Girish Mahajan (Editor)

The New Improved Sun

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Cover artist
  
Jonathan Weld

Publication date
  
1975

Pages
  
viii + 208

Originally published
  
1975

Page count
  
208

Publisher
  
Harper

Language
  
English

Media type
  
Print (hardback)

OCLC
  
1499739

Author
  
Thomas M. Disch

Genre
  
Science Fiction

Country
  
United States of America

The New Improved Sun httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaenthumb4

Similar
  
Thomas M Disch books, Science Fiction books

The New Improved Sun, subtitled "An Anthology of Utopian S-F", is an anthology of science fiction stories edited by Thomas M. Disch, published in hardcover by Harper & Row in 1975. Second edition published by Hutchinson in 1976. Many of the stories are original to the volume.

Contents

Contents

  • "Introduction: Buck Rogers in the New Jerusalem", Thomas M. Disch
  • "Heavens Below: Fifteen Utopias", John Sladek (original)
  • "Repairing the Office", Charles Naylor (original)
  • "What You Get for Your Dollar", Brian W. Aldiss (from The Shape of Further Things, 1970)
  • "The People of Prashad", James Keilty (Quark/2 1971)
  • "A Few Things I Know About Whileaway", Joanna Russ (The Female Man 1975)
  • "Drumble", Cassandra Nye (original)
  • "A Clear Day in the Motor City", Eleanor Arnason (New Worlds 6 1973)
  • "Settling the World", M. John Harrison (original)
  • "Instead of the Cross, the Lollipop", B. F. Skinner (from Walden Two 1948)
  • "I Always Do What Teddy Says," Harry Harrison (Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine 1965)
  • "Pyramids for Minnesota: A Serious Proposal", Thomas M. Disch (Harper's Magazine 1974)
  • "The Zen Archer", Jonathan Greenblatt (original)
  • "The Hero as Werwolf", Gene Wolfe (original)
  • "The Change", H. G. Wells (from In the Days of the Comet, 1906)

    • Each of the vignettes in Sladek's "Fifteen Utopias" carries an individual subtitle. "Cassandra Nye" is a pseudonym of Charles Naylor.

    Reception

    Writing in The New York Times, Gerald Jonas noted that while the anthology's contents contradicted its subtitle, being mostly satires and dystopias, "Disch knows exactly what he is doing: he points out in a brief introduction that prescriptive Utopias tend to be not only dull but also silly and repugnant."

    References

    The New Improved Sun Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA