Reviews for Anatomy of Wonder: Science Fiction

The average rating for Anatomy of Wonder: Science Fiction based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-10-09 00:00:00 Jason Mann 151013: this is an excellent general guide to sf of english written work, itself a historical document 1999, covers the development in essays of major eras of sf, each with bibliography of works- then the same for ya, for critical work, for author notes, for poetry, for movies, for comics... these sections only browsed, only intermittently attended, as my interest is not professional. but many titles of books to add, to search for... including edition 3, which has more work other than english written... truly, a reference book, i skipped a lot, i do not know why i tried to read it all...

Review # 2 was written on 2009-04-24 00:00:00 Robert Grey This is the gold standard of science fiction reference books. The scope of coverage, the quality and depth of information, are simply the best. Only one mild complaint: the annotations of primary works of SF are a little too slanted toward older books that are often long out of print. Thank goodness for NESFA Press and Baen, or an even larger chunk of this would be unavailable except for the tired old copies hoarded by collectors. I'm not saying they should have annotated every book in the Star Wars and Star Trek series by any means, but there is a tradition of lighter SF fare that deserves more attention and a batch of contemporary writers that ought to be included with a book or two, at least until they've faded out by the next edition. But that's a minor quibble. As a writer of speculative fiction reference books myself, I really appreciate what Barron and his contributors have achieved here.