Starboard Vineyard Tours 13: The Mechanics of Wonder: The Creation of the Idea of Science Fiction, Westfahl

For this episode, we read Gary Westfahl's The Mechanics of Wonder: The Creation of the Idea of Science Fiction (1998). This book frustrated us quite a bit with its insistence that the fundamental nature of science fiction was defined in the 20s and has not changed since. On the other hand, we came away with a new appreciation for its central figures, Hugo Gernsback and John W. Campbell, Jr., especially Gernsback, as thinkers of science fiction, if not theorists per se. The depth of Westfahl's research into these two men's writings fascinated us; we simply disagree strongly with his conclusions. The book presents itself as a challenge to the field of science fiction studies. We find ourselves in the position of answering that challenge.Topics: sf history, biographyNote: The original 1973 science fiction history by Brian Aldiss is actually called Billion Year Spree: The True History of Science Fiction, and the updated version from 1986 is Trillion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction. Apologies for the error!Next time, we'll be looking at JD Fulloon’s “Shadows of the Empire/A New Hope: A Dialectical Critique of Gender Historicization and Utopian Desire in Isabel Fall’s ‘Helicopter Story’” (2024), this time for certain.