As the subtitle suggests, this book is divided into three parts. First, and comprising about half of the book, is a history of science fiction, up to the publication date of 1977. This focuses primarily on literature, but also spends some time on SF movies, TV, and comics. As is often the case when people who care deeply about a field undertake to write a history of that field, the authors' opinions are far more entertaining than the recitation of names, dates, and plot synopses. Some examples:
On A.E.van Vogt: "He is a careless and forgetful writer, who plunges on with the story, hoping to drag the careless and forgetful reader along with him. [...] Given sufficient room, van Vogt destroys the basis of his own story, and is forced to provide increasingly preposterous explanations for increasingly absurd behavior. This is not fiction for adults."
On Isaac Asimov: "In some ways his work fits the stereotype of science fiction in the minds of the 'literati' -- in that his robots are as interesting as his people, and the depths of human feeling are closed to him."
On Theodore Sturgeon: "Sturgeon, of course, made one other contribution that helped to gild the Golden Age. He made language itself important. He made style count. [...]This kind of care for the patterning of language itself was new to science fiction when Sturgeon began to practise it."
On Ray Bradbury: "He specializes in ordinary landscapes, especially those of the Norman Rockwell, Saturday Evening Post Midwest -- which change into sites of nameless horror. He has borrowed the externals of science fiction to disguise and make more convincing his magical preoccupations. Though much acclaimed, his books have worn less well than others [...]. The sentimentality, the too easy liberal moralizing, have been overtaken by events."
The middle section of the book, which discusses science as it relates to SF, is by far the weakest part. Not only is the material largely out of date (unsurprising in a 1977 book), but it's rife with errors that were errors even by the knowledge of 1977. Only rarely does this section have anything to say that's interesting or enlightening.
The final section of the book, "Visions," is further divided into two parts, "Forms and Themes" and "Ten Representative Novels." The first of these looks at some of the recurring themes of SF, and is reasonably interesting. But it's in the final section that the book really shines. The commentary and analysis of ten classic novels of SF included some of the best, most interesting, and most insightful writing on those novels I've seen anywhere. The "Ten Representative Novels" includes Frankenstein, The Time Machine, Yevgeny Zamyatin's We, Stapledon's Star Maker, A Canticle for Leibowitz, and The Left Hand of Darkness. Again and again as I read this section I was struck by the depth and sensitivity of Scholes' and Rabkin's critical comments. Even when I disagreed with some of their interpretations, I felt enriched by the reading.
Un llibre imprescindible per a qualsevol aficionat de la ci猫ncia-ficci贸. Explica la hist貌ria i les tem脿tiques de forma did脿ctica i instructiva. Els 煤nics per貌 茅s que potser de vegades fa massa judicis de valor (que tamb茅 est脿 b茅, perqu猫 et permet veure els autors de manera cr铆tica) i que 茅s un llibre antic que nom茅s arriba fins als anys 70.