Subject: Review of Anatomy of Wonder (sf reference)

From: [email-masked] (Steve Brock)
Date: 14 Apr 1995 02:35:12 GMT

ANATOMY OF WONDER: A CRITICAL GUIDE TO SCIENCE FICTION, FOURTH
EDITION, edited by Neil Barron.  R.R. Bowker, 121 Chanlon Rd., New
Providence, NJ  07974, (800) 521-8110, (908) 665-6688 FAX.  Three
indexes, bibliographies, notes.  912 pp., $52.00.  0-8352-3288-3

                     Reviewed by Steve Brock

     To all those complainers who write to rec.arts.sf.written,
moaning that they've real all the good stuff from the past and
there's nothing being written today that's worth squat: take a look
at the "Anatomy of Wonder."  With commentary on four hundred years
worth of books listed by time period (emergence, between the wars,
etc.), as well as critiques of movies, television shows, magazines,
comic books, and radio shows, it'll be a long time before you play
a dirge for written science fiction.  
     In between reading "The Man Who Rocked the Earth" by Arthur
Cheyney Train and Robert Williams Wood (1915), John Shirley's
"Heatseeker" (1989), or even Bruce Sterling's "Heavy Weather"
(1994), you can also check out sections on sf poetry, sf for young
adults, general reference works, history and criticism, sf author
studies (no mention of the newsgroups alt.fan.robert-jordan and
others), an essay on teaching sf, a list of sf conventions,
organizations, and awards, and a catalog of sf collections in
research libraries.  
     Though the book guide leans toward later works and totally
disregards the Internet, this is a handy, handsome sf handbook,
essential for libraries and sf enthusiasts.  Grade: B+.