The Road to Science Fiction
Page 49
The Martian astronomers—for there are astronomers on Mars, although they are very different beings from men—were naturally profoundly interested by these things. They saw them from their own standpoint, of course. “Considering the mass and temperature of the missile that was flung through our solar system into the sun,” one wrote, “it is astonishing what a little damage the earth, which it missed so narrowly, has sustained. All the familiar continental markings and the masses of the seas remain intact, and indeed the only difference seems to be a shrinkage of the white discoloration (supposed to be frozen water) round either pole.” Which only shows how small the vastest of human catastrophes may seem, at a distance of a few million miles.
About the Editor
James Gunn, born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1923, served in World War II as a U.S. Navy ensign and earned two degrees from the University of Kansas: a bachelor’s degree in journalism in 1947 and a master’s degree in English in 1951. He worked as an editor for a paperback publisher but spent much of his career at the University of Kansas, first as editor of the alumni magazine and then as administrative assistant to the Chancellor for University Relations. In 1970 he returned to teaching, specializing in the teaching of fiction writing and science fiction, was promoted to full professor in 1974, and retired in 1993 to return to full-time writing. Among his best-known novels are: The Joy Makers, The Immortals (which was adapted as a television movie and then a series, The Immortal), The Listeners, Kampus, and The Dreamers. He also became a well-known scholar and winner of the SFRA Pilgrim Award with such books as Alternate Worlds: The Illustrated History of Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction (which won a Hugo Award for nonfiction), and the six-volume The Road to Science Fiction. He served as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America and as president of the Science Fiction Research Association and founded the Center for the Study of Science Fiction.