Saturday 14 February 2015

NESFA Collections Vol 2

The many items collected in this volume include:

short poems;
articles;
stories that I immediately recognized as already read;
stories that I had already read although I had forgotten their titles;
stories that I have read under different titles -

- so it is difficult to find new prose fiction to read! I think that there are two such stories.

An article on the science in science fiction and another on history and science fiction did not disclose anything new whereas "Science and Creation" usefully classifies evolution as not a theory but one of the principles, like thermodynamics and relativity, by which theories are tested.

I will read the two new stories - if they are new - and the article, "On Imaginary Science," and might reread some of the familiar items.

3 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

I took a look at my copy of NESFA Press' THE QUEEN OF AIR AND DARKNESS and, like you, I had read most of the stories in that collection. Some stories were incorporated as parts of OPERATION CHAOS and TALES OF THE FLYING MOUNTAINS. And I think the "Jennifer" verses were taken from A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST. The only stories that were new to mere were the "Innocent at Large" and "The Corkscrew of Space."

The items that were really new to me were the articles: "On Imaginary Science," "The Hardness of Science Fiction," "Science Fiction and History," and "Science and Creation." I'm going to have think over whether I should include these articles in my "Uncollected Works of Poul Anderson" piece, if only for the sake of completeness.

Sean



Paul Shackley said...

Sean,
But they are collected?
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Hi, Paul!

True, the articles in NESFA Press' THE QUEEN OF AIR AND DARKNESS were collected in that volume. The chief reason why I wonder if I should include these pieces in my article being that all, except one, were written after 1971, the year when the MAGAZINE OF SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY printed the special Poul Anderson issue with a bibliography listing his earlier essays.

Sean