Editor, publisher, and professor Leigh Grossman is putting together what may be the definitive textbook for the teaching of science fiction. Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction, edited by Grossman, will be approximately 900 pages long, listed at $49.99 ($39.99 for the ebook version), and published by Wildside Press this summer.
The book will be “a broad, inexpensive, single-volume anthology designed to give students a sense both of literature and history; the book includes canonical works, stories written in response to those works, and essays on major themes and topics in the field. The book will facilitate a variety of different types of speculative fiction course, whether the course is focused on particular themes, on a chronological look at writers, or on the roots of contemporary SF. Beginning with early twentieth-century writers, Sense of Wonder continues up through the most acclaimed present-day writers. Stories are not treated as purely academic exercises, but contextualized, which is vital in reading a genre where most writers know each other and the relationship between writer and reader is a major factor in how stories are created.
“The collection includes more than 200 stories, poems, and bibliographic essays (contributed by professors who teach science fiction and by professionals), with an emphasis on the roots of modern SF. Each story author is given a biographical introduction as well.”
The book will feature “a wide variety of stories by both major names and lesser-known but influential writers; dozens of essays introducing topics in the field, ranging from space opera to cyberpunk, from early radio dramas to postcolonial SF, from John W. Campbell and his writers to disability in science fiction; a generous sampling of science fictional poetry; short biographical introductions to each author; and an appendix geared to aspiring SF writers, with overviews on submitting manuscripts, literary agents, avoiding publishing scams, writers’ workshops, and more.”
The massive table of contents is below (essays are indented; stories, poems, and novel essays are not):
Introduction
Early Science Fiction ( -1936):
from A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
“The Origins of Science Fiction” by Jennifer A. Rea
from Erewhon by Samuel Butler
R.U.R. (play) by Karel Capek
“The Thing from—Outside” by George Allan England
“Hugo Gernsback and His Writers” by Richard Bleiler
“Robot Poems” (poems) by D.H. Lawrence
“Lunar Baedeker” (poem) by Mina Loy
“Mellonta Tauta” by Edgar Allan Poe
“On the Baroque in Science Fiction” by Thomas F. Bertonneau
from The Last Man by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
“Nineteenth-Century Science Fiction” by Monique R. Morgan
“Her Lips Are Copper Wire” (poem) by Jean Toomer
from Off on a Comet! by Jules Verne
“Science Fiction and Hidden Histories of Science” by Katherine Pandora
“The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells
“Dark Futures and Dystopias” by Matthew Crom
from We by Evgenii Zamyatin
“Russian and East European Science Fiction” by Sibelan Forrester
The Field Takes Shape (1926-1936)
“The Gostak and the Doshes” by Miles J. Breuer
“American Science Fiction Magazines” by Hildy Silverman
“Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell
“John W. Campbell and His Writers” by Zahra Jannessari Ladani
“The Diabolical Drug” by Clare Winger Harris
“Almuric” by Robert E. Howard
“At the Mountains of Madness” and “Harbour Whistles” (poem) by H.P. Lovecraft
“The Lovecraft Circle” by Dennis H. Barbour
“The Man Who Awoke” by Laurence Manning
“Armageddon—2419 A.D.” by Philip Francis Nowlan
“Science Fiction on Radio” by Tim DeForest
“Pirates of the Gorm” by Nat Schachner
“Afterwards” and “The Star-Treader” (poems) by Clark Ashton Smith
from The Skylark of Space by E.E. “Doc” Smith
“Space Opera” by David Steiling
“The Red Brain” by Donald Wandrei
The Golden Age (1936-1945)
“Nightfall” and “The Martian Way” by Isaac Asimov
“Gender Images in Science Fiction” by Twila Yates Papay and Paul D. Reid
