... of course it's dour. Of course it's sometimes scabrous. It's Thomas M. Disch! Disch was a wonderful, intelligent writer in (at least, most often in) a genre that, untrue to appearances, often didn't value things like intelligence or -- especially -- good writing. He took his own life in 2008. *The Dreams Our Stuff is Made Of* is not precisely a love-song to science fiction ... as others have pointed out, it's way too judgmental and opinionated and cranky for that ... but if you *really* think Disch is dismissive of what sf can do, read what he says about Clement's *Mission of Gravity*.

Sure, it pissed me off in spots. I think Disch meant it to piss people off. I also read it in two days, transfixed. You are missed, TMD, at least by some of us.

I wish I didn't have to add that I heap scorn on Free Press for apparently not bothering with fact-checking or proofreading, because this book (as so many these days) is bursting with embarrassing and needless errors / typos. The author of *Last and First Men* and *Star Maker* is Olaf Stapledon, NOT Olaf Stapleton. Gene Wolfe's name is given correctly in a couple of places but mysteriously warps into "Gene Worle" at least once. And while I know this is a common gaffe (my own mother committed it sometimes), the First Officer in the original *Star Trek* series is named Spock -- sometimes "Mr." Spock but NEVER "Dr. Spock." Dr. Spock's first name was Benjamin, and he was a popular 1960s figure alongside the character played by Leonard Nimoy. C'mon Free Press, wtf? Authors deserve better than this. ( )

This is a rambling book about the history of science fiction and, especially, how it's affected life in America, by a very good SF writer and poet and critic. It's kind of a bleak picture; Disch didn't see much promise in the current state of SF, and he thought the Strategic Defense Initiative and the Heaven's Gate suicides were inevitable results of the American style of fantasy. But what he loved, he told about well, especially when talking about the '60s and '70s since he was there. Whether or not you agree with his readings of particular authors (skeptical admiration for Philip Dick; impatience with the politics of Delany and Le Guin; less about Theodore Sturgeon's books than about his sex life), it's heady reading, especially when he gets mad. (In particular, the chapters about right-wing SF, from Robert Heinlein to Jerry Pournelle to Newt Gingrich, for all their calm detail, read as if Disch had to keep stopping to laugh hysterically and throw things at the wall.) ( )

I am a bit mixed on this one. On one hand, it was well written and informative and I found many of his points interesting even if I didn't agree with them. On the other hand, well I don't think Thomas Disch really enjoyed science fiction and it's culture all that much. He spent a lot of time pointing the more negative aspects of science fiction, and working really, really hard to create some that I didn't feel actually had anything to do with science fiction in the first place. He also seemed to have an occasional ax to grind and grudges to express though he never really slipped all the way over in to bitterness or meanness. And I have no idea what Oliver North has to do with any of this.

The book was writing in 1998 and a lot has changed in science fiction since he wrote it, and it felt dated many times but I found myself wondering a lot how his perspective may have changed had he be able to up date in today’s world, sadly not a possibility anymore.
His insiders view of the earlier days of science fiction, and of the culture of the time, were fascinating and there were more than a few things I had never heard before from anyone else and overall I found this book interesting and worth reading, it just wasn't quite what I was expecting from the title. ( )

By turns, acerbic, witty, thoughtful, arrogant, vicious and sympathetic, this book is really more a collection of essays about various themes and issues related to the genre that Disch wants to talk about rather than a very coherent look at how science fiction has impacted the modern world. One doesn't always agree with what he is saying, and one can even be offended by some of his rather cutting remarks, and his tendency to be rather reductive in the way he presents a particular work, person or agenda that he has it in for, but at the same time, this can also be an engaging, entertaining and even insightful read. ( )

Despite a fantastic title, a promising subject matter (the impact of Science Fiction on the world we live in), and a fairly cool cover, this book was a solid disappointment.

I was frustrated in the early chapters, which were more of a rambling history of some aspect of science fiction with which he was familiar (and no real solid evidence as to why that aspect was /important/). Most of the book is like that - a lot of history, some rambling, but no ability to pull it all together and match it up with real world events or societal and technological changes.

The one section that stood out as interesting to me discussed Star Trek as a sort of sneakily utopian science fiction which, although it had its own issues, did the world a service in presenting what a workplace with no official recognition of gender or racial differences might look like.

Unfortunately, this was a small section, and by the time I'd reached the chapter titled 'Can Girls Play Too? Feminizing Sci Fi', I was done.

Most of the chapter is devoted not to the changing role of women in science fiction, both as subject and author, but to complaining about particular female authors, in particular LeGuin, whose efforts at inclusiveness the author finds distasteful in the extreme. At one point, I nearly threw the book.

The book does a lot of rambling, very little point making, and almost none of the connection-creating I'd hoped for. I stopped about 3/4 of the way through, which is unusual for me, but by that point I'd realized that not only was I not learning much about the actual impact of Sci Fi, but I was being actively irritated in the process. ( )