. You believe what you are reading really happended as Martians invide Surrey and London in the late Victorian era. It also created a sub genre of its own the "Alien Invasion" story. A classic novel that stands above all others. Read this, and it's sequels, 20 years ago. Could not put the book down. Finished it in 2 days. Still totally abosrbs me today.

Great detailed story about a lonely, little boy. Also fascinating on the military life of Battle School and the Earth's attitude to alien races. Not just this book but the whole series. Benchmark sci fi novel and whats important is the prose, the ideas expunded in the books and the fact that all my sci fi hating friends read the series on reccomendation and were completely converted. Lazurus Long - how I wish to be him! I was twelve when I read Ringworld, my first adult Science Fiction novel.

It sparked a life long love of SF. The central concept of the Ringworld a constructed habitat that is a ring around a star is vividly brought to life. The story moves at a pace and the aliens very well imagined - especially the Pearson's Puppeteer. This book is a prime example of why SF will always be a literary form with TV and film being very much the poor relations. I still have that battered second hand copy I read first over thirty years ago and have reread several times since.

Becasue it's a collection of haunting short stories about what would happen when humans got to Mars, each filled with twists, turns and pathos. Like the Martians who defend themselves by changing their appearance to look like humans, to the last human left on the planet after the rest have gone back to Earth.

Plus, like all good Sci Fi, it's not really about space, but about humanity. As a young boy this book fed my imagination for sci-fi. Having been originally written in the 30s the vivid pictures he paints of far away worlds with bizarre creatures in a swashbuckling story were far ahead of its time. As you say if current human civilization was unexpectedly destroyed, I'd like this to survive as a warning of how it could all happen again. An ambassador given permission to roam. The discovery that the society is not really primitive and pre-industrial. The gradual realization that the society is post-atomic and that the re-discovery of machinery and science has been banned post the disaster Mary Gentle's book is in itself a voyage of discovery in which the reader starts as a comfortable alien observer and ends as a very uncomfortable but involved critic of a world that wobbles between utopia and dystopia.

Very handy for hitchhikers and the best read. Introduces millions of people to to British humour and the SF genre every year. Great advert for SF and also very funny.

List of time travel works of fiction

A fantastic book that should be read by anyone planning to join the secret service as a subversive officer! It's easy to read, a great story that keeps you hooked. The characters are great and you really root for the hero. A man wakes up naked to find he has been resurrected along with every other human who ever lived during the history of earth.

Their new home is a riverplanet, they are all 25, they don't age, they can't die, and it is all a big social and spiritual project, created by an alien race. This book and the ones that follow are staggering conceptually. They mix history, politics, pyschology, religion, and everyday life in a sublime cocktail.

One of the few Sci-Fi books that you read in which that you know you are also a character. For those that go the distance with the whole Riverworld series, the final installment 'Gods of the Riverworld' cranks up the hypothetical social situations to mind boggling levels. Computers that play your whole life back to you, so you can come to terms with your wasted time, evil deeds, poor posture. A super computer that can build rooms a hundred miles wide, and produce anything from human history at request.

A cornerstone of the sci-fy genre.

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Read how Paul Atriedes uncovers the secrets of Arrakis and the Fremen people. Follow Paul's journey into a dangerous world where unlocking the power of the spice melange and it's keepers transforms him into the most powerful being in the galaxy. Set in an epic universe filled with wierd and wonderul creatures, monsters and alien races. A must read for any sci-fy nut. Despite not having the easiest of openings you really have to force yourself to get past the first few pages , this really is a superb opening to a wonderful Sci-Fi trilogy.

There are some great ideas, some excellent characters and some wonderful speculation on humanities future, but most of all it's a cracking story, and the main plot sideswipes you from left-field when you get to it as it was for me, at least totally unexpected. Cannot recommend this enough. I really like the way the author describes a data world, and interweaves this with a broader narrative, which includes a comparison between the plight of a Jewish community in Prague during the 16th-century and the futuristic community of the future. So much SciFi work is seen as being written by people whose only talent was a good imagination.

Alfred Bester was one a new age of writers who wrote engaging stories that happened to be along a SciFi theme. Gully Foyle is reborn on the Nomad, but is alive to revenge only, in a plot which takes us through a world where instantaneous travel with the power of the human mind is possible. His journey to discover who he is can only be compared to the greats of SciFi writing.

