Exploration

About the Book

Often absorbing, occasionally opinonated, always insightful, and informative, this introductory guide to science fiction as a subject truly worthy of serious study meets the surprising need for such a "survey" of the truly vast, ill-defined and thoroughly unruly offshoot of speculative literature that has come to be known as "science fiction." A Brief Guide considers both the literary form of science fiction and the popular media adventures that are also called "science fiction," examines the quite significant differences between the two, and explores what we may learn from each era's view of "the future." Looking back on the 20th Century, which basically encompassed almost the entire development of "sci-fi," it's easy to see how it could will come to be known as the "Science Fiction Century." From horse cavalry to smart bombs, from Marconi to the Internet, from bifocals to laser surgery, from slide rulers to laptop computers---what a long strange trip it's been!

About the Author

"My first exposure to science fiction that I can remember was a Little Golden Book in which Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Uncle Scrooge went to the Moon in a rocket ship that had a wraparound windshield. I've been hooked ever since." Mr. Daugherty teaches writing and the occasional science fiction course at the University of New England, in Biddeford, Maine. He and his wife, Audrey Stempel, live in nearby Old Orchard Beach with six cats and a German Shepard named Sarah Jane in a house well insulated with a nearly solid inner lining of science fiction books.