The secret history of science fiction; or, trying to please mainstream readers

What we hope to present in this anthology is an alternative vision of sf from the 1970’s to the present, one in which it becomes evident that the literary potential of sf was not squandered.
Title: The Secret History of Science Fiction
Editors: James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel
Year: 2009
Rating: 2 out of 5 [...]

More dream makers (addendum to a previous review)

A while back I did a review of Charles Platt’s Dream Makers: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers at Work, a collection of interviews he conducted with numerous famous authors. The particular item I was reviewing was a 1987 hardcover edition that was, I stated at the time, a merger of two previous paperback [...]

Listening, listening to Kate

Listen, Listen is a 1981 collection of short fiction from Kate Wilhelm, the pieces ranging anywhere from (long) short story to novelette or novella in length. The four tales included in this volume share a general similarity of theme, all depicting encounters with the bizarre, with strange beings, aliens, forces, powers, or whatever the [...]

Wilhelm’s Sweet Birds: sweet, yet partly silly

I just finished Kate Wilhelm’s 1976 classic Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, and it’s one of those love/hate situations. In some ways this is a really great book; but in other ways, it makes me want to grab the author by the shoulders and shake her while asking “what were you thinking!?” [...]