In the mid-1980s, Easton Press began publishing a series of leather-bound collector editions called “Masterpieces of Science Fiction” and “Masterpieces of Fantasy,” which featured some of the most important works in these genres. James Gunn was commissioned to write introductions to these works, which allowed him to pay tribute to many authors who inspired and influenced his own work.
In Paratexts: Introductions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, Gunn has collected the most significant essays produced for the Easton series, along with prefaces he wrote for reprints of his own novels. Cited here are some of the most significant works of 19th and 20th century science fiction and fantasy, such as The Island of Dr. Moreau, 1984, Stranger in a Strange Land, A Clockwork Orange, Speaker for the Dead, The Postman, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe, The Dead Zone, The Mists of Avalon, Dragon’s Eye, Nine Princes in Amber, Blue Mars, The Last Unicorn, and The Lord of the Rings.
Drawing upon Gunn’s lifetime of work in the field, these introductions include analyses of the individual works and the fields in which they were written. Gunn also briefly discusses each novel’s significance in the science fiction canon. Collected here for the first time, these prefaces and introductions provide readers with insight into more than seventy novels, making Paratexts a must-read for science fiction and fantasy aficionados.
Industry Reviews
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.
