The genre of science fiction deals with the imagined, but plausible. Largely based on writing rationally about alternative possible worlds or futures, it often explores the consequences of scientific innovations. As a means of understanding the world through speculation and storytelling, science fiction has antecedents back to mythology, but the genre of science fiction is a product of the Age of Reason and the development of modern science itself.
With the dawn of new technologies such as electricity, the telegraph, and new forms of powered transportation, writers like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells created a body of work that became popular across broad cross-sections of society. While SF has provided criticism of developing and future technologies, it also produces innovation and new technology. Technology impacts artists and how they portray their fictionalized subjects, but the fictional world gives back to science by broadening imagination. While more prevalent in the beginning years of science fiction, new authors still find ways to make the currently impossible technologies seem closer to being realized.
Science Fiction Benchmarks brings you key seminal works in development of the SciFi genre. A Benchmark is defined as a standard against which something can be measured or assessed. The works included here are indeed Science Fiction Benchmarks. They are the works which motivated the authors that followed and inspired them to reach for greatness.
Each of the books concludes with a biographical essay on the author. Tables of contents are fully hyperlinked for easy navigation to each work and within each work. 1425 pages.
Contents includes:
Extensive Introduction to Science Fiction
A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS by David Lindsey
ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON by Jules Verne
A PRINCESS OF MARS by Edgar Rice Burroughs
STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson
THE TIME MACHINE by H. G. Wells
TRIPLANETARY by Edward E. Smith, Ph.D.
TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA by Jules Verne
