SF/F 'Belated' Reviews

“Belated Reviews” was a series of restrospective reviews I posted to Usenet between 7/1993 and 1/1994. (For reasons that seemed to make sense at the time, the numbering is split into 32 initial reviews, 32 postscript reviews, and 8 ‘unnumbered’ reviews - each, of course, with its own number.) Most of the reviews cover one author’s corpus. Authors were not chosen for review in any particular order.

Tracking the reviews down was challenging. Fortunately, the content was mirrored a Susan Stepney’s site (https://www-users.york.ac.uk/~ss44/sf/dani/index.htm), at an sf archive (http://www.lysator.liu.se/sf_archive/), and in the wayback machine (https://web.archive.org/web/20051214210031/http://sf.www.lysator.liu.se/sf_archive/sf-texts/Belated_Reviews/). Access to the archives is also challenging.

This was the standard intro-with-caveats that accompanies each review. I’ve moved them to this page:

Belated Reviews cover science fiction and fantasy of earlier decades. They’re for newer readers who have wondered about the older titles on the shelves, or who are interested in what sf/f was like in its younger days. The emphasis is on helping interested readers identify books to try first, not on discussing the books in depth.

A general caveat is in order: Most of the classics of yesteryear have not aged well. If you didn’t encounter them back when, or in your early teens, they will probably not give you the unforced pleasure they gave their original audiences. You may find yourself having to make allowances for writing you consider shallow or politics you consider regressive. When I name specific titles, I’ll often rate them using the following scale:

**** Recommended.
***  An old favorite that hasn't aged well, and wouldn't get a good reception if it were written today. Enjoyable on its own terms.
**    A solid book, worth reading if you like the author's works.
*      Nothing special.

Additional disclaimers: Authors are not chosen for review in any particular order. The reviews don’t attempt to be comprehensive. No distinction is made between books which are still in print and books which are not.

The ‘Postscripts’ had a slightly different common introduction, which I have moved here:

Postscripts to the Belated Reviews cover authors of earlier decades who didn’t fit into the original format – whether because the author seemed an inappropriate subject, or because I was unfamiliar with too much of the author’s work, or whatever – or sometimes just isolated works of such authors. The emphasis will continue to be on guiding newer readers towards books or authors worth trying out, rather than on discussing them comprehensively or in depth. I’ll retain the rating scheme of **** (recommended), *** (an old favorite that hasn’t aged well), ** (a solid lesser work), and * (nothing special).

Some of these reviews haven’t aged well either. I will not change them retroactively, but I may append the odd retrospective comment. I have made some edits: In addition to the standard intro, I’ve removed the redundant listings of titles that appeared at the end of each review. (It had to do with availability of published reissues.) And the Usenet metadata has been removed. (Some of the date-posted information now appears inconsistent, because the posting history is lost.)