A definite must read. It challenges the concept of self and individuality. It is unremittingly, violently captivating throughout and it introduces the coolest hotel ever imagined. Its simply sublime, beautiful written, and would be an epic if it was on screen.

Simply the best series of SCi Fi books ever written. How was it missed out? Asimov changed our understanding of robots with his formulation of the laws governing the behavior of robots. The stories combine science fact and fiction in such a way that you almost believe the robots are humans. Well written interesting stories that really make the reader ponder the future of robots. It's just a feckin brilliant story apart from the end which was a bit naff imo. This fantasy doesn't include any aliens, space ships, or magic, but it's in its' own weird universe.

A very Dickensian gothic tale. I agree about William Gibson. The tale is a great romp of the imagination with an insight into some physics. It is a completely worked out version of a believable future. It does not require the 'suspension of disbelief' normal to SF. And it is a great adventure story! Old school Silverberg before he went over to the dark side of fantasy , details human feelings of loss like no other SF tale.

Very human story of the more-than-humans living amongst us. The enormous scale and technical details of the science fiction element of the story are breath taking whilst the story still holds the reader close to the characters of the core individuals in the story. As with all Dick's books, it explores his twin fascinations: The human side is handled with his usual tender melancholy, while the metaphysical investigations are ramped up and up as the protaganist, teleported to a colony planet where all is not as it seems, dissolves, with the aid of an LSD tipped dart, into a nightmare where reality itself seems to deconstruct.

Wonderful language and weird world building. The protagonist - Adam Reith - a stranded earthman has many adventures, encountering the various inhabitants of Tschai, a much fought over planet. Not quite a picaresque as Reith is too honest but some of his associates are less so. Charming and lovely books and, let us not forget, anyone who can title one of them vol 2 Servants of the Wankh is worthy of deep respect even if he didn't know what it means to english ears haha.

Do yoursel a favour: The Player of Games does more than tell an exciting and engaging tale. In the empire of Azad, where the books action takes place, Iain M Banks creates a civilization which reflects the worst excesses of our own, despite its alien nature. Using the empire of Azad themes of one cultures interference in another are explored as the benign, peaceful Culture displays the lengths it will go to push a cruel empire closer to its own philosophy.

The story revolves around a man playing a board game. Admittedly it's a vast, complex board game central to the lives of those who play it, but it's essentially just a big, complicated chess set. This sounds like rather dull stuff to relate to the reader, but the authors descriptions of the game are never less than completely involving and genuinely exciting. There is a popular misconception that Douglas Adams was responsible for bringing humour into Sci-Fi. But before him there was already the brilliant Stanislaw Lem, whose humour can be often anarchic and deeply satirical.

This is a good example of his satirical humour at its most razor sharp. If the idea of Sci-Fi combined with Swiftean satire sounds appealing then this book is definitely for you. Supremely imaginative, and enjoyable at some level at almost any age. Written in the 50s, it creates a remarkably believable portrayal of modern life, before continuing an escape into an equally believable future. It asks all the important questions about human beings and society.

I'm using UoW as my choice but really any of Banks' culture novels fit the bill. Banks' stands astride 21st century science fiction as a giant. He not only manages to excel in world building, The Culture has to be one of the greatest realised sci-fi universes in print, but also manages something that virtually all other sci-fi authors fail at; the evolution of psychology over time. The inhabitants of Banks' worlds are existentially flawed and carry with them a melancholy created by pitting emotional psychology against the vast backdrop and advanced science they have foisted upon them.

The scale of his stories could leave the protagonists dwarfed by the spectacle but they end up dovetailing perfectly into the situations thought up by Banks by allowing us to connect to the madness of existance, whether they're human or alien. Each of his new novels are events in the genre and allow their readers to conduct thought experiments of what it would be like to exist in such a reality surely the goal of any sci-fi?

I read it as a teenager and the sheer scale of the technological achievement of building the Ring has stayed with me - even though I cant remember much of the details of the story today! Totally influenced and encouraged me to pursue my dream of working in the building industry which I don't regret, even today. Atmospheric blend of fantasy and s decadence, with a consumptive, sexually ambiguous heroine whom I'd love to see Tilda Swinton play! It realistically sets out an anarchist society from an anthropological background; it's a hard life but it actually works!

