A reader's guide to science fiction

This is an old book but I loved it when I used it when I was a kid and thought Heinlein was the man. It introduced me to a number of authors I had never heard of seeing as no one else I knew read SF. Thankfully we have the Internet now.

The one problem with this guide--and admittedly it's a big one--is that it was published in 1979 (and given how long it takes to put out a book, probably the cut off is somewhat earlier). You won't find Orson Scott Card here. Or William Gibson. Or Douglas Adams, Dan Simmons, Lois McMaster Bujold,

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John Scalzi. You will though on the "Seven Parsec Bookshelf" find many seminal writers in the genre that many a list neglect. Not just H.G. Wells and Jules Verne and Edgar Rice Burroughs but such writers as Olaf Stapeldon and E. E. Smith. I certainly found many a writer to love through this book. So although I might be reluctant to recommend it to someone looking for a guide to science fiction, it's keeping it's place on my shelves.

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I have an absurd amount of affection for this little book. I first purchased a copy in the early-mid-1990s, before I had Internet access, and it was (and still is) an enormously helpful resource. I recently left my old copy out when I was looking up information on an author in it and my cat got

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ahold of it and tore it to shreds; I immediately got on Amazon Marketplace and purchased another copy. It will probably have a space on my bookshelf for as long as I have one.

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useful guide to science fiction thru 1970s

Superior pocket guide to science fiction that is sorely in need of an updating.