This is a follow up to my earlier post on defining science fiction. While not intended to be exhaustive, here are a number of resources I’d recommend new teachers of science fiction.

First, I’d strongly recommend reading Tom Shippey’s “Preface: Learning to Read Science Fiction” (in Fictional Space: Essays on Contemporary Science Fiction. Ed. Tom Shippey. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991) and/or “Literary Gatekeepers and the Fabril Tradition” (Science Fiction: Canonization, Marginalization and the Academy. Ed. Gary Westfahl and George Slusser. Greenwood Press, 2001. 7-23). As I noted in my earlier post, based on my experience, one should assume that a good number of students in a SF class won’t be regular readers of the genre, and SF requires different reading strategies than “mundane” literature. Shippey addresses these differences, and foregrounding them early on in the course can help students work through the texts more easily.

I’d next recommend that any new teacher of SF pick up James Gunn and Matthew Candelaria’s Speculations on Speculation: Theories of Science Fiction (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2005) and Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn’s The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003). The Gunn/Candelaria collection is a good theoretical introduction to SF and the James/Mendlesohn collection is a good thematic introduction to the genre.

I’d also recommend Brooks Landon’s Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars (New York: Routledge, 2002). If nothing else, read the first chapter, the bibliographic essay, and the annotated list of recommended titles. The first chapter of Adam Roberts’ Science Fiction (New York: Routledge, 2000) is also useful, but the book as a whole has far too many errors to be a reliable resource. I’d also recommend Neil Barron’s Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction. (New York: R. R. Bowker). You’ll want to get ahold of both the 3rd ed. (1987) and 4th ed. (1995) as the fourth edition is more of a supplement to rather than a updating of the third.

As for reference works, get a copy of John Clute, and Peter Nicholls’ The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993) for your library if it doesn’t have one and make use of it. It’s the single best SF reference work available. I find it useful enough that I bought a copy for myself. Other reference works I’d recommend include:

• Barron, Neil. Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction. 5th ed. Westport, Conn. : Libraries Unlimited, 2004.
• Elrick, George S. Science Fiction Handbook for Readers and Writers. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 1978.
• Gunn, James. The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. New York: Viking, 1988.
• Stableford, Brian. Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 2004.
• Wolfe, Gary K. Critical Terms for Science Fiction and Fantasy: A Glossary and Guide to Scholarship. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986.

I don’t remember off the top of my head if the 5th edition of Anatomy of Wonder is significantly different from the fourth. It may be that you’d be fine with the 3rd and 5th edition. Finally, in preparing to teach SF in the spring of 2006, I posted a list of SF online resources.