A Cosmos of Many Mansions: Varieties of Science Fiction
"When we were in charge of Mars, it was a magnificent place, full of wonders: ancient ruined cities, world-girdling canals, alien races terrible or kind, and a hospitable second home for humanity. Then science got its hands on the planet and basically trashed the place. No canals, no cities, no wise ancients — heck, when science is done, there won’t be any life at all on the Red Planet. It’s an interplanetary tragedy."
Science fiction isn't just one thing. The field is a cosmos of many mansions, with something to please almost everyone. Your guide to the many varieties of sf is Don Sakers: sf writer, retired Librarian, book reviewer for Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine.
Based on the first five years of his popular review column, this volume examines & explains dozens of types of science fiction along with hundreds of reviews.
Whether you're exploring the state of the field or looking for just the right sf book for you, A Cosmos of Many Mansions is the guidebook you need. Readers who enjoyed Jo Walton's What Makes This Book So Great? will surely find much to like.
Don Sakers
Don Sakers was launched the same month as Sputnik One, so it was perhaps inevitable that he should become a science fiction writer. A Navy brat by birth, he spent his childhood in such far-off lands as Japan, Scotland, Hawaii, and California. In California, rather like a latter-day Mowgli, he was raised by dogs.
As a writer and editor, he has explored the thoughts of sapient trees (The Leaves of October), brought ghosts to life (Carmen Miranda's Ghost is Haunting Space Station Three, Baen 1989), and beaten the "Cold Equations" scenario ("The Cold Solution," Analog 7/91, voted best short story of the year.)