Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction
Nicholas Whyte
Farah Mendlesohn (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
(review by Nicholas Whyte; also on my site at
http://explorers.whyte.com/sf/camb.htm )
We are all waiting for the third edition of the Clute/Nicholls
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction to appear. In the meantime, this
volume of 21 essays on various aspects of sf fulfills the two things I
really want from a critical survey: it helps me better understand the
sf I have already read, and gives me pointers to writers and books
that I might enjoy.
Highlights for me: the sequence of five historical essays about the
development of science fiction; the three essays basically about sf
and sex (dressed up as "feminist theory", "queer theory" and
"gender"); and Ken MacLeod's broad survey of sf and politics. I also
felt that Andrew Butler's essay on "post-modernism and science
fiction" succeeded by critically examining postmodernism as a concept,
so that I felt I had learnt something at the end of it. Mark Bould's
essay on sf in films and TV is also very good but runs out of steam in
about 1970.
Two assertions that made me think: Ken MacLeod - a writer with things
to say about religion? Alien - like "Bloodchild", a pregnant man
story?
Low points: Istvan Csicsery-Ronay's essay on Marxist theory and
science fiction is without redeeming features. The only interesting
bit, his discussion of Jameson, is covered much better by Butler two
chapters on. Several of the other chapters spurred me to think that
had I the time and library resources I would have liked to try and do
a better job.
General bias: Well, one can quibble about the omissions (graphic
novels; Christopher Priest) but the top four names in the index,
ranked by numbers of cross-references, are Heinlein, Le Guin, Wells
and Asimov, which seems to me pretty fair. Given the collection's
emphasis on issues of sex and sexuality, it's not so very surprising
to find Joanna Russ in fifth place, but she is followed by the firmly
traditional choices of John W. Campbell, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K.
Dick, and E.E. "Doc" Smith. I would have thought that fans who want to
read more broadly about sf, but feel alienated by the Clute lit-crit
stuff (as I saw it referred to somewhere; I am not among this number),
will find enough in this book to make them feel they got their money's
worth.
There are two other reviews of this book online, a mostly enthusiastic
one by Adam Roberts at
http://www.thealienonline.net/ao_030.asp?tid=2&scid=21&iid=2093 and a
very negative one by Jonathan Cowie at
http://www.concatenation.org/nfrev/cambcompanion.html .
The numbers bit: Authors and topics whose index entries have the most
page references in the Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction:
48: Robert A. Heinlein
33: Ursula K. Le Guin, H.G. Wells
25: Isaac Asimov
22: Joanna Russ
21: John W. Campbell, Arthur C. Clarke, Philip K. Dick
19: E.E. "Doc" Smith
17: Kim Stanley Robinson, Star Trek, utopia
16: Samuel R. Delany, Hugo Gernsback, Frederik Pohl
15: Amazing Stories, cyberpunk, Frank Herbert, Bruce Sterling, Jules
Verne
14: Theodore Sturgeon
13: Astounding/Analog, J.G. Ballard, Octavia E. Butler, William
Gibson, A.E. Van Vogt
12: Greg Bear, Marge Piercy, Edgar Allan Poe, Mary Shelley, Gene Wolfe
11: Ken MacLeod, Star Wars, Vernor Vinge
10: Brian W. Aldiss, Gregory Benford, Ray Bradbury, Orson Scott Card,
Sherri S. Tepper, James Tiptree Jr
Summary: Recommended.
(My real email address is explorers at whyte dot com)