12-23-2017, 04:51 PM
Mick - may have had a similar history: nerd buddies in high school furiously swapping paperbacks while ignoring the Charles Dickens we were supposed to be reading. Took the SciFi class @ Stanford in 1970, when taught by our resident radical prof: Bruce Franklin. Syllabus was different with first half focused on classical stuff from Verne up thru the 1920s-30s; evolution of the robot meme from the traditional golem tales of folklore & Frankenstein, and iterations of dystopian visions from Victorian times forward.
He intentionally stayed away from some of the more epic works; e.g. Assimov's Foundation series or James Blish's Cities in Flight, as unsuitable due to a similar book(s) per week timeline. Also, Herbert's Dune, plus Vonnegut & Robert Heinlein were seen as contemporary and assumed to be read by folks taking the class. Still, a great survey and perspective course that I never would have worked through on my own time.
He intentionally stayed away from some of the more epic works; e.g. Assimov's Foundation series or James Blish's Cities in Flight, as unsuitable due to a similar book(s) per week timeline. Also, Herbert's Dune, plus Vonnegut & Robert Heinlein were seen as contemporary and assumed to be read by folks taking the class. Still, a great survey and perspective course that I never would have worked through on my own time.