AND it also provides the alien's perspective on humanity! Not just the best SF. But best novel Ive ever read. Impossible to explain its importance so briefly. Orwell lays it out. It is appropriated by literary fiction like most great SF. It's a thousand pages of wonder and awe at how mindboggling complex the universe is and the joy and fascination there is in trying to understand it with just the human brain. This is how physics and philosophy should be taught - at the same time and with multi-dimensional spaceships. An Epic Story, with a dark plot.

Donaldson creates a very beleiveable universe. As Soon as I finished the 1st book, I was online ordering the remaining 4 stories. This is the third book in C. Lewis's science fiction trilogy. It combines themes of mythology, allegory and religion with some great characters and moments of true horror. It's a great story that keeps you gripped all the way through.

This book is about the simple acts of kindness that can make immense and profound differences to the future. The main character is Shevik: He makes a difficult decision to travel to the neighbouring planet of Urras to try and use their expertise to piece it together. The novel weaves around in time: Shevik's present and past are explored: Back on Urras, Shevik begins to realise he is becoming a small pawn in a powerful government's game and has to reconcile himself with the fact that he may never have been able to go home in the first place and may never go home now.

At its centre is Shevik: It remains one of the best characters I can remember in any book - at the end the final twist of the twin narratives meets into one of the best endings I have read in any book. It's a different kind of science fiction that allows the reader to be an active creator of the "other timely" world introduced by Koontz. It's not about zombies or aliens or space but it does represent something maybe even more bone-chilling: The epic scope of the book, showing the terrifying yet exciting possibilities of the human race as an multi planetary starship faring bunch of brilliently flawed individuals, and organsiations.

A really rare find these days as I think it is out of print. Witty and engaging, it draws parralels with life on earth in a profound and imaginative alien galaxy. First published in , the book documents the many highs and lows of man's struggle for survival.

The book contains the first mention of genetic engineering in a sci fi novel, a compelling and truly eye-opening read. So maybe it is the outer fringes of SF where myth and fantasy meets "steam punk" but it does have futuristic dimensions albeit in a retro kinda way. It is the way the characters seem unbelievable yet real which gets me in all of his books by the way and sucks me in to a reading time vortex - as all good books should.

Bradbury's Mars keeps shifting its identity, becoming a symbol of the dreams and fears of America itself. No attempt is made at scientific accuracy this Mars is hot, for example , and the stories reflect the Cold War era in which they were written. Bradbury could overwrite, but he keeps this tendency under control here, and the book has a haunting resonance. It has the fastest start I can recollect any book having, The Affront are hilarious and the Culture ships superb.

I also appreciate that the nature of the excession is never defined. Hard sci-fi at its best. The attention to detail and depth of knowledge of the author make this a compelling and inspirational book to read. This is a strange, compelling and beautifully written story. I'd defy anyone from the most hard-nosed SF aficionado on up not to enjoy reading it. If can get into the language, you'll enter a plausible yet mythical world where you'll get your first knowin from the eyes of a dog and learn the secrets of the master chaynjis.

Can't believe that none of these magnificent books were chosen. Some better than others, but all full of wonderful prose, deep imagination, gripping stories and interesting characters. One of the few books I've read in one sitting. Set in a wonderfully imagined dystopic America, it's very bleak but also savagely funny, always brilliant, and ultimately heartbreaking. This book is a positive, hopeful contemplation of mankind's possible next step.

How we might evolve into something better than we are now. The first hint of this next evolutionary step is not evidenced by those we conventionally think of as brighter, stronger or more beautiful, but by the supposed freaks and invalids that just might come together in some way to become, collectively, something Ringworld is SF on a grand scale in many respects.

Set far into the future, it is scientifically well researched and utterly believable, with "alien" characters that are lifelike and convincing: A fantastic novel, one of many well-written books by Larry Niven. Excellent book using Sci-fi construct of time dilation to show futility of war. Written after he server in Vietnam. The sheer scope of the imagination: The gradual unfolding of the driving force of the novel: My son and I discussed it for days. Farmer is woefully under-rated, and really only known for his Riverworld series, but the World of Tiers is, I think, his masterwork.

