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Yesterday's Tomorrows: The Story of Classic…
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Yesterday's Tomorrows: The Story of Classic British Science Fiction in 100 Books (edition 2021)

by Mike Ashley (Author)

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From the enrapturing tales of H. G. Wells to the punishing dystopian visions of 1984 and beyond, the evolution of science fiction from the 1890s to the 1960s is a fascinating journey to undertake.
Member:ScottLaz
Title:Yesterday's Tomorrows: The Story of Classic British Science Fiction in 100 Books
Authors:Mike Ashley (Author)
Info:British Library Publishing (2021), 336 pages
Collections:Your library, Read, Ebook
Rating:****
Tags:non-fiction

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Yesterday's Tomorrows: The Story of Science Fiction in 100 Books by Mike Ashley

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The book's title says almost everything other than to:
- identify the period covered but this survey which in fact is 1895 (commencing with H G Wells) and 1966, for reasons adequately set out in a helpful introduction;
- define what 'science fiction' actually comprises - particularly given the term was not usually widely used until some decades after Wells' times. One unhelpful suggestion is to say that SF is 'what we point to when we say it' (per Damon Knight);
- make clear that this is not a 'best 100 books': rather the books are chosen as being most typical of a point in time or of a trend.

As such, notwithstanding having thought I had read a lot of SF a long time ago, of the 100 books featured, I had read only 7 of them. And of the 100 or so authors (some books considered have co-authors, and (with the exception of HG Wells who is favoured with 4 books featured - not to hard to argue with that) one author appears under both his real name and separately under a non de plume - the latter is the name that will be most familiar to even those who are not big SF readers), I have read books by some 21 of them. Given the comment above that this is a not a' best of' survey, neither result should not surprise too much, I suppose.

The book takes the format of chapters, in roughly chronological order, dealing with different themes, covering some 4 or more books in each chapter. Ashley also provides at the end of each commentary as to a book, a short (and relevant) biography of the author. I found the placement of the biographies at the end of the discussion helpful - placing the biography at the beginning, which is a very common approach, tends to stultify the flow of the text - after all we came here to learn of the books and less so the authors.

Each of the discussions also reference yet other books, which may be contrasted with the main theme or texts under consideration. And amongst them I was able to identify yet other authors and books I have encountered.

One curious aspect is the number of authors of featured books who one (or at least I) would not usually associate with SF. Indeed a number of such authors have books featured though they are the only example of SF in their oeuvre. Examples include Saki, E M Foster, G K Chesterton, Rudyard Kipling, J J Connington amongst others.

Ashley does not shy away from commenting that a number of the books reviewed display themes and attitudes that would not be tolerated or at least would be frowned on if writing today. But he is equally of the view that the books in question remain of historical interest today.

having read so few of the featured books, am I now motivated to rush out and see if I can read all the rest? No. The survey was interesting in its own right. But it also made clear to me some books which, whilst SF, perhaps tending more to the fantasy spectrum (even though Ashley was not intending to include pure fantasy) are not likely to be my cup of tea.

But it has encouraged me to read some more if I were to find them at a decent price in a friendly second hand store or the local library, including:
Conan Doyle's The Lost World
J G Ballard's The Drowned World
John Beynon's (aka under his non de plume John Wyndham) Planet Plane.

I would be very interested to read a US version of the same!

3 stars because it is very readable, but probably only of interest to someone who is interested in SF, and the lineage of SF at that.

Big Ship

12 September 2022 ( )
  bigship | Sep 11, 2022 |
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From the enrapturing tales of H. G. Wells to the punishing dystopian visions of 1984 and beyond, the evolution of science fiction from the 1890s to the 1960s is a fascinating journey to undertake.