“By the Waters of Babylon” and “Nightmare for Future Reference” (poem) by Stephen Vincent Benet
“Arena” by Fredric Brown
“A Gun for Dinosaur” by L. Sprague de Camp
“Dinosaurs in Science Fiction” by Tim DeForest
“The Wings of Night” by Lester Del Rey
“Lester and Judy-Lynn Del Rey” by Frederik Pohl
“Old Faithful” by Raymond Z. Gallun
“The Sargasso of Space” by Edmond Hamilton
“The Green Hills of Earth” by Robert A. Heinlein
“Shambleau” by C.L. Moore
“All Cats Are Grey” by Andre Norton
“Young Adult Science Fiction” by Carol Franko
“Day Million” by Frederik Pohl
“Conventions and Fandom” by Sheri Giglio
“Grotto of the Dancing Deer” by Clifford D. Simak
“Microcosmic God” by Theodore Sturgeon
“Black Destroyer” by A.E. van Vogt
“Space Travel in Science Fiction” by Steven Mollmann
“A Martian Odyssey” by Stanley G. Weinbaum
“The Firefly Tree” and “The Metal Man” by Jack Williamson
The Mass Market Era (1945-1960)
“Duel on Syrtis” by Poul Anderson
“Fondly Fahrenheit” by Alfred Bester
“Cyborgs” by Kyle William Bishop
“Surface Tension” by James Blish
“The Quest for St. Aquin” by Anthony Boucher
“Science Fiction Book Reviewing” by Tom Easton
“The Last Days of Shandakor” by Leigh Brackett
“The Stoker and the Stars” by Algis Budrys
“Science Fiction in Western Europe” by Sonja Fritsche
“The Sentinel” by Arthur C. Clarke
“Science Fiction Film: The Forbidden Genre” by Daniel M. Kimmel
“Uncommon Sense” by Hal Clement
“World Building” by Donald M. Hassler
“Or All the Seas with Oysters” by Avram Davidson
“The Defenders” by Philip K. Dick
“Robots” by Amerdeep Singh
“Soldier, Ask Not” by Gordon R. Dickson
“Riverworld” by Philip Jose Farmer
“Religion and Science Fiction” by James F. McGrath
“The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin
“Loo Ree” by Zenna Henderson
“The Science Fiction of Death, Dying, and Grief” by Kathleen Fowler
“Rat Race” by Frank Herbert
“The Country of the Kind” by Damon Knight
“The Little Black Bag” by C.M. Kornbluth
“A Bad Day for Sales” by Fritz Leiber
“First Contact” by Murray Leinster
“Aliens and Alien Worlds” by Ericka Hoagland
“Born of Man and Woman” by Richard Matheson
“That Only a Mother” by Judith Merril
“Death of a Spaceman” by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
“After the End: Post-Apocalyptic Science Fiction” by Irene Sywenky
“Bring the Jubilee” by Ward Moore
“Alternate History” by Andrew M. Gordon
“The Golden Horn” by Edgar Pangborn
“Graveyard of Dreams” by H. Beam Piper
“Allamagoosa” by Eric Frank Russell
“Science Fiction in the UK” by Nick Hubble
“The Witches of Karres” by James H. Schmitz
“The Prize of Peril” by Robert Sheckley
“The Game of Rat and Dragon” by Cordwainer Smith
“Sail 25” by Jack Vance
The New Wave and Beyond (1960-1975)
“Man in His Time” by Brian W. Aldiss
“The New Wave” by Darren Harris-Fain
“The Next Logical Step” by Ben Bova
“The Door Through Space” by Marion Zimmer Bradley
“Donald A. Wollheim” by Betsy Wollheim
“Good with Rice” by John Brunner
“If This Is Winnetka, You Must Be Judy” by F.M. Busby
“Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler
“Black Women Writing Speculative Fiction” by Ayana Abdallah
“Going Under” by Jack Dann
“Driftglass” by Samuel R. Delany
“Literary Criticism and Science Fiction” by Donald M. Hassler
“The Demi-Urge” by Tom Disch
“Jeffty Is Five” by Harlan Ellison
“Science Fiction on Television” by Jim Davis
“Hero” and “Saul’s Death” (poem) by Joe Haldeman
“Military Science Fiction” by James D. Macdonald
“Thus We Frustrate Charlemagne” by R.A. Lafferty
“Time Travel” by Ellen M. Rigsby
“The Yillian Way” by Keith Laumer
“The First Contact with the Gorgonids” by Ursula K. Le Guin
“Science Fiction and Environmentalism” by Lisa Swanstrom
“Weyr Search” by Anne McCaffrey
“Fan Fiction” by Karen Hellekson
“Little Faces” by Vonda McIntyre
“Neutron Star” by Larry Niven
“What Wolves Know” by Kit Reed
“The Lady Margaret” by Keith Roberts
“Melancholy Elephants” by Spider Robinson
“Souls” by Joanna Russ
“Taboos and Dangerous Ideas in Modern SF” by Liberty Stanavage
“Passengers” by Robert Silverberg
“No Direction Home” by Norman Spinrad
“The Only Neat Thing to Do” by James Tiptree, Jr.