It contains so much of why I read SF - it has terrific characters, it's overflowing with ideas, it has marvellous set pieces and it engenders a sense of awe and wonder at the possibilities of our universe or, rather, the multiverse. If I had the money I'd personally bankroll a film of the books, now that we have the technology to do justice to them. It has a breadth, wit and complexity that ensnared me from the first line. Banks has the ability to create fullt formed world's that are totally believable.

An utterly wonderful read. Reads like an allegorical account of the Chernobyl disaster, fifteen years before it happened. The love affair between Lazarus Long and Dora Brandon - but much more. Although not usually classified as Science Fiction, Carter's early novel certainly echoes the themes and styles of the genre. After all, what could be more sci-fi than a plot in which our hero must struggle against a mad scientist, in order to restore a world of order and 'reality'? The surrealist form of the novel and it's passionate portrayal of female sexuality which is quite unusual for a genre largely dominated by men makes it, for me, all the more interesting.

But, first and foremost, it is Carter's unforgettable language that puts the Infernal Desire Machines A book about an unbelievably old man and the wisdom that he has learned throughout the years. Shows the way we grapple with the big questions. Not without problems, but has incredibly high peaks. The story of an alien who comes to earth to in a quest to save his planet, not ours but is destroyed when he becomes all-too-human. The style is nicely understated, the plot, tech and characters believable and the story is full of gentle ironies.

Gripping story,fascinating,immaculately drawn characters living in believable world s. This book,and it's sequel,"Fall of Hyperion",are masterworks,in my opinion. I was so caught up in these books that they seemed more real than fiction to me,and this feeling holds up with repeated readings. The story got it all: Compared to his earlier novel "Snow Crash", Stephenson move further away from "Neuromancer" and into the future. And that's where I like my Sci-Fi: To my mind, Dick is the greatest writer of the 20th Century full stop. Never afraid to tackle the big questions, eg what does it mean to be human?

Or, as in this case, what exactly is the nature of reality? Banks' love of the genre shines out of every word. He has all the usual suspects in the Space Opera toy box, but he shows them to us through the eyes of a spoilt man-child who wants to play with them as much as we do. And finally we get the twist, probably Banks' finest, that makes us immediately turn back to page 1 and read it all again in a completely different context.

A bonkers, mad book, the story of Dr Frankenstein taken to a grey-goo-fuelled extreme. As the character's life disintegrates under the power of his creation, the narrative expands and fragments. The structure mimics the plot, sliding deliriously out of control until the reader ends up somewhere quite other than where they expected to. People need to be reminded of its existence; 'Dune,' 'Left Hand Painted with a broader brush than LeGuin's with whose work this one is often compared, it scores through the thought given to its societies and the extraordinary fairness with which it examines the personalities of some truly loathesome characters, particularly the brute like, emotionally retarded Saba and the self loathing vampire beureaucrat Tanuojin, the latter finally emerging as one of the most tragic and pitiable characters in Twentieth Century fiction.

From what I've read of her historical fiction, it's also a tragedy that she's not produced more SF, which she would appear to do far better. This book has so much soul in it. I return to it constantly as a benchmark of how good a book can be when it presumes it has intelligent and sensitive readers.

This book also has one of the most pervasive scents, and evocative moods I have read in sci-fi. I'm not a mad fan of gleaming rocket ships. Not a pill-for-lunch or a personal-jet pack in sight. What happens in this book could happen to any of us today. The ending is set far in the future, but the book is reassuring about man's ability to adapt now, today, to a new life anywhere on earth in this case, at the bottom of the ocean.

I found it compeletly believable and beautiful in its detail.

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The ultimate in political intrigue and dystopian commentary, all wrapped up in Banks' wonderfully realised Culture. Ostensibly about a man invited to play in a tournament of glorified intergalactic Risk, and yet the depth of the social observations, set alongside the super-cool tech, and written with razor-sharp wit, makes it so much more than this. If you only ever read one Iain M.

Banks book then it should be this one; and if you ever read this one you'll certainly want to read the rest. Extra terrestrial humanoid lands on earth, is captured and kept in an institute where he develops friendship with one of the doctors. Book is written in the form of journal entries and newspaper articles as we see a naive outsider's look at our culture and how his attitudes and preconceptions change as he is influenced by ours. A mightily written account of an outsider attempting to come to terms with his new surroundings.

Actually there are three books in the trilogy and they effortlessly combine technology, the spirit of pioneers, rebellion, and political and philosophical issues that arise when mankind invades and irrevocably alters an environment. The whole series is so believable that it drags you in and makes you want to explore the character of each hero and anti-hero as they come in and out of focus as events unfold.