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Book description
Discusses:
  1. WELLS, WELLS AND WELLS AGAIN
    1. The Time Machine (1895) / H.G. Wells
    2. The War of the Worlds (1898) / H.G. Wells
    3. When the Sleeper Wakes (1899) / H.G. Wells
    4. The Country of the Blind and Other Stories (1911) / H.G. Wells
  2. WARS TO END ALL WARS
    1. The Outlaws of the Air (1895) / George Griffith
    2. The Invasion of 1910 (1906) / William Le Queux
    3. When William Came (1913) / Saki
    4. The Struggle for Empire (1900) / Robert W. Cole
  3. DOOM AND DISASTER
    1. The Crack of Doom (1895) / Robert Cromie
    2. The Violet Flame (1899) / Fred T. Jane
    3. The Purple Cloud (1901) / M.P. Shiel
    4. The Machine Stops (1909) / E.M. Forster
  4. FUTURES NEAR AND FAR
    1. The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) / G.K. Chesterton
    2. With the Night Mail (1909) / Rudyard Kipling
    3. The Night Land (1912) / William Hope Hodgson
    4. The Elixir of Life or 2905ad (1914) / Herbert Gubbins
  5. THE OLD AND THE NEW
    1. The Hampdenshire Wonder (1911) / J.D. Beresford
    2. 77ie Lost World (1912) / Arthur Conan Doyle
  6. ESCAPE OR REALITY?
    1. A Drop in Infinity (1915) / Gerald Grogan
    2. The Terror (1916) / Arthur Machen
    3. The New Moon (1918) / Oliver Onions
    4. Meccania, the Superstate (1918) / Owen Gregory
    5. When the World Shook (1919) / H. Rider Haggard
    6. A Voyage to Arcturus (1920) / David Lindsay
  7. BRAVE NEW WORLDS
    1. The People of the Ruins (1920) / Edward Shanks
    2. The Secret Power (1921) / Marie Corelli
    3. Theodore Savage (1922) / Cicely Hamilton
    4. Number 87 (1922) / Harrington Hext
    5. Nordenholt's Million (1923) / J.J. Connington
    6. Ultimatum (1924) / Victor MacClure
    7. Menacefrom the Moon (1925) / Bohun Lynch
    8. Man's World (1926) / Charlotte Haldane
    9. To-morrow (1927) / Alfred Ollivant
    10. Concrete (1930) / Aelfrida Tillyard
  8. SUPER, SUB OR NON-HUMAN?
    1. The Blue Germ (1918) / Martin Swayne
    2. Back to Methuselah (1921) / George Bernard Shaw
    3. The Cheetah Girl (1923) / Christopher Blayre
    4. The Clockwork Man (1923) / E.V. Odle
    5. The Collapse of Homo Sapiens (1923) / P. Anderson Graham
    6. The Last of My Race (1924) / J. Lionel Tayler
    7. The Amphibians (1925) / S. Fowler Wright
    8. The Emperor of the If (1926) / Guy Dent
    9. The Man with Six Senses (1927) / Muriel Jaeger
    10. Kontrol (1928) / Edmund Snell
    11. TheAntHeap (1929) / Edward Knoblock
    12. Brain (1930) / Lionel Britton
    13. The Seventh (1930) / Bowl Miles
    14. Brave New World (1932) / Aldous Huxley
  9. PHILOSOPHICAL SPECULATIONS
    1. The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1929) / J.O. Bernal
    2. If It Had Happened Otherwise (1931) / J.C. Squire
  10. INTO THE COSMIC
    1. To-morrow's Yesterday (1932) / John Gloag
    2. Gay Hunter (1934) / J. Leslie Mitchell
    3. Adrift in the Stratosphere (serial 1934; book, 1937) / A.M. Low
    4. Planet Plane (1936) / John Beynon
    5. Crisis! – 1992 (1936) / Benson Herbert
    6. Star Maker (1937) / Olaf Stapledon
    7. Out of the Silent Planet (1938) / C.S. Lewis
    8. Sinister Barrier (1939) / Eric Frank Russell
  11. PREPARING FOR WAR
    1. Lost Horizon (1933) / James Hilton
    2. The Peacemaker (1934) / C.S. Forester
    3. The Strange Invaders (1934) / Alun Llewellyn
    4. Land Under England (1935) / James O'Neill
    5. Woman Alive (1935) / Susan Ertz
    6. Swastika Night (1937) / Murray Constantine
    7. The Hopkins Manuscript (1939) / R.C. Sherriff
  12. XII. OUR DARKEST HOURS
    1. The Twenty-Fifth Hour (1940) / Herbert Best
    2. Loss of Eden (1940) / Douglas Brown & Christopher Serpell
    3. Secret Weapon (1942) / Bernard Newman
    4. The Golden Amazon (1944) / John Russell Fearn
    5. Four-Sided Triangle (1949) / William F. Temple
  13. POST-ATOMIC DOOM
    1. Death of a World (1948) / J. Jefferson Farjeon
    2. Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) / George Orwell
    3. Time Marches Sideways (1950) / Ralph L. Finn
    4. The Day of the TrijJids (1951) / John Wyndham
    5. The Last Revolution (1951) / Lord Dunsany
    6. The Sound of His Horn (1952) / Sarban
    7. The Magicians (1954) / J.B. Priestley
  14. SCIENCE FICTION BOOM
    1. The Quatermass Experiment (TV, 1953; book, 1959) / Nigel Kneale
    2. Journey into Space (radio, 1953; book, 1954) / Charles Chilton
    3. Childhood's End (1953) / Arthur C. Clarke
    4. The Echoing Worlds (1954) / Jonathan Burke
    5. One in Three Hundred (1954) / J.T. Mcintosh
    6. Alien Dust (1955) / E.C. Tubb
    7. City Under the Sea (1957) / Kenneth Bulmer
    8. Non-Stop (1958) / Brian W. Aldiss
    9. Deadly Image (a.k.a., The Uncertain Midnight) (1958) / Edmund Cooper
    10. Hospital Station (1962) / James White
    11. Calculated Risk Charles (1960) / Eric Maine
    12. A for Andromeda (TV, 1961; book, 1962) / Fred Hoyle and John Elliot
  15. OLD WORLDS FOR NEW
    1. Facial Justice (1960) / LP. Hartley
    2. The Drowned World (1962) / J.G. Ballard
    3. The World in Winter (1962) / John Christopher
    4. Memoirs of a Spacewoman (1962) / Naomi Mitchison
    5. Telepath (1962) / Arthur Sellings
    6. To Conquer Chaos (1964) / John Brunner
    7. The Dark Mind (1964) / Colin Kapp
    8. Doctor Who (1964) / David Whitaker
    9. FROOMB! (1964) / John Lymington
    10. The Sundered Worlds (1965) / Michael Moorcock
    11. The Garbage World (1966) / Charles Piatt
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