Hard Science Fiction

These 16 essays from the fifth annual J.Lloyd Eaton Conference at the Univer-sity of California, Riverside, seek to come to grips with science fiction's core, the core at which "science must ulti-mately seem to outweigh the fiction." Never before has hard SF been the topic of such extended discussion by such qualified people. The dialogue con-stitutes new (and potentially shocking to a traditional literary critic) modes of lit-erary criticism, modes that take into ac-count the impact of scientific specula-tion and method on our culture and on the ways our culture invents stories and myths. Essayists include writer/scientist pro-fessors Robert L. Forward, David Brin, and Gregory Benford. Noted critics and writers with scientific backgrounds or interests include: James Gunn, Frank McConnell, George Guffey, John Hunt-ington, Paul Carter, Patricia Warrick, Paul Alkon, Robert M. Philmus, David Clayton, Eric S. Rabkin, Herbert Suss-man, Michael Collings, and George E. Slusser.