WESTERCON 63: CONFIRMATION
CONCHORD 23
Classics of Science Fiction: Presented by John Hertz
We'll discuss three S-F classics at Confirmation. Each is famous, often reprinted, worth re-reading, worth reading a first time now.
Each discussion will take up one. You're welcome to join in. Come to as many as you like.
We propose this definition: "A classic is a work that survives its own time. After the currents which might have sustained it have changed,
it remains, and is seen to be worthwhile for itself." If you have a better definition, bring it.
Isaac Asimov -- I, Robot (1950)
Framed in Dr. Suan Calvin's reminiscences is this set of stories first published over the years 1940-1950. The author originally wanted to call the
book
Mind and Iron; what would that have told us? How are the stories as character studies? Narrative?
What's missing from the final episode?
John W. Campbell, Jr. -- Who Goes There?(1938)
The most influential and possibly the greatest magazine editor we have known, he could write, too. This is one of his best, put in a dozen
anthologies, twice filmed. See how he manages the facts, the hints, the personalities, the masterly sequence of Kinner - Dutton - Connant - Blair.
The full text is on-line at
Who Goes There?
Fritz Leiber -- The Wanderer (1964)
Here are a host of viewpoints, a First Contact with Aliens story as we learn a third of the way in, a look at some favorite notions like Rovers are
free and good and Love conquers all, and a breathtaking exercise in climax and perspective, Leiber's second Hugo-winning novel.
