Scarecrow Press
Pages: 242
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Trim: 6⅜ x 9
978-0-8108-9122-7 • Hardback • April 2013 • $109.00 • (£84.00)
978-0-8108-9123-4 • eBook • April 2013 • $103.50 • (£80.00)
James Gunn, emeritus professor of English and director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas, has published nearly one hundred short stories and more than forty books, including the novels The Immortals and The Joy Makers. His books about science fiction include Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction, The Science of Science Fiction Writing, and the six-volume The Road to Science Fiction. Gunn is the twenty-fourth writer recognized by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America as a grand master.
This book contains introductions and prefaces written by the author for a series of leather-bound collector editions by Easton Press in the mid-1980s called Masterpieces of Science Fiction and Masterpieces of Fantasy, along with a series called Signed First Editions of Science Fiction. They are compiled into this volume, along with reprinted prefaces for 13 of the author's own books. These prefaces and introductions are of value in their own right, as compilations of historical and genre-specific timepieces related to the growth and popularity of science fiction and fantasy from the 1980s onward; putting them all into one volume, as a timeline for these genres as well as a glimpse into the author's own writing and scholarship on the topics, is a gem for science fiction and fantasy readers, especially since many of these books have since become classics in the literature.— American Reference Books Annual
As it stands, Paratexts is more than it appears at the outset—or bigger on the inside, as some fans of a particular British television show might say: the prefaces, introductions, and notes collected within the relatively slim volume are approachable enough for casual readers of science fiction and fantasy but replete with useful insights on authors, authorship, periodicals, presses, genre and more for the most advanced scholar of the fantastic. Like the highly regarded Easton Press series from which many of his individual remarks were derived, Gunn’s collection is a treasure in its own right.
— The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts