James Nicoll Reviews

Reginald Bretnor’s 1953 Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Its Future is a collection of essays by a variety of authors on the subject of science fiction, its meaning, and its future. Bretnor published three such collections. I have previously reviewed the other two:

Science Fiction, Today and Tomorrow: A Discursive Symposium is reviewed here.

The Craft of Science Fiction: A Symposium on Writing Science Fiction and Science Fantasy is reviewed here.

Read more ➤

Reginald Bretnor’s 1975 The Craft of Science Fiction: A Symposium on Writing Science Fiction and Science Fantasy is (I know this may seem astonishing) a symposium on writing science fiction and science fantasy. 

So far as I know the contributors were not drinking wine together, though they may have done so separately at various times. 

Read more ➤

Reginald Bretnor’s The Future at Waris a trio of military SF anthologies. The series consists of Thor’s Hammer(1979), The Spear of Mars (1980), and Orion’s Sword (1980). The three anthologies provide an interesting look at early military SF, which was still in a rudimentary form at this point.

[NOTE: I originally posted an older draft of this. My apology for my error]

Read more ➤

Judging by the poll on my Livejournal, poor Reginald Bretnor is well on his way to the obscurity that awaits most of us. I remember him, not for his fiction or for the Future at War MilSF anthologies he edited (although, hrm, I do own them), but for non-fiction books like this one: 1974’s Science Fiction, Today and Tomorrow: A Discursive Symposium. He also compiled Modern Science Fiction: Its Meaning and Its Future (1953)and The Craft of Science Fiction: A Symposium on Writing Science Fiction and Science Fantasy (1976)¹.

Parts of this collection provide an interesting snapshot of science fiction forty-odd years ago. Other parts, um, well .…

Read more ➤