And a satire of the class system too! Just exciting, if counterintuitive, science and a fantastic journey of discovery for the team sent up there to check that mysterious object Rama out. This book is too good not to imagine hope? Herbert managed to create a genuinely 'alternative' and unique view of the far, far future, a consistent universe which didn't rely on the common tropes of science fiction. There's also a great adventure story in there too. I loved it the first time I read it when I was about 12, and loved it the last time I read it, aged Azimov - the man who invented the word 'robotics'.

He also gives us the three laws of robotics. His robot stories are a huge influence on the way modern sci-fi sees artifical intellegence. It is a very convincing insight into how the world will be in the near future combined with a grand space opera style plot about danger from outer space. A typical good versus evil, post-apocalyptic novel. The world finally succumbed to nuclear war. As a result of this final act of paranoid hatred between humans, the ultimate in evil is created. It's very hard to choose one particular book from Ian M Banks' Culture series because those I have read have all been outstanding.

Excession stands out in my memory because of the intensity of the story and the amazing concepts that fill Bank's universe such as the Culture's Minds and the artificially intelligent space ships. Incorporates everything from tarzan to sherlock holmes to dracula to wonder woman, all within a world in which our understanding of the physical universe, macro and micro alike, get both explained and questioned in equal measures. Truly visionary and splendidly realised.

As with all of his first books, Egan pushes his brilliant ideas to the limit of imagination and then pushes them again in mind boggoling areas and then does it again and again. The stories are also well constructed and engrossing. The best hard science fiction in my opinion. A brilliant look at religion, politics, race and power. I've re-read it 5 times and every time I discover whole concepts not seen before. Because you'll never read anything like it again. It's original, beautifully written, imaginative and highly thoughtful. Really outstanding and the reason I became an SF fan in the first place.

A great story with all of the needed ingredients of action, intrigue, suspense and science. This is my favourite Iain M Banks book by light years. I love his "Culture" series of novels, but "The Algebraist" story is his most complete. A complex and exciting novel based in A. Cruel warlords, invasion forces, friendships lost and remade, beautifully described worlds and a compelling detective story all go to make this book a must read for any science fiction fan. Although I'd concur with the greatness of Neuromancer, Pavane and its sister novel Kiteworld are an exciting mix of historical and futuristic thinking from a, now, relatively unsung British writer.

Perhaps it doesn't have the global ambition of the Gibson novels but it creates a logical coherent vision of an alternative Britain that is very intriguing. Having no Kurt Vonnegut on the list would be a glaring omission so why not this chilling end of the world classic. The meaning and future of human life, intelligent life in the universe, and everything. Before there was Cyberpunk, there was Shockwave Rider. Before there was an internet, there was Shockwave Rider. Back in the 70s, this was the book that told us the direction.

When everyone was still going on about space travel, this told us what was really going to change our world. As far as I am concerned, Neuromancer which i also like is simply fan fiction for this vision. The scale and detail of this book are without compare.

Realistic enough to keep you grounded yet the descriptions and scope of events are so vast that you're hooked and kept interested through the 3 books. This is a very accessible novel that I would recommend to someone who has little experience with the genre. The story is somewhat conventional beginning, middle, end but manages to include a considerable amount of discovery and mystery. If defines what something truly 'alien' is - not some dude with two arms, two legs, one head and a load of prosthetic makeup, but alien. EE Doc Smith's Lensman series of novels is fantastic. Don't read them out of sequence or you will get confused.

Not a classic as such. However a brilliantly formulated and pieced together epic, which is assured to keep you engrossed for a couple of months at least. It has everything - Banks' Culture novels all share a great setting, but out of all of them The Player of Games just delivers that bit extra in character, adventure, epic grandeur, and a sophisticated plot that resonates on so many levels.

Sci-Fi sometimes takes itself too seriously - this five some of the laughs back. Immense in scale, it crafts a entire universe of it's own and then populates it with figures and races over millions of years. It mixes philosophy, Islam, Zen, lesbianism, Cloning into a series of amazing books that stretch our minds and challenge our perceptions of reality and our perceptions of self.

