6.4 /10 1 Votes
2.8/5 ManyBooks Country United States Series Arcot, Morey and Wade Media type Print (Hardback) Publisher Fantasy Press | 3.6/5 Goodreads Cover artist Ric Binkley Language English Publication date 1957 Originally published 1957 Preceded by The Black Star Passes Genres Novel, Science Fiction | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Followed by Invaders from the Infinite Similar Works by John W Campbell, Science Fiction books | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Islands of space john w campbell
Islands of Space is a science fiction novel by author John W. Campbell, Jr.. It was first published in book form in 1957 by Fantasy Press in an edition of 1,417 copies. The novel originally appeared in the magazine Amazing Stories Quarterly; the text was "extensively edited" for book publication, with Campbell's approval, by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach. A paperback edition was published by Ace Books in 1966. In 1973, Islands was included in a Doubleday omnibus of all three "Arcot, Wade, and Morey" novels. A German translation appeared in 1967 as Kosmische Kreuzfahrt, and an Italian translation was published in 1976 as Isole nello spazio.
Contents
- Islands of space john w campbell
- Islands of space by john w campbell
- Plot introduction
- Reception
- References
Islands of Space is generally credited with introducing the concepts of hyperspace and the warp drive to science fiction.
Islands of space by john w campbell
Plot introduction
The novel concerns the adventures of four heroes, Arcot, Morey, Wade and Fuller.
Reception
Theodore Sturgeon, reviewing the Fantasy Press edition, wrote "This is a real lousy book", faulting its lack of characterization, suspense, and plot, and a writing style "such as would dry up the purple blood of the sleaziest fan magazine". "BUT --", he continued, "Islands is a Voyage far afield and a catalogue of the marvels of other-where, ... a cornucopia of technological and mechanistic matter, both real and extrapolated, poured out prodigously and with abandon, [and] a narrative which could not occur without its science -- the purest, and almost the rarest form of science fiction. Sturgeon concluded "It is high time and past time for [science fiction] to infuse itself with the rich hot blood of the old space-opera".
P. Schuyler Miller wrote that the book version "has been carefully modernized, [but] it's old-fashioned now. It is also very characteristic of the best "hard" science fiction of its day. This is reportedly the first published use of the term hard science fiction.
E. F. Bleiler described the original text as "Greatly overloaded with unnecessary (although at times ingenious) exposition, hence almost unreadable; weak novelistically; and cliched in its action plot."