Science Fiction Before 1900 [antikvár]

Every fan of science fiction remembers with pleasure Arthur C. Clarke's classic 1953 short story "The Nine BiUion Names of God." But I believe there would be few happy memories of an introduction to science fiction's early days that read like a catalog of the nine billion works before 1900 with some claim as precursors or exemplars of the genre. Of course there were not quite that many. There are, however, enough serious claimants so that to mention, let alone discuss, them all or even those most widely read in their time would create an impression of astronomical magnitude more bewildering than enlightening. I intend this book, therefore, to provide soundings rather than a survey. Those who know, or think they know, the history of science fiction will have the satisfaction of deploring my omission of many favorite and doubtless relevant texts that are among what I consider the "nine billion." The very plenitude of works from which historians must choose and over whose claims they quarrel is a measure of science fiction's impressive scope and vitality. No recently crystallized genre touches on so many urgent human concerns and draws more widely on the resources of previous literature. No form better illustrates the dictum that genres serve ethical as well as aesthetic purposes. Science fiction excels at articulating the new possibilities for good and evil that shape our destinies in an age when science has accelerated the proliferation of technologies once beyond even the reach of fantasy. My selection has been XI