A compelling glance into the future for our technological, alienated, schizoid species. If you think that cyberpunk was invented in the s, then you really need to read this book. Combines both a vicious, futuristic war yarn and the bleeding edge of trippy, Burroughs-style SF. Abraham Lincoln is revived as an android as part of a crazy scheme to re-enact the US Civil War for entertainment only to be hijacked by big business and a darkly disturbed creator - All contribute to this tale in which the author explores his familiar themes of the nature of reality and what makes us truly human.

Fantastic series of books. It does what Asimov tried to do but never quite succeeded, despite his many achievements: The humans end up being almost the rather indulged and very much patronised pets of the AIs. Speaking of pets, David Brin's Startide Rising deserves a mention. And, for the entire body of his work up to the moment, the great Greg Egan: Better than the first volume, Hyperion, this book has a great, dramatic story, fine characters, plenty of time-twisting and some wonderful ideas about AIs, human evolution, religion and What It All Means.

It's not gruesome and funny like Iain M Banks I would nominate all the Culture novels as second choice but it is epic, thought-provoking and a little bit scary the Shrike. Few authors can tell a story from the view of a non human character as convincingly as C. Her worlds are well developed and it is fun to read her books. Mr Banks' science fiction is always absolutely brilliant. The scope and size of the settings in which the plot is set is so much more than other writers. I enjoy them all, Surface Detail, being the latest developed The Culture concept further, full of dark humour and brain expanding vastness of it all.

Consider Phlebas is sf at it's best. Awesome in it's scope, speculative in it's ideas, plausible and at the same time beyond what we have thought before.

Huge things in space, sentient machines, a fantastic society and a main character that is on the wrong side in a conflict makes great reading and hopefully some thinking from the reader. Absolutely terrifying, yet zany, satire of Soviet life. Written in this under-appreciated gem is the grand-daddy of all dystopia. It looks at the mechanation and production line culture that was due to rise.

Fordism and a Benefactor scream 'Brave New World' and '' in equally delightful prescient horrors.

Space rather than science fiction, this is a penetrating look at humanity through an alien's eye. Lessing is prescient about so much and pulls no punches in her analysis of the human condition. An endlessly fascinating, worlds-within-worlds exploration. Original, thought-provoking and well plotted, not ruined by exposition.

It illustrates the utter futility of projects like SETI - even if we did receive a message from the stars, could we ever agree what it meant. And imagine the religious upheaval it would cause if there was any claim that there is no God. I picked it up by accident from the library and just though, "oh well, I'll read it anyway?

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It's hero, takeshi kovacs is very much a person who just seems to caught up in incredibly volatile and deadly situations, and he comes through them purely cos he's prepared to do whatever is necessary to survive in an outrageously coldblooded manner while still retaining enough depth of character and humanity to be sympathetic.

I've read everything that Morgan's written since - several times - and I can't recommend this book highly enough. A book that feels just as relevant now than it did in the 70s. Great plot, satisfactory presentation of inner agonies of the individuals, solid characters, irony, suspense. A s masterpiece of black humor that, although dated in the way it tackles sexuality and the place of women in society, stands as a good reflection on utopia, pacifism and personal responsibility.

Once read, never forgotten. Well written and plotted - lots of strands - androids, repressed memories, ambiguous aliens, action sequences with sudden unexpected abilities, with in depth character development, and open ended. Would make a great blockbuster film! Seventies utopian and dystopian ideas. These problems were not resolved by the sale to McCaffrey, who did not even have enough money to pay for circulation postage, with the result that not every Galaxy subscriber received a copy of the final issue.

In , the magazine reappeared briefly as a semi-professional publication under the editorship of E. Gold , son of H. Gold produced eight issues on a regular bimonthly schedule, starting with the January—February issue, and ending with March—April Gold intended Galaxy to publish stories of sufficient literary quality to attract readers of the slick magazines, as well as those who came to Galaxy already familiar with genre science fiction.

Campbell , the editor of the leading magazine in the field, Astounding Science Fiction: Gold was interested in sociology, psychology, and other "soft" sciences, and was also willing to publish humorous and satirical stories. The image was muted, in contrast to the sensational art typically found on the covers of the sf pulps; the intention was that Galaxy should look like an sf magazine, but one "that you were not embarrassed to hold", in the words of Mike Ashley.