“The Persistence of Vision” by John Varley
“News Magazines of the Science Fiction Field” by Ian Randal Strock
“Fast Times at Fairmont High” by Vernor Vinge
“2 B R 0 2 B” by Kurt Vonnegut
“A Rose for Ecclesiastes” by Roger Zelazny
The Paperback Heydey (1975-1990)
“Blood Music” by Greg Bear
“Germs in Science Fiction” by Laurel Bollinger
“Bow Shock” by Gregory Benford
“Hard Science Fiction” by C.W. Johnson
“Senses Three and Six” by David Brin
“The Mountains of Mourning” by Lois McMaster Bujold
“Disability in Science Fiction” by Breyan Strickler
“Pretty Boy Crossover” by Pat Cadigan
“Cyberpunk” by Don Riggs
“Dogwalker” by Orson Scott Card
“The Sandman, the Tinman and the BettyB” by C.J. Cherryh
“Little Worker” by Paul Di Filippo
“Ranks of Bronze” by David Drake
“Jim Baen” by Henry T. Davis with Toni Weiskopf
“The Muffin Migration” by Alan Dean Foster
“Madonna of the Maquiladora” by Gregory Frost
“Split Light” by Lisa Goldstein
“Think Like a Dinosaur” by James Patrick Kelly
“Buffalo” by John Kessel
“James Gunn and the Center for the Study of SF” by Chris McKitterick
“Hand to Hand” by Elizabeth Moon
“City of Truth” by James Morrow
“Utopian Science Fiction” by Samuel Gerald Collins
“Rachel in Love” by Pat Murphy
“LGBT Themes in SF” by Wendy Gay Pearson
“Death and What Comes Next” by Terry Pratchett
“A Martian Sends A Postcard Home” (poem) by Craig Raine
“For I Have Touched the Sky” by Mike Resnick
“The Lucky Strike” by Kim Stanley Robinson
“Barnacle Bill the Spacer” and “White Trains” (poem) by Lucius Shepard
“Graphic Novels and Science Fiction” by Peter J. Ingrao)
“Microbe” by Joan Slonczewski
“Fiddling for Water Buffaloes” by S.P. Somtow
“Bicycle Repairman” by Bruce Sterling
“Edge of the World” by Michael Swanwick
“The Star and the Rockets” by Harry Turtledove
“The Ugly Chickens” by Howard Waldrop
“A Letter from the Clearys” by Connie Willis
“Awards in Science Fiction” by Lauren Cunningham
“Seven American Nights” and “The Computer Iterates the Greater Trumps” (poem) by Gene Wolfe
SF in the Age of Consolidation (1990- )
“Shadow Catcher” (poem) by Ayana Abdallah
“A Roll of the Dice” by Catherine Asaro
“Noble Mold” by Kage Baker
“Steampunk” by Burgsbee L. Hobbs
“Bears Discover Fire” and “They’re Made out of Meat” by Terry Bisson
“Hell is the Absence of God” by Ted Chiang
“When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth” by Cory Doctorow
“Survivalism” by Kyle William Bishop
“Uncle Joshua and the Groogleman” by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
“Standing Room Only” by Karen Joy Fowler
“Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream” by James Alan Gardner
“Griots of the Galaxy” by Andrea Hairston
from Dance Dance Revolution (poems) by Cathy Park Hong
“Science Fiction and Lyric Poetry” by Seo-Young Jennie Chu
“A Habit of Waste” by Nalo Hopkinson
“Postcolonial Science Fiction” by Ericka Hoagland
“Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal
“My Mother, Dancing” by Nancy Kress
“The Hardened Criminals” by Jonathan Lethem
“The Lincoln Train” by Maureen McHugh
“Science Fiction and Anime” by Mark Gellis
“Flashes” by Robert J. Sawyer
“Canadian Science Fiction in English” by Ruby Ramraj
“Alternate Histories,” “Scientific Romance,” and “At the Conclusion of the Intersteller War” (poems) by Darrell Schweitzer
“Lobsters” by Charles Stross
Appendices
Stories and authors listed alphabetically
Stories listed by date of first appearance
List of poems
List of essays
Science Fiction Writer’s Guides
“60 Rules for Writing Short SF” by Terry Bisson
“Writer’s Workshops” by Debra Doyle
“Inventing the Future” by Mike Brotherton
“Submitting a Manuscript” by Leigh Grossman
“Literary Agents” by Leigh Grossman
“Avoiding Publishing Scams” by Leigh Grossman)