American Science Fiction: Five Classic Novels 1956–1958: Double Star / The Stars My Destination / A Case of Conscience / Who? / The Big Time
Gary K. Wolfe, Robert A. Heinlein, Alfred Bester, James Blish, Algis Budrys, Fritz Leiber
4.00 · 2 ratings · Published: 27 Sep 2012
In James Blish’s A Case of Conscience (1958), space voyagers on the remote planet Lithia find themselves challenged by the values of an alien civilization. Algis Budrys’s Who? (1958) unleashes Cold War anxieties about technology and human identity with its story of a scientist rebuilt beyond recognition after a devastating accident. Set in “the Place,” a bar and bordello in the backwater of time’s stream, Fritz Leiber’s The Big Time (1958) explores the implications of the “Change War,” an endless cosmic struggle in which shadowy antagonists dart in and out of history in a contest to control destiny.
The range of styles—by turns adventurous, satiric, incisive—is as varied as the themes addressed by these novels, all now acknowledged as American classics. Together they mark an explosively entertaining era in modern fiction.
- format - reader age
- anthology 2
- adult fiction 1