Resources

General Web Resources

	The Denver Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club has a nice website, and includes reviews and weblinks for each book they have discussed for the past few years.
	Science Fiction Studies, the leading US academic journal of SF criticism, has a website. Only holds abstracts for the articles, but it does include a whole lot of book reviews and a remarkably complete bibliography of SF criticism.
	The Science Fiction Resource Guide is full of links to web resources.
	The Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase includes pretty exhaustive listings of stories, magazine contents and books. It also lists winners of all major awards.
	There's a bunch of stuff, including what seem to be home made reviews, at the SF Site.

Print Resources

	You already have the Clute & Nicholls encyclopedia -- the one indispensable guide.
	The best attempt at an overall history of the science fiction genre is Trillion Year Spree by Brian Aldiss and David Wingrove.
	A more recent book, which attempts to place key science fiction themes and authors into an historical context, is The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World by Thomas M. Disch.

Class Presentations

1: Introduction

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Read in Clute & Nicholls: Definitions of SF

There's a great website that goes with a New York Public Library exhibition (and book) on the theme of Utopia.

2: The Future in America & the Origins of Science Fiction

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Read in Clute & Nicholls: Utopia, History of SF, Edisonade, Sense of Wonder, Pulp Magazines, Golden Age, Astounding Science Fiction, Campbell

	The 1933 Chevrolet video, "Triumph of America", is here. The 1940 General Motors video "To New Horizons" about their Futurama exhibit is here. Both are taken from the movie collection of www.archive.org.
	There is a quite nice website about Huge Gernsback, where you can read his technological utopia "Ralph 124C 41+".
	There are quite a few websites featuring old cover art from pulp SF magazines. Here is one.
	The Pulp Zone includes a nice selection of stories, including this nice editorial by Hugo Gernsback on Technocracy.
	Hard as it is to believe, Technocracy, Inc. is still trundling along -- its website holds many publications from the 1930s to 1950s. Anybody who is not a foreigner or politician can join -- you get to wear a Monad and after the "reorganization" you'll be issued with a little card for your energy credits.

3: The Future in the 1950s

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Read in Clute & Nicholls: Genre SF, PSI Powers, Telepathy, Galaxy Science Fiction, Psychology

4: Future in Britain (comes logically as 2)

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Read in Clute & Nicholls: Wells, Scientific Romance, Evolution

	War of the Worlds is in the public domain -- here is one free ebook version.
	Frankenstein and The Time Machine are also available on-line.

5: Paranoia & the Cold War

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Read in Clute & Nicholls: Paranoia

	The full text of Orwell's 1984 is now available on the web.
	The film we watched in class, Communism, is on-line.

6: The Shadow of the Bomb

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Read in Clute & Nicholls: Nuclear Power, End Of the World, War

	The film we watched in class, About Fallout, is on-line.
	The film we watched in class, Duck & Cover, is on-line.
	If you haven't seen it, you really should watch the classic film Dr Strangelove.

7: The Future in the 1960s

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Read in Clute & Nicholls: Ecology, Messiah, Religion

I talked a bit about Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land as an example of the intersection of science fiction and campus bestsellers. Here is a page by someone who liked it so much that he collected every different cover. For a review on the Heinlein fan site wegrokit.com see here.

8: The New Wave and Philip K Dick

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Read in Clute & Nicholls: Sex, New Wave, Dick, Entropy

For Philip K. Dick links see the resources section of the Ubik page.

9: The Future and the 1970s

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Read in Clute & Nicholls: Women, Feminism, Big Dumb Objects

10: Apollo and Beyond

If the brief mention of the "Limits to Growth" report attracted your interest, you may find this site -- full of similar stuff from various viewpoints, to be interesting.

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Read in Clute & Nicholls: Space Flight, Space Ships, Moon, Mars

11: Cyberpunk and the 80s

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Read in Clute & Nicholls: Cyberpunk, Genetic Engineering, Nanotechnology

12: The Future and the 1970s

Overheads: view on the web, download as PowerPoint

Page created by Thomas Haigh. Last edited 01/12/2002.