This series (currently 3 volumes1) is an excellent tutorial for its intended audience: beginning writers of speculative fiction who are interested in learning the basics about the breadth of sub-genres of science fiction available for them to try. It should also be of interest to readers, but they might rate it slightly lower because they aren’t the intended audience. Each subsection included a brief history of a sub-genre, its basic tropes, and some writing exercises to try.
I found the books’ style engaging, and as a former teacher of a different subject, I appreciate their pedagogical . The history sections are often fascinating. I wasn’t aware that, in addition to writing Frankenstein (which can be viewed as the first novel where science is an essential element) Mary Shelley wrote one of the first apocalyptic novels, The Last Man, which in volume 2 we find out was also the first pandemic novel.
For a list of sub-genres in each book, see the authors’ website. Goodreads entry.
- Of which I have read part of #2 as well as finishing #1 ↩︎