The Road to Science Fiction 6: Around the World

The Road to Science Fiction #6

by James E. Gunn

The stories we tell are not limited to monsters and harsh otherworlds. Yet the fiction books in the Borealis imprint certainly belong to a world other than our own. This line encompasses our science fiction, fantasy and horror novels and anthologies.The Road to Science Fiction makes a circuit of the Earth in Volume 6, subtitled Around the World. In its first four volumes, this much-praised historical anthology series traced the way in which the earliest forms of fantastic fiction developed into what we know as science fiction today. Volume 5 described the somewhat different approaches taken by British science fiction. Now, Volume 6 looks at science fiction in a dozen foreign countries and offers a rich variety of stories from...around the world.

Genres: Anthologies, Science Fiction

622 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

American science fiction author, editor, scholar, and anthologist. His work from the 1960s and 70s is considered his most significant fiction, and his Road to Science Fiction collections are considered his most important scholarly books. He won a Hugo Award for a non-fiction book in 1983 for Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction. He was named the 2007 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Gunn served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, after which he attended the University of Kansas, earning a Bachelor of Science in Journalism in 1947 and a Masters of Arts in English in 1951. Gunn went on to become a faculty member of the University of Kansas, where he served as the university's director of public relations and as a professor of English, specializing in science fiction and fiction writing. He is now a professor emeritus and director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction, which awards the annual John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award at the Campbell Conference in Lawrence, Kansas, every July.

He served as President of the Science Fiction Writers of America from 1971–72, was President of the Science Fiction Research Association from 1980-82, and currently is Director of The Center for the Study of
Science Fiction. SFWA honored him as a Grand Master of Science Fiction in 2007.

Gunn began his career as a science fiction author in 1948. He has had almost 100 stories published in magazines and anthologies and has authored 26 books and edited 10. Many of his stories and books have been reprinted around the world.

In 1996, Gunn wrote a novelization of the unproduced Star Trek episode "The Joy Machine" by Theodore Sturgeon.

His stories also have been adapted into radioplays and teleplays:
* NBC radio's X Minus One
* Desilu Playhouse's 1959 "Man in Orbit", based on Gunn's "The Cave of Night"
* ABC-TV's Movie of the Week "The Immortal" (1969) and an hour-long television series in 1970, based on Gunn's The Immortals
* An episode of the USSR science fiction TV series This Fantastic World, filmed in 1989 and entitled "Psychodynamics of the Witchcraft" was based on James Gunn's 1953 story "Wherever You May Be".

Reviews

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection was really of interest to me, but not the easiest to get, at least this volume. Luckily there is Interlibrary loan. Someday I'll have to read the other volumes in the series for a bit of a sci fi history lesson, but this one was of the most interest to me due to curiosity of what all is out there that just never gets translated to English (and what has been translated but perhaps forgotten). Obviously this is out of date now, particularly with the wealth of translations of works from China now. But for a round the world taste of science fiction this was really lovely. Each nation or region included has great variety in the kind of science fiction story that is traditionally told there, based on their culture and how Western, largely US, SF has been imported. Some of the older stories collected here I found outdated and not too enjoyable (though they are useful for perspective). Mainly I just wish there were more collections out there like this.

[Frederick Gault · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather academic but well researched. I learned a lot but this is more of a graduate seminar than an enjoyable read. Some cultures have less science and more fiction - so some of the stories sail closer to the wind of Surrealism or Magical Realism. Included are Kafka, Borghes and the like so one can see this collection strays from Science Fiction in an effort to get to the roots of contemporary Sci-Fi in various countries around the world.