Blog Archives

Yesterday’s Doors by Arthur J. Burks appeared in the October 1948 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories. After reading Yesterday’s Doors, I think I finally begin to ‘get’ Thrilling Wonder Stories’ angle on science fiction. It’s Sense of Wonder, but not in the way that it’s typically meant when referring to Sci-Fi. In the case of […]

In time past, I have attempted to define of science fiction, sometimes in earnest (I call science fiction the mythology of a scientific age) and sometimes not. The eternal debate has sprung up again here at the Castalia House blog, and also touches on my own efforts to reread the lost works of science fantasy, […]

He spent weeks in the shadows, running from the enemies who had finally caught up with him. He begged his confederates for help, only to be turned away. At last, the pursuers cornered him in the basement of an abandoned building. There was a muzzle flash and a deafening report. Some time later, he awakes. […]

Author Earnings recently released their statistics for 2016 book sales. As industry hands and book reading fans poured over the results, one of the more interesting facts is that science fiction sold the least of all the major categories. This is not a surprise to those who have been following the shrinking sales of the […]

1980 is often used as a dividing line between the time when a reader could pick up a rocketship book and expect science fiction and the time when he could pick up a rocketship book and get…something…else. The year comes up repeatedly, whether in comments on the Castalia House blog or through talk of Appendix […]

Instead of a book or movie review, this week I’m going to muse on the phenomenon of “Hard SF,” specifically the kind written after 1980. The autistic tendencies of Hard SF probably began with Larry Niven. Now, I’m very fond of Niven’s work. He’s one of those writers whose glaring deficiencies are compensated by great strengths. […]

We would, I think, agree that Margaret St. Clair is one of the (late) pulp era greats. Here is her autobiographical essay published in Fantastic Adventures (Ray Palmer ed.) in November 1946[1] to accompany her first published science fiction story: “A Rocket to Limbo.” There are a few notable things here, I think: First, notice […]

  The Lost Works columns propose to review the authors of Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, as it contains the backbone of what an older generation read and understood fantasy fiction to be, and what, until recently, all fond fans of fantasy would have recognized as their shared core of works. The series proper begins with […]

Last summer I reviewed a little book with the unassuming title of Mutiny in Space. Left to my own devices, I usually pick up books with big, grandiose titles like The Vindication of Man or The Big Event of Cosmic Importance with a Thing That Sounds All Powerful. Mutinies are all fine and good, but […]