Starboard Vineyard Tours 16: Pilgrims Through Space and Time: Trends and Patterns in Scientific and Utopian Fiction, Bailey
Description
For this episode, we read Pilgrims Through Space and Time: Trends and Patterns in Scientific and Utopian Fiction, J.O. Bailey's 1947 book about the emerging genre of “scientific fiction”: its history, its plots, and its value. Quite a bit of the first two, especially, as a large portion of the book is catalogue and summary, and frankly it was a bit of a slog, but it still holds great interest for us - Pilgrims is arguably the first work of scholarship on science fiction every published, at least academically. We consider the categories Bailey uses, the frustration of summary, and the limitations of catalogue, as well as what we can learn about the period's science fiction and its ethos. An ethos that, unfortunately, definitely also included eugenics.
Topics: SF history, Victorian literature, pulp
Next month: Ben will be taking December off to focus on dissertating and family, so Mark will be joined by Jackson and Nora of Anomalous Readings (and many other fine podcasts) to discuss John Moore's “Miracle Stalker: Personal and Social Transformation in Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic” (1997).
United States
