The Modern Scholar: From Here to Infinity ~An Exploration of Science Fiction Literature~ (14 Lectures on 7 Audiocassettes)

The lecturer Professor Michael D.C. Drout is as passionate about science fiction as a pre-teen boy is about sneaking into a theater to see a forbidden sci-fi flick. And that’s what you want in a professor. He is articulate and well-versed in the genre. He divides the material into decades and themes in a way that allows the listener to both digest the voluminous material and see the genre’s progression though history.

You might hope that, as he walks through the decades, Prof. Drout would note one of your favorite authors. Sadly, he may not. He skipped some of mine. But to be fair there are so many science fiction authors that he had to be selective, and he seems to have chosen those that typified subgenres such as cyberpunk and show more slipstream.

I would have given this lecture series a 5 star rating had it not been his bias and praise for everything progressive. When it came to the Surrealists such as J. G. Ballard, the praise for progressiveness turned my stomach. (J. G. Ballard 's 1973 novel “Crash” is about a group of people who take sexual pleasure from car accidents.) This is twisted an sick. show less

Another excellent overview of the genre. To top it off, he actually covers one of the worst problems in old (and current) SF, and that's the misogynistic tendencies of some of the writers of the genre. Also, he covers several women writers too, especially Ursula LeGuin and Octavia Butler (and yes, I'm going to read her real soon). He also talks about Anne McCaffrey which is a nice change of pace.

Excellent survey of SF. It was a delight to listen to such a well done, scholarly, treatment about Science Fiction. Drout takes it seriously and really knows his stuff. It was a pleasure to listen to a lecture and learn AND know so much about the topic (even more than he at times) at the same time. I'd love to talk to him about the franchise fiction (media tie-ins) and series books that he doesn't cover. Highly recommended.

Drout is extraordinarily engaging. Of course, one of the effects of his engagingness is that you want to drop listening to him and go read one of the books he is discussing so interestingly.

Good summary of the science fiction genre..I'm going to have to read some Greg Egan and Kim Stanley Robinson here soon!

I love SF movies, but had never much gotten into SF reading -- except from the soft side. This was very interesting and informative for me.

14 30-minute lectures.

1 What Is Science Fiction?

2 The Roots of Science Fiction

3 Mysterious Lore, Marvelous Tech: The 1930s [Gernsbach, Lovecraft et al]

4 Hard-Boiled Science Fiction: The 1940s [Campbell (Who Goes There?), del Rey (Nerves), Asimov (I, Robot, Foundation Trilogy), Heinlein, Clarke]

5 The Grand Master: Robert A. Heinlein [The Past Through Tomorrow, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress]

6 Onward and Outward: The 1950s, Space Travel, Apocalypticism, and the Beautiful Weirdness of Cordwainer Smith [Miller(A Canticle for Liebowitz), Smith (The Instrumentality, The Dead Lady of Clown Town, Underpeople, Scanners Live in Vain, The Rediscovery of Man, Think Blue, Count Two, Ballad of Lost show more C'mell)]

7 A New Set of Questions: The “New Wave” of the 1960s and 1970s [Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep), Disch (Camp Concentration), Delaney (Babel-17)]

8 The World Builder: Frank Herbert

9 The Surrealists: Ballard and Bradbury [Burroughs, Ballard (The Crystal World, The Voices of Time, The Terminal Beach, High Rise, Running Wild, Crash), Bradbury (Martian Chronicles)]

10 The Computer Revolution: Cyberpunk and the 1980s [Phillips (Black Tickets), Gibson (Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive), Rucker (Software, Wetware, Freeware)]

11 Post-Punk: Neal Stephenson [Snow Crash, The Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon]

12 Women and Gender [Anne McCaffrey (Crystal Singer), Ursula K. LeGuin (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossesed books, Octavia Butler (Kindred, Xenogenesis trilogy, Blood Child, Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Talents)]

13 The Satirists [Huxley (Brave New World), Orwell (1984), Burgess (A Clockwork Orange), Atwood (The Handmaid's Tale), Vonnegut (The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, Welcome to the Monkey House, Slaughterhouse-Five), Adams (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)]

14 The Shape of Things to Come [Greg Egan (Unstable Orbits in the Space of Lies, Permutation City, Diaspora, Wang's Carpets), Kim Stanley Robinson (Mars trilogy), Ann Maxwell (The Jaws of Menx, Peter Kocan (Flies of Summer), Stanislaw Lem (Solaris), Greg Bear (Darwin's Radio), James Patrick Kelly (Mr. Boy, Think Like a Dinosaur)] show less