Friday Reads: Science Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines from 1981 to 1990 by Mike Ashley
Mike Ashley’s acclaimed history of science-fiction magazines comes to the 1980s with Science-Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science Fiction Magazines from 1981 to 1990. This volume charts a significant revolution throughout science fiction, much of which was driven by the alternative press, and by new editors at the leading magazines. The period saw the emergence of the cyberpunk movement, and the drive for, what David Hartwell called, ‘The Hard SF Renaissance’, which was driven from within Britain. Ashley plots the rise of many new authors in both strands: William Gibson, John Shirley, Bruce Sterling, John Kessel, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker in cyberpunk, and Stephen Baxter, Alistair Reynolds, Peter Hamilton, Neal Asher, Robert Reed, in hard sf. He also shows how the alternative magazines looked to support each other through alliances, which allowed them to share and develop ideas as science-fiction evolved.
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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