In the first issue, Gold asked for reader feedback on what should be included in the magazine—letters, editorials, book reviews, or other features. The response was against a letter column, [notes 7] but the readers wanted editorials, and short book reviews with recommendations that would help them identify what books to buy, as opposed to in-depth criticism. The first six issues contained stories by well-known authors, including some that became highly regarded such as Fritz Leiber's "Coming Attraction", Damon Knight 's " To Serve Man ", and Ray Bradbury 's "The Fireman", later expanded as Fahrenheit Gold maintained Galaxy 's high standards for most of the s.

Alfred Bester 's The Demolished Man —according to critic Peter Nicholls , "among the few genuine classics of genre sf"—was serialized in early Running uninterrupted until Ley's death in , [40] [50] [55] Frederik Pohl describes it as "the most popular single feature Galaxy ever had". Gold published a wide range of material, and Galaxy became known for irony and satire; the work of authors able to adopt the wry style he favored, such as Knight and Robert Sheckley , appeared regularly in the magazine [40] and were obvious commentaries on contemporary society.

Tenn quotes Gold, an ex-radical, as saying the idea made him "sweat green", though the year before he had published Isaac Asimov's "The Martian Way", a thinly veiled anti- McCarthy story. Sprague de Camp commented that Gold "sets an extremely high standard of literary excellence for his writers", and observed that he often demanded multiple revisions and rewrites.

In the case of The Demolished Man , his involvement extended almost to the point of collaboration. In March Gold announced a novel-writing contest, but it failed to attract any usable submissions. He asked Pohl and Kornbluth if they would be willing to allow him to print Gladiator-at-Law , which they had just completed, under a pseudonym, so he could claim that the contest had found a new talent. They refused, but shortly afterwards Pohl and Lester del Rey agreed to let Gold take their recently completed novel Preferred Risk and publish it as the winner, under the pseudonym Edson McCann.

It lasted for ten bimonthly issues, with the final one appearing in January The ABC radio series Tales of Tomorrow , which began in as an offshoot of the TV series of the same name, used stories from Galaxy ; the connection was announced at the start of each of its fifteen episodes. From February onwards the scripts were adapted exclusively from stories in Galaxy , and from the April issue Galaxy ran advertisements for the series, which included work by Pohl, Sturgeon, and Philip K.

Through the s, Galaxy 's contributors routinely dominated the Hugo ballots, but neither the magazine nor the fiction it published won many awards, despite what sf historians Marshall Tymn and Mike Ashley describe as its "deserved reputation for excellence". When Pohl took over as editor in , he broadened the magazine's scope, including more fantasy material. Pohl never succeeded in winning a Hugo Award as editor of Galaxy , although he won the award three consecutive times from to as editor of If , Galaxy 's sister magazine, and in theory the junior of the two publications.

The quality of fiction in Galaxy had dipped towards the end of Gold's editorship, and Pohl worked hard to restore the magazine's high standards. Gold's difficult editorial personality had driven away some of his contributors, but Pohl, who had worked as an agent in the s, was a central figure in the sf community and was able to attract submissions from the star writers of his day.

Robert Silverberg could write whatever he wished and Pohl promised that he would almost invariably buy it. Silverberg, who had been a high-volume producer of competent but unremarkable science fiction, began writing more ambitious work as a result, much of which was published in Galaxy throughout the s.

In February , Pohl brought in Algis Budrys as book reviewer, after a year in which no review column had appeared. Budrys's insightful reviews drew much praise, and editor David Hartwell has ranked him as one of the best sf critics of his generation. The difference between Pohl's approach and Gold's was apparent in the editorials Pohl wrote, which were informal, entertaining, and rooted in his deep familiarity with the genre.

Ejler Jakobsson's tenure began with a large backlog of stories that Pohl had acquired, but within a year or two substantial changes were apparent.

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Jakobsson initially printed guest editorials rather than writing his own; when he took over the editorial page his work was unremarkable. He managed to attract some of the new writers who were becoming well known in the sf scene, including George R. Martin , Joe Haldeman , and Joanna Russ. Three novels published in Jakobsson's Galaxy won awards: Sturgeon's short story " Slow Sculpture " won both the Hugo and the Nebula in A letter column was added at the end of ; this was the first time Galaxy had published reader's letters.

Galaxy 's long-time science columnist, Willy Ley, died in , and was replaced by Donald Menzel. He was replaced in turn by Jerry Pournelle in April Apart from Gateway , Baen published only one award-winning story: Baen's successors, Pierce, Stine, and Kemske, were unable to maintain his standard. Pohl remained loyal to the magazine, but the serialization of his novel Jem exemplified Galaxy 's growing problems. Due to the magazine's increasingly erratic schedule, the serialization stretched from the last issue of into , well after it had appeared in book form.

Cherryh 's The Faded Sun: Kesrith , the overall quality was dramatically worse than it had been under Baen. Even that low rate did not guarantee timely disbursement, and many writers stopped submitting because of Galaxy 's reputation for paying slowly, if at all. Costs were increasing for paper, postage, and production, and the paperback anthology market was booming, adding to the competition that Galaxy faced.

Galaxy had a characteristic cover style in the s with an inverted white "L" shape Greek gamma framing the cover art; this style was copied by several magazines, including Authentic Science Fiction and Startling Stories. The December issue was the first to eliminate the strip on the left, and until July the magazine varied between this layout, the inverted "L", and a version with no white at all, first used on the August issue.

Another change visible in that issue is the reversal of the title coloring to white lettering on a block of red; this was used from August to December In August the title was enlarged to fill the width of the magazine; this issue had the white inverted "L", but it was the last one to do so till After August the cover paintings spanned the entire cover, though with some minor variations in layout such as can be seen in the October issue.

Then in September undated on the cover, but numbered vol. The final issue, edited by Kemske, returned to the previous layout and typeface, although with a magazine twice the size of the original digest. Gold revived Galaxy in , he restored the inverted "L" and employed a predominantly black-and-white look for the eight issues he published. Notable artists who contributed regularly to Galaxy included Ed Emshwiller, who won several Hugo Awards for his work, [94] [95] Hugo nominee Wallace Wood, [96] and Jack Gaughan, who won three Hugos in the late s, partly for his work in Galaxy.

Isaac Asimov, in his memoirs, recalled being deeply impressed by the first issue of Galaxy , and that many fans, including himself, believed that the magazine became the field's leader almost immediately. Pohl stated in that almost every major science fiction writer whose career began after primarily wrote for Galaxy , and that others closely imitated Gold's magazine. He adds, "What Galaxy brought to magazine science fiction was a kind of sophisticated intellectual subtlety.

After Galaxy it was impossible to go on being naive. SF historian David Kyle ascribes Galaxy 's influence specifically to Gold, saying that "of all the editors in and out of the post-war scene, the most influential beyond any doubt was H. Gold" and that the new direction he set led, "inevitably", to the New Wave , the celebrated science fiction literary movement of the s.

Malzberg , who calls Gold "perhaps the greatest editor in the history of all fields for the first half of his tenure". SF authors and historians Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove summarize Galaxy 's history by saying that it lasted for "thirty mainly glorious years": I'd like to ask the men here to consider idly, in some spare moment, whether by any chance they've been building any walls to keep the women out, or to keep them in their place, and what they may have lost by doing so.

I can imagine myself blurbing a book in which Brian Aldis, predictably, sneers at my work, because then I could preen myself on my magnanimity. But I cannot imagine myself blurbing a book, the first of a new series and hence presumably exemplary of the series, which not only contains no writing by women, but the tone of which is so self-contentedly, exclusively male, like a club, or a locker room. That would not be magnanimity, but foolishness.

Gentlemen, I just don't belong here. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains. I have frequently described myself as a feminist, because feminist thinking and writing of the '60s and '70s had a huge liberating influence on me, setting my mind free from a whole lot of masculist bigotries and superstitions; and so it would be untruthful and ungrateful not to call myself a feminist… Besides, when you say you're a feminist it annoys the bigots and the old farts and the prissy ladies so much, it's kind of irresistible.

He had grown up in a country run by politicians who sent the pilots to man the bombers to kill the babies to make the world safe for children to grow up in. If civilization has an opposite, it is war. Of these two things, you have either one, or the other. It is only when science asks why, instead of simply describing how, that it becomes more than technology. When it asks why, it discovers Relativity. When it only shows how, it invents the atom bomb, and then puts its hands over its eye and says, 'My God what have I done? The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.

Death and life are the same thing -- like the two sides of my hand, the palm and the back. And still the palm and the back are not the same They can be neither separated, nor mixed.

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