Breakfast in the Ruins : Science Fiction in the Last Millennium

by Barry N. Malzberg

• ISBN13: 9781416521174
• ISBN10: 1416521178
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-04-03
• Publisher: Baen

Summary

Barry N. Malzberg reflects back over four decades of writing science fiction, giving an insider¿s view of the field during that time which few can match, both for its authority and for the sharp and witty way he describes the highs and lows of one science fiction writer¿s career. He also writes vivid profiles of writers and editors, ranging from the titans who transformed the field, such as John W. Campbell, to once popular writers who are now all but forgotten, such as Hugo Award-winner Mark Clifton. ¿If there is any particular cachet to my perspective,¿ he writes, ¿it comes because my career is, perhaps more than some, metaphoric.¿ The original, shorter version of the book was widely praised, as by theSan Francisco Chronicle: ¿Contains literary criticism ranging over the whole history of the field. . . . this is a mordant, brilliant book,¿ and byThe Washington Post Book World:¿Malzberg makes persuasively clear that the best of science fiction should be valued as literature and nothing else.¿Breakfast in the Ruinsis an indispensable book for every science fiction reader.

Table of Contents

The number of the beast	p. 14
L'Etat c'est moi	p. 18
I could have been a contender, part one	p. 23
Anonymity & empire	p. 26
I don't know how to put it love but I'll surely surely try	p. 31
Memoir from Grub Street	p. 37
The fifties	p. 40
The fifties : recapitulation and coda	p. 52
Ah tempora! ah portions! ah mores! ah outlines!	p. 56
Science fiction and the academy : some notes	p. 59
At the divining edge	p. 63
Some notes toward the true and the terrible	p. 67
Wrong rabbit	p. 71
John W. Campbell : June 8, 1910 to July 11, 1971	p. 75
The science fiction of science fiction	p. 80
I don't want her you can have her	p. 87
Onward and upward with the arts, part II	p. 91
Tell me Doctor if you can that it's not all happening again	p. 94
The Richard Nixon John B. Mitchell Spiro Agnew Blues	p. 103
Cornell George Holey Woolrich : December 1903 to September 1968	p. 106
A few hard truths for the troops	p. 111
Onward and upward with the arts, part III	p. 114
Science fiction as Picasso	p. 119
Mark Clifton : 1906-1963	p. 121
September 1973 : what I did last summer	p. 126
The cutting edge	p. 130
Son of the true and terrible	p. 136
The all-time, prime-time, take-me-to-your-leader science fiction plot	p. 140
Grandson of the true and the terrible	p. 151
Give me that old-time religion	p. 154
SF forever	p. 156
What I won't do next summer, I guess	p. 158
Come fool, follify	p. 161
The engines of the night	p. 164
Con Sordino	p. 167
Corridors	p. 171
L'Envoi	p. 186
Son of L'envoi	p. 186
Grandson of l'envoi	p. 187
Footnotes	p. 188
Interregunum : preface to an essay	p. 193
Interregnum : rage, pain, alienation and other aspects of the writing of science fiction	p. 195
Afterword	p. 200
On engines again	p. 210
Atomic power	p. 216
Tripping with the alchemist	p. 219
Some reflections on Freud, fantasy & the Jewish condition	p. 244
I : not I	p. 251
On decadence	p. 255
Cliftonized	p. 261
Over the waves	p. 267
Thus our words unspoken	p. 274
A formal feeling comes	p. 281
Thinking about Compulsion	p. 288
The shores of suitability	p. 293
Some notes on the lone wolf	p. 296
Flowers for Daniel (Daniel Keyes)	p. 305
Falling from the air (Alice Sheldon)	p. 308
Dark of the knight (Damon Knight)	p. 313
On Fredric Brown	p. 318
The stochastic writer (Robert Silverberg)	p. 321
The dean of Gloucester, Virginia (William F. Jenkins)	p. 326
Inextricable disengagement (David Drake)	p. 329
On Isaac Asimov	p. 331
The bend at the end of the road (Gustav Hasford)	p. 337
The cloud sculptor of terminal X (J. G. Ballard)	p. 342
Presto : Con Malizia (Cornell Woolrich)	p. 351
Repentance, desire and Natalie Wood (Maurice Girodias)	p. 355
The man who lost the sea (John W. Campbell)	p. 363
Ruthven agonistes	p. 377
The passage of the light	p. 379
Afterword : the last millennium	p. 389
Table of Contents provided by Blackwell. All Rights